Summer Vacation is almost Over!

During Panama's summer vacation, we are typically busy with coffee tours, finishing the harvest and getting things lined up for the new year. We also start pruning trees, getting projects finished up that require non-rainy days...

This month has been all of that and more! Thankfully, we have had 2 groups of Workawayers that have helped out. :)

Roger has invented the "No Scorpion" dance and convinced Kat and Kolin to participate. I don't think it worked, but it was funny to watch them. 

This is going to be a crazy coffee year. The trees are blooming 4 months early and that would mean these cherries will probably need to be harvested right in the middle of the rainy season. I guess we will wait and see what happens, but I think our farm might have its busiest year yet.

I have become addicted to the craft projects (bead by number) and use it as my evening wind-down time. I spend 30-45 minutes each night while Rick and I watch TV, putting the little beads on the canvas. I only have one more to do and they do not sell them anywhere around here....I really miss having access to certain stores. :)

By the time that I drove by this area, they had already cut most of the tree down. This is not an uncommon thing to see around here. Trees and powerlines frequently battle it out. Unfortunately, they both lose. The power goes down and the tree has to be cut up.

I am loving the sunsets and sunrises each morning. It is very beautiful this time of year. We also, get an afternoon rainbow on most days, sometimes even a double or triple rainbow. 

Melvin gets a day of being the "Gardener" this week. He has been wanting to add more color to a few areas. Most of the farm is very green, with the occasional white flowers when the coffee trees are blooming, but it is nice to see some yellows, reds and well....other colors too.

We have upgraded our internet slightly. I do miss the days of high-speed internet, but with all of the good parts of our life, there are a few pitfalls to. We now have 7 mbps, upgraded from our previous 5 mbps. Yay us!!!

Achilles Update
My ankle gets slightly better every day. I can walk a little further and the swelling at night is less than it was. I still limp and am limited to walking...no running, jumping or skipping for me yet, but at least I am still improving, even if it is not as fast as I would like.

Upcoming

• School is about to start up again for our son.
• My coffee roaster is almost finished and will need to get painted soon.
• We are working on getting our Agro-tourism certificate. I think step 1 might be done!
• We will be de-husking and roasting all of the coffee from the 2019 season soon, it still needs a few more weeks of resting first, and so do I.  :)
• We are discussing new updated water-pipe options with the neighbors, thinking that new PVC pipes after over 20 years of the old PVC pipes being repaired so many times, might improve our water input this year. Trying to figure out budgets for that now.
• We are also discussing options on what to do with the bumpy road up our hill. It is actually pretty good right now after a tractor spent 3 hours on it. However, we will have to do something before the wet season comes and the dirt just turns into mud pits.

Too many expensive projects to do them all correctly! Maybe we take a dartboard with pictures on it and just pick which one we work on that way....although, I am not sure if they sell those here. 

I am sure I will have more updates by next month!