We are so Grateful!

 Dear Friends,
   There are times in life when things happen that are so far above our own control that the we can clearly see the hand of God, no question, no doubt...
   We are in the midst of one of those times right now. I must say that I have been totally bowled over. If you have read my blog for awhile, then you are aware that we lived in Costa Rica for a year, and while there we became friends with a family that lived near our farm on the top of the mountain. Samuel, Lourdes and their extended family became as close to us as blood family. There are several posts about these wonderful people in the archives to catch you up on who they are, if you haven't heard of them before.

Da and Samuel at Cataratas Vienta Fresco

   Samuel and my husband were hiking buddies. They hiked up and down every mountain and volcano slope that they could find. But my husband had been noticing that Samuel was dealing with a lot of pain after their hikes. As time went on he started using a hiking stick, then he wasn't able to go on hikes any more. He finally confided to Daniel that as a young man, he was injured in a work related accident, which was never treated properly. The construction company he worked for did little to help him with his medical expenses and basically ignored the problem . He had to work, he had small children to feed, so he just lived with the injury and moved on. Unfortunately, after many years of living with an untreated injury, at 52 years old he was no longer able to do the physically demanding work that his job required.
  Jobs are hard come by in Costa Rica at the best of economic times, but with the local economy being closely tied to American tourism, the last few years have been very hard. What jobs there were in construction and tourism evaporated with the bursting of the American Mortgage Bubble. Samuel began to find other ways of earning a living, he used the back yard of his mother-in-laws house to raise meat chickens, and for awhile he was able to make enough to support his family from selling his chickens as butchered and dressed whole roasters. His method of sale was to butcher, clean, chill over-night in an extra fridge at his home and then on the following morning, take a 90 lb. sack of individually wrapped chickens, and walk with the sack selling them door to door. Samuel's home is at the foot of a very steep mountain  lane that lead up to our farm at the top, the other direction that he could walk was a steady incline for several miles.Everywhere he could sell his chickens was up hill from where he started. His knee continued to deteriorate to the point where he couldn't make the grade any more, (literally), and had to stop raising chickens.

Samuel before his knee gave way

  We were preparing to move back to the states in a few months, and we saw clearly the handwriting on the wall. Our dear friend, an honest and hardworking man, would soon fall into destitution, since everything he knew how to do required the use of his legs, and one leg was failing him. So my husband encouraged Samuel to have CAJA (Costa Rica's socialized medicine), evaluate his condition. They gave him an appointment for an evaluation 6 months in the future. In the meantime, my husband and I helped him to see a private doctor. We also helped him file for disability, and talked to a lawyer about pressing the construction company to pay for his medical care.
   The private doctor was able to tell Samuel why he was in such pain. The cartilage in his knee was completely gone, his knee was essentially gone and he was grinding bone on bone. The hopes of disability to help while he pursued a solution to his problem evaporated, according to the lawyer, there was no legal recourse that he could successfully take against the construction company, and CAJA said that they wouldn't authorize a knee replacement until he was 65 years old.... There seemed to be little hope.
  We came home and stayed in contact with Samuel, helping financially as we could, and continued to explore options long distance. Samuel's family pulled together, his 17 year old son went to work and Lourdes, his wife took on more house cleaning jobs, while the other kids did what they could to keep life on track. It brings tears to my eyes to think about it. As a family they showed such courage as faced their future together, and made the best of the life that they had.
  At home here in the states, Da and I prayed for a miracle, and kept encouraging Samuel not to give up. Then came the day that we called Samuel to find out about his visit to the CAJA doctor. He said the doctor had injected his knee with some kind of lubricant, which caused him a great deal of pain due to an allergic reaction. He also told him that if he couldn't wait until he was 65 years old to be put on a waiting list for a knee replacement, they could amputate his leg at the knee now to alleviate his pain. The very thought of it made my hair stand on end!!
  So with those options, it was going to take a miracle, and we continued to pray for God to help Samuel. Meanwhile my husband helped him to get into to see another private orthopedic specialist, who did arthroscopic surgery to place a pad between the bones to help with the grinding. It was supposed to give him 2-3 years, it lasted 3 months. The doctor gave a quote of $20,000.00 for knee replacement, which was a number that staggered Samuel and made us realize that for this to happen at all, we would need to begin fund raising immediately. We had no idea how to raise that much money, but prayed for provision and took the first steps in the journey of a thousand miles....
                                                              Miracle #1
  During the next several months we exhausted all possible contacts for medical help from Stateside doctors and were beginning to wonder if help would come. Then one day Lourdes, Samuel's wife, mentioned their problem to a woman that she cleaned for. The woman took an interest in their plight and contacted us.
   This was the beginning of an answer to prayer. Da and Ginny talked by phone, and then met face to face in December, when we were in Costa Rica for six weeks. Ginny had found a Costa Rican surgeon who trained at  Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, where her husband is a doctor. She had arranged a meeting with the surgeon while she was vacationing for a few weeks. So Samuel, Da, Ginny and I took the four hour bus ride to San Jose and met with the surgeon. He said that due to the damage done to his knee and his age, Samuel's only option was a knee replacement. He also understood that Samuel did not have the means to pay for the procedure and agreed to do the surgery for free!!! This would still leave about $ 10,000.00 in other medical bills, like the knee apparatus, hospital and anesthesiologist bills plus physical therapy and feeding Samuel'a family while he was getting back on his feet.... but $10,000 dollars at least in the realm of possibility.
   This story goes on for some time, and is just full of miracle after miracle. I have created a blog to keep informed those who are interested or have contributed to Samuel's knee surgery, with prayers, emotional support, and finances. If you want to hear the rest of the story, the link is: www.akneeforsamuel.wordpress.com .

