Animal land

After we went to the Lankaster gardens, we drove to the other side of Cartago where the Caribbean part of Costa Rica starts. Its much warmer on that side and it makes you really sweaty. There are even more flowers on that side of the country too. But also, more bugs.  
We went to a friend named Mike's house.  He is really cool. He used to be a doctor, but now he lives in Costa Rica and has a very amazing farm, and he is a magician. 
He did some really fun tricks for us after we had lunch.  I tried to see how he did them, but he was too fast.  On their farm they have a lot of fruit. There were also some cool statues. 
Our lunch was a bunch of different things- nuts, berries, fruit, bread and cheeses that Mike makes with milk from his goats.  Mike made Jamaica lemonade for me. Now I'm going to try to make Jamaica lemonade at home. 

There were so many animals on the farm! Geese, turkeys, ducks, chickens, peahens, grouse, and more I cant remember. There were also rabbits, dogs, cats and goats.
The goats had a playhouse and yard all to themselves.

The goats make the milk that make the cheese. There are lots of different kinds of cheese. Did you know all cheese is white? Mike said cheese is colored by herbs or spices to make them different colors. There was some blue goat cheese. It wasn't the salad kind of blue cheese, but actually blue cheese. I cant remember what kind of herb made it blue.  I have had goat milk Ice Cream, and now I have had goats milk cheese.  The orange kind is a sharp cheddar cheese. It tastes different than the cheddar cheese Im used to. 

​Mike told us a story about the orange and white cheese. He said in the old days, when they didnt have enough milk to finish the cheese, they would put a layer of ash on top to keep the bugs out overnight. The next day they would scrape off the ash and add another layer of cheese on top of it, but the ash would color the cheese. Mike made that kind of cheese but he used orange (sharp cheddar) cheese on the top layer. So I guess I have eaten ash now too.

On Monday we went to drop off eggs at the dairy. Abel was feeding the calves. He let me feed them from the bottle. I have never fed an animal from a bottle before. It was fun. 
After the dairy, we went to Tony's farm. We get our vegetables from Tony's. His cow, Gertrude, was sitting in the front yard. She was super nice and let me pet her.  Tony also has pigs, chickens, rabbits, geese, goats, ducks, dogs and horses. He also has a huge greenhouses full of vegetables.