This is the lovely lady who takes care of us all rescuing a little blue grey tanager that hit the window panes and lay stunned on the deck this morning.

The blue grey tanagers are for ever hitting the window panes.  The young birds are particularly prone.  This is a juvenile.

It is the rainy season.  The peskiest thing about the rainy season is fungus.  Fungus on the farm, fungus in the house, fungus on my clothes and most insulting of all, fungus on me!

Let me explain.   Today, like many days over the next 6 months, was a scramble for molasses and trichoderma the biological fungicide we are applying to the coffee.     Molasses is in short supply so we are a little delayed but hope to start spraying tomorrow.   A few rainy days and those little spores so quickly get to work.

Meanwhile, I have all the fans running in the house.   We can not dry clothes on the line very well anymore.  Clothes that are not dried right away get a very funky smell...of fungus.  Vital to keep everything bone dry.....so, the de-humidifying machine is getting a workout  as is the clothes dryer, which is the biggest contributor to the electricity bill.  Actually, it is the electricity bill.

Lastly, I am being invaded.  My skin is just irresistible to fungus.  Feel like I am turning into a mushroom.  The latest pesky invasion seems to have come from my horse.   At least that is my theory and I'm sticking to it.  Not the first or last it seems, mi 'best friend' knew about the little red rash right away and sure enough the pharmacy in town is full of broad spectrum pretty potent anti-fungal creams.  Hurray for that.

Life in the tropics!

Guess what I found in my rose beds this week? Watermelons, tomatoes and .... any idea what that is in the picture looking for all the world like a very large weed?   

I am told, it is actually a very important herb for burns.  If you have a little accident with the stove or ironing then a few leaves of that will be very useful.   As I am the only one who will do the ironing.  That is OK.   

(Although there are ladies to do almost every domestic chore in Panama, most do not iron.   Legend has it, ironing will make your face all twisted and crooked.  So the chance of a Panamanian lady getting burns from an iron are small to nonexistent).

Gardening and gardeners here are practical folk.   Useful things are allowed to flourish even is the aesthetic is a stretch.  I have mint mixed with begonias and Sugar cane at the back of a flower bed.    It is part of the charm of my rustic garden in the coffee.

This farm is full of highland guava trees.    The insects know about their little round fruits, but until this week, I really did not.  They grow at this elevation like weeds.    The bark is quite pretty but otherwise not much to recommend the tree.  The smell of the fruit is intoxicating and you can not miss that, but the flavor, at least off the tree, is a disappointment........ and then there are the worms.

This week, I learned how to capture the aroma of the skin in a delicious jelly and how to use the dense pulp to make a butter or paste.  The jelly is more delicious than strawberry jam it has a strawberry, pineapple almost rhubarb quality that captures the aroma you pick up when you walk past a tree with ripe fruit on the farm.  The aroma that drives the insects crazy.

The paste is the caramelized pulp and is better than fig paste with cheese.  Guavas have a fig quality to them.  Could think of them as poor mans figs.  Lots of little seeds, it just takes some coaxing to make them soft and get the caramel flavor out of them.    I am completely captivated by this little fruit.   Completely understand why this fruit is a fly and worm magnet. 

The other surprise is that not all mountain guava are the same.  They  all look the same initially and taste the same but actually there are white, pink and orange versions  of the fruit.  When you cook with them these different colors give you a palate to work with that adds to the fun of the process.  I will be making this stuff  until September when the season finishes.   This is a quintessential flavor of Boquete.   

Here are some pictures of the fruits.  The smell throughout was quite incredible and the end result very pleasing.   I was using white and yellow guava and so my finished result is somewhat orangey.  Next time, I am going to try the white mixed with pink,  that should be a very pretty color, I like pink!

Happy Birthday to us - we have been going now for a year.  We are one year old this week!

Our goal on starting out this site a year ago was to make the coffee farm sustainable and resilient to ups and downs in the market but to do it in a way that we could live with and enjoy.  Literally, as I do live on my little farm with my five year old daughter so a healthy natural environment is important.   

