Meet my beautiful Aguacate tree I grew from a seed

Almost 5 years ago, our gardener gave me a couple of avocados from an old tree in his yard. At the time he told me he feared it would be the last harvest from this old tree since the annual yield had been diminishing over the past few years. Lucky for me, John doesn't like avocado, so I didn't have to share these two delicious avocados with anyone. I decided to try my hand at raising a tree from seed.

I let the seed dry for a couple of weeks and then carefully removed the brown paper-like skin from the seed, inserted 4 toothpicks and propped in over a glass of water so the water covered about ½ the seed. I changed the water frequently and was finally rewarded with a thin stem poking it's head up from the top of the seed. I continued to nurse it until the roots were nice and long the and stem was about 6 inches high and had started to leaf out. We planted the seed in rich soil in a small pot. It wasn't long before it outgrew the pot and we moved it to a larger pot. When my baby tree was about a meter tall, we decided it was time to plant it in the ground.

We picked a sunny spot in the garden, directly across from our terraza and bedroom window, and planted my baby avocado tree where I could watch it grow. The December winds of 2011 almost ripped my tree out of the ground, so John had to rig up some rope anchors just to keep it vertical.

My beautiful avocado tree has been growing for several years. It must be close to 8 meters tall (25 feet) now, and so healthy it can withstands any wind mother nature wants to whip up. I wasn't sure it would ever produce any actual fruit, but I never gave up hope. This month I was rewarded with hundreds of blossoms. If we get some help from mother nature, these blossoms will get pollinated, and we just might have some avocado fruit to share in a few months.

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The Sweetest Little Pineapple Ever!

Sometime in late 2012, we bought a delicious pineapple at the local farmers' market. After we enjoyed the fruit, I decided to see if I could actually grow a pineapple, so I stuck the crown in a pot full of good potting soil and set it out on our Terraza just to see what would happen. This past November it bloomed.

We've been carefully watching this little baby because we've been warned that the iguanas love to eat them as soon as they get ripe.

As you can see in the photo, the fruit was really coming along by the end of December.



Today was the day! Our totally organic, homegrown, fully ripened pineapple was picked, measured and consumed.

The fruit topped out at just over 18" with the crown, and a circumference of 14". Once I removed the crown it was slightly over 6" tall.

I trimmed it into 8 wedges and John and I enjoyed one of the sweetest pineapples we have ever eaten.

I think I'm going to plant this little crown too and see what happens next year. Who knows, I may be planting pineapple crowns all over the garden and harvesting our own little crop in the future.

¡Pura Vida!
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Landscaping around the Casa

We found a great little nursery this past week called "Vivero Morazan", and you guessed it, it located in Barrio Morazan of Atenas. They have a great selection of trees, ornamental shrubs and herbs, with better prices than we have found elsewhere.

Since we are still in the rainy season, we decided to go ahead do some landscaping this weekend and take advantage of the nursery's great prices. John did all the hard work (thanks my love), while I just pointed to where to plant things. If everything he planted takes off like we expect it to, this place will be a showplace in no time.

We bought about 10 Bougainvillea bushes, in multiple colors, to plant along our property wall, several small shrubs and decorative grasses for our entryway, and lemon grass (citronella) for the border around our Terraza (Here's hoping we can keep the insects at bay). We also bought a beautiful 5' palm tree, a mandarin lime tree, an oregano bush and a limonella tea bush. We spent less than $60 U.S. for all of it and I'm ready to go back for more.

Bougainvillea (photo from Wikipedia)

When the Bougainvillea takes hold, we should have gorgeous cascading blooms of color all along our wall and the thorny nature will act as a deterrent to the kids that like to climb the trees on our parkway.

Limón Mandarina (photo from Wikipedia)

The mandarin lime, or Limón Mandaring, is a hybrid cross between a tangarine and a lemon. It is absolutely the best juice you can use in Ceviche and on meats. It is also commonly used to make a lemonade with a slight orangy taste. Very yummy.

One of these days I'll get around to taking photos of the Casa and our landscaping.  In the meantime, all the best to family, friends and followers.
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Retirement - Days 7 & 8: The first harvest from our Mango tree

A little over a year ago, we planted lots of fruit trees and here is the first harvest from our Mango tree. It is amazing how fast everything grows here in the tropics.


 
The boys have settled into life in the tropics, as you can see in this photo of John and his pack. Randy is just a little jealous, but he will always be top dog. Gus is doing well, we just need to get him to stop chewing everything in sight.

