Sinead and Joey's Adventures

Nov2-Nov7

millmanapalm — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 03:51:00 GMT

Friday, 2

We redid some of the concrete work on the shower. Also filled in the drainage with rocks. It works really well. Matt, Rebecca, and Erin began cleaning bamboo for the shower screen. before lunch we took tiles from the old shower. They were pretty mossy, at least we hope it was moss. we used them to line the pathway down to the shower. We were on dinner so we were pretty lazy after lunch. we went to an almost empty cantina later that night. It was payday so Junior kept buying us beers. we also found out that local Tico's so not like spicy food. we were crazy for being able to handle firey cheetos.

Saturday 3,

Greg went to Jaco to pick up some things for the Ranch, we all took it pretty easy. We spent the day in the woodshop. Jess arrived, she is volunteering for the weekend. She works in Monte Verde as an Elementary school teacher. After dinner we headed to the Cantina, but it ooked like people had been there all day. Alex, Juniors brother, won a soccer game so it was pretty rowdy, plus 6 new girl volunteers had arrived at Iguana Chocolate. It was one of the livliest groups we had had in a long time. Because there were actually girls there, there was tons of Salsa and Mirangue. Everyhting was going fine untila couple of locals got a little too tuned up, overtuned, and began fighting in the street. Junior V. Jaguar. It got pretty intense. Alex knocked Jaguar to the ground opening a huge gash on the side of his face. Then Jaguar's two brotherstried to sucker punch Alex. With all of this mayhem Junior sat and watched from the bar. By this time Greg had gotten back so we all sat back and watched the show

Gallery: Panama

millmanapalm — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 05:50:00 GMT

October 29- Nov 1

millmanapalm — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 05:15:00 GMT

Monday 29th

Baking day! A couple of volunteers from Iguanan Chocolate stopped by to check out our awsome baking skills. They have a cobb oven but haven´t mastered it like Joey yet. Baking is an all day event. Sinead ended up helping cook every meal of the day. She should probably get paid. We also found out that Jake a Gringo boyfriend/ Alaskan Fisherman, in town got a waterborn bacterial infection of the blood similar to Denge. He got it from our swimming hole! So, we aren´t allowed to swim anymore until the rainy season ends. Joey is very sad.

Tuesday 30th

We began our final step on the shower floor. We sifted sand and mixed a concrete grout mixture with it. We finished most of the floor missing a few sections. Rae also left this morning. She was one of the slacker volunteers, so we weren´t to broken up about it. We also got two new volunteers at night. Rebbecca and Erin. They seem pretty chill, but they are vegan making cooking just a little more difficult.

Wednesday 31st

Halloween!! We finished the floor in the morning. It looks great, better than expected. Perfect for our first concrete trail and error. After lunch we all hurried to get our costumes together. Joey decided to be Imperial King. He even had a bottle cap septor. Sinead was Fauna and glued and stapled leaves to a bikini. It looked great before we left. Didn´t think it was going to be as cold as it was either. After gathering our things Mat drove us 2 and 1/2 hours to Ciudad Colon. The town were U Peace is. We came to meet up with Lyndsy and Amy for the towns Halloween party. After enjoying the best Costa Rican Pizza we went to were the party was supposed to be, just to find out it had been cancelled because of rain. We were the only 6 people in town in costume. We all went back to Amy´s house for our own party picking up some beers, a spaniard named nacho, and a canadian who sounded Irish along the way. We popped open a bottle of champagne for Sinead´s birthday at 12:00.

Thursday 1st

Sinead´s B-day! We woke up to kittens playing with our feet at Amy´s house. Got to watch tv for the first time in 2 months. Don´t miss commercials.We did find out important news on CNN. Earthquake in San Fran, and Lance Armstrong is dating Ashley Olsen. Don´t know which one is more disturbing. On our way home we ran errands in Puriscal for the Ranch. We got home mid afternoon and Joey spent the rest of the day making birthday pizza´s for dinner. 21st birthday was really mellow.

October 26- 28

millmanapalm — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 04:42:00 GMT

Friday continued.

