#TheBeatles, had they seen my friend Marcelino sitting in our kitchen on this day, might have been inspired to write a song called Costa Rican Wood – don’t you think?
For the wood nerds reading this, the wood in our kitchen is called Pochote. (Have you guessed yet what inspired me to capture these photos?)
Marcelino is an Agricultural Engineer. His experience as a farmer and his gift as a healer made him the first person we called upon to come to our place and give us ideas as to what we could do with our new parcel of land. (And our first guest, poor man. Sleeping on the floor on a blow up mattress…)
Let’s face it, we don't know anything. Harry is a city boy, I am a city girl. Marcelino kindly gave us a few days of his time. We walked together over the whole place and chatted about all the things we could grow, how we might generate our own electricity, and how we could create bio-gas. Each section of the property was evaluated for it’s best growing potential. It was all very exciting, and kind of daunting.
It became apparent that we were looking at a few years of development, not the few months we’d hoped. The idea took some getting used to (more for Harry — the rabbit of the team — than for me — a true tortoise.) So we have changed all the scribbles on our calendars and embraced it with verve. Our goal is to create a fully sustainable home in two years. Huzzah! And a million agradecimientos a Marcelino!
Originally published February 16, 2012