Yesterday, I got a little creative and cooked a meatloaf in the electric skillet. It actually came out pretty amazing and much better than I expected. It takes longer and you have to turn it over about half way through the cooking time to brown it on both sides. Since meatloaf always needs a tomato sauce topping, I decided to experiment and try my hand at some homemade tomato ketchup. I used some fresh limes from a friend's tree, garlic, wine vinegar, tomato paste and splenda. I think I like it better than any store bought brand I've had. Heinz, better watch out, you may have to make room for some new competition.

Last nights dinner with meatloaf, rice and a salad was delicious. Today we need to pick up some bread at the bakery so we can enjoy some leftover meatloaf sandwiches for lunch.

Cooking in the little casita has certainly been challenge with the lack of space and tools. I have to use all my inventive skills to create interesting meals. I can't wait for our 40' container to arrive next month. Then I'll have a real gas range with a real oven. I'm more than ready to activate my sourdough starter and get back to bread baking.
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Retirement +1: Toad Licking

Toads in Costa Rica are known to be dangerous but little did I know ... Before moving to CR, we had made contact with a Costa Rican dog rescue center because they had a cute 2 year old fox terrier which we thought would be a great companion for our 8 year old Jack Russell terrier, Randy. Alas, the night of July 11, the little fox terrier tried to eat a CR cane toad and died shortly thereafter. Having been out of contact because of the move, I didn't read the news of the little guy's demise until today, July 13. Coincidentally, our friends who picked us up at the San Jose airport on the 12th also warned us to watch Randy to make sure he didn't try to eat a toad.

That was enough for me. In my usual calmly freaked out way, I began a frenzied search of the Internet for information about the local toads and post-exposure countermeasures in case (when) Randy ran into one.

I was sitting out on the front porch, reading, getting more and more cranked up about the damn toads when a neighbor walked up. She wanted to show us how she thought that our back yard level was causing her (lower leveled) house to leak water through the walls. Standing there in the lawn, I remembered seeing a huge toad back there about a year ago. I was "on alert."

Suddenly, there was movement across the yard. Randy and I saw it at about the same instant. He took off running and barking; I took off running and yelling for him to stop [Note to self: When are you ever going to learn that once a Jack Russell's brain locks onto whatever it is chasing, yelling is pointless? Atomic bomb blasts would be pointless. Remember, there's no stopping a Jack on a roll.]

However, all of the yelling, combined with Randy's being a little off his game due to all of the events of the past few days, caused the boy to falter in the deep lawn and we arrived at the toad simultaneously. I managed to hook my toes under his chin and spun him sideways. Almost in control. Pat got to the spot just a couple of seconds later and grabbed our nitwit up off the ground.

And there I was ... face to face with a 6-inch freakin' classic example of what a Costa Rican poison toad looks like. Only 1 knife.

ONLY ONE KNIFE!! There. I've admitted it to the world. I was caught in a strange country, fresh from an airplane trip and had yet to properly re-equip myself, even though almost 24 hours had passed. The shame.

The one knife was a Byrd standard Rescue sheepsfoot serrated blade. That means no point on the blade, folks. Just super-sharp serrations.

Here comes the lesson ...

"No matter what a great and grand Blade Master you are, NEVER, EVER, hit a poison toad with a full swing slashing blow. Too much blood spatter, and, er, poison spatter."

The toad was thusly dispatched and carefully loaded into a plastic bag using the "picking up doggie poop" method.

But the knife was a mess. The yard was a murder scene. And unbeknownst to Mr. Blade Master, a bit of the gore had found a home at a tiny spot on my lip.

I cleaned the knife very thoroughly in running hot water and soap, then oiled it down. I also re-washed my hands and went back to the front porch to finish my poison toad research.

My lip tingled a little. A few minutes later, it was more than a tingle. It was very much like a shot of dental Novocain in the lip. I almost instantly figured this one out.

A quick dash to the bathroom and a hard scrub down with baby wipes, followed by soap and water, followed by about a 5 minute full-on blasting with city water. Then I looked in the mirror. Leapin' liz ... er, toads!

"Mah lip was all blowed up." Cripes. Yipes.

Pat really let me know that she did not enjoy seeing this. Silly girl. She wondered if the next moment would bring convulsions and cardio-pulmonary arrest. I assured her that my research verified that no such arresting had ever happened (I lied.) But I did know that just from a little brush with "toad licking," there wasn't much possibility of any serious affect.

So, we ate lunch: me trying not to bite my own fat lip; Pat watching for me to keel over. A good half hour into it, Pat took the photo. An hour after that, and I'm able to write this. No biggie.

I'll let you know if my face falls off.


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Our Tropical Christmas - 2010

We just spent a wonderful Christmas vacation in Costa Rica where we ate more than our fair share of Christmas Tamales.