On our way home from Puriscal four people from University for Peace got on heading for Ranch Mastatal, to hang out for the weekend. We knew 2 of the girls from a past group. On the way home, though, Sineads foot began to swell and get painful. A small cut had become quickly infected. When we got back she got a home remedy of salt water and local plants that helped immediately. Dinner was abnormally late which made some people upset, including Joey. We have a couple of slacker volunteers at the moment who had the U Peace people help with dinner but didn´t even cook themselves. All the dishes in the kitchen were used, not an easy task. Impressive under any other circumstances. We had a bonfire planned for later that night because it was a fool moon. A few volunteers from a local farm came to enjoy the festivities. It was amazing the Ranch had doubled in size over a day.

Saturday the 27th

The two slacker volunteers and the U Peace students were planning an early hike up to Leo´s. Greg had other plans. Saturday is a work day and the U Peace students were staying as volunteers and needed to earn their stay, so he had them shell beans for most of the morning. Sinead ordered produce as usual. Her foot was still swollen so Lilly( an awesome local women who works at the ranch) gathered some local herbs and made a foot tea. It was a miracle cure, not only did it make her foot numb for most of the day the infection was completely gone. Before Lunch the U Peace and some volunteers decided to go on the hike leaving us and greg at the ranch, even though Joey said he was going. So joey hoped on the Ranch bike and caught up with them at the Leo´s House after he helped me with lunch. Joey saw monkeys and Pico kill a strange rain forest rodent. It was a mellow day until the sun went down and beer pong got started. After multiple games we decided to go to the pulp, which was closed unusually early. Everyone in town partied a little to hard Friday night, so no one was out.

Sunday the 28th

Before the group left we all decided to walk to Iguana Chocolate for a tour. Iguana Chocolate is an organic Cocoa farm 1km away. Very interesting place, really small. Still make everything out of their kitchen. They also have a bio-digester installed by a renewable energy foundation at the ranch. The gas they use for cooking is methane, it comes from their Pig´s waste and water in a huge inflatable bag. The Ranch is thinking about making a human bio-digester out of the flush toilet in the main house. After the U Peace group left it was movie time. 40 Year old Virgin.

Gallery: Work in Progress

millmanapalm — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 02:29:00 GMT

October 22-26

millmanapalm — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 02:02:00 GMT

Monday, October 22

Back to work. We spent the entire day working on the front entrance to the main house. We dug holes for the post foundations and made rebar frames. We were able to pour the concrete footings after lunch. Mixing small batches is a lot easier.

Tuesday, October 23

Long day of labor. We started off with lugging Cedar boards out of the forest about half mile in. The boards were a good 30-40 pounds a piece. Sinead was able to carry out 1 at a time with a grand total of 7 boards. Joey beet everyone with 13 boards 2 at a time. Everyone at the Ranch pitched in and the Tico’s showed us the correct way of carring them. Over their heads, longwise resting on their shoulders. Our backs really hurt and joey has scabs from the boards rubbing on his back. After lunch we had just enough energy to pour the piling for the post foundation. Of course today was the first day of perfect sunny weather. We also shelled fresh black beans and had them for dinner. Fresh black beans are amazing to dried or store bought.

Wednesday, October 24

River rock day. We spent the early morning cleaning off river rocks for the shower floor. We needed smaller rocks so we decided to hike down to the river with our backpacks. It was another beautiful day without rain. We swam for a little bit then we started gathering rocks. Joey was trying to grab a rock under a bush, when all of a sudden he jumped and squealed like a little girl, for good reason. He ended up running across the second most poisonous snake in Costa Rica the Fleur de Lance. We ended up finding out later that night a man in town had died yesterday from another Fleur de Lance. After hurrying to get the rocks into our bags we started hiking back. It was heavy! We both were carrying at least 40 pounds of rocks up hill for 3 miles. It didn’t help that we were sore from yesterday. We got back just in time for lunch and to see our first Tucan. The rest of the day was spent cleaning the rocks that we gathered.

Thursday October 25

We started out our day by checking out the shower and coming up with a design for the floor. We decided on a tree design, it turned out really great with a big rock in the middle and rings of equal sized rocks as the leaves. We also did laundry in the after noon, joey added a little too much bleach an now we have tie tied work clothes. Hurray!

