Animals and Camping

Animals and Camping

We had a wonderful surprise today, we got to meet our new cows! They aren't really our cows like we had to do in Michigan. In Michigan we had to buy into cow shares and “own” a cow. Then we could pay for care of our cow and get her milk. But here we only had to ask Aldemar if he knew where we could get fresh cow milk and bingo! His parents raise dairy cows and they are only 5 minutes from here! We got to see the cows being milked and experience milk that was so fresh and yummy.

You might wonder what about the goat milk we have mentioned as part of our food supply being part of the community in Serenity. Well...since we are the first residents (Aldemar lives here too as the caretaker, he takes care of the grounds, plants, chickens, weeding, watering, etc.) there are no goats yet. Serenity needs more people to warrant the care of goats. Also we prefer cow milk, probably because that is the flavor we are accustom to.

Aldemar's parents are asking for .60 cents for 2 liters of milk! We already told him we can't pay that little and will be paying his parents more. If you met them you would want to help them too.

Here are the puppies I get to play with each day. And just like being grandparents, I get to give them back to Oldemar for care and feeding. It is perfect! I get the best part of puppies, playing and cuddling with them.

There is no shortage of dogs around here. It appears that the custom around CR, if you work outside in rural area and if you are a guy, you have a dog and take the dog to work with you. The dogs seem mostly young and John and I think that Serenity, since it is on the cusp of many new homes and much activity, will have to make some kind of rule that to bring your dog you will have to have it fixed or there will be sooooo many puppies that we will be overrun with them.

Camping

We will be “camping” in our rental house much longer than we had planned. Our container is held up due to too much traffic and doesn't have a port date until around February 7^th. Camping in the house with running water and toilet is not too bad. But the things that make us happy and excited are pretty funny. Like today I bought a bowl/juicer combo unit and was thrilled while making lunch that I had a “ bowl”! I am trying to keep my purchases to a minimum because our container has plenty of kitchen do-dads. I still haven't thrown away a coffee cup that John bought coffee in on the trip down. It is handy to use as a smaller lip container to move liquids into smaller containers, like lemon juice from a bowl into a water bottle.

Or in the wee hours of today, it was chilly and our summer weight blanket just wasn't cutting it for warmth, even John was chilly in bed. So I got our bath towels and sweatshirts to put over top of our blanket as another layer. It really helped and we slept comfortably until 6am. We go to bed early and get up early since there is no internet or TV. We don't have any games or cards so going to bed seems like the best choice. Every week, every month of the year, it is the same...sunrise around 5am, sunset at 5:45pm, dark by 6:15pm. It was really great when we looked at John's watch at it was 8:30am but it seemed like it was noon. I have always been a morning person, love mornings, so this fits me well. Not sure about John, he just goes with the flow. He probably doesn’t even know what he prefers.

John is off now to find some materials, lots of stuff in back of the chicken coop, to make clothes rods so we can hang up our clothes. This house is old European style, no closets, not a one. Although it was taken down to the foundation last year and rebuilt, it isn't American style. So we have no place to hang our clothes. We have 3 bedrooms but no closets. We must get organized before our container contents arrive so we can fill the 2 extra bedrooms and back porch with our boxes. We will put furniture in living areas as much as possible, it is a small house. Sure beats renting a storage space somewhere else. We will live here at least 4 months. The builder is going to try to get us into our new house as soon as possible, he doesn't have another job right now and he also wants to impress prospective Serenity customers with his speed and quality workmanship. There is every reason in the book to do our house right.

As I am sitting here on the porch in a sundress, it is getting cool. Time to make my fourth change for the day. I start out with long sleeves and pants, move to short sleeves, then to a sundress. Finally back into long sleeves and pants. I feel like a little girl constantly changing her clothes.

 One of Brahma cows supplying us with milk

 

 

 Aldemar's father proud with his cow

 

 

Father's horse, pretty spunky for an old horse!

Four Days of Retirement in Costa Rica

We are retired!

I am sitting on the front porch of our rented house looking out to lovely landscaped gardens of fruit trees, ornamental plants such as croton, hibiscus, drancena, palm trees, gomphrena and more all bordered by a stream and river. The river in back of the house has rapids and waterfalls. Been too cool to go swimming in the swimming holes created by the rocks but sure is something on my “do to list”.

Side of our rented house, beautiful gomphrena grow constantly

But I am getting ahead of myself...