The garden is looking fabulous. Mario, our gardener, is doing a wonderful job. All of the trees we planted in May have doubled or tripled in size and the lawn is now well established. We didn't have a Christmas tree this year, but we did manage to string up lights on the casita.




Here is John standing next to our Cashew tree.







Mario has managed to bring this little Mango tree back to life. Jenny planted it about 3 years ago and it had been struggling.










The Almond tree is really starting to grow and should provide good shade on this side of the casita.










Our Valencia Orange has tripled in size and is already producing fruit.

We attended many holiday parties and dinners and made lots of new friends this trip. Our neighbor Max threw a party for his employees and clients. We met a couple, close to our age, and had such a good time with them, we arranged to met for lunch a few days later. We went to the Machu Picchu restaurant in San Jose. The food there is outstanding and you should try to go there if you get the chance.

One evening Mario and Dinia invited us over for homemade Chicharrones. Mario and Dinia are really great folks. They embody everything we love about the Ticos. The friendship they have extended to us is just wonderful. They provided us with transportation to and from airport. Shortly after they dropped us off at our casita, they came over with a huge basket of fresh fruit and a week later they showed up with more. They went out of their way to help us with a number of things we needed to get fixed around the casita. We are so grateful to count them among our friends.

We celebrated Maritza's and my birthday one evening with her, Vinicio and the rest of her family. It was great to see all of our extended family. Like all kids, their grandkids are growing up just too fast.
One of the best parties we went to was hosted by our friend, Eliercer, near Grecia. This is CR at its best! He and his church members put on a Christmas Fiesta for the area poor. Well over 100 kids, babies to pre-teens, waited for hours to get into the Fiesta. Once inside, they were entertained with games, a clown, "dreamsicles" hot dogs with slaw & all the dressings, ice cream, soda, piñatas full of candy. Finally, each child received a nice toy present and a bag filled with apples and grapes.

After the kids party we had "Olla de Carne" for lunch with Eliercer and his family. Then we went to see friends in Alajuela for afternoon coffee and more food.






We spent Christmas Eve with my Tico "son" and his family where we enjoyed a roasted pork leg with all the traditional trimmings. We watched the little ones pass out presents to everyone to open and then it was time to tuck them in bed so they could wait for the Niño Jesus to arrive with their "special" presents.







We had a wonderful time and we were so sad to see our vacation come to an end. We were in the midst of packing on Christmas Day for our trip home on the 26th, when Eliercer and his family surprised us. They showed up in the late afternoon with Christmas Tamales. We brewed some coffee in the chorreador and I made up a platter of cheeses and crackers. We sat outside on the casita's porch to enjoy the impromptu fest with good friends in perfect weather. ¡Pura Vida!
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It's a jungle out there!

This past February I spent 6 weeks in Atenas getting work done around our casita. We built a perimeter concrete wall with chain link fencing, put in a sprinkler system, poured a driveway and added an electric gate. Then I came back with John in May, at the start of the rainy season, to plant the grass, trees and shrubs. We were really hoping to plant some sort of fast growing, climbing vine on the side of the house that bakes in the sun all day. We decided to plant Jalapa.


What a great choice! This is a photo in June, just after John planted the Jalapa. He built a framework of nylon string for the vines to attach themselves and start the climb to the top of the fence.

Here you can see how well it had grown by the end of August. Notice, you can still see through the fence.

And this is the amazing growth as of yesterday. Yea, we have shade and privacy, what more could we ask for in just 5 months.




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Our New Hydroponic Garden

What a busy day! I helped John replace the weather stripping on the French doors that open to the deck. We had some rain water coming in from time to time and hopefully this will fix it. Then we setup a new hydroponic garden in the kitchen breakfast nook.

This summer has been brutally hot, with very little rain. My herbs have really suffered and I'd really like the keep them growing throughout the year. Yesterday, John had the brilliant idea to setup a hydroponic garden. So off we went to buy all the supplies we needed.

Today we setup the garden and cleaned all the soil of the plants to be transplanted. Everything has now been re-planted and we have Sweet Basil, Mint, Greek Oregano and Italian Flat Leaf Parsley all getting used to their new hydroponic home indoors. I really hope I do better with my hydroponic herb garden than I've done in the past with my outdoor gardens. It's so much tastier to cook with fresh herbs.

John also planted a Mother-in-law's Tongue in a 5 gallon hydroponic container similar to one he had several years ago. Mother-In-Law's Tongue (also called Sanseveria or Snakeplant) is known for it's ability to purify the air. I'm not sure how many you have to have planted to enjoy these benefits. In any case, it is a very forgiving plant, it is very low maintenance and it doesn't even care if it's root bound. Sounds like the perfect indoor plant for my black thumb.
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