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Cows and Day 1 of the Backhoe!

I have been working on this blog a large part of the afternoon but keep getting interrupted by the friendly cow!  The fence around her pasture, next to our house, is broken and three times I have ha  d to chase her out of the yard, away from flowers and down the road back to where she belongs.
Don and Dario are now repairing the fence!!!  Also, Elian, Maria Valaria and her brother arrived with a baggie full of small leaves to take care of the "Pulgas".  Thanks to Google Translate I learned that the leaves needed to be rubbed on Skeeter to get rid of fleas!  The four of us proceed to lie on the floor with Skeeter and rub every part of his body with the special leaves.  Wish I had a picture but I was too busy eradicating Skeeter's fleas!  A fun time was had by all including the dog!

My last adventure with the cow came about because Don came by the house honking to let me know the cow was in the road.  He had just made a trip to the San Ramon Emergency room to have his hand x-rayed; which, by the way, he had injured at least 2 weeks ago.  He did not return alone, it seems, as Roberto and his parents were with him---which is why I had cow duty.  Roberto's Mother had been in the hospital the last two weeks and had been released today.  It was Roberto's idea to finally get Don's hand looked at here at the Clinic in Berlin. The Clinic sent him to the Emergency room for x-rays but because of our delayed Residency statis and NO health care, Don refused the treatment!  Now that the cow is in the pasture and Don is home safe, maybe I can fill you in on what has been happening with us at the property. On. Saturday the 9th Paco and his backhoe arrived to work on our "driveway" and our homesite.  By the time I arrived at the finca, a few hours after Don and the backhoe, our future Talapia Pond was already created and Paco was ready to start pulling some large dead trees up from the side of our very steep hill.  Paco's dog rides along on his backhoe and he and Skeeter (yes, Dog finally has a name) were wary friends.

Does it look like he's going to slide down the hill?  I think we all thought so at moments.  Don & Roberto are down below hooking the chains around the dead trees that we want removed!  A bit nerve wracking to watch but very successful! Here it comes! Both sectiions are finally on top and added to our growing  burn pile and all are safe! Paco is so good at running the backhoe that it seems like it is an extension of his body.  It also looks like a dinasour the way he hops it around and gets in the right position.  It was actually great fun to watch which is what we did the whole day while offering direction when needed It is now time to start moving the pile of topsoil that is currently blocking the view and in the way of where we wish to put our house. Paco removed Cana and fruit trees which were also deftly lifted and carried to the burn pile with the dead trees. As you can see, we have quite a bit of top soil and a good sized burn pile.  This picture was taken early and by the time we were finished with all the tree removals and backhoe work the burn pile was at least twice as large. One more balancing act along the side of the steep embankment to remove a disruptive orange tree.  There are many kinds of citrus trees in Costa Rica and we have a number of them on our property.  The one being removed is in the middle of the coffee, not necessarily a bad thing, because it was a sour orange and the sour orange trees have 2 - 2 1/2" spikes on the branches.  Needless to say, it made working around those particular coffee plants painful.  The reason we have so many citrus trees in with the coffee is because they are used as shade. The last job of the day is to make sure everything is smooth and level.  It was a long day and much was accomplished--we were very pleased!  Monday Poco and his backhoe will return to do the work on our "driveway".
 Kathleen McD said...

Hey Sharon, I have read that dawn dish soap does a number on fleas! Looks like things are moving along. How is dads hand? Hope everything is all right? Send our love. Kath