I will be continuing to add updates there as things unfold. But to finish up here I will tell you that the outpouring of concern and love from so many quarters is really overwhelming... Ginny and her husband and Da and I agreed to come up with half of the money each that was needed, The total sum was raised in less than 30 days! As I write, Daniel is in Costa Rica, helping Samuel through his first two weeks after surgery. The replacement went well and Samuel is getting stronger every day. My cup runs over.... I can't help but tear up every time I think about it... Samuel has a new lease on life, but it doesn't stop there... I am renewed. I can see again, that there is hope and goodness in this world and I feel so close to the Creator who brushed away the impossible and made possible a knee for Samuel.

Samuel the day of his surgery April 10, 2012

Life Keeps Happening....

  I have been waiting to write an entry until I had my act together at home... Well, "life" keeps happening so I don't think I am going to get my act together. Most recently my husband and I had the pleasure of ripping the floor out of the main bathroom. The gasket under the toilet had been secretly leaking and the sub floor abruptly began to sag. Sigh...

  The yucky part of the task is now behind us, a new sub-floor is in place and we will set the porcelain throne once we acquire the hardware to bolt it to the floor. My husband and I are no strangers to construction projects. We built our house back after Hurricane Hugo threw the majority of the house into the woods. Since those days we have had the opportunity to do many other construction projects under our roof...

New tile next to tub

This one was particularly repugnant due to the fact we had to tear up a perfectly good tile floor to make the repair. One good thing to come out of it is that I now am going to fulfill a long time desire to have a black and white mosaic floor in the bathroom. I have always wanted to have that kind of tile in there because we have this wonderful 1920's porcelain over cast iron corner tub in that bath and I think the tile will really set it off. So looking on the bright side, Yipee! I am going to get my mosaic floor!
  For the present I am going to have to live with the plywood sub-floor. Construction projects have a tendency to get what my computer programer sons would call "scope creep".  The john leaks so we have to rip out the floor, then h-m-m... this would be a good time to take out the 20 year old sink cabinet and replace it with one of those really nice shallow profile sink bases with the porcelain , round fronted sink top. So while we are at it we should open the wall behind the sink and re-plumb the sink plumbing, since it is old and could leak and ruin our new tile floor... and gee.. a pressed tin ceiling would really give this room an authentic period look, (another detail I have always wanted but could not afford when we were rebuilding the house). Of course we will want to give the walls and wainscoting a new coat of paint before we lay down the floor. So, once again my house will be a construction zone and God only knows how long this will take, since my husband will be very busy supporting electronic poll book implementation in preparation for the May primary... it is after all a presidential election year. At least I won't be trying to do construction with little kids under foot, like we did when we were building the house back after Hugo. At that time we had a 7 year old and a six moth old to keep up with as well as put our house back together. Actually, the thought of not having them around to "help" is kind of depressing... Enough of that. My goal for 2012 is to get over my "empty-nest" syndrome and enjoy the new life stage I am in. This is a lofty goal since I was drowning in "emptiness" before we went to Costa Rica.
  I am sorry. I am babbling. I am still working on the transition to Stateside life, I feel fragmented and scattered, but it is time for me to pull it all together. The seeds just arrived for my spring garden, so I need to get them in flats and under lights. The plans need to be laid out for a bathroom renovation and I have still got a pile of letters to answer and delinquent blog entries to write. So... I think I will grab a stack of letters, make a Cafe con Leche with smooth Costa Rican coffee, and give some of my pen friends something in their mailboxes! See you in the mail!

We are Home!

Hi everyone! After six lovely weeks of travel, hiking, & visiting, we are finally home. We were delivered safely to our door by our son a few minutes ago and now I am going to go to bed...I am beat. I will post again soon with some final stories from Costa Rica and then I will be trying to get mail out to my pen friends in a day or two. It is good to be home! See you in the mail very soon!!

Rio Celeste

  Near the town of Bijagua de Upala, in the Guanacaste region of Costa Rica, there is a river called Rio Celeste. The literal translation for the name in English is Sky River. It comes by its name honestly. The confluence of two rivers, one which contains calcium carbonate, the other which carries sulfur down river from local volcanos, create a chemical reaction in the place where the two rivers meet. The water turns a light turquise blue, right before your eyes. Amazing...