Day One

Left freezing Michigan (I do love Michigan, really! It will always be my home state) at 2:30am, our friend Tony drove us with his wife Kay getting up with us to make coffee and tidbits. Kay would have gone with us to the airport but no room in the car as we had 2 large suitcases, 3 large boxes (paid extra for these) and 4 carry-ons. First plane went well but connecting flight put us behind schedule by 4 hours due to the original and its replacement plane having mechanical problems. To top it off we couldn't leave after 3 hours of delays because 4 people went outside for a smoke and since their luggage was on the plane (and they didn't board with us) we couldn't take off until their luggage was located and removed according to TSA regulations. They were thrown off the flight. There was a collective sigh when pilot announced we were taking off without them.

Even though we arrived in San Jose very late, Kevin (our guy coordinating our move and residency) took us to the bank and phone store along with showing us the way to our hotel and where to find dinner. What a guy! We still accomplished all we had planned for the day, amazing!

Day Two

Had a leisurely outside breakfast at the hotel and then left for southern Costa Rica. Stopped for lunch at a “soda” after driving for a couple hours. “Sodas” are family owned small restaurants with outside covered eating areas. We took a chance at picking one and came up with a winner! For 20.00 bucks we had our largest meal of the day, too full to eat another bite.

Is this too busy? You decide...

As we were driving along the Pacific coastal highway, we drove right by a big size sloth creeping out into the road. John (who never has turned me down for a request to turn around) said we were in too much of a hurry to stop and take pictures! Pictures of a sloth crossing a highway and possibly helping him cross without getting hit!!! What happened to retirement!?!? I just prayed for the little fellow to have someone else stop (they did) and haven't let John forget since that we missed a chance to take pictures of a sloth crossing the road!

Would have posted a picture of a sloth crossing the road here

As we arrived to a nearby coastal city to Serenity, we called Randy, the guy preparing the rental house and letting us in, that we were an hour away from arriving as we needed to buy groceries and climb the mountain. When we arrived his workers were scrambling to hook up plumbing, fix door latches, wire lighting and clean the floors. They were here another 3 hours finishing up. Guess we could have stopped for that sloth!

Day Three

More relaxed than other two days, have stayed at Serenity investigating our property, checking out a house being built across the street from us, visiting the building of the Community Center, walking along the biggest river to a gazebo down the trail and talking with people. The caretaker of Serenity, Aldemar, has been most helpful. I think he would give us the shirt off his back. We have to be careful what we ask or he would do just that with a big smile. Aldemar is a bachelor with a ready smile. When he heard we didn't have coffee mugs he brought us two, not just any knock around mugs, but probably his best mugs. When he heard we needed a broom he brought us a broom/mop. I keep asking if these things are just extras and he smiles and says, 'yes, yes!'' I am not convinced, a bachelor in a small house has extra stuff to lend!? And to top it all off he has two puppies that just love my attention, sleep in my lap and would stay here if he didn't carry them home. (He lives up the hill from us.)

 Trail down to river and gazebo

A very nice walk along river leads to a Gazebo

We have a greenhouse right across the street, about 60 feet away. It is full of lettuce, Malabar spinach, herbs (like basil, parsley, cilantro and sage) and green tomatoes. There are chickens (both layers and meat birds) right in back of our house. Two very noisy roosters made sure we were up at the crack of dawn. And I must say, sleeping on a blowup mattress sucks! Can't wait for our stuff to arrive. (John just brought me a bite of what we both thought was lettuce. Yiks! It bites! Must be lettuce looking mustard!)

 Our rented house

 

Today we picked a shopping bag full of mandarin lemons, several oranges and a sweet lemon, (don't know yet what that is like, Aldemar told us it was a sweet lemon.) We made lemonade with the lemons and sugar cane juice.  If you have never had a mandarin lemon and wondering what it is, let me say you would never go back to meyer lemons if you could use a mandarin instead.  They are simply wonderful! 

Unfortunately we don't have good phone service or internet. There is someone working on permits for towers but it is still in the works. I had to find a hot spot to send this to you. So no Vonage, no cell phones unless we go higher up the mountain (at our property it worked) and no internet at the rental house; which is a little lower elevation than our property and a lot lower than some other places in Serenity. Checking our texts once a day to keep up with emergencies and building process info.

 

Just got a text that someone living on our mountain complained towers are ugly so they have to do a government study and resubmit for permit.  Sounds like a long time coming...

