The Dream Emerges: Time To Build

We've been here for 10 months - working and living on our overgrown coffee finca in the mountains of southern Costa Rica! 

This is home now - so it's time to build our house. Time to dig in.

We began inching in that direction last September. We selected a home site with an astounding valley view. Wrong - we finally realized that a view of city lights is not our style. If we wanted to be THAT impacted by the city, we'd live there.

So we found another building site, already quite level, tucked into the heart of the property. We designed the perfect house to take advantage of the view of mountains and jungle.

Then one morning we walked up the little ridge behind our home site to watch the sunrise. It was awe-inspiring! We could see the entire crest of Mt. Chirripo, so we fell in love with the idea of building a home on THAT spot.

Words fail.

After weeks of struggling with a ridge-home design we realized there's not enough yard space up there on the ridge. No way to include Baru in our daily life. The envisioned home on the hill was doomed to be a sterile tower - a prisoner to the vista.

So we retreated back down the ridge to the previous site and redesigned our "perfect" home, a 2 story, 2 bed-2 bath house with a roofed "multi-purpose" room and an elevated "living room" with a fireplace for sitting, sipping, and monkey-watching. Behind that there will be an open air, rather dramatic BBQ-socializing plaza.

This whole string of buildings, including the garage, will be backed by a tall wall of native river rock nearly 200 feet long and 6-9 feet high. A well-known local rock-setter begins the project in 2 weeks.

We are so glad we did not proceed with building until we had time to adjust to our new life. 

We're truly ready for this.

The morning ceremony.
Baru greets Alvaro with a handshake.

Shredding bedding keeps him smiling.  
The thrift store keeps us supplied.

The giant Tirra tree above our water "naciente" (spring) watches as we begin building our home.

Our hawk follows us and hunts as we move around the property. He's our wild animal pet.

The "before" picture of our home site,
looking East into the sunrise.

Feeling a little nostalgic about our antique house.

Early on, we had suffered some petty theft. So we posted the Golden Rule in Spanish and that stopped.
(I'm sure moving into the house helped too.)

The old house is not big enough
for us to even unpack our belongings.

Shoes for mud, shoes for town, shoes for hikes ...

This homespun reflector has improved our
internet connection from horrible to merely bad.

Over time, we have built a few pieces of rustic furniture.  But less than I would have thought ...

... but Starr was really wanting 
a new mattress and bed frame.

Our old house was known as the biggest and best house in the entire region 70 years ago.   Many of the building materials were hauled up old trails by oxen.              

The big day arrives, First we must widen the road
so delivery trucks can make it through the quebrada (green area around the stream).

Fino places a couple of 1 meter "cantarias" 
to carry the rainy season under our widened road.

The backhoe cuts back the bank 
to eliminate a too-twisty point in the "driveway".

Excavation begins. Fino directs, 
while his son Josue works the backhoe.

I rechalked the topo lines so we can see
what is level and what needs more work.

Looking West across our "someday" house plantel.
The Long House will be in the center, elevated living room and BBQ-social plaza on the right.

Done with the building pad, Fino and Josue
head up to Gold Hill to fill in the old mine shaft.

Josue, 16, is a real backhoe master.
His Dad has been teaching him since he was 12.  
He did all the tractor work.  For real.

The gang is checking out the latest outhouse infestation.
A spider.  Just one.

Big ol' spider.  
From top to toe this one is about 4 inches.

A Brazilian Wandering Spider.
There's serious poison in his bite.

The poisonous Costa Rican Coral snake and
the non-poisonous False Coral snake look identical.  No time to determine which one it is.  
Baru was chasing it under the house.

This is a reasonable example of what coffee cherries should look like. 

The coffee receiving stations are social gathering places - in addition to buying fresh coffee beans.  What an event!!  What an eye opener!!

Our coffee being sold to Volcafe, a local outfit.  Yes, we actually sold a little bit.  Wanted to process it for our own use - but frankly we didn't have the energy or time this year.

Starr has been wanting to prune up the orange tree.

Our Sacha Inchi plantation is doing well.

This is an unhusked Sacha Inchi nut.
Jam packed with protein and Omega-3 rich oil.

All our 17 new banana and platano varieties
have name tag stakes now. This one is "Fia Grande".

The grafted citrus trees are prospering.

Quite a few avocado trees have been planted.
Some from the nursery, and some volunteers.

This elegant Black bamboo is ahead of schedule.
Can't wait to make something pretty with these canes.

The orchids are resting and setting seed.

I was waiting in line at the bank one morning 
so I shot this photo of the big church in San Isidro.
We can see the tips of the twin towers from our place.

You can tell when the sugar cane is being harvested.  The Valle de El General is filled with
the smoke and ash from the harvest fires.

My two besties in a state of wonderment.

This just in . . . our Giant Granadilla
 is now in full flower, climbing the cypress tree.   
A close relative to the passion flower, with 2 pound fruits.

The flower is like a 4 inch version of Mardi Gras.

We left Seattle 2 years ago February 11th to look for a new home.  We found our home and we're still
progressing on this journey - inch by inch.  

The land looks marvelous.  We thoroughly appreciate this opportunity to follow our passions.  It's not easy, granted - though we're happy.

We look forward to having a lovely space for our friends and family to visit us - so keep in touch.

All our Love,
Jeff and Starr