  We took our visiting group of friends, (known as the Carolina Berg Wanderers), to the Rio Celeste confluence to watch nature's perpetual chemistry lesson in action. Actually, we took them to the opening in the jungle, they took themselves down the many stairs to the river. For several days before there had been copious quantities of rain, so the trail to the river was a slippery, muddy mess, but it is worth the ordeal to get down there!



The confluence



  There is a place in the river not far from the confluence that actually bubbles up boiling hot water that smells strongly of sulfur... the temperature of the water is 240 degrees. It is not recommended that you swim in the area where the water bubbles up, but there is nothing to keep you from it. Unlike the USA where everything is regulated, controlled or limited, Costa Rica leaves most things up to the public to decide for themselves. If you want to swim in 240 degree water, who are they to stop you... That has its good points and bad points... but generally I prefer being left to use my own good judgment. There is a lot of freedom here that we just don't experience in the United States. It seems odd that the US is called "The Land of the Free"... but I digress...

  The confluence of the river is just a hint of the feast that is to come... Back up the pathway that wends through the rainforest there is a split in the path which leads to a real treat... a waterfall. I know, I know, another waterfall? But really, this is one waterfall that shouldn't be missed. At the point of the waterfall the two river have already mixed so the water coming over the falls and the deep pool beneath it are both sky blue! The verdant green vegetation that fringes the pool and covers the rock walls on either side of the falls is a wonderful foil for the bright blue water. A friend from the group we took down there said, " I will see that blue waterfall in my dreams for some time to come!". I am afraid I will have to see it in my dreams for awhile since I couldn't make it down the deep cut steps to the falls with my bad knee, but there have been lots of pictures taken that I have enjoyed. I will be making another trip to Rio Celeste around New Years just to go to the falls, by then I should be fit to make it down the stairs (Lord willing...) and see it for myself! So, I have my own pictures from the river to share with you, but in this post the waterfall pictures will be credited to my husband, who was kind enough to take them for me.





  I hope that this post finds you all well, enjoying life and having good mail days! Until next time, Pura Vida!

Apartel Christina

Good Morning!
  We are staying at the Apartel Cristina, a hotel that is owned by the family of one of our friends down here. It is located right up the street from Parque Sabana, ( San Jose's Central Park). We don't usually stay in the city. Normally we hit the ground and make a bee line for the mountains, but since our friend is expecting to deliver her baby any day now, she is staying in the city near the hospital. We wanted to see her before the baby came so we made an overnight to have a visit.

  It is a lovely hotel, full of angles and nooks, contemporary, but not chrome and glass. Tropical plants soften the edges of the stucco walls and the crisp blue sky makes a perfect backdrop for Cristina's profile. We had breakfast out near the pool and enjoyed the early morning's cool breezes. It was a nice way to start our day.
  Later, one of our Tico friends, Rachin, will come to pick us up and take us toTilaran. He will be accompanied by his wife Vanessa,  his three daughters, (ages 7,5, and 4) and his 2 year old son. The ride back to Tilaran will be like riding with a bus load of gregarious Howler Monkeys for 4 hours.We love this family and will try to remember that while we careen up and down the mountainous curvy roads with all the little angels chattering away at top speed in Spanish.... it will be a fun but lo-ong trip home... 

  It is time to repack the totes and talk to the cell phone company about renting a cell for for our stay. It costs about $1.20 a day plus 6 cents a minute to rent the phone. Which I think is pretty reasonable! It is important to be able to stay in contact with home base, (friends in Tilaran), while traveling, in case car trouble or other issues arise. We will be in some pretty remote locations, but 3G phones work everywhere in Costa Rica, so even when we are deep in the rain forest we can stay in contact.  Until next time I will leave you with a few quick shots of  Apartel Christina, and a promise of many more photos and stories as we go along!

Tropical plants are nestled in every available niche.

A view from the walkway to our room.

We´re Here!

Hi, Just a quck note to tell you that we made it to Costa Rica safely. We are staying in a hotel in San Jose so that we can visit a friend who is having a baby any time now. Tomorrow we will head to Tilaran in the mountains region of Guanacaste. The Tilaran area is our home away from home and will be our base of operations. It is nice to be in the fresh moist air again... I have really missed it! I hope this finds you all well and having a good mail day. Until tomorrow, Pura Vida!

  When I started this blog in the spring of 2010, I did so to connect with others who like me, love letters and mail art. I was in Costa Rica, living on a farm with the rain forest at my back door. I spent the majority of daylight hours working on the farm or preparing meals for my hard working family. But the evening hours were very quiet...the darkness of the rain forest was as palpable as it's vibrancy was during the day. It seemed to absorb light and sound. In the thick dark it is easy to feel a little isolated and lonely.
  I would have written letters and participated in mail art calls and other postal activities to alleviate the feelings of isolation, but I was living in a place where the postal system was practically non-existent. My physical address was: 600 meters north of the Plaza, Sabalito Guanacaste, Costa Rica. The Plaza as it is called there, is the soccer field...  Actually our house was 600 meters from the soccer field, up a dirt road that wended it's way to the top of the mountain, the road terminated at the gate to our farm, but how on earth anyone would know it was 600 meters north from the plaza up the mountain, I'll never know. It seems to me that the mountain top farm near the rain forest in Sabalito, might have been a better description... But it really didn't matter anyway since we had no mailbox, or mail delivery for that matter.
  But I digress... I used the Internet to connect with other like minded people and created digital postcards and posted them to this blog.