Our hands were so dry and cracking in Michigan and already soft and supple, after just 2.5 days. I keep telling myself the humidity is “moisturizing.” I have freezy curly hair. Didn't want you think it was perfect here.

Day Four

Today we met with the prospective builder. He has built villas at Osa Mountain Village, Serenity's sister community. He is anxious to get his foot in the door at Serenity so willing to bend over backwards on price, service and promptness. He wants to start next week but we are still waiting to get our house plans back from the municipalities.

Heard today by email that our ship is detained another 1.5 weeks, too much cargo traffic. I gotta get used to that lovely air mattress, haven't yet.  Arrival for Costa Rica is slated Feb. 7th!! 

Love from Costa Rica,

Diane

Latest News about container and phone number

Great News!
Our container was released by US customs and is now on a ship sailing in the Atlantic towards Costa Rica.  The ship will port on the northeast shoreline in Limon.  We are living in the south Pacific so there is a long truck ride in the mountains for all our belongings.   We were so relived when we got the email that our container set sail, YIPPE!  This is really happening!  We are really going to go on a perpetual vacation in the tropics!  I was reading an article from a woman who lives in Costa Rica and she was saying that she loves to visit a certain beach area once a year so she can have "a vacation from her vacation."  Now in reality, John and I are too active to be lazy for long so I figure once we catch our breaths from all this pushing to make this happen, we will find things to keep us busy.  Like John with the off-grid energy and me with teaching gardening, fermenting, cheese making and other things just like I did here at Rocky Gardens.  But at first we are going to sit back, sleep in, have coffee on the veranda, read, and explore.  It sounds soooo good!

More Great News!
We called Vonage to close our account and were given an offer too good to pass up.  We can keep our 248-634-2291 phone number and stay with Vonage for only 9.00 a month as long as we have internet service; which we have been told is working already in Serenity.  If all goes as hoped, we will give up the MagicJack (and that phone number I sent out a few days ago) keep our old phone number and you can call me as if I lived in Michigan! 

Costa Rica is one hour behind Michigan during cold months and during Daylight Savings Time, 2 hours behind.  If you call and don't get me, leave a message.  I will be happy to hear from you.

Three more full days before we fly out of here and leave behind this nasty winter created by the "Polar Vortex"!  Sorry we have to leave you behind but there is room for you and yours in Serenity!
With Love, 

Diane

Container Stalled in New York

 

Much to our dismay US Customs has decided now is the time to clamp down on stolen cars being shipped out of the country.  Our shipping agent has not experienced before the level of paperwork Customs in now demanding to release our car and container to leave the country.  The clear title from the State of Michigan was not enough all of a sudden. The dealership is trying to help but the requested paperwork and speed at which they want it is nearly impossible.  Thankfully the dealership isn't very busy right now and someone is willing to go the extra mile to help.

The snowstorm didn't help either because getting Overnight Mail out right now is nearly impossible.   The dealership is in Battle Creek and they have more snow than us, even their post office was closed!  And no Fed-Ex.  Our plans were to get the container out of here, stay a month to finish  cleaning up the house and barn and sell off the rest of our belongings.  Plus John would also have extra time to finish a big project he has going on at work.  By staying here a month the hope was to only have 2 weeks in Costa Rica without our stuff.  But now three weeks have gone by and our container is still in the US just sitting in New York. Our shipping agent said not to worry, all we needed were bathing suits.  Ha!  Bet she wouldn't make it 6 weeks in Costa Rica with just a bathing suit.   

We are managing pretty well camping out in the house without much stuff.  I cook rather simple meals and trying to use up our food. (No fruit pies for John!)  Some friends have lent us some things that really made life easier, like a toaster and a mattress.  The first time I roasted a chicken it was rather difficult to find something to put a whole hot chicken on.  You can't just put a hot chicken on a paper plate!  I can't tell you how many times I have needed a mesh strainer; I never would have thought I would miss a little mesh strainer!

This monster storm has really made us yearn for Costa Rica!  We got 2 feet of snow in Davisburg yesterday and because of the blowing snow John can't keep the pathways clear; we need one to the chickens, one to the barn and the sidewalk.  And our heat is acting up so we are using the propane cast-iron stove in the living room to heat the whole house until the parts come in for the geo-thermal unit.  We feel like Mother Nature is kicking us in the behind on our way out.

