Lately we have been spending a lot of time doing work on our lot. It’s only a mile and a quarter up the mountain from our rental house. A couple of times a week, we hike up there and it’s a steep hike. My heart pounds so much that I always feel like I’m about to have a heart attack! Occasionally, we drive up there, too, and it’s more comfortable than hiking. We thought it would be pretty cool to plant pineapples on one of the tiers. It seemed like the perfect place to have some pineapple as it gets full sun.
Pineapples are plentiful here in Costa Rica and they are delicious! The pineapples are so sweet and juicy and so much better than the ones we can get in North Carolina. They are easy to grow, too. Just cut off the green crown and put it in the ground. Eddie likes to plant them in a pot of soil first. He lets them grow there for about three months and then he plants them on the lot. From what we have read, it takes approximately six months for the flower to bloom after planting. Then, it could take another 10 to 12 months or so for the fruit (pineapple) to become mature. Typically, the pineapple plant reproduces every year.
Our house plans our progressing. This past Friday, we spent most of the morning measuring and staking out the house to see if it will all work out. It’s going to be a tight fit! We did all this a few months ago, but decided to re-do it as the architect measured the lot differently. There is a significant discrepancy, which makes a huge difference…as in the house won’t fit on the lot! The architect is in the process of doing a review with our measurements and we hope the house will fit. Eddie found a great program on-line, which we used to design our future home. Here is the basic schematic of our design as it stands now (though the pool will be triangular instead of an oval; the program only has one pool shape available) :
On Tuesday, September 16, we fly to North Carolina! We are really excited about going back home to see our our children, family and friends. Even so, we are going to miss Chiquita and Paloma very much! Paloma sleeps outside our door every night and I know she will miss us tremendously.
Even though we are leaving Costa Rica for a few weeks, please keep checking the blog as we will continue to post.