Franklin's Costa Rica Move: 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.