I made this digital postcard shortly after I started the blog.
The toucan in the photo is a resident on the farm where we lived.
The postage is of course an artistamp but on digital/virtual
mail it is legal to use artistamps as postage!

I wrote about letter writing and mused about other letter writers of the past, I wrote letters and posted them to my blog for anyone who came to visit to read. It helped me to stay connected and eased the pain of our sudden need to return to the states. I am really glad that I had this blog and my blog friends to keep me company.
  The 27th of November my husband and I will be leaving for a 6 week stay in Costa Rica. We will be staying with friends part of time. My husband's hiking group is traveling down to do a week of hiking and sight seeing and then we will spend the remaining time resting and traveling around Cost Rica. I will attempt to send some mail to the states while we are down there, but for the most part I think I will be writing virtual letters and making digital postcards. I will not have connectivity all the time but there are Internet cafes and I do have friends with Internet so I should be able to send "letters" fairly regularly. I will miss hearing from all my pen friends and blog friends while we are gone and would love it if you would post a comment on the blog occasionally or send me an e-mail to let me know how things are going. My e-mail is: elle.mental@yahoo.com  I will be checking my blog and e-mail often so that I can have virtual "good mail days"!

Pretty Paper Source stationery and specialty papers.
I love the plum blossoms!

  But for today I will show you some goodies I found at a stationery store in Charlotte. Due to my postal budget and my desire to mail out to as many people as I can, I usually  chose to spend my postal allowance on postage rather than on "boxed" stationery. Not that I don't adore all the beautiful stationery I see in the stores, but I try and squeeze as much mileage as I can from my allotted funds, so I usually pass on store bought stationery and make my own. I made an exception the other day since we are leaving shortly and I want to post as many letters as I can before we go. The stationery store I went to had a large selection of solid colored note cards and envelopes, as well as an amazing array of handmade and specialty papers. The specialty papers were hanging on dowels to display them and were sold in 24x36 inch sheets. I was in love... I spent hours trying to decide what papers I wanted. It was better than dessert! I decided on some teal envelopes and note cards and also some pink ones, then I chose some specialty papers that could be used with both envelope colors. The cash register total made my head spin, but I rationalized that I was going to be spending less on postage in the near future, clutched my new purchases greedily and left the store. I assuaged my guilty conscience and reasserted my postal spending controls by going to Goodwill and finding some album covers that I will turn into post cards... I can get 14 post cards from the 3 album covers I found for 49cents each. That comes to a little more than 10 cents per post card! There! Now I feel better... I am not sure that there is any logic in buying more stuff to feel better about spending more than I should have to start with... but it somehow it sounded good in my head so I'm happy! I am babbling aren't I.... sorry.
  I will leave you with a glimpse of my outgoing mail pile and get back to work using up my recent purchases and getting letters off in the mail to all my dear pen friends!

An album cover postcard and a couple of envies decorated
with my hand carved rubber cuts. The walking stick figures
are actually drawn by a different artist... my youngest son, when
he was 4 years old. I transferred it to the rubber carving material
and carved it to add some cheer to my mail art and  to remind me 
to keep things simple!

I used my new purchases to make some of these letters.

A promise too long overdue. I said I would
send out a post card with sand from one of my trips, to those who
wanted one and left me a comment. It took me a long time to figure out
how I wanted to send the sand. The sand on the back of this
postcard comes from a beach in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua.  

I ended up putting the sand in a Dayquil capsule pack. I hope
 it still contains sand when it reaches its destination... We shall see!



                                                            See you in the mail!

Home Away From Home




A female Howler Monkey eating the leaves of her
 favorite food source, the Cecropia tree.

   Early morning bird song filled the air. The Howler monkeys took it upon themselves to play alarm clock...their howl could wake the dead! With all the sound effects, this was no leisurely stay in bed kind of vacation. But the veranda on the back of our friends house outside of Tilaran, Costa Rica, was beckoning to me by first light anyway, so who really wants to sleep in? As soon as it was light enough to see, I would go sit on the veranda and let a rich cup of Costa Rican coffee bring me to life. The tile floor was cool under my bare feet and there was a fresh moist breeze coming up from the river at the bottom of the slope behind the house. What a great way to start the day!

 There was nest of little royal blue swallows in the eaves where the veranda roof meets the house. They were taking their flying lessons under the cover of the roof, just inches above my head. Swooping and diving their mother would take them through the paces one by one. As the week progressed, we saw less and less of mom and then she was gone altogether. The babies flew back to the nest repeatedly looking for mom and breakfast to no avail. It was kind of sad watching the three of them sitting there outside their nest all bunched up together, looking so forlorn... but eventually they took off to find their own breakfast.