We are excited and yearning for some relaxing warm days.  These past months have been grueling, especially for John, sometimes he doesn't get to bed until after midnight and when 7am comes around the push is on again. 

It has been great cleaning up, throwing out, selling things & giving away things.  To see where your treasurers are going (and appreciated too!) has been rewarding.  I gave our grandson a pocket magnifier that was my dad's.  He loved it!  He told someone that is was the best thing he got over Christmas vacation!  I try to tell the story behind anything that has been handed down to us, hoping the item along with the story will be cherished and passed on.  Since both John and I have lost our parents we had a lot of heirlooms and special possessions.  I have enjoyed downsizing, it feels cleansing.  We had way too much stuff.  John has found if difficult without all his tools.  Either they are in the container or he sold something he now needs. 

Has it been worth all this work for the past 10 months.  We think so and soon we will find out.

I know many of you are eager to know what is happening once we get to Costa Rica.  Many have expressed interest for their own possible adventure, wanting to see what it takes to move to a tropical location to see if they can do it too.

Be sure to sign up to get an email notice for when I post something new. 

I probably won't post again until we leave in 6 days and have arrived to our rental home. So let me say...I have made so many wonderful friends and I will miss you.  You all have made my life richer and rewarding.  I am glad for past 12 years of running the farm.  My life suddenly exploded with so much when we opened Rocky Gardens.  Thank you for being my friend.
God Bless, Diane

Container is OUT OF HERE!!!

THANK YOU TO ALL OUR FRIENDS WHO HELPED US!!!!!
Without their help we wouldn't have made it.  No way could we have boxed, wrapped, numbered, carried and loaded it all.  Thank you all so much, we are both very grateful for Kay, Jim, Norm, Ed, Tammy, Chris, Ben and Grant.  The weather was tough but gratefully it didn't rain.  Snow and cold was bad enough but rain would have been worse by getting the cardboard boxes wet, weakening and damaging them.  So we are grateful we just had snow and cold; oh so cold!  But most of all grateful for our helpers!  THANK YOU!!

Whew!  Packing a container with your household goods for an ocean voyage  is much harder than moving to the next city.  Everything has to be packed to survive being tossed about by rough waters.  When we had our moving sale people were anxious to tell us about, "Our friends went overseas, and lost about half of their contents to breakage..." John heard the story of one guy who was really reckless and put a kitchen range up high on top of other stuff plus didn't secure his car well.  The car was "totaled" from the range falling into the back window and the car bouncing all over the container.  Every side of the car had damage.  Sorry, that is just stupidity!!!

These stories caused John to be extra extra careful about packing the container.  He went the extra mile securing things.  I imagine that they will never find another container so well secured. 
BUT this caused him so much extra work that he hasn't slept much for many days; often coming to bed 2 or 3am, tossing and turning with worry and getting back up at 5 or 6am.  So neither of us has had much sleep and looking forward to schedules more normal.  He was a real trouper, never complaining about the work or the cold or the snow. 

Moving Day brought the most snow we had all season. I was too busy inside packing and forgot to take picture during the snow storm and loading, this is the next day. 

If any of you decide to move overseas we can give you plenty of advice.  If we had to do it over again we would sell more stuff in moving sales.  And put important things on first to avoid the risk of being left behind towards the end.  But on the other hand, a motivating factor that moved us to pack as much as we could was trying to replace items with the quality we had already or even finding what we need.  Southern Costa Rica is not a shoppers paradise; more a tropical paradise.

I am already realizing some things that are on their way to Costa Rica should be here with us, such as important papers or numbers,etc.  John just came to me and realized our file cabinet didn't get assigned a number for the inventory list.  Everything has to be inventoried and a value attached to it so they can charge us import taxes.  I will get an email off to our Costa Rican 'friends' to fix the error.  We are also finding plenty of things we wish were in that container. 

A car hauler had to be hired to put the car into our container.  It was 11:00 pm before it was loaded as John wasn't ready until then.  Bitter cold that night.  John worked all night long securing the car, coming in only when he couldn't feel his feet anymore.

 

How appropriate...Look at all that snow and the container is heading off to a tropical location. 

As the truck left our driveway our container experienced its first jolt, dropping off the culvert and mowing down the "Rocky Gardens" sign.  This is just the beginning of the tossing it will experience, good thing John took time to secure things well.

 

Really Soon....!

