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

Winter in the Tropics - Really?

Different faces . . .

 . . . for different places

Winter's almost over in Costa Rica!!  The rain's still pounding down nearly every day but they say it will begin letting up soon.  Then sometime around mid December summer starts - giving us days on end with no rain.

So when they talk about winter and summer here, that's what they mean: In "winter" it rains; in summer, not so much.  Since we're at 4000 feet elevation, winter temperatures are "fresca", usually dropping into the low 60's at night. (Yep, in tropical terms, we're freezing!) Thank goodness the sunny mornings quickly edge into the 80's before the rain begins in the early afternoon, dropping the temperature again.  Sorta like a roller coaster.

Summer will last from mid December through April, beginning to rain weekly in May, daily in June, and by the time September hits we are getting drenched for hours on end almost every day.

Then comes October.  We haven't seen rain like this before. The locals refer to it as: "rompe el cielo" or "the sky breaks".


Casey across the valley says that we had over 32 inches of rain in September and that in October it rained way more.
Oy! Stop already!

Let's get straight to the photos, there's a lot to share with you because once again it's been a long time between posts ...

Meet Baru! This is the day he came to live with us: 11 weeks old.  
He started out shy and spooky.  That's changed.  Now he's nearly 5 months old and spunky, smart, and personable.
We weren't sure if his right ear was ever going to stay up.
A little undersized for a German Shepherd, we used to call him a German Beagle.
The Veterinarian simply wrote "Lobo" (wolf) on his medical chart. Hmmm.

Jeff during nap practice.  Resting from commanding his empire.

With his pretty eyes and blond eyelashes, Baru turns heads.

Now he loves to be touched but when he first came to live with us, he didn't know how to relate to people.  He was a bit on the wild side.

Papa Bruno lives next door.  He likes to come down the hill to visit his son.

Proof that mornings can dawn clear, even during the rainy season.

Shepherds also like to work. Anything you are doing he is driven to "help".

Next news:  We bought the neighboring 4 acres.  Now we don't worry about potential neighbors.  Plus it has an incredible view.

The lower green area is what we affectionately call the Fruit Bowl, where we have nearly 50 different types of tropical fruits planted.  After the dry summer season, we'll plant more. 

Two old cypress trees in front of the house - from which so many things hang.

Ready for bed early because it's dark by 6pm. To bed by 8pm and up at 4:30am every day.
Sunrise and sunset vary less than an hour during the year.

Fernando's fence must be down again.

Our place even has some snakes that aren't poisonous.
These are baby Wood snakes that live below wood piles.

We spread out the bean harvest to dry in the greenhouse.
Baru helped us shuck the beans out.  Now they're sprouting everywhere . . .

We borrowed Jerico's "desbajeredora" to trim off the dead leaves on our banana and plantain trees.  One sharp side cuts up and the other sharp side cuts down.  It's mounted onto a 5 meter bamboo pole to reach the top of the "trees".  (Consider your neck and arms after a few minutes of doing this.)  The whole process results in healthier banana trees and better production.

Go Jeffie: ONE banana group (sepa) done, 53 more banana sepas and hundreds of plantain sepas to go.  Volunteers?

Good friends, Trevor & Michael, dropped by on a rainy Sunday afternoon.
The prior week Fred and his wife Claudia became
our first US friends to visit. I regret not getting a commemorative photo.

I did not think I would be wearing my jacket part of every day.

Crocosmia adds color. Starr's very green thumb is getting a workout.

Giant Granadilla planted at the base of the old cypress.
Then we found out the vine can produce 100 fruits that weigh 2 pounds each.

We looked up in the cypress one day and starting counting all the
different kinds of orchids living in the branches.

Sad Internet connection. Sad Jeff and Starr.

Hens & Chicks seed capsule is produced by a vine. When it dries out it opens up and
releases thousands of seeds that float on white parachutes, spreading viney goodness everywhere.

