We also got to go into Santa Maria and have ice cream. I really like ice cream.

Im also thankful that my mom and dad like adventure. My mom and I like to go on hikes and discover new things. sometimes way up in the hills, and sometimes in the river,, where we found this animal print. I think its a mapache (raccoon), but I still have to look it up.

We also found some creepy things on our adventures.

These weird things we found on a log. It was super shiny, and squishy too. I poked it with a stick. I wondered if it was a caccoon for something but I couldnt find anything like it on the internet. I asked my friend, and he thought it may be a fungus. The next day, we saw a weird tree across the river. It had a hole in the trunk.

I got a little nervous because we have been watching 'Stranger Things' on netflix and after seeing the weird squishy thing and the tree trunk, it was making me uncomfortable. So we decided to poke one of the caccoon things.

It was just full of dirt! I was very thankful it wasnt an alien or bad creature.

My dad let me kind of drive the quad this week too! I was being really helpful while we were building a chicken coop for the baby chicks and making a storage spot for fish food. He let me drive because he said I was acting responsible.

That was super cool.

On my last blog, my Papa asked about the earthquake we had. Ive never been in an earthquake before. It was a little bit scary because I didnt know what was happening at first, and then it was a little scary because I thought a tsunami was coming. At our home in Oregon we lived at the beach. Thats at sea level. That means, after an earthquake you have to get out of there fast because a tsunami can come. Tsunamis are very dangerous. In Costa Rica, we are way up in the mountains where tsunamis cant reach. I was very thankful for that.

Today, I am flying back to the States to see my family for Thanksgiving. I am really excited about that. I have lots of cousins and my best friends Eddie and Kylee M. too. I cant wait to see them.
Im really happy I get to see my brother and sister and all of my grandparents! I hope everyone has a great thanksgiving.

In September we decided to plant some seeds. We knew it was still the rainy season but we wanted the seeds to be plants when the warm weather got here.  The seeds sprouted really fast. 
We usually had a garden every year. Although sometimes the chickens would dig it up and eat it. 
I like working in the garden. I also like picking the vegetables when they are ready. I don't really like to eat  a lot of vegetables but I think its neat to watch them grow. 

The other day we were working in the garden. I was watering the garden and pulling out weeds. We had been working on a new garden box and there were was already grass growing in it. I remembered that our chickens used to eat our gardens so I thought it might be a good plan to put chickens in our empty garden box to do the weeding for us. I had to put the dog in the house before we let the chickens out, because she really likes to watch the chickens. I think maybe she would eat them. 

The vegetables are getting really big now that the sun is out more often. The days have been really nice for a while now. I'm really glad the rainy season is over. 

We went up to the pasture today to check on the tadpoles and the blackberries. The tadpoles are still tadpoles! I wanted to climb the tree for a birds eye view. But I didnt have to. I could they all still had tails not legs. I guess maybe those that grew legs could have already hopped away.  But maybe they're just hiding. 

The blackberries are just now starting to get ripe. The bulls were very curious why we were up in the fields by the pasture.  They were very friendly.
We made a dessert out of the berries we picked today. I think in about three weeks they will be perfect.

I found another strange  leaf up near the pasture today. Can you see what it really is?

Ive been helping my mom in the rock garden a lot. One- because I really like rocks ( as you know), and Two- because we are going to have the end of the school year party at Hush Valley!  I'm really excited about that. I'm hoping we can get the rock garden ready so we can have the party down there too. 
There are some areas that have water running across them, so my mom and I built a bridge to get across. 
We have a lot of bamboo, so we decided to use that.  There is a whole area on the riverfront trail that we call the bamboo forest. Someday I want to make a bamboo platform there so we can have picnics in the bamboo forest. There are so many different types of bamboo, and not all of the bamboo is strong. Bamboo is cut down with machetes, so one end of it is usually sharp. We have to cut that end off. We also had to find pieces that were pretty close to the same size. Then we had to get two strong boards to screw them to. 

Its a foot bridge. That means its not fancy. There isn't a railing or stairs, but it will keep your feet dry. 
​I think it looks nice, and its on the trail to the campfire so it was necessary. 

We aren't done with the campfire area yet, but I really want to get it done before the party. I think it would be cool to have a campfire. I don't think they have s'mores here, but I think it would be fun to show my friends what they are. 
My teacher said that there will be pizza, games and a pinata at the party. The last day of school is Deciembre 11 (December).  Then we go on our summer break until the middle of Febraro (February). That's a lot different than in Oregon. They have six more months of school still. ​

When I was down there, I took some more pictures of cool rocks. These rocks were all big ones along the trail to the house. 