  I love many things about Costa Rica, but I think one of my favorite things is the pace of life. It seems unthinkable to be in a hurry... there is always plenty of time to get things done. No need to dash here or there, where would you go in a hurry anyway? The roads are terrible, even in the dry season, there are sharp switch backs and hair pin curves, and pot holes that would swallow a car, so you definitely won't be speeding.... Getting out of third gear was often something that we commented on while driving, "Wow, I just hit forth...uh, never mind... had to downshift for the curve". But more than that there is just nothing to get in a hurry about. There is no movie theater to worry about missing a showtime, very few restaurants, no work to go to, ("gringos" can't work in Costa Rica, so if you are there you must have another way to support yourself), so there is no reason to worry about where you have to be, or what is on your "to-do" list. If you don't get it all done today, there is always tomorrow. It is really very liberating not to have too many choices about what a day will hold. It really allows you to experience what you are doing rather than working through things in rapid succession trying to get done.

Plants grow on everthing that will hold still,
even on the clothesline!

  Laundry is an all day affair. Wash and then hang to dry, (which may never happen, it is after all the rain forest...). There is no sense in starting another load until you are very sure that the one you are putting on the line is actually going to get dry. So, with the wind blowing the clothes and your hair into tangles as you try to hang them out, you find yourself physically slowing. You hear the birds, feel the warmth of the sun on your neck. With a contented sigh you sit down to read while you watch for the moment in time when the clothes are dry and you can take them off the line and start another load.

Mangoes are in season and
growing everywhere.

  Shopping takes forever as well, since you have to visit every shop in town to get what you need. There isn't a one stop shopping mentality in Costa Rica... Veggies at the open air market, meat at the carniceria, dried beans and butter at the "Super", hairspray at the beauty supply shop, Tylenol by the individual pill at the pharmacia, the ferreteria will have your dog food and seeds for the garden and knee high rubber boots. Of course at each of these places you are going to chat with the counter help or the proprieter and probably run into at least one other person at each location that you will stop and share news with. So shopping is going to take up another day... and so goes all of life, no way to hurry, so you just have relax and allow "Tico time" to have its way.

  With no place to go and nothing to do by stateside standards, one might ask, "What is the attraction?". For some people probably very little, unless you are at the beach or in San Jose where it is pretty much like living in the states. But for others, myself included, it is the sweet fresh newly made oxygen from the rainforest, the lush green of everything, dotted with vibrant colored flowers and birds, the rolling hills, and constantly changing weather, sunny and 75 degrees one minute, a deluge the next. I am happy to be able to enjoy the simple tasks of daily living while taking in the wonderment of a place that is literally teeming with life. I like the idea that I am just one of many living things that share this place, and that in the scope of things people play only a small part in the overall scene.

  Since we lived in the area we were staying in, we basically just moved in and started living. Our dear friends the Hemmingway's made us feel right at home and we so much enjoyed being in their company again! We spent time in Tilaran, (the nearest town), and in Sabalito, (the pueblo where we used to live). We visited friends and spent long periods of time laughing and talking. Sometimes things seemed so "normal" that I had to remind myself that as comfortable and content as I felt, I wasn't at home. I was going to have to leave and go back to the states. Sigh...

   We visited Volcan Arenal with friends, endulged ourselves at our favorite restaurant on that side of the lake, and took leisurely drive through the backcountry, but for most the first week and a half we just hung out and enjoyed the simple life.

   A few days before I had to come home, I hugged everyone good-bye, wiped the tears from my eyes and my husband and I climbed on the 7 a.m. bus to San Jose. In all the time I lived in Costa Rica, I never spent more than an hour in San Jose. Just long enough to get off the plane and catch the bus to Tilaran.So we decided to spend my last few days seeing some things in that area. We stayed in Hotel Cristina in downtown San Jose, near Parque Sabana (the Costa Rican version of Central Park). The hotel is very nice, and as we found out during our stay, is frequented by Americans who travel down to Costa Rica for elective surgery and dental work. The private sector medical practice in Costa Rica has very good doctors and dental specialists from all over the world who practice medicine there and cater to Americans who are looking for affordable elective surgery. Interesting...

A careta that was on display in the showroom
at the cartea factory in Sarchi.

   We took a day trip one day, got a taxi to the bus terminal, took a bus to Grecia, took another bus to Sarchi, where we strolled through town taking pictures and touring the careta factory. A careta is a colorful wooden cart that, not too many years ago, would have been seen bumping along behind an ox and driver as it carried produce from the field or families to church. Today, in most places they are primarily used in parades and for other festive occasions. Although where we lived in the mountains, there were still many people who use them daily for farm work, since their wobbly metal banded wheels easily cover rugged terrain. At the factory we got to see the artisans painting the traditional kaleidoscopic patterns on wagons, plates and other souvenir type items that would later be fore sale in the shop.