We are busily packing so we can be ready for the container to be loaded; it is arriving in 5 days, Dec. 13th.  It will be picked up the following Tuesday morning.  We are paying extra so we have plenty of time to load.  We have heard too many horror stories of people trying to load their container too quickly and loosing half their stuff to breakage.  John will take extra care in making sure our stuff arrives in the best condition possible after an ocean voyage. 

We are getting a 40 foot shipping container that will also hold our car.  It will go by train to New York and then onto a container ship.  It will take 4 to 6 weeks to arrive in Costa Rica.  Then everything other than the car will be loaded into a truck and brought to us in the mountains.  In the meantime, we will be camping here in the Michigan house for 4 weeks and likely another 2 weeks at the rental house in Serenity.  It will take an extra 10 days to 2 weeks for our car to be released from the officials; they will inspect & plate it and get it ready for our pick up. 

We had closing yesterday on our house, now we are renters.  YIKS!  $2,400.00 to stay here for 38 days!  John can't leave work yet as he is the only engineer designing and constructing a new machine.  But our flights are booked for Jan. 13th, and then he will have to hand it off to another guy whether done or not.

We have to number everything along with an inventory list so Costa Rica can calculate our import taxes.  You might be wondering if it is worth it to ship your goods in addition to paying import taxes.  Yes, we have been told it is worth it.  Not only do you have the emotional attachment to your stuff (that makes you feel more at home in your new house) but you probably can't get the quality items you can in the States to re-purchase everything. 

I am looking forward to sharing pictures of loading our container with you.  Check back next week.
Adios!

The Countdown Has Started

We have less than a month before we load the 40 foot shipping container with everything we want to take with us to Costa Rica.  Every thing must be packed carefully, more so than a move to the next town.  The container will be on a ship that could incur rough seas so breakage is a real problem.  I will pack the household goods, John is tackling those things that reside in the garages and barn.  We both have a big job ahead.  All boxes must be inventoried and numbered as we have to pay import taxes on it all. 

We have sold a ton of stuff; this will be a much lighter move than any moves we have had in the past.

The car we bought for Costa Rica will go into the container last so it will be the first thing off the container when it arrives in CR.  The guy we have hired that lives in Costa Rica, Kevin, will make arrangements to have the car inspected, licensed and fees paid to ready for our pick up.  Kevin will also arrange to get our goods loaded into a truck to take down to southern CR and up the mountain to Serenity.  The fee he charges is well worth it.

We will camp out in our Michigan house for a month, finishing up details, visiting people & selling things that didn't fit in the container plus John has a big project at work to finish.  We will have 2 suitcases and 2 boxes of stuff to live 6 weeks with, 4 weeks here at the house and 2 weeks more in CR.  We are trying to get by with minimal things but need some cooking and eating utensils and other important daily use items.

Our flight out of here is Jan. 13th, 2013 at 6am.  We will stay in the San Jose area that day and night
so we can get a fresh start to head to southern Costa Rica and not arrive in the dark to the house we will be renting in Serenity Gardens Eco Village.  We will be some of the first residents; we know the house we will live in, been past it several times. 

If you look closely through the palm trees you can see a house off in the distance.  That is the house we will be living in while our house is built.  The house has two streams along the property, this one pictured and one closer nearby coming from another direction.

The rental house is next to two beautiful rocky streams and a lovely landscaped area; I am expecting to be quite content. Each day will seem like a vacation!  Always thought it would be nice to live next to a stream or river.  I have our grippy water shoes ready for river walks!  The rivers and streams in CR are not cold like here in Michigan, the water feels nice.

View from what will be our closest neighbor's veranda.  The house in the background is the house we will be temporarily staying in.

The house we are renting is unfurnished so we will be anxious to receive all our goods. We can live in it the whole time our house is being built just the next village road over, real close so we can keep on eye on the project.

This is a view from the road next to our temporary house.

  This is the Octagon house, our nearest neighbor.

 

As you can see from the pictures, Serenity Gardens is not some crazy place some have pictured we are going to.  Granted, it is remote and a bit of a climb to get to but once the village starts to fill up and the community center finished, it will feel like a real neighborhood.  Just different.  And we always have Osa Mountain Village (the sister community) to visit.  Almost all the villas in OMV are sold and filled with lovely people, many of whom we have met and email back and forth with.  As the crow flies OMV is not far from Serenity.  What makes it a bit of a drive is going down our mountain and back up the mountain OMV sits on.  But they are in the same mountain ridge.