animals, sugar, and the river is my backyard

one-hundred-and-eighty-degrees, i tell you - in just 1 km downhill, dramatic improvement.

i bid farewell to earthrose farm, received a hug from rosie and an actual 'have a nice life' sans eye contact from maji (honestly??) and am glad to go.

it's almost sad to see the untapped potential in that farm; i know they truly desire to improve it, and their wwoof exchanges, but i doubt that will happen soon whilest one of their halves spends every day in san isidro. . ah, well. i wish earth rose the best, but have no plans to return.

as for the present - -

in the 2 days i have been staying with the neighbors, Luz and Guillermo , we have:

visited a chicken farm to load and unload over 50 large sacks of feed

fed the cows

ridden horses around the farm to gather the cows in for the night

visited the largest tree on the farm (huge! and gorgeous, growing by the river)

milked cows in the morning

gathered eggs and fed the chickens

watered the little hydroponic garden

worked the trapiche!
- harvested sugar cane
- sent the canes through the trapiche, which presses the stalks to squeeze out the juice
- gathered/bundled the dryish stalks to use for fuel for the trapiche fire where we
- poured the juice into large vats above the oven where it cooks for abotu 3 hours before we
- scoop it into a large low box to cool and mix, then
- plop it into molds (400 in one day) like gigantic thimble shapes to cool and harden
- we ate every step of the process - the cane, the juice, the espumas (foam while it cooked), various levels of carmelization and the final, brown sugary, product- 'tapa dulce'


oh and we can swim in the river just about whenever.


i walked up the hill (the otehr direction from ER) with Luz to use a phone (they don't have a phone line that far out and can't get cell service in the valley) so i got to visit a parent-meeting of sorts with lots of ladies, babies, and coffee. .

they also have pigs, which is worth noting mostly because their kitchen stove is powered by gas from the piggies' poo. brilliant.

today we are back at the feria, selling some tapa dulce along with the usual wares. i have decided to stay for a week to keep working here, as it is much more relaxed and i am learning a ridiculous amount of interesting things.

next week i will head north, to san joaquin to visit my ol host family (there was an earthquake a couple weeks ago as some of you may know, and they live much closer to the epicenter. . we didn't even feel it here) then continue on to guanacaste - i'm going back to potrero/flamingo for 2 more weeks of spanish classes. .

dad comes to visit on the 12th of february, so i am scheming up adventures for us to have between here and nicaragua - probably a visit to monteverde to see the reserve/cloud forests, cheese facroty and delicious resraurants, maybe a coffee farm or two. . i also lpan to have us stop in grenada for a night on the way up.

might not have mentioned it before but i have extended my stay for 5 more days, so i can accompany dad to the cdca in nueva vida to wrok for a week and see the lopez hs group.

this means we head home 5 weeks from yesterday. i am excited to return to the nw but am enjoying the hell out of my time here, now that i've escaped tick country (mostly.)

am off for another week in the country, will write again next thursday with more farmy adventures

love