A little waterfall in the
 botanical garden



  From there we took a taxi to the Else Kientzler Botanical Gardens. The gardens were lovely, with tall stands of Eucalyptus and teak trees and flora and fauna that represents a good cross section of plant life from Costa Rica and othe parts of Central America. There were also plants from places as far away as Brasil and Mexico. Then it was time reverse the process; taxi, bus,bus, taxi to end up at hotel Cristina in time for dinner. All in all an interesting and happy day!

   The next day was Saturday, which is our Sabbath, so we spent it resting and strolling around Parque Sabana. In the afternoon we went for a walk to Mercado Central, which is the central marketplace in downtown San Jose. It has hundreds of little shops, lining the brick pedestrian walks. This place is not for the faint hearted or directionally challenged, since it is a virtual maze of indoor venders and shops selling everything from herbal remedies straight from the rainforest to bootlegged first run movies. There are many dark little rabbit trails that will take you who knows where, and curious little restaurants that are so small that only three or four people at a time can be served. The curious part was that the floor of the restaurant was furnished with rickety little tables and a very tiny service area, then above our heads in what had to be very hot and dark conditions was the kitchen. The food was delivered via a make shift dumbwaiter that literally dropped the food from the ceiling!

  The walk from the hotel to the Mercado and back was about 7 kilometers, I had worn flip flops, not realizing how far it was, so by the time we got back to the hotel I had blisters. It was quite an experience and except for a blister or two we made it back to the hotel without incident.

  The next day was a taxi ride to the airport and the flight back to the states. I was leaving my husband in Costa Rica to spend another week visiting and hiking, while I return to the states to care for our homestead. It has been a wonderful and peaceful trip, I'm just sad it is over...

  Now that I'm home and feeling some better, I have caught up on some of my mail backlog and have been planning my next mail art mail out while I try to tame the weeds in the garden and harvest the remaining spring garden produce. Until next time I'll see you in the mail!

Lobster Claw flowers





A banana flower being pollenated
by bees.

A red passion flower. I had never seen red ones before!

A local "soda" and internet cafe

A mural on the front wall of a tienda
(a Tico style stop and shop)

The Tilaran post office










Home Again!

I am home safe and sound from Costa Rica. I started getting sick my last day or two there with a kidney infection and haven't really felt well enough to post since returning to the States. But I have been thinking about what stories I might tell and getting photos ready to go into my post .
  It was a lovely time away with my husband and it was great getting to see my dear friends down there. We tried to make sure we visited our old haunts and saw some new places as well. Those stories are for another time... for now "hi" to everyone! I will begin catching up on my mail outs and blogging once I get the gardens back under control.

Blackberries from our garden

It seems impossible that things could grow so much in just a few weeks! I had a beautiful and delicious surprise waiting for me when I walked through the garden my first time... my blackberries are hanging thick on the brambles, ripe and juicy... I grazed on some with relish while walking around checking out the gardens. There is much work to be done and I am still feeling under the weather, but I do intend to get something posted in a day or two. Until then... I hope that everyone is having a good mail day and enjoying the outdoors!

A Day at Arenal

  Ah-h... to breathe deeply of the pure rain forest air! It feels so good to be on the mountain treading the ground I walked every day while we lived on the farm, seeing my friends and filling my senses with the sights and sounds that have filled my dreams since we left Costa Rica in the summer of 2010. It almost doesn't seem real.
  We took a drive around Lake Arenal and spent the day at the volcano. Volcan Arenal is the tenth most active volcano on earth. It erupts almost every day and lava flows constantly down its crusty sides. Today though it was unusually quiet, not a single fiery stone crashed down the sides, the venting steam was a faint mist instead of the billowing plumes that usually wreath the cone and shoulders in clouds of vapor. The view of the volcano was wonderfully clear all the way to the cone, but it made me wonder if this is the calm before the storm... this area had a 6 magnitude earthquake the day before we landed, it seems unlikely that the volcano would be so quiet. But for today we enjoyed the clear view we had of the volcano and strolled the lovely trails and meticulously tended gardens of the Arenal Lodge and Observatory.
  Several varieties of hummingbirds zipped around our heads and teased us into thinking we might catch a photo or two of them... not! The other birds that normally flock to the feeders and fill the air with their songs and chatter were as absent from the scene as the volcano's daily grumblings. But I did get some nice photos of some other creatures and lots of photos of the gardens and tropical flowers.
  On the way back around the lake we stopped at the Lucky Bug Gallery and ate a delicious dinner on the veranda overlooking the gardens and tilapia pond. Tiny purple and green Wood Nymphs and White Bellied hummingbirds battled for ownership of the feeders at the end of our table while we ate. A large Kingfisher flew past at eye level before swooping down on an unsuspecting tilapia in the pond. He barely disturbed the water as he snatched his dinner up and flew to a nearby tree to enjoy it. Wow...
  We made it back around the lake to the Sabalito, (the pueblo where we used to live), just as the sun was setting. We  spent the early evening hours chatting with friends and allowed ourselved to be swallowed up by the deep dark of the rain forest. The air was cool and fresh and the peace in my heart was as thick as the darkness. Life is good.
  The jungle insects have tuned up for their nightly serenade...I think I will let them sing me to sleep... So good night to all and Pura Vida!

