Boquete Coffee
  • HOME
  • BLOG
  • BUY OUR COFFEE
  • PLANTATION
  • COFFEE RESOURCES
  • ABOUT US
  • PRIVACY POLICY

Rural ideal: Day in the life of a lady coffee farmer

9/8/2011

0 Comments

 
Picture
8.oo am: Edoina arrives with a beautiful bunch of roses and cuttings from her garden.  Nothing like my little house smelling of roses and freshly ground coffee to get the day off to a good start.  Add to that the sound of evangelical hymns and you have a heady cocktail.  Edoina likes to sing as she cleans the house and she sings quite well.

8.30am: Mariano brings a sack of oranges to the house.   I have decided with tens of thousands of them out there I better start squeezing my own.   Then he starts potting out the new cuttings Edoina brought me in the greenhouse.   How exciting.  Some very nice new double pentas, a double variegated pink begonia, lots of different coleus, a cactus like thing and something exotic, she says for the porch.

9.30am: Edoina's husband also came this morning to re-cork the glass roof.  As usual in this country, he had under-estimated how much silicone he would need.  So, off I go down town to the construction store to buy more.  There, I am reminded by the owner (whose family arrived here from Coventry in 1880) that I come from Gran Bretana, not Inglaterra.  Queen of the seas!  Quite right Sr Rodriguez, I do.

10.30am: Back on the farm, I go on a walk about to see the new team of coffee workers.  Our new coffee manager has brought with him four young indigenous men and their wives to do some of our extra work.  They are using machetes to whack down the long grass and the ladies are picking early coffee cherries.  They are amazing workers, so tough, strong and hard working.  I could stand and stare at them macheting all day............

11.00 am: Off to inspect the bees, from a distance.  I am not doing a proper hive inspection until I have back up with a bigger smoker.  It is too hard trying to smoke African bees at the same time as working them all by yourself.    I want to check that they are coming and going in a normal pattern.  My mentor emailed last night to say his bees have some honey in August.  This is unusual - it is winter here, usually we feed now.  Anyway, all seems well with my hives.

11.30am: Off back to the house to complete my forms for getting a credit account with the  Agricultural Cooperative in town.  It is a fierce looking form that needs to be filled out in Spanish.  In the end though, after consulting google translate, apart from my passport number and my name there is not much more I need to put on there.  I remember to put pasaporte de Gran Bretana and smile to myself.

12.15pm: Off to town to meet with the accountant.   I sign up for doing the 10 year cash-flow, profit and loss and balance sheet required for an unlikely government grant.  In the end, it is easier for me to do it than the accountant and easier for him to figure out how to position the application than for me. Backwards but this is Boquete Panama and that is just fine.

1.15pm:   Pick up lunch on the way back at Nelvis a down town tipico restaurant.    Lovely chicken with salsa, rice, beans and a chiote and carrot mixture.  All for around $3.  Then, driving home, the cookie lady is out and about.   A lovely Colombian lady who wears big bellowing skirts and hats and sells cookies out of a basket.  She has oatmeal and brownies left and I buy one of each.  Beatrice will enjoy that as a treat.

2.30 pm Decide to pick some lemons.  The Persian  lemons are turning quite yellow.   Need to use them and maybe will make lemonade this weekend.  Noticing there are thousands of guava on the ground and wishing I had some expertise in guava jam or someone who would do it for me.

Now I am off to get Beatrice then need to rush back here to count the coffee cans leaving the farm.    We are getting $9.30 for the early cherries at Cafe Duran......Life is good. 
   




0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Picture
    Picture
    Picture

    Archives

    May 2013
    February 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011

    Follow this blog

    Categories

    All
    9/11
    Accounts
    African Bees
    Al Jazeera
    Amaryllis
    Ambassador
    Armadillo
    Baby Coffee
    Banana
    Bananas
    Banoffee Pie
    Beatles
    Bees
    Bees Wax
    Beneficio
    Best Of Panama
    Bird
    Birds
    Blackberries
    Blossom
    Blue-grey Tanager
    Body Language
    Boquete
    Boquete. Panama
    Bouquet
    Bouquete
    Britain
    Bugs
    Bus
    Bushes
    Butterfly
    Cabalgata
    Calcium Carbonate
    Carnival
    Cataui
    Catepillar
    Catepillars
    Catuai
    Caturra
    Cherries
    Chickens
    Christian
    Christmas
    Cock Fighting
    Coffee
    Coffee Farm
    Coffeegeek
    Coffee Pickers
    Coffee Picking
    Coffee Planting
    Coffee Processing
    Coffee Pruning
    Coffee Sorting
    Container Living
    Cooking
    Coral Snake
    Costa Rica
    Cowboy
    Culture
    Cupping
    Curd
    Dance
    David
    Dia De Campesino
    Drunk
    Drying Coffee
    Dry Process
    Dry Stone Walls
    Easter
    Egg Nog
    Ekees
    Estrella
    Eucalyptus
    Exercise Class
    Farm
    Farming
    Farming Maths
    Fathers Day
    Fertilizers
    Festivals
    Finca Lerida
    Fine Coffee
    Flowers
    Foklore
    Folk Dancing
    Food
    Frogs
    Fungicide
    Garden
    Gardenia
    Gardening
    Gardens
    Geisha
    Geisha Coffee
    Gourmet
    Graphic Design
    Graveyards
    Green Beans
    Guava
    Halloween
    Hand Creme
    Harvest
    Herbs
    Hibiscus
    Highland Wetlands
    Hiking
    Honey
    Horse
    Horses
    Horse Tack
    Humidity
    Hummingbird
    Hummingbirds
    Independence Day
    Indigenous
    Indigeous
    Kotowa
    Language
    Latin Dance
    Lemons
    Life In Boquete
    Limoncello
    Living In Boquete
    Living In Boquete Panama
    Logo
    Mandarin
    Mangosteen
    Marmalade
    Medicinal Herbs
    Milk
    Molasses
    Mondays
    Moon
    Moth
    Mountain Oak
    Mulberries
    Mulch
    National Holidays
    Nature
    New Year
    Ngobe
    November 28th Panama
    Orange
    Orange Juice
    Oranges
    Orchids
    Organic
    Organic Farming
    Organic Fungicide
    Packaging
    Palmira
    Panama
    Panama.
    Panama. Ngobe
    Panamanian Culture
    Paso
    Passion Fruit
    Payday
    Peaches
    People In Boquete
    Picking
    Pictures
    Pigs
    Planting
    Planting Coffee
    Plants
    Poinsettia
    Poisonous Snakes
    Politics
    Pony
    Postal Service
    Protestant
    Pulping Coffee
    Rains
    Rainy Season
    Re-cycling
    Rescue
    Rescue Horse
    Riding
    Roasting
    Rocks
    Rose
    Roses
    Rustic House
    Scap
    Shoes
    Shopping
    Snake
    Snakes
    Soil Testing
    Specialty Coffee Association Of Panama
    Spider
    Spiders
    Spring
    Starbucks
    Strawberries
    Sunday
    Sunday Reflection
    Sunset
    Tamarillo
    Tarantula
    Thanksgiving
    Tin House
    Tomatoes
    Torch Ginger
    Trade
    Tree Tomatoes
    Typica
    Uk
    Urraca
    Usa
    Uv
    Vacuum Packing
    Volcan Baru
    Volcano
    Voltage
    Wabi-Sabi
    Weather
    Welding
    Wellington Boots
    Wildlife
    Wood
    Workers Housing
    Yellow Cataui


    RSS Feed


    Website counter

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.