Ahhhh….. that’s the sound of realizing I had been holding my breath since November. It feels good to exhale and finally refill my lungs with the purest energy i’ve found in this world. Ok, so it’s a little dusty and there’s the scent of bat guano to deal with…
Even so, it feels amazing to be home.

Sunrise over the Volcano and Silver Joes Coffee brewed over an open fire, great combination!

We are getting to know a fellow lot owner named Joe Fernandez. He’s an amazingly cool guy. Mellow, interesting, and intelligent. Ryan eagerly showed him the new plans he designed for the proper three bedroom rental house and second smaller casita where our caretakers will live.

The casita was originally intended to be a caretaker’s house that we could use while in town and for storage but since our caretakers leave when we arrive we feel a little uneasy that no one is there to look after our stuff while we are surfing or out to dinner. We decided we needed to build a second smaller caretaker’s house so that they can be around and vigilant all the time, even when we are home.

The locals have started to figure out that gringos = $$$s. A particularly enterprising local named Hector showed up to offer us some land he has for sale. We decided to go check it out just to see. He took us on a long drive down progressively narrower dirt roads. At one point Hector and Joe had to hop out to clear our path of a large tree.

The land for sale was nothing to get excited about. It was just a random rectangle covering about four acres in the middle of nowhere. It did have a view of the ocean but without a good wave within walking distance, we decided to pass. Hector was incredibly disappointed.

Before heading home on our last trip we instructed our contractor to bat-proof the casita. He removed the capotera and stuffed some foam into the entry points in the roof. The photo above gives an indication of how successful that was.

During the building process, huge piles of small rocks called piedrin were mixed with sand and cement to make concrete. In the end the unused piedrin were scattered over the ground making walking barefoot unpleasant. I am adamant about spending as much time without shoes as possible and set to the task of removing the rocks. I might have a slight case of OCD and spent hours tweaking out, bent down, removing rocks by the handful. It was strangely soothing. After all the stress of family, people wanting my attention, etc., of the past few weeks it was incredibly meditative to focus on the simple task of moving rocks.

We found a massive pile of horse manure nearby and decided to score some for fertilizer. Shoveling manure definitely brought back memories of my chores as a 14 year old horse-owner.

We had to pull over to let the beer truck pass. He definitely had priority!

Way better than the ice cream man! Now if we could only get him to deliver…

Back porch chilling after an afternoon of good honest work on the land.

More coming soon…. stay tuned!