Friday, October 26

We head to Puriscal to let everyone know that we are still alive and enjoying our time in the rainforest. Today the trip isn’t all fun and games. We have a big chore list for the ranch. Chore list includes gathering spices, tools, building materials, cicerones, chocolate, and Sinead’s birthday present.

Weekend 20-21

millmanapalm — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 02:01:00 GMT

Saturday, October 20

We were so exhausted from Friday we spent the day reading in hammocks. Sinead was on produce again and is getting much better. Greg arrived from the Turtle reserve after lunch, so we’re back to 4 again. It was a quit night so we set up the cinema and watched a movie.

Sunday October 21

Another lazy day in the hammocks. Greg made omlettes to order for brunch, which was amazing. Nothing to report.

October 15-19

millmanapalm — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 01:59:00 GMT

Monday, October 15

Baking day! With so little people we decided to double the size of our bagels, which was amazing. Sinead also made challah for the first time since splash, and it turned out great in the cobb oven. We all had to dry our clothes on the outside of the oven while it was hot because nothing will dry right now. It won’t stop raining. Usually it will only rain in the afternoon and it heats up in the morning but it has been all day rain lately. Black mold has started to grow on the main house walls. Water also went out at the end of the day, it rained so much it exposed the water pipes and they broke. We are all very dirty. Dishes are no fun.

Tuesday, October 16

Still no water. Rae left for San Jose for a couple of days, so we’re another person down. Me and Joey started leveling out an outdoor shower underneath the Hankey. It’s a lot of digging. We also began on our forms for the concrete base. Sinead was on dinner and she made lentil and tomato chili. Water finally came on after dinner.

Wednesday, October 17

All of the formwork was kindof a waste. We had to tear it all out and redo it, but it looks better the second time around. We also went to another site in town to pick up concrete blocks and rebar, we were caught in the rain coming back. Pico hates the rain, even though he lives in the rain forest, and wouldn’t get out of the pickup until it stopped. Weird dog. Joey was on dinner and he made amazing stuffed zucchini.

Thursday, October 18

We made a rebar framework for the shower foundation and spent the rest of the day gathering materials for the concrete. Sinead got stuck driving the truck back with the concrete mix. Joey had to get out and push the car in the middle of town. All the gravel and mixing tub were ridiculously heavy and bringing them up to the Hanky house was a bitch. Greg and Matt left today after lunch. Matt will be gone two weeks and Greg only a couple of days. So, its just me, Joey, and Tom holding down the Ranch.

Friday, October 19

First thing in the morning we poured concrete. We thought one batch would do but we ended up having to make another. Mixing concrete by hand is really difficult. Lots of shoveling. Joey had to haul the sand and gravel, again, up the hill then I had to wheel barrel it down. After a long day of moving, mixing and pouring concrete we decided to reward ourselves with a couple of games of beer pong in the rain forest. We were the first people to bring the real game of beer pong to the ranch. We later went to the Pulp were Sinead was the only girl. Another normal Friday.

Weekend 13-14

millmanapalm — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 01:56:00 GMT

Saturday, October 13

Joey and Tom moved the laundry machine/rotational bucket to Jeannie’s and set up a plumbing system for it. I had to order produce again, and made homeade cheese while waiting, with leftover milk. Produce went alittle more smoothly this time. We all spent the rest of the day making perogi’s to freeze. We made butternut squash with cheese and an apple raisin one for breakfasts. Just so they are on hand for busy days.

Sunday, October 14

It was sunny for the first time in awhile. Because it was our day of we played disk golf all over the ranch. Very relaxing day.

October 11 and 12

millmanapalm — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 04:07:00 GMT

Thursday

We took it pretty easy. Joey started on the new cinima room. He made a really coolscreen for the projector. It actual rolls up and down with bamboo peices. It is Rachel´s last night at the ranch so we designated it Sushi night. Made way too much but it was amazing. We even made our own tempura. We all took Rachel to the Pulp for her last night and hung out with Alex and Junior. lots of Mirangue.

Friday

After our late night everyone draged themselves up to the main house. After breakfast we all packed into the DB(dirty brown) and made our way to Puriscal. The roads were pretty beat up with all of the rain but we made it safe and sound. It´s nice not having to take the bus.