*note: I am on a borrowed computer and don't have access to my usual tools so there probably won't be any photos posted until I return home. 
           

Costa Rica Bound



Keel-billed Toucan on
 the farm in Costa Rica 2009

  Things have changed a couple of times back and forth but it looks like I am going to be making a trip to Costa Rica after all. If all goes well,  my husband and I will be flying out on the 15th of May. I am very excited!

  I am afraid that all the garden chores and preparations for our trip have kept me away from my art desk and letter writing. I have received a lot of mail from my pen friends and I am woefully behind on returns. If you have written me and haven't received a return, please forgive my tardiness...I am trying to get at least a postcard off to each of you before I leave, but I probably won't get many letters posted until I return from my trip. I haven't forgotten any of you and I want you to know how much I appreciate the letters and mail art that you take time out of your life to send to me. I will be gone two weeks and upon my return I will make letter writing a top priority.

For the moment, I will share some of the photos I have taken of life around Heart's Ease Cottage and I hope that you are enjoying life and making the most of the beautiful May weather.I'll see you in the mail!

Well, once Patrick's rose found a home in my yard other roses kind of found their way to the cottage as well. The roses on the arbor give us a huge display during the month of May, the border roses bloom in profusion all summer and fall.

 

Our border roses have masses of blooms which the bees love!

Trimming the limbs of our old oaks and planting 90 azalea bushes has been our big spring project this year. Can you imagine digging 90 holes to 2x the size of a 3 gallon plant bucket?   

Our cultivated blackberries plants are just laden with fruit this year.

This handsome gentleman lives in the "Pond Garden" next to our front porch. 
He is a stout fellow about the size of both my hands put together and has lived in the pond for years.

Bok Choi seedlings just waiting to be tucked into their garden bed.

My pen friend Sirpa commented on the cardinal in one of the postcards I sent her from our snow day in January. I have been trying to get a good shot of him ever since so I could send her a photo postcard featuring him. This one shows his colors well but I would really like it if he would oblidge and give me a nice pose in the profile...

The cabbage are heading up and soon it will be time to make saurkraut.

When the fava beans are ready, I will make Egyptian Felafels and Tabouli. Yum!

Sweet Charlie  strawberries

Tagg is the only dog I've ever seen that sniffs flowers...

The scent of Jasmine wafts in through the open windows and fills the house with its sweet scent.

Letters Back Home

  The weather here has been overcast and and it is too chilly to spend time outside. Sigh... It is days like today that make me miss our mountain top in Costa Rica. Since I was feeling a little homesick, I went back through the "letters" that I mailed home to friends and family. Actually, they weren't letters, they were e-mails that I sent out periodically so that everyone at home would have a chance to share our adventure with us. The mail system in Costa Rica proved to be less than dependable so I wrote letters and sent them by e-mail.

  Here is an exerpt from one of those letters back home:

November 23, 2009

  The neighbor's rooster has a death wish...he stands at the window to our bedroom starting at 5 a.m. and crows at 5 minute intervals until he successfully aggravates me enough that I jump out of bed, fling the back door open, and shout threats at his tail feathers as he makes his retreat through the fence to the safety of his own back yard. He must start running when he hears my feet hit the floor, so that by the time I get the backdoor open he is safely out of reach. With my sleep sufficiently disturbed, I have little hope of going back to sleep, but I don't need to be on my feet until 6 or so. I spend the minutes between the last rooster crow and the time I need to get up laying in the early morning light, listening to the chorus of birds strike up their morning repertoire. This is one of the joys of my day. During this time of year though, the birds have competition for my attention; the winds are changing direction from Atlantic to Pacific and the resulting turbulence makes for some impressive wind gusts. These gusts are particularly ferocious in the early morning, drowning out bird song and with the bedroom window open, practically blowing the covers off the bed. So after relishing the serenade of the birds and the sensation of the sheets flapping in my face like clothes on a clothesline, I haul myself upright and begin my day in earnest.

  My first official act is to determine the "uniform of the day". It is rainy season here in the tropics, that means wear clothes that dry fast. I have a wide selection of clothing choices (not), I can wear my "wet" weather gear, which consists of a polyester tank top, lightweight jeans, tube socks and high top rubber muck boots, or I can wear my "very wet" weather gear, which is the "wet" weather ensemble with the addition of a rain jacket. Either outfit is going to be soaking wet in a matter of minutes, so for the most part, I just stick to my "wet" weather gear. 

