Otra cerveza, por favor

While we still had a lot of fun while being at the La Mariposa and a great time exploring the area around there, it didn't feel like the vacation really started until we got to San Juan del Sur.

We had one whole week with the only thing planned was a few days of surfing lessons for Keith. And for me, thankfully no more small talk with with the other people at Spanish school! It's not that they weren't nice people but get a bunch of travelers together and it's the goddamn "oh, what you haven't been there?' one upmanship olympics-it's worse than hipsters. FYI no one cares about that one week in Egypt 20 years and you've already told than ONE story 3 times and the details get embellished every single time!

I was ready for peace and quiet and a beer and a Nica libre, or 5.

And here it was, our rental house actually called Casa La Serena. Wow, this place was beautiful.



Of course getting there was a little complicated. First, we showed up the meet the manager who was going to give us the keys and show us how to get there and that did not go as planned, but it all worked out, just a little later than expected.

And the drive there was a little bumpy, down a dirt road, but it was worth it. San Juan del Sur is known as a loud party town and Casa La Serena was the opposite of that!

While it was hard to break away and leave this gorgeous place, we had to go watch the Super Bowl! On the beach, in Nicaragua! And I got to use the very useful phrase: Otra cerveza, por favor! (Another beer, please)





We woke up Monday morning to the birds chirping and howler monkeys playing in the trees! I really didn't want to leave!



But the beach, Playa Maderas, was just a few minutes away! The beaches in downtown San Juan del Sur were packed with tourists and vendors, not this place!





The next day I spent at the same beach, while Keith went surfing. He had booked surfing lessons for 2 hours a day for 3 days. So our plan for that day was that he should be back to the house by about 2 or 3pm and should have time to stop at the fish market to pick up whatever fresh for dinner. Nope!

While he did only have about 2 hours of surfing lessons, there were hour(s) long breaks and thankfully there was WIFI so he let me know what was going on, mainly so I wouldn't worry that he had been eaten by a shark or something! Whatever! He had a great time!



I did not realize that I could just tag along on these surfing days, so I did for the next 2 days. The next day we went to Playa Hermosa. This beach was slightly more crowded, but since we were based at the Playa Hermosa Ecolodge it was also full of amenities like chaise lounges and and delicious Pina coladas.





I think even attempting to surf is a combination of bravery and crazy, and that's Keith!

After surfing, we finally got the the fish market where we went a little crazy and bought 2 lbs of lobster tails-yes, they are small but they were delicious! And Keith got not one but 2 whole red snappers and we spent about 20 bucks. Before making dinner we had time to catch the sunset down at our beach (I mean Playa Maderas).





Third and last day of surfing lessons for Keith. He as back at Playa Remanso where he had his first day of lessons. The waves here seemed huge to me!




I could watch that wipe out video a million times! I thought Keith was super lucky to not get hit on the head by the board on that one! That day was the roughest on him and while he was getting bruised up in the ocean, I was sitting in the shade drinking cocktails all day at Tacos bar and grill. I could have stayed there all day!



Just one more lazy day at the beach and it was time to get going.

We had to turn our rental car in and get a ride back to the capital, Managua, to an early flight home. We were hoping for a good last dinner in Nicaragua, but last nights always turn out kind of weird. Drinks at 1979 were fun, but we were the only people there and we decided to search out dinner elsewhere-even though they were letting me DJ! Rocking out to Tacocat in an empty bar in Nicaragua was pretty great!

The Korean place we wanted to go to was having a private party, and after wondering for a bit we realized it was either go in the mall to find a food court or something (no!) or that one Chinese place that looks open. So our last dinner was at a massive Chinese restaurant that was already decorated for Valentine's Day, last night is always weird.

But at least we had a chance to walk around the 'Trees of Life' that are very controversial and just kind of odd.





But wait, there's more!

As many of you know, our beloved Subaru up and died on the way to Boise and we had to decide what kind of car we were going buy so we could get home. Just the kind of thing you want to do the day you get back from vacation!

We had decided on a Honda CR-V and had emailed with the dealership that while we would still look like hobo's when we got there, they'd at least be expecting us.