October 6-10

millmanapalm — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 03:37:00 GMT

Saturday

Today is Joey and my 2 year anniversary. We had a lot of work to do in the morning though. I ordered produce for the first time since Robyn left. It was really difficult becuase i´m still having a hard time with spanish and I had to memorize a lot of the names of fruits and vegitables. It´s hard trying to figure out how many vegitables to buy for an entire week for 9 people, especially since i never really ate vegitables back in the states. After a lot of spanglish the Ranch had to be cleaned for the group, but no one really wanted to pitch in. It gets a little tense here now with Robyn and Timo gone. Some things just don´t get done. Joey, Greg, and Tom went on a mission into a small town to get sawdust for the composting toilets. Joey and Tom rode bikes back to town and they came back covered in mud. We were all pretty dirty by the end of the day so we all decided to go to the waterfal, pretty cold but very refreshing. The group of three women arrived right before dinner. They are three women from the university of Hawaii. Angila, the group leader, has been to the Ranch many time and she is really nice. We all played another game of King´s Cup and headed to the pulp-cantina. Lots of mirangue was danced, Joey is getting professional.

Sunday

A nice day off, Me and Joey were on dinner so we made Joey´s famous butternut squash tart. I cut my finger pretty badly so I don´t have to wash dishes for awhile, thats nice. Its hard to keep cuts from getting infected here because nothing ever really drys. The tart was amazing!

Monday

Bread day. We made another huge batch of bread for the cob oven. The bagels here are amazing, but it is an all day task getting the oven and the bread ready. It was really cold and rainy so it ook a little longer than usual. I finished the materials list for the front entrance. With Tico time it might take awhile especially with all the rain. Hopefully before we leave though! We went on another night hike with Angilia. It was great, so many animals come out at night that you wouldn´t notice. We saw a huge Jesus lizard in a tree and more of the crazy cave dwelling spiders. They actually aren´t spiders we found out, they are scorpions. Saw our first snake as well, it was really small.

Tuesday

It hasn´t really stopped raining all day. We have measured 6 inches in one day. New record. It usually rains morning or afternoon. Nothing will dry!! but it doesn´t get much colder that 70. We worked a little on our shelves but had to work on Pizza night for the group´s last night. Pizza´s here are great because we bake them off in the cob oven. We have been eating really well all week.

Wednesday

We finished our shelves!!! It took us all day but we installed them behind the bed and they look great. We wish we could take them home but it´s cool leaving our mark. When we had finished we went straight to cooking dinner. Breadbowls and soup. Great combination on a rainy night.

October 3-6

millmanapalm — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 03:24:00 GMT

Wednesday

Today was really busy. We cooked breakfast and lunch and then booked it over to our Spanish Lesson. We´ve decided to take a break from the lessons for alittle while so we can get down what we have learned so far. Rae( another volunteer) arrived tonight.

Thursday

We continued sanding our shelves. They are starting to look really good. We have so few people here, we are all starting to get a little bit of cabin fever. Joey went on a night hike with Junior and some other volunteers and they saw crazy spiders that only come out at night.

Friday

Another day in the kitchen. Me and Joey were on breakfast and lunch. It´s hard to split up so many shifts with so few people. We all spend a fair amount of time in the kitchen(some people more than others).We also cleaned alot of the houses on the Ranch beecause the last group of the season arrives on Saturday. We are very excited for new blood. At night after a tiring day of cooking and cleaning we all played a round of Kings Cup. We had a couple of really good rules going that you can only play with bottles. It´s nice here because everything is in glass becasue it can be recycled. No plastic or cans. After we took a long overdue trip to the Cantina. Frabado Noche!

