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| Carlos amid the ruins of the trapiche - you can see the juicer and the boiling vat in the background |
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I read a book once called "
Things Fall Apart." It was fantastic, written by an African author named Chinua Achebe.
I don't remember one thing about it except the title and that it was profound and deeply moving.
But the title, that title really sticks with you.
Especially, after you've lived in Costa Rica for awhile. On the farm, everything falls apart, quite literally, unless you make preserving and protecting your structures a full time job.
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| The big old falling apart cauldron |
Latest to fall was the trapiche, a structure dedicated to the joy of sugar. The trapiche is where we juice sugar cane and then boil it for half a day to make "dulce," the original organic brown sugar. It is the site of many a happy afternoon spent scraping caramalized sugar off the side of the huge boiling vat and almost losing a tooth to extremely sticky sugar.
Termites have been gnawing away on this building for years. We did a half-assed repair a year ago with untreated bamboo, not seriously expecting it to hold. The bamboo did OK, it was the original rafters that finally collapsed.
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| Cutting down a huge palm |
We had to cut down a tree and a palm that were on opposite corners of the trapiche because they drop a lot of leaves on the roof. This gets wet and rusts the tin roof and before you know it, you have tiny holes everywhere in your roof.
But, mercifully, it is not just about things falling apart. It is also about things growing.
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| Pineapples with cardboard for weed suppression |
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We planted these pineapples about a year ago. They will start bearing fruit soon. The piles of leaves you can see in the driveway, (yes, that is our driveway not a meadow. If you look closely you can see tire tracks) is covering the persistent and invasive plant that we inadvertently planted years ago, not knowing its many faults. There are still a few spots of it left and it require a stern hand to control it.
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| Our recent harvest of peanuts - only a small part of a bumper crop |
Humberto is cleaning cacao beans after spreading out some peanuts that he harvested earlier. If they are not put out in the sun immediately after harvest, they will start germinating.
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| Moringa sprouts - muy valiente! | | | |
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These look like fractal patterns - the tiny sprouts looks almost like full grown trees.
These are moringa cuttings - after a couple of weeks in the ground they are all beginning to sprout. Soon we will have a moringa plantation! Even Humberto heard that moringa is a useful herb - he told me today that it can cure 60 different maladies.
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| Anna raking cacao beans. |
On my way down to the trapiche I talked to Anna. We were both happy that after days of rain and clouds we had a little sun.
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| Carlos' new dog - he is a sweetheart |
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| the church looks a little naked without the huge palm over on the side. We cut it down today.Wasps, scorpions, biting ants and termites all made their home in this palm. |
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| Miloo looking gorgeous as always |
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| this plant is called monca and it has a variety of medicinal uses Those are cacao trees in the bags. |
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| Our sleek new minimalist design for the fermentation roof. |
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| The trapiche, missing its roof. The tree in the foreground and the big palm in the back have both been cut down. |
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| the boiling vat - we can fit 50 gallons of sugar cane juice in here. |
