october 21

I worked most of the day in the fields with Grant. Breakfast was half a kiwi each with the last of the cereal (we made the box last 6 bowls, or 3 bowls each). We also have a new favorite: toast with cream cheese, honey and a sprinkle of pumpkin pie spice. Perfect when you don’t have anything else that’s sweet. We spent all morning raking the paths around the Conservatory. It’s not hard to rake, but it is hard to carry all the bags of leaves to the compost pile, which is inevitably uphill from where you are. You have to be careful not to rake all the rocks off the path also. From 11:30-12:30 I sat in the reception for Erika while she took her lunch. Then grant and I headed home to find a crew of people paving the street in front of our house. They’re working their way down toward the main road. I can’t imagine just now getting concrete in front of my house. After lunch we finished raking, then we shoveled dirt. As soon as we got started on the giant dirt pile, we got calls to lead a tour for English speaking tourists, and Grant went to do it. It took him so long to finished that I ended up turning over the entire pile of dirt by myself. I also finished tearing all the old vines down by the time we closed. I walked down the hill with Erika, and on our way we ran into the veggie truck. She helped me buy 4 tomatoes, 4 onions and a bag of apples. I should have gotten way more since the grocery stores here are lacking in produce, but Grant wasn’t with me and it’s hard because it’s a struggle to understand people in the best of circumstances, but the veggie guys have really strong accents and they talk really fast. When we got home, Grant and I worked on laundry since it rained all afternoon. You can’t fall behind on laundry because you’ll run out of clean clothes and it’s hell trying to catch back up. The clothes have been drying slower too since it’s been pretty rainy lately. Before dinner we went to the local supermarket and bought things for cookies: flour, white sugar, 2 blocks of raw brown sugar, margarine, vanilla and baking soda. We also bought achiote paste, some pastry things and cheetos (I’ve been craving them like crazy, which is strange since I never eat them at home). We calculated it when we got home, and the guy actually undercharged us. Not hard to do since everyone adds stuff up on little calculators. Some things were a bit more pricey than in La Fortuna, but others were actually less expensive. We made cabbage and onions plus boiled carrots and greenbeans for dinner, with fried yucca from lunch.