So here she is! Before getting a new car, I told Keith we should name it bobo-my favorite Spanish word, the word for silly or fool. Bobo the clown car, full of goats and the crazy folks who love them! I fear this car is a little to classy for that, but maybe we can wear her down a little!



As I am writing this, the snow is coming down like crazy! Keith is out snowboarding, Bear wants to play catch in the blowing snow and I just want to go back to Nicaragua!

And wow! Our thumbs made it in a lot of pics of this trip! Oh, well!

I wrote it down, but I don't remember

I kind of hate writing vacation summary blogposts. For one, it means that it is really and truly over, but it's also that as soon as we get home, I have so many other things on my mind that it's hard to sit down on focus on the past few weeks.

But even if I don't really like writing them, and even if you don't really like reading them, I do it. I do it mainly to remember these past 3 weeks in the coming months and years, to remember the name of that beach we went on the second day in San Juan del Sur or the names of our Spanish language teachers and so much more.

So here were are, let's go back to Nicaragua.

We spent our first 2 weeks in Nicaragua at the La Mariposa Spanish school and Eco-hotel. I was terrified of these 2 weeks. I took French in high school and college, so at least I was somewhat familiar with the grammar, but years of 'classes' that were basically just watching French movies with English subtitles did not prepare me at all to really speak another language. Thanks public school.

The first day was completely overwhelming. We flew into Managua late on Monday night, got picked up by the school and drove about an hour to where we were staying. Got up early the next morning, thinking that we weren't going to class that day because they had told us the night before it was just going to kind of an orientation day. Nope! Breakfast with a gaggle of other people there learning Spanish and straight off to class. I was not ready.

But I had to be. Keith (who actually speaks Spanish) started his first day with tests to see where to begin his classes while I started with the alphabet and flash cards.

We weren't staying at the eco-hotel/school but in one of their cabins about 10 minutes away at the 'reserva'. So we fell into a routine: Get up around 6:30 to shower and get ready, walk over to the school for breakfast that was at 7:30, eat then classes. Classes were from 8-10 then 10-12. My schedule was conversation first then grammar for the whole 2 weeks. I really liked my first conversation teacher Leyda. Once she realized that I really was a beginner, that's where we started with the alphabet, colors and books like My First Spanish Word book. I am not embarrassed at all to say that this was really hard!

After conversation was grammar. I was dreading grammar more than conversation, but I shouldn't have been. I had the same teacher the whole 2 weeks, Mariam. She was great! I hadn't realized that the conversation and grammar would kind of work together to help build (my teeny, tiny) vocabulary. And when we started making fun of Keith while learning the 2 different verbs for 'to be' in Spanish: Keith es aburrido OR Keith esta aburrido, Spanish started to kind of make sense.

Here is where we would meet up, have breakfast and such.



The grounds of the hotel/school were littered with tiny classrooms. This is where I had most of my grammar classes with Mariam.




And while we did have 4 hours of class a day and a fair bit of homework, there was still a lot of fun to be had too!

We relaxed at the beach of Laguna de Apoyo.



Went to the Masaya Volcano aka the 'boca del inierno'. The pictures aren't great because you go there at night so you can both see and hear the lava in it's crater. It's amazing how close you can get!



We spent a day in Leon, which was hot and beautiful. We spent some time, both inside and on top of the Cathedral of Leon, the largest cathedral in Central America.

We also ate Keith's favorite meal on the whole vacation, street food called chanchon con yucca, which is marinated pork served over yuca topped with slaw all served in a banana leaf-it was delicious!





We went to both Masaya and San Juan de Oriente, each known for their fine craftsmanship. Masaya is known for their hand made hammocks-I wish we had bought one!, wood carving and their beautiful Mercardo de Artesanias-market where local crafts are sold. San Juan de Oriente is a small town full of artisans that focus on pottery and ceramics. There were got a pottery making demonstration-in Spanish of course!






