Biolley is an area that is wetter than most areas in Costa Rica. There is more rainfall on average here than in other part of the country. Even though the dry season is coming around, there will be a few torrential downpours in Biolley before the actual dry season makes its way here. Biolley has a shorter dry season than most places in Costa Rica.

The lushness of the forest across the way from the pasture is due to all the rain from the “green season”  as the Costa Rican’s call it. Better known to us as a wet or rainy season.

We are in a rainforest zone actually,  which accounts for the  incredible amount of rain in the area. We love it because even with all the rain, there is plenty of sunshine.  Usually,  the sun comes out in the morning and sticks around until about 1 or 2PM in the afternoon. Then the rains come in.   If one gets up with the sun,  it makes for plenty of hours to enjoy the sunshine before the clouds gather and make rain.  The rains come in and cool everything off and make the place greener and more lush.  At night the cool breeze is a pleasure and makes for healthy fresh air and refreshing sleep.

You can see one of the two prevalent springs running through the property here where the land is divided. Right now, it is plentiful with spring water following through it and flowing down to the river. This spring flows all year long, but in the dry season it will slow down to somewhat of a trickle. I want to plant bamboo around here. Although I have heard that bamboo, believe it or not, does not like too much water. I”ll be sure to plant the bamboo on the banks near the stream but not too close to it.

The above photo shows a view back up at the hardwood rees and the shaded coffee plants below. The pasture has been well groomed by the cattle this year. But it does cause a bit of erosion on the field.  The clumps you see in the pasture are due to cows eating and traveling around the pasture.

The tall fern looking plants are plants that are bad for the cows to eat, they can cut up the insides of their stomachs.  The cows know to leave them alone.  The farmer who keeps his cows here on our pasture, will take the cows off of the field for awhile so that he can come in with a few workers to chop the pasture down and groom it.  This will include cutting back all the brush that grows around the rocks like this fern plant here. The pasture will have a chance to rest for awhile while the farmer puts his cows in another farm pasture temporarily.  It will give the pasture time to recuperate and become more even without clumps and erosion caused by the wandering herd on the pasture. I’d like to put the goats to tether out here to help take down the brush in areas. I’ll try that with the goats when we live on the farm.

Down by the river where the thicket of trees grow, it is very well groomed. The farmer who keeps his cows here knows that is part of the deal. He will need to keep the area clear so that we can easily walk down there and see what is in front of us. The Tercio Pelo (Fer de Lance) viper likes to hang out down by the river.  With a clear path it is most likely we won’t run into the viper and if we do we will see it well ahead of time to react accordingly.

The Tercio Pelo likes to hang out on the river banks here more than anywhere else.  This is above the main waterfall and as you can see the river is moving swiftly!

We plan on keeping the Mussarana snake (beautiful black and white striped snake that looks grey from a distance) as pets. They eat the Tercio Pelo snakes and do not bite humans normally they do not bite at all. Their number one preference is the Tercio Pelo for a meal.  So, we will try this experiment to see if there is enough Tercio Pelo for our pet Mussarana snakes to eat. They say that the Mussarana will eat rodents if there are not enough snakes around.  Others have tried this and it has been reported to no avail. This isn’t going to stop us from trying though! I’d rather not have the Tercio Pelo around.

Plenty of water flowing from the river after the rainy season. This is the first fall on the property.

Clear, clean fresh water! Lots of it! We are thinking that we may try and experiment with the hydro-power on the river and see if we can set up a system to generate power on the river. It is  a raging river during the green season, so we don’t know how successful we would be at keeping our system in place without it flowing away along with the tons of water during the green season.  We feel very fortunate to have such fresh clean water. We do have municipal water as well that is the same water that flows from the mountains next to us.  The flow starts at about 10 or 11 thousand feet from the Talamanca rainforest and mountain range right down to the farm.  We are the first receivers of the water. There is no farm land above us.

The hole below the second fall shown here is a about 40 feet across.

Fresh water and air make the difference for healthy living! Temperatures that range from 75 to 85 degrees F during the day and the mid 60s F at night are also very healthy conditions. Not to mention being 9 degrees from the equator, our days are just about 12 hour days and 12 hours of darkness year round. No need to get used to the different seasons and sunlight where the farm is. These consistencies are very healthy!

A tour of the coffee fields will be featured again in the next post. Remember the green season is ending and the dry season is coming. The harvest has been completed and the entire yield of coffee cherries were sold. Happy New Year/Feliz Año Nuevo to all our readers and visitors to the blog site and the farm!

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