What happened to us in 2013?.....

Well, you don't have to worry.... we didn't get swept away by a rain swollen river, trapped up in the mountains by impassable roads, or eaten by local wildlife! Instead, we decided to temporarily decamp to a friend's farm by the beach in search of a little less rain, a few home comforts (like electricity, mobile phone signal & a washing machine!) and more planting opportunities.

So we spent May - November at Lago Bay, a beautiful Panamanian beach side property with big plans for residential plots alongside boutique agriculture, situated near to the surf town of Santa Catalina on the Pacific coastline.

The view of the ocean from the house

The dogs; Reisa, Rosa & Porky getting their daily exercise on the beach

 Ethan's main project over the 6 months was building outdoor furniture with an abundance of tropical hardwood. As well as creating beautiful, individual pieces of art, the bonus for Ethan was that he had a genuine excuse for expanding his tool shop. The day he came home with his first, brand new table saw, he was a happy man!

My main projects turned out to be planting fruit trees and starting a kitchen garden (well, 3 kitchen gardens actually, but only 1 lived to tell the tale after some serious grasshopper destruction!). I think we did pretty well getting over 500 papaya, 130 avocado, 50 cacao and various citrus trees into the ground in a 3 month period. Now the challenge is preventing the leaf cutter ants, flea beetles, leaf miners and caterpillars from decimating them before they fruit!

 

As well as creating, growing and planting we've also been enjoying the beauty of living by the beach with 3 gorgeous Rottweiler puppies and 6 chickens. And yes... I have tried to train both! My chickens will now very obediently follow me to the hen house whenever I have a container in my hand (whether food-filled or otherwise). Obedience from the dogs however is sometimes a little more challenging.

So 2013 didn't turn out to be the year that we had imagined, but whilst waiting for our plans up in the mountains to come to fruition, plan B didn't turn out so badly..... We continued to enjoy the beauty and warmth of Panama, learn more Spanish, pick up a few more skills (and power tools in Ethan's case!), make new friends and plant more trees in Panamanian soil.

2014 promises to be another year of change. In January, Ethan will return to Lago Bay to assist with projects ranging from aquaponics to moringa, while I have a new job at an International School in Santiago (about a 2 hour drive from Lago Bay). It will be nice to earn money again, but I know that my heart will yearn for weekends at the beach with my plants, puppies and spade in hand. And then hopefully at some point during the year, plans for the Mountain farm will again pick up momentum and maybe.... just maybe... we'll be farm owners by this time next year! We both realise that we're extremely lucky to live in such a beautiful country with such a plethora of opportunities and whatever happens... we'll be fine because life is beautiful.

Life in the mountains



So we’re continuing our journey of discovery, finding out what life is like up here in the mountains of Panama. The word that describes it most of the time is simply.... beautiful, especially when it’s not raining!

As rain brews....

 

The view from the house where we're staying, as the rain clears.

 

We’ve been exploring less on foot (thankfully!) due to the acquisition of a new quad bike and Ethan has learned this week that a 30 minute journey downhill to the river doesn’t guarantee an equally speedy return. (We spent 6 hours winching, pushing & accepting help from our neighbours in order to get it back up the rain torn slopes!).

 

Ethan has also been working hard to chop trees (with the aid of his new chain saw), dig up roots and start to clear a path so that we can actually drive onto the part of the farm which will hopefully, someday be ours. I’d love to say that I’ve also been helping, but to be honest despite returning home with clothes covered in dirt, I don’t get much done which may be at least partially attributable to my being eternally distracted by the wildlife watching us from the surrounding forest.

 

 

 

These black dots in the trees are toucans too. Really!



Ethan found this guy in a waterfall plunge pool. He must have been at least 1m long.

 

The house where we’re staying (at the complete generosity of Aristides, one of the neighbouring farm owners) is becoming increasingly full of homely, farm sounds especially due to the acquisition of chickens. Meet our rooster, Russell (because he ‘Crowes’ a lot), Jen the Hen (front left, purely because I like the rhyme) and Tina (behind, on account of her suspect ‘80s hairdo).

Accompanied by mooing cows in the corral when Aristides brings them up from the fields, we really do feel like we’re on a farm! And I’m slowly making my small contribution as my garden grows in plastic tubes, with the tantalising promise that one day we won’t have to buy our produce from the grocery store 2 hours away.

 

We do have amazingly kind neighbours though, who constantly bring us food.... whether it’s eggs from their chickens, pineapples from their gardens, cheese from their cows, mangoes because they genuinely can’t keep up with their tree’s productivity or avocados because that seems to be the going currency right now. People are also tremendously patient with us and our Spanish and as we chat more, we realize how hardy and amazing they are. Many of these families came up to these hills 20-30 years ago to claim land, fell some trees, clear some pasture for cattle and make a life for themselves and their families. That’s no mean feat when your mode of transport is a horse and the nearest town, grocery store or medical centre is a 4 hour horse ride away.

As rainy season fast approaches life here gets a little tougher too.... our neighbour (a mere 2 hours walk away) was telling us about the year that it rained so much that the river became strong enough to carry cows out to the ocean and roads became completely impassable. Apparently that was a rare occurrence though. I hope they"re right! We're not as tough as these people... not yet, anyway!

The Promise of Panama

 

I know, we've been missing in action for some time now. I won't bore you with all of the details, but aside from both spending some time at home with our families, we've been 'very busy waiting' and have spent far more time than is desirable in lawyers meetings and hotel rooms.

 

But there is progress.... we think we've found 'the farm for us' and hopefully day by day we creep a little closer to actually owning it! The farm is in the Azuero Peninsula of Panama, nestled in mountain folds between a National Park and a Reserve and from the ridgeline you can see the Pacific coastline. It truely is beautiful and these pictures don't do it justice.

 

Despite not owning the farm yet, the sellers have very kindly let us visit and stay on the farm several times. Over Easter weekend we went up for 5 nights and for the first time, we took our own vehicle. We can report that she did very well, expecially after we discovered (on the 3rd dy of being up there!) that the shiny after market hub caps were covering the wheel locks that actually allow you to put the car into 4x4! The word 'relief' doesn't even come close to how we felt!

 

She's certainly not this shiny anymore!



Our main reason for going up this last time to the farm was to investigate the housing situation. After about an hour of me sliding downslope after the ever more agile and sure-footed Ethan, plus a short trek through the forest, we found one of the houses. The site is beautiful.... in the shade of citrus, mango, cashew and avocado trees, right next to the river which has gorgeous swimming holes and apparrently gold! It's just a shame it's only accessible on foot or by horseback!



Ethan on the hike down to the house

Our future home?

Cashews growing just outside the front door

All the modern cooking facilities a girl could ever want!

 So the plan is that while we wait, we're going to take our neighbour-to-be up on his very kind offer of using his shack up in the mountains. It's within easy driving distance of the farm and it luxuriously has a tin roof that doesn't leak, running water that's pumped up from the spring below, cell phone signal a short hike away and best of all, this gorgeous view over the Ocean as the sun sets everyday.

This farm certainly isn't easy... we're going to have to improve access and build a house with off the grid infrastructure, all before we tackle the farm itself and actually put things in the ground! In some ways though, the challenge is the charm.... however this farm grows over the coming years, it should be the product of the hard work, thought and determination of ourselves and all of the amazing people that we have to help us. And we can't really complain when we have this vista to look at every day!