Our farm was a town many years ago. Well, not so many actually about 30 years ago. All that is left are the concrete pads, footprints of buildings that use to be.

This footprint was incorporated into our new home. It is what we call the intersantium, our private space within the house.

The floor tile is being installed in the new house tomorrow, Ojala! Finally.

I am ready for the move. We have been practicing eating dinner with candle light this week. Very romantic.

This is a very stressful time for Phil. He has become the contractor, and he has done a fine job although building is not his forte. But I am pleased overall, he has good instincts.

Please have patience with my upcoming posts, remember that I am totally off the grid, no phone, no electricity, so my contections are uncertain. I will be using my cell phone and my laptop powered by my truck to connect. We will see how smoothly this goes.

I am now looking out at the backyard, if you look close you can see corn stalks down in the valley garden. If is in the afternoon, and the rainforest clouds are falling over the fila. I think watching the clouds fall down, is one of my favorite things to do.

This was taken from the front as I approach the house. You can see where Phil has been laying the brick walkway using old handmade brick that was found on the property where the trampeche (sugar mill) use to be. The walkway leads up to the door that leads into my kitchen / dining room area. It is not the front door, but will probably be the door most used, for a while anyway.

There is no front door. I think the front door will actually be on the deck side of the house, it will be the French style doors. This will be the most used part of the house; people may as well just go there and leave the farm dirt outside.

The big black dutch door that you see, goes into my sewing room. It has little or no purpose that I can think of. Phil will cover it in Guadua Bamboo and it will disappear behind landscape.

The rocks are large although it is hard to tell that in this photo. They are from the farm via the volcano and were place in their positions by the tractor. Phil loves landscape rocks, and his rocks will rock once he has them planted up. He is excellent at landscaping and says I am his biggest fan. Not true, he is really good.

There is a driveway just before the motorcycle; it leads down to the river, the gardens, fish pond and horses. There will be a carport to my left and adjacent to the steps someday soon.

The new house is progressing nicely with colored stucco on the outside. This view is taken from the lower back yard looking up at the house. All of the windows will have screens on them which is not customary for Costa Rica. They usually have windows without screens. We will have screens without windows. The big door opening will have French type double doors, but without the little panes of glass. We are told the doors were ordered, but I don’t believe it is true. That remains to be seen. If I am correct, I have option B already planned and I like it just fine.

We look forward to the cool temperatures and no need for AC. Good thing we don’t need AC, as we are off the grid.

The back side of our home looking up from the gardens and the river Atirro. There will be a cantilevered deck off the french doors when we get to it.