Happy Year 2010

The New Year rang in uneventfully for us. We had a nice Shrimp Alfredo dinner followed by moon and star gazing and were in bed by 10:00. Fireworks could be heard all evening. I practiced the Spanish phrase for “Happy New Year” and said it to everyone over the next several days. I found that most Ticos just reply “Happy Year” in Spanish. I am hopeful 2010 will be the year we build and complete our house and are able to get the property under a manageable maintenance routine.

I continue to spend several hours a day in the vegetable garden. We are eating fresh salads every evening. The green beans and bell peppers taste incredible, nothing like the ones purchased at the store. I still have a lot to learn about vegetable production in Costa Rica. There are better times of the year to plant certain vegetables and I still can’t tell most of the bad bugs from the good ones, so I consider all of them OK for now.

A while back we visited a nearby citrus farm. Ramon, the owner of the farm, changed production from coffee to citrus about 20 years ago. He maintains about 700 trees all by himself! He prefers to grow trees that are grafted into a healthy, robust root stock. The abundance of fruit on the trees was outstanding and tasty. We were taken to the farm by our worker, Mario, who wanted to show me how fruit trees are planted on steep slopes. This was great for me to see and will be implemented at our place in the future.

Last week I posted a picture of our property taken from a nearby town. Here is a similar view, but in this one you can see the house (indicated by the white arrow) and where we live in relation to the rest of the land. John and I have been going on walks almost daily on our lush hillside. We have located several springs and are scouting potential spots to build rustic platforms to be used for camping and overnight activities.

I wish all of you a happy and prosperous New Year!

The first picture is of flowers found growing on our property, the second is a shot of my pepper and tomato plants. The third photo is of a lizard found in a basil plant and the last is a shot of our property taken from the town of Floralia.