We also learned about the history of Nicaragua. There was a weekly lecture about the political history of Nicaragua and we also went to a few museums where we learned all things Sandino. We went to Augusto Sandino's (kind of) childhood home-kind of because he was a bastard that only eventually left his peasant mother to live with his wealthy father. He fought both the US Marines who were occupyng Nicaragua and the Us backed Somoza family dictatorship. He was murdered by the Somoza controlled National Guardsmen in 1934 and the Somoza family stayed in power until 1979. He is remembered as Nicaragua's national hero and often referred to as 'The little man, who lived in a little hut, with a big heart'(he was only about 5 ft 2 in)



In 1979, the Sandinista party-named after Sandino, overthrew the Somoza dictatorship. They had been founded in the 1960s and with years of fighting, plus a massive earthquake that leveled the capital city of Managua, they finally prevailed. In the Sandinista's had 2 years of power they worked to eradicate polio, increase the literacy and education, an promote equality for women. But of course the US sees the Sandinista party as communists and sees that they're working with Cuba, so they fund the Contras (the Somoza families National Guardsmen) and war breaks out-again. Everything about Nicaraguan history was embarrassing to hear as an American, see Iran-Contra (Regan illegally funding the war in Nicaragua was just one shitty part of that bit of history).

And all this history is incredibly simplified! If you're interested, look it up!



BUT lets go back to Spanish!

Learning Spanish (or any other language!) is really hard! We are going to try to keep it up at home as much as we can. But while learning in Nicaragua, we did have a few funny Spanish mishaps. I probably don't even know all of mine, but some I remember: conjugating a verb wrong I accidentally learned the work for fart-pedo. Always useful!

That time Keith tried asking for ground coffee-cafe molido and instead asked for miracle coffee-cafe milagro.

So many days I would be trying to remember some great saying or phrase I learned just hours earlier. I need to learn 'I wrote it down, but I don't remember' in Spanish.

I mentioned that we stayed in a cabin a little way away from the school. I liked getting away from all the other folks learning Spanish, so I could just hang out, have a Nica libre (rum and coke), do my homework while snuggling puppies!
This is where we stayed.



And this in Chiva, my favorite dog in all of Nicaragua! Her name basically means goat kid (kinda perfect!) and she helped me do my homework every night and sometimes she was waiting for us on the doorstep-yes I wanted to bring her home!




The view outside out cabin was my kind of view and pretty hilarious.



OK! Next up will be a much shorter post that will basically just be videos of Keith surfing and pictures of gorgeous beaches!

Thanksgiving 2017: about 9 months in the making

It's no secret that our favorite holiday is Thanksgiving. No presents or even decorating, just lots and lots of food and friends.

This year was day after Thanksgiving Thanksgiving for us since Keith was (and currently is) working this whole weekend. Which just meant that most of our friends got 2 big dinners this year-no one was complaining!

I was nog sure if we were going to raise turkeys this year. I needed to raise something that I could feed all the gallons of protein rich whey that is a by product of making cheese all summer and the options are pigs or turkeys. While I really want pigs, we are already set up for turkeys. Also I happened to be at Grain Growers when they only had a few turkeys chicks left and were looking to get rid of them-perfect timing!

So at the end of March I brought home 5 turkey chicks and popped them straight in the greenhouse with the ducklings I raised this year.




And while the turkeys grew bigger everyday, I worked in the garden to get the rest of Thanksgiving going. Potatoes and squash was planted, root vegetables seeded, onion starts planted.

As I said in the previous post, this was an amazing tater year. With my goal being 100 lbs of potatoes and actually producing 150 lbs, we clearly had enough to makes loads of mashed potatoes! One of the varieties I grew this year is called Mountain Rose and it produces bright pink potatoes, so this year we had pink mashed potatoes this year for dinner!


I have no idea how many pounds of winter squash or beets/carrots/turnips we grew this year, but again, more than enough. Squash was roasted up to make puree for the (not) pumpkin pie and also went in to the sweet potato casserole. Beets, carrots, turnips along with loads of onions and garlic were roasted up for the corn bread with roasted fall vegetable stuffing.



Since I got the turkey chicks to early, by September they were ready to be slaughtered. Thankfully I didn't have to do it! I drove the turkeys, along with some chickens and ducks, to Wallowa to be slaughtered and processed there. I brought them alive and barely contained in boxes and picked them up the same afternoon all packaged up and ready to go!

We ended up with 2 toms and 2 hens. The toms weighed 36 lbs each and the hen 22 lb.




