The Garden Along Our Place

There is a small garden area off the side of our place. Three of our windows look out to it. It was so covered with weeds that after pulling all the weeds, tilling, and planting, our landlord’s wife asked if we had put up the winding stone barrier to contain the garden. She’s really quite thrilled that we planting there as well as in all the pots she gave us. The dirt along the house isn’t very good. Even after after 1 bag of top soil, 1 bag of compost, some organic clay buster, and adding some manure, it’s just not that great. In hindsight more topsoil and compost should have been added. I guess there is always next year. But before we give up, check out what we did…

My buff handsome hubby tilling.

Here is part of the tilled garden, hens and chicks succulents, and irises.

Aren’t they so lovely?!

Dirt ready for planing seeds (with leftover plastic spoons from our BBQ as labels), seeds and raspberry bushes from Marissa, more seeds from Kate and Sita, and my trowel (Jim is adamant that it’s not a shovel).

What a perfect way to give away seeds!

Aren’t they so lovely? Each type looked so different from the others.

After both the community garden and our home garden planted Jim and I enjoyed the lovely weather. Check out some of the pots:

Everything is looking much more vibrant than when I last took the photos, but I wanted to document the early stages. About a week after planting the seeds some of the radishes started to poke up (see below). The arugula, kale, squash, and peas are looking good too, but the beets, romaine and spinach haven’t appeared. Maybe they won’t. I’m not too worried as I’ve got all of those things growing in the community garden. Sadly, the raspberry bushes didn’t make it. The weather has been too chilly and they just couldn’t take it. I am sad about this as they were transplants from Marissa’s garden and I also love raspberries. Along with the veggies, we bought some and then were also gifted some flower seeds. They have been dispersed throughout our home garden and many are starting to appear! More photos later!

Our Hammock and Tales of The Naughty Puppy

At the beginning of November Jim and I were up in Monteverde with his mom Susy. Jim had been wanting a hammock for our place bad. In a small shop he found the one (I helped choose the color). It took a while for us to see our landlords and get their permission to drill holes (which they swiftly gave us the green light on as they had been meaning to do the same for ages) and then borrow a drill from a neighbor. Jim spent the first part of an afternoon getting it all set up and then the latter part reading and relaxing in it.

Now for a tale of the naughty puppy. The naughty puppy is our youngest, Lita (a.k.a. Litalu, Lita Lubeck, LuLu, Baby Hippo, Racing Pig, Blackie, Pero Negro y Cafe, and Monkey). So since we’ve been in Costa Rica both she and her sister, Sasha, have loved their freedom to roam the neighborhood and run on the beach when we take walks in the afternoon. At the beginning there were a couple times when Lita would go on one of her morning adventures and not come back when we would call her. But we had to leave for appointments in Jaco, so we left her, always finding her patiently waiting on the porch when we got back. She also would sometimes go swimming in the river behind our house, returning a yucky mess. Other times she’d eat all the cat food left out for the neighborhood cats at the guard shack or get fed human food (which is a big no-no in our house) by people and then vomit it up later (thank you tile floors). She also had been spotted by the tienda closer to the main road, in a neighboring community, and down the road toward the beach playing kissy-face with her boyfriend. We let all these things pass, forgiving her but then a couple bigger events occurred.

First, one morning I heard what I thought was two men yelling at each other. I found it strange, but let it go as it stopped after about five minutes. Shortly after that our neighbor (and H.O.A. president) Arlene walked up to the house with Lita trip-tropping behind her. I went out onto the porch to greet her and she told me that is would probably be best if I kept Lita inside for the day. I asked why and she explained. There was a guy (whom she had never met) working on one of the houses in our community. He had put his food for his lunch on the ground and Lita (being her curious, always hungry self) ate it. He had caught her in the act and had thrown a fit, yelling (it was only him I had heard, not two men) at her and threatening to hack her to pieces with his machete. Luckily Arlene intercepted.

Two weeks later she was escorted by one of our guards, Luis, back to our house explaining in Spanish (thank goodness for Jim’s sister Meg’s Spanish capabilities) that she was out by the guard shack and had run into the road when a man and his girlfriend were riding by on their motorcycle. The driver had swerved (in order not to hit her) and they fell, getting only a couple scratches but the bike got trashed a bit. Luis had gone out and explained that the dog belonged around here and to please not harm her. We asked him if he could ask the man with the motorcycle (who lives in the area) if there is anything we can do to mend their motorcycle and to please let them know we were so very sorry. The next day we found out the man requested that we pay for the repairs, which were going to cost $100. We gladly gave Luis the money, he gave it to the man who was grateful, and the bike was fixed in couple days later.

We may have mended that situation, but that was the last straw concerning Lita’s naughtiness. We had been keeping a close watch on her, not allowing her to wander anymore, but that wasn’t making her or us happy. When in town one day, Jim picked up some items from the hardware store and then created a pulley-system that allows her to lay on our front porch, drink from our outdoor water bowl, be in the grass, under the carport, and even walk to the end of our driveway to see people walking by. It’s a bit like a dog-run and I must say it’s working, even if she does wrap herself around the carport poll sometimes. She also still gets to run free at the beach with Sasha when we take our afternoon walks. Happy Lita and happy us. Look how cheerful she looks?