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.