Bella

Bull

  Once dressed, we are all out the door to tend to our first tasks of the day. For Daniel or Erin, (whoever is taking on the grass) it is to the bodega for safety gear and a honking Husqavarna weed-whacker. For me and whoever didn't claim the weed-whacker, it is to the animal pens, to feed and locate the animals on the grass for the day. Due to a resident jaguar, the calves and goats must be put in a pen at night and then pastured during the day. The goats go out on tethers that are staked to the ground with long pieces of bent rebar. They will spend the day eating a perfect circle in the grass, as they walk to the extent of their reach and eat the grass to a nub, leaving the rest of the grass untouched. sigh.... The calves remain in the pen until after they have their grain and their bottles. I usually get the job of feeding the babies while my partner puts the goats out for the day. It is a job tailor made for a mom. The process of feeding calves is much like feeding children, first put the food in front of them and then referee while they squabble over who is going to eat out of who's bowl, then break up the fight that ensues when one decides to "win" the bucket they want to eat from by sucking their siblings ear, thus depositing copious quantities of grain (and slobber) into said ear. Somewhere in the process both buckets get turned over and the grain is spilled and trampled. So it must be time for the bottles... this process is a contact sport...never,never,never, get in the pen with the baby bottles, that is unless you like being mobbed, butted, jostled and slimed with cow poo and saliva. It is advisable to stand on the outside of the rebar-clad pen and feed the little darlings through the fence, thus postponing the mobbing, butting, jostling and sliming until it is time to put them on the pasture...

   I am glad that I wrote these letters back home. It would have been easy to be too busy to write, with all that there was to see and do, but I felt like it was important to share the story with those we left in the states. Now that we are back and life lacks the unique aspects of living 50 feet from the rainforest, with the tenth most active volcano on earth being visible from our front yard, it is nice to be able to pull them out and read them again. I can almost feel the Tilawa wind on may face...

  If you would like to read more about our Costa Rican adventure, go to http://www.aviewfromthecottage.blogspot.com/ , look at the tabs below the title banner and click where it says " Our Costa Rican Adventure". It will take you to a static page where I have posted the letters back home. I hope you enjoy our adventure! Until next time! 

Blog hops this post is linked to:
Clever Chicks Blog Hop #24

Letters of Love to Costa Rica

Being without consistent access to the internet during my move back to the States has made me feel disconnected from all my friends and loved ones back in Costa Rica. It was a little strange that we had internet at all where we lived on top of our mountain over looking Volcan Arenal and the lake. I always kind of chuckled to my friends and family that I was sitting amidst the sloths, monkeys, and toucans tapping out "love letters" to my dear ones in the States. It is quite a juxtaposition when you think about it... we had line of sight microwave internet that was very expensive, but worth its weight in gold in the rain forest and no internet access in a place over run with technology...go figure.

I am sitting in the air conditioned Chick-fil-a dining room with piped in music and smiling "helpful" Chick-fil-a employees offering to "refresh my beverage" for the umpteenth time...(gotta love them, they really try to please). But in my mind's eye I am sitting on the front veranda of the cabina with my laptop balanced on my knees in the open air, with the strong Tilawa breeze blowing my hair into knots, the sound of hundreds of birds singing in the rainforest. While holding on to that image, I am trying to compose letters of love and gratefulness to those I left behind on the mountain top. I just don't have the words to speak what is in my heart. Everything is muddy, I feel distracted and sad. Really, I can't write to them anyway, since there is no postal delivery to speak of in the pueblo and no one has internet. But it is my desire to send out into the "ether", my thoughts and hopes for them so that at least I have voiced my heart.

                                           

Samuel,
   Thank you for being a pillar of strength to your family, the pueblo and each of us in the Binford household. You're courage to face each day and find new ways to provide for your family in a severely depressed economy, enduring the pain of injuries left untended for too many years, has helped me to see my own struggles with a different perspective. The memory of your integrity, staunch devotion and loyalty are a benchmark that I use daily.

   I am so grateful for the quiet, unassuming council you were to our son and for being the best friend and hiking partner that my husband has ever had. Their time in Costa Rica was the joyful and enriching time that it was, largely because of you. I can't thank you enough.

Lourdes,

    I smile every time I think of you. Your optomism and humor made my days bright and when I felt low I knew that there was always a kiss on the cheek and a hug waiting for me. Your family is so blessed to have you there to lighten their hearts and carry their burdens on your strong shoulders and I am so blessed that you called me your friend.

Marylis,

    I have tried again and again to put into words what you mean to me... to call you a friend would fall short, to call you a daughter wouldn't hit the mark either. You came into my life as someone to help me around the house and our relationship grew into a precious gem that I hold close to my heart. Hours of sharing thoughts and stories, aided heavily by the Spanish to English/Einglish to Spanish dictionary and a healthy dose of laughter, are some of my favorite memories from our life on the mountain. I think about you daily and miss your sweet smile. When I think of all the people in Costa Rica I hold dear, you are the one it pains me most to live life without. I pray for God to multiply and send back to you, all the kindness and love that you have showered on others. I also hope that someday, we will be able to laugh and share our days together again.

I know that none of these words will reach the people they are meant for, but in speaking them "out loud", I hope the essence of my thoughts may somehow reach them and that the blessing I ask for them will be from my mouth to God's ears.