It took 9 days to thaw out a 36 pound turkey, then we brined it for a few more days.

Keith helped get the giant bird in the oven before heading out to the hospital yesterday morning. A quick rub down of (homemade) butter and lemon zest under the skin before it was loaded with stuffing and stuffed inside the oven and of course the obligatory photo of the turkey being bigger than our cocker spaniel!




As usual, I have almost no pictures of actual Thanksgiving. We had about 25 friends over and they all also made delicious food! Chatting, drinking, eating- there really isn't any time to take pictures! Amazingly everything turned out great and I was only frustrated with Keith a couple of times! We all made an insane amount of food and I think (hope) everyone got to take a fair bit of their favorites home.



And instead of cleaning up after a giant party today, I get to mostly just hang out since everyone helped do all the dishes and get everything put away last night-amazing!

And I am so thankful!

Thankful to have a husband who supports all the crazy things I want to do, thankful for being able to be physically able to do all the crazy things I want to do, thankful for all our animals-we have most of them their whole lives and no matter how short or long that is they all bring so much joy and silliness to our lives, besides being delicious and producing eggs and milk we enjoy every day, thankful for all the friends in my life and for all the happiness and richness they bring to my life, and thankful to our families who still feel close even though we are so far away.

Love you all and hope you had a great Thanksgiving!

Garden 2017: The Aftermath

It's the first day of fall and here it is cold and blustery with fresh snow on the mountains. And while a lot of the garden and greenhouse are finished for the season, there is still so much work to do!



And a lot of the work is so tedious! This year I decided to try to grow dry beans. I seeded 3 different kinds of beans in the greenhouse and only one of them produced anything, the flageolet vert dry bean. I couldn't believe how many pods I harvested! I thought I'd have a gallon of dry beans-at least! Yeah, no. I just finished shelling all these damn beans and I didn't even get a half gallon! They better be the best tasting beans in the history of the planet! And at least the goats like helping me clean up!





Another mostly successful new adventure in the greenhouse this year was corn. Yes, I've grown sweet corn before with limited success, this year I didn't want to just grow sweet corn, but corn for flour. I planted Painted Mountain corn-described as a nutritious rugged beauty-and it seems it has lived up to it's name! I've only harvested it and by the time this amazing piece of equipment comes in the mail (Yay! What a great birthday present-I can't wait to put this to work!), the corn should be dry and ready to go.

I am also getting a grain mill-another amazing birthday present- and even though it's not the biggest harvest this year, the first thing I want to make are tamales, then fresh tortillas...if all this works, I'm planting so much more of this next year!




The breakaway success story of the summer was taters. I never plant enough potatoes and we use about 20 lbs for Thanksgiving alone and that usually uses up all that had grown. This year I tried a number of different varieties and was hoping to grow 100 lbs of potatoes.

Harvesting 150 lbs of potatoes is exhausting, but it's also a really dirty treasure hunt, so it's still lots of fun! The only variety I won't be growing again is Huckelberry Gold-I only got about 10 lbs from these sad plants. Mountain Rose (pink inside and out!), All Blue (guess what color those are inside and out??), French fingerling, Rose Finn fingerling and tried and true Yukon Golds all did amazing this year. The taters this year have been massive and delicious! I've only had multicolored oven fries once so far, but I'm really looking forward to blue mashed potatoes!




Over half the greenhouse is still thriving and I'm battling nights like tonight when the low is supposed to be 25 degrees. All the peppers, eggplants, most of the tomatoes and the remaining winter squash are all covered in frost cloth on top of the greenhouse being shut tight. Hopefully they all make it through these next few days since it's supposed to be in the 70s this time next week!

Today was also a sad day since we had to say goodbye to our buck goat Randy. Randy has been with us since he was about 8 months old and for the longest time was the only other animal that Cupid would not only tolerate but actually seemed to enjoy being around. He is the sire of all our adorable goat kids and that is why he has to leave. We will start breeding his baby girls this year-Gilda will be spending some time with our new buck Rowdy very soon. But Randy will be missed so much. He was such a sweet and handsome fella and now he's going to a new home to no doubt live up to his name there. Love you, Randy!