Gallery: People and Places at Rancho Mastatal

millmanapalm — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 03:08:00 GMT

September 29- October 2

millmanapalm — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 03:03:00 GMT

September 29

Bila(dance). The whole town geered up all week for the town dance. People come from all over and the town gets some new blood. We didn’t realize almost everyone here is related in some way. They killed a pig the day before and all of the dogs are loving it. Joey went down to the waterfall with the group before they left. They were only here for one day. After they left we played some horseshoes. Everyone got dressed up for the big night. We went over to eat the food at the community center. It of course was pork. After eating we went back to pregame for the dance. Joey had the foresight to buy wiskey in town and whipped it out. The name of the whisky is black cock. So we made up a lot of jokes. The best one being about our drink of choice. Café con Cock. “ It will keep you up all night” or “You can’t feel it until it hits the back of your throat.” We will be getting in touch with there marketing department soon. They will want to hear from us. After joking around we went back to the dance for some meringue. As soon as we walked in we saw some one passed out on the bench. Everyone was there, the music was so loud we had to wear earplugs. The babies that were there didn’t seem to mind. We ripped it up on the dance floor until they closed. We all hung out at the bar afterwards, we were served drinks by middle school students. It was afterall a fundraiser for the school, so of course there would be middle school students serving alcohol with their teachers. Joey ordered chicherones, which is fried pork, but got something made of mainly fat and hair. The dogs ate well. Pico, the Ranch dog, followed us back and forth the whole night.

September 30

Today is Timo’s championship\ soccer game for the Pacific regionals. A few people from town play on the team so it was a big deal. All of the interns and Robin went to the game a little hungover from the night before. It did not help that it was really hot and humid. It was a great game everyone was really roudy. Of course Timo’s team won and we had a huge Caravan back to the team owner’s bar. It was great sitting in the bar listening to everyone sing Queen’s “ We are the Champios.” We all passed out really early after such a long weekend.

October 1

Timo and Robin left early in the morning. It was weird to say goodbye and not have them here. We are down to 5 volunteer’s. The day was pretty mellow.

October 2

We woke up ready to go on an all day adventure. We soon found out that we couldn’t go tubing down the part of the river that would lead us to a waterfall and hotsprings. It was a little too dangerous to go in the rainy season, so we decided to go tubing higher up were it is milder. This is Sinead first tubing adventure, and she had a little trouble in the beginning, but was pro later. Pico followed us the entire river trip. It was crazy because he hates the water so he would try to follow us on the banks. It was also 10 miles long. After the trip we walked up a cow pasture to the road. The trip only took us 2 hours so we decided to take the trek up to leo’s house and then the big waterfall. It wasn’t that sunny but was really fun.

September 23-28

millmanapalm — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 02:58:00 GMT

September 23

Me and joey were on brunch, so we made delicious potato latkes and Tom made an authentic Polish egg dish. He has told us how to pronounce it but I doubt we will ever get it. It was really good, like an egg salad fried in an egg shell. We hung out in the class room all day, I fell out of a hammock, joey lost a boomerang. I made homade enchiladas for dinner with homemade tortillas and sauce. Tyler another volunteer who has been here many times arrived tonight.

September 24

We started off the day by sealing off the back portch floor. The sealent is an all natural combination of 1 part beeswax to 3 parts linseed oil. There were five of us working on it so it went pretty fast. We had to lay the rags out afterwards because they can naturally combust on their own without constant airflow. Alll natural though! We finally moved into the Hanky. We have an amazing view from the top floor. A lot more bugs though. We had our first Spanish lesson today with a local. He pretty much wrote a bunch of Spanish on the board and told us how to pronounce them. Sinead still cannot roll her r’s.

September 25

Another workshop today, Tim and Robin are leaving soon so they are trying to teach us as much as they can before they leave.

September 26

We started our first woodworking project, we are going to make shelves for our new room. We found some great pieces of ceder and we are going to make it look very rustic. We had our next Spanish class today, it is quit a walk but worth it. Timo showed us how to make soap when we got back. It is really easy, but we will probably not make any. It’s a nice idea though. Lost water today so no one could take the shower’s they really needed. Sucked.

September 27

Worked on the shelves today, lots of sanding. A few pieces are warped but it will only make it look more rustic. Rustic meaning not very straight. It will be held up by mortis and tenons. We played horseshoes in the afternoon, it hasn’t rained too much lately so we have been able to do fun things in the afternoon.