Harriet follows us around. When we chop weeds or dig a hole
she's right there to scratch for grubs and such.  Actually we don't have chickens - they belong to our neighbor - though I don't think he'd miss her.

"Bananas hanging in the cypress tree".
An unlikely lyric if ever I heard one.  When they're ripe, we eat 4-6+ bananas 
a day and the dog eats his fair share too.

Bamboo from a neighbor. SO handy for projects!

Drying some of the bean harvest in the sun.
Let's see: beans, bananas, platanos, camote yams, tomatoes, squash, sweet lemons, sour tangerines, ginger, garlic, turmeric, lemon grass ...  We are becoming self-sufficient in a continually growing list of food items that we like in our diet.
Next up? Sacha Inchi, or Inca peanut. Protein and oil!

Sacha Inchi produces peanut-like seeds for up to 10 years.  This little plant will grow on a trellis to 6+ feet tall and 8+ feet wide.  VERY high in omega 3 oil.  
It has 26% protein and when roasted tastes like a nut.  
We planted 60 of them - some seeds, some plants. Could be a good thing.

This is the beginning of a Katuk tree.  You can eat the leaves, in fact, you
can survive on the leaves because they contain 6-10% protein.

Cranberry Hibiscus leaves taste great in a salad.

Cecropia or "Guarumo" does a good job of improving the soil 
and preventing erosion - plus sloths love to eat the new shoots.

I can't tell you how many stacks of pruned coffee wood we have.
Great for the fireplace, and making everything from
Bio-Char to Chicharrones and smoked meat.

3000 of the 27,000 coffee plants have been coppiced/pruned and are in their regrowth period.  Unfortunately many of them are damaged from disease and we are now marking the diseased ones for removal.  Dang , after all that work trying to keep them alive.  Not sure if we'll replace them with disease free varieties of coffee or just plant more fruit and timber trees amidst the healthy coffee.

Deer tail grass.  Nice profile.

One orange tree.

Jeff made a little greenhouse area extended out from the back of the old cabin.  
Bamboo, plastic and gravel. The back support is a chopped off papaya tree.

It WAS a "fagon", an outdoor cooking thing that had been used for many years.

Now: converted into a planting box that's home to tomatoes, basil, rosemary, and tree starts.

  

Starr loves it: the plant birthing center of our little universe.

Looking from the greenhouse toward Shack #2, otherwise known as 
our kitchen and tool shed.  Notice the new roof over the back area.  Loving it!

Mandarina acida: Costa Rica's answer to the sour lemon. 
Oddly the only lemons here are SWEET lemons.

Easily over 2 inches long, on the bedroom wall.

Jeff designed Baru's house for heat and rain.

Heading to feria (farmer's market) to trade.  
I'll give you some of mine if you'll give me some of yours . . .

He's practicing looking innocent.

When we chopped down some of the overgrowth on our 4 acre addition, 
these castor bean plants popped out of the ground.  Huge sprouts!

9 am the fog rolled in.  We watch it slide up the river valley and engulf our day.  
Although it usually waits until much later in the day to arrive.

 Fog adds an eerie-ness to the day. The locals say that 
when it is foggy it won't rain.  I wish that were true.

Though it's a strange way to live, we're getting used to it - and like it.

Jeff: Just chilling in the shade with a fresh cup of coffee, commanding his empire.

Our two little shacks are only a few feet apart.  Both roofs drain between the buildings.  During the heavy rains, umbrellas are necessary in order to go from one house to the other.

It's the tropics.  It rains.  October is the rainiest month.  Aargh!

And AARGH I say again!

Emanuel got caught in a downpour while working up at the water spring.  
Soaked to the bone and enjoying every minute. 

The long and winding road through the woods,
 past the spring and the creek toward the cabins.

Pine cone ginger growing by one of the springs.  
Notice the flowing water just to the left of the ginger - that's the spring water.

Sweetness in the woods.

This weed called "mata miona" is said to release kidney stones.  
One friend suffered with stones for years until running into this cure. 

So stop on by sometime.  All we need is another bed.  
All you need is courage.