Strategy good; Executing it at times was challenging to say the least.  So very glad we decided to try.  Learned a lot about trying to get things done in a different culture and accomplished more or less what we set out to do:

-  Processed a small quantity of our coffee to green beans and sold some roasted and some green which is the key to more stable and better margins than the cherry business.

-  Met some whacky and interesting people while tasting coffee: Our customers the roasters and coffee enthusiasts..... and learned a bit about cupping too.

-  Got to write for CoffeeGeek and start telling the story from the producers perspective.  Very cathartic.   

-  Enjoy a healthier farm.  We are weaning ourselves off chemicals.  No chemical fungicide anymore, no pesticides, very limited use of herbicide and none around the mature coffee plants

- Made some big strategic decisions to renew the majority of the farm; Bit the bullet on lower production to get stronger healthier and higher yielding plants in a couple of years

- Learnt quite a bit about coffee farming.   Still a complete novice but know  people who are experts and have some idea now how to pick, prune, plant, fertilize and test soils

- Get to drink an almost unlimited supply of my own coffee!.  

The most important thing of all:  It was a year of finding the right people to work with.   That is one of those truisms that I have re-discovered here big time.   In my old life, finding good people was mostly an interview process or reputation or both.   

Here it has been more trial and error and that is painful.  Spanish is not good enough and understanding of the culture is not good enough to get to the bottom of things in a conversation.  Reputation seems to come down to whether someone is a 'good person' or a 'tricky person'.  Lets just say there are many shades of 'good person' and frankly how 'good' a person is often depends upon who you are and as a Gringa I am a nobody.   Often other people have no interest in pointing out to you the 'tricky' part as they are themselves offloading an employee or just don't feel the need to be candid. 

For me 'good person' = Who shows up when they say or keeps you informed of delays or problems, who works hard to deliver, who does not over charge, is not lazy and never steals or takes advantage even though I am an obvious Gringa target for that, who tells you the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth even when it is ugly, who laughs at the same things you do and shares your values, who takes pride in quality and the invisible part of the job that in the end is everything......  It all equates to trust and who you can do business with in the longer term to generate value.

At last I feel like I am close to being surrounded by people I trust and work well together and through them I meet more people and so on.  With the right team everything is possible.


  
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Just sharing a lovely review of my coffee from Davy in Aberdeen @ Rooftop Roast.   If you happen to be in Scotland you know where to go for a cup.  http://rooftoproast.com/origins

So excited that there are coffee enthusiasts in Scotland looking for good coffee from around the world.  Rain mountains and coffee go well together and I am looking forward to my next trip home.

1.  Catepillars moving in convoy.   I think they do this for safety. You would not want to eat something looking like that now would you?
2.  A tree laden with nice juicy berries.  The birds seemed to be eating them so gave it a try.  The flesh of these little fruits is delicious.  You peel the skin, pop out the seed and eat the juicy interior.   Very refreshing out on the mountain.
3.  Acorns.  Some of the largest acorns on the smallest oak trees I have ever seen.   Very ornamental and good for feeding pigs I would imagine.  

Nothing like walking 3500 ft up a mountain planted with coffee to get your heart rate up .  Nearly two hours walking steeply up hill in the fresh air is good exercise.

Today, I was reminded that not everyone here has the luxury of walking for exercise.   Same mountain but some very different lives.  Half way up the mountain there is a little unpainted cement block room off a house that is used as a school room for local children.   Here five sisters and a brother were holding hands walking up the mountain home after classes.   These are indigenous children, the children of coffee workers.  

God bless them.

We have planted around 5000 plants this year and the end is in sight. 

We were very nearly done a couple of weeks ago.  Sadly, the plants were unavailable to finish, so we were left with 500 empty holes and no baby coffee to fill them. 

Today, we secured the plants for the holes.  They were grown by a fine nurseryman in Boquete, seen in the dapper straw hat.  Although they were expensive they are beautiful plants.    By the end of the week or maybe sometime next, we will be all done with planting for a another year.

Phew.  That was quite a job.

Just one of those pretty things that happen in the rains.