September 28

The big group arrived today so the morning was spent cleaning and baking. It was pretty hectic with 20 people showing up, we had a lot of bread to bake. We made another amazing batch of bagels. Greg said they were the best ones he’s ever had. The group was really nice, just a little geeky. We couldn’t get them to come to the Pulp but we had a great time practicing our dance moves for Saturday night. Frabado Noche

Gallery: Ridiculous Nights at the Ranch

millmanapalm — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 03:10:00 GMT

Party Time

Gallery: Manuel Antonio State Park

millmanapalm — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 03:04:00 GMT

First Vacation

September 20-22

millmanapalm — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 02:33:00 GMT

September 20, 21, 22

Another poo glue day. We finally finished smoothing down the cob bench at the bus stop and filled in the holes on the class room. It really isn’t that bad until you see the grubs living in it. We started using the woodshop to make some sake glasses. They should turn out pretty nice for our first little wood shop project. Mat dropped off the girls who had stayed for the last few nights and Rachel went with him into Puriscal so we weren’t able to have the next workshop. Mats car got a little banged up in town. He accidentally ran into a car door someone had opened without looking. I didn’t think people actually did that. There isn’t really insurance in this country so they just had to shrug it off.

Today we had another wood working workshop and a tool sharpening workshop. The tool sharpening was really interesting. It takes a really long time to sharpen tools but there is really an art to it. There is so much equipment that can come with sharpening a chisel too. I designed a front entrance for the house and they are probably going to use it and we might be able to be the ones to build it. That will be great because it will be the first time one of my designs gets put to use. We also made our next batch of ginger beer today, this time with a little pineapple juice. It is really easy to make and ginger bugs can be a substitute for yeast.

We finally went into Puriscal today. We have to catch the bus at 5:45 in the morning so that’s not too fun but we finally get to put up our blogs and stop by a store, go to a bank. Maybe get some meat today? Haven’t really craved it yet but who knows. we also signed up to take some spanish classes on monday so hopefully that works out well.

Thats it for a couple of weeks.

September 17-19

millmanapalm — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 02:30:00 GMT

September 17, 18, 19

Joey made a embroidery ring today out of a plastic lid and bamboo. It turned out really well. Rachel is making fabric dividers for the Hanky house so it helped out a lot. I was given a design job for the front entrance of the main house. Joey also became a tour guide to the waterfall because Josh and the girls got lost going down. It was a chill afternoon. The weather is getting rainier so we aren’t as able to do projects outside.

We woke up to find that Josh had disappeared in the night. He had stayed in the Jeannie house with the new girls. They woke up to find his bed filled with pillows and a book opened and a knife on top. Very weird .He also snuck off without paying. By the way he is from Thousand Oaks, CA so that might be why. Later after coming up with different reasons why Josh was so weird me and Joey sifted clay for shmearing the cob bench and parts of the Classroom walls. The new girls were the ones who mixed the manure and the clay so that was nice. It was Jules last night at the Ranch and her last request was that we all dressed as something we wanted to be when we grew up. Joey was a competitive swimmer and I was a soccer player. People came up with some great costumes with not that much to go on.

Today we had our first workshop in furniture building. It is great because we have never ending list of furniture we can make here and we get to design it from scratch. They have plenty of power tools and hand tools here so they have some pretty amazing pieces. Now we are going to have to have a full wood working shop when we get back and a cob oven. Joey also made an amazing Butternut squash and cheese tart.

Back at the Ranch

millmanapalm — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 02:28:00 GMT

September 14, 15, 16 (Back at the Ranch)

Frabada noche! Everyone got to sleep in after our exhausting trip. We had our next baking day. Joey was on the fire again. It was a lot easier making the bread with all of the groups gone. Josh arrived today. He showed up on the back porch claiming he had walked from 20 km away. Should have realized something was up with him then.

Sabado noche! It was Costa Rican independence day and there was a lot of yelling all day at the Cantina. Nothing much else to report.

Sunday we headed to the waterfall that is just a hike down from the ranch. It wasn’t the nicest day but the waterfall was beautiful. It has carved a pretty deep hole into the ground so you can jump pretty high and still not even touch the bottom. We saw our first Jesus lizard actually running on water. It was pretty cool. We returned to the ranch to see that Matt returned with three girls that he met earlier on his trip. We then had another movie day where we watched the first Indiana Jones again to find out that it is not as good as it was when we were little. A couple that we had been hearing about our whole trip finally arrived. We had been dreading there arrival, and they were just as overwhelming as we had been told. Luckily they are only here for a day.