Here are some other photos around the farm and some progress made by our ever resourceful farm manger, Ricardo. Check out the road leading down to the duplex! The vegetation is amazing! It has really grown back in the last 5 months!

This is our entrance coming onto the farm. The duplex is right behind this photo. This photo was taken in early September 2009.

This is the same part of the road but looking down at the duplex. This photo was taken in mid-April 2009. It is absolutely amazing at how fast everything grows back! According to the workers when they trim back at a certain time of the seasons it helps the plants, soil and even the animals to have an abundance of food. It is all a cycle the coffee fields and the life therein are accustomed to.

Here’s the new tool-shed  Ricardo built out of all that old wood from the shack! He used the roofing from the shack and painted the shed to make it look nice. It’s the same color as the duplex. It’s up on stilts, and I’m thinking we should probably put cinder block under there at least. But the wood used under the shed is waterproof according to Ricardo. So for now it’s okay.

He built a back gate down to the pasture from behind the duplex……

He built our main gate at the main entrance to the farm. And he did all of this………

using this old scrap wood we made sure was not discarded when the building went up. It’s wood from the shack that used to be where the duplex is now.

The old shack before the duplex, road, water and electricity went in. The woodpile in the above photo is from this old shack.

There was even wood left over after building the tool-shed and fences for a goat shack! A lil’ ole’ place where the girls get together….. GOAT SHACK bay-ay-bee-ee! ( I know some of you won’t get that last sentence). Anyway,  I’m calling the girls Laverne and Shirley but I am sure Ricardo has other names for the girls. They should be pregnant by now…. there is a Billy on board but Ricardo knows how I feel about Billys. He is there temporarily to do his Billy thing and then he HAS to leave… I think Ricardo wants the Billy… but I told him that if any kids are Billys we can keep them. I don’t want someone else’s Billy!

The pasture is staying nice and groomed. We made a deal with a cowboy to keep cattle on the field and that he would then keep the pasture in turn in good shape.  Check out the leaves on this tree it is kind of like winter in Biolley right now. Winter will end in the middle of Dec. and we will be back into the dry season once again.

There’s my cotton candy tree below! That big dark bushy looking tree down there is my favorite tree on the farm! It is a mango tree! I just love it! Doesn’t it look like green cotton candy? The low pasture going down toward the river looks great! It’s nice to know the pasture is staying groomed. It’s the rainy season now and things grow fast! All in all the pasture looks good! Remember, it’s a jungle out there! During the rainy season it is difficult to keep the pasture under control.

This tree is a sour citrus tree! The Ticans (Costa Ricans) use the citrus like lemon or lime. Citrus grows here in the rainy winter season. When the climate is cooler. This is in the lower pasture by the river. The cotton candy tree is near this tree. We have some other trees that are small that we started in April. We bought them in pots and planted them on the farm. I’ll take pictures of the planted trees in February.

Underbrush by the river. And this is where I”ll leave this entry. We are seriously thinking about putting sheep down here to keep some of the underbrush under control  we want a clear path to the river. However, at least  one third of our property is left untouched. We want to keep it that way!

Pura Vida! We have the white faced Capuchin monkeys on our farm. But this photo comes from a photographer’s site: www.reisefotos.de/weblog/ma1096.jpg

That’s it for now on our farm updates! I hope to receive more pictures of the duplex, the goats and the coffee harvest in a few weeks. Until then, I am going to blog about bamboo, tropical flowers, tropical fruit gardens and vegetable gardens too. All the while learning and discovering more information about tropical gardening for our farm in Costa Rica!