We joined a facebook page called rocks, fossils, and minerals identification. Im hoping we can figure out what some of these rocks are made of. I'm also going to bring my rock polisher back with me when we go to visit our home in Oregon. 

On my way home the other day I saw a weird stick. If you look closer though you can see what it really is. Lots of creatures here have camouflage like that. 

Thank you for reading my blog. Im glad you are interested. 

Today was a fun day. We didn't have school Friday. My friend Tomas and our teacher went to San Jose for a big school thing, and they won First National place! I don't really know what it was, but I know it was important and they made our whole town proud.

My mom and I spent the day cleaning out the garage. It was dusty work. Because I worked so hard, my mom let me do what I wanted in the afternoon. I decided to take pictures of insects, because there are some really cool insects here.  

Sometimes when a bug is really creepy, I have to tell myself that I shouldnt be grossed out, because Im way bigger, and I probably am way more scary to them.
We try not to kill bugs, especially outside because thats their home. But that changes when they come inside our house. We try to put them outside, but if they look like theyre going to get away, sometimes we call the exterminator, aka my dad. We do have a small spider that lives next to the toilet. He hides when youre in the bathroom though. He eats bugs, and doesnt bother us, so we let him stay there.

Then take six lemons, and get the juice. if you dont have a juicer, just squeeze them. You'll need 1 and 1/3 cup of lemon juice. Pour the lemon juice in a pitcher, then pour 1 and 1/3 cup of Jamaica in, then add 1/3 cup of honey or sugar, then add 3 cups of water, and stir it up. Taste it, and add more sweetness if you need to. Its delicious!

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.  

Today was an awesome day. We went to Cartago to visit the Lankaster botanical gardens. They had some really beautiful flowers there. They had lots of ponds with fish in them too.  We looked at so many flowers! There were some really beautiful orchids and lots of other very pretty flowers too.

Orchids grow all over Hush Valley. Usually in trees. The birds eat the orchid seeds then they fly away. Later, they poop them out, usually above the trees and then the seeds sprout on the trees they land on.  There are trees with lots and lots of orchids on them. 
Minor and I tried to look at all the koi in the lily ponds. They were huge fish. I didn't get a picture though. We saw the bamboo gardens too. Where everything was built from bamboo. I want to make a fort out of bamboo now. ​

I found some crab shells on the river bank. I was trying to figure out if they feed them to the fish, or if some animal pulled them out of the pond and ate them. Its still a mystery.  ​

At Hush Valley we don't have a lot of scary creatures. No big snakes or poisonous spiders. No monkeys or Alligators.  We do have some spiders but the only ones I have seen are garden spiders called ' wolf spiders' and small black grass spiders. Neither of them are dangerous. At the gardens, its a lot lower and a lot warmer than it is in the mountains. We saw a lot of spiders. I don't know if they are poisonous or not, but I'm going to send a picture to the spider identification people and ask. They have a page on Facebook. The spiders we saw looked like the picture I'm posting. They were very big. So were their webs. That's my dads hand in the picture.

All of my friends and family in the States are on daylight savings now. My mom says that means they are two hours behind our time. That means, I have to go to bed now, but my friends get to stay up for two more hours. That doesn't seem fair. 
​
Next blog I'm going to tell you about our trip to a different friends farm on the Caribbean side of Costa Rica, where we went after the gardens. He has a LOT of animals. It was very very fun. 

Last time Kevin asked me how the bulls were doing. So I thought I would tell you about the bulls. 

There are five bulls at Hush Valley. I think their names are Cruise ( named after Tom Cruise), Rocky ( Named after Sylvester Stallone) Redford ( Named after a movie star) , Rainman ( after a movie) and Willis ( Named for Bruce Willis) and the black one is named Junio. He is Martins bull. 
Im not sure which one has which name. Or even If I'm right about their names. There use to be six bulls. But now there is only five, so Im not sure. 
 

My mom and dad were really excited about having organic beef when we moved here. But then we discovered the bulls are really nice. They keep all the grass trimmed and Hush Valley looking really nice. They are organic lawn mowers. They don't bother us at all. They even let us pet them. My mom and dad don't think they could eat them. Well, maybe they could eat them, but they cant kill them. That happened with me and trout. I like fishing for them, but I dont want to kill them.
Sometimes when Im walking to school the red one will be by the fence watching me. One time i went up and put my hand out to him and he licked it with his big tongue. It felt really scratchy! I think they have a scratchy tongues to help them eat the plants and grasses. Their tongues are also really long. They can reach for grass on the other side of the fence.

The bulls didnt even have a problem with the hurricane. they are smart enough to find shelter and stay safe. But I think they have a problem with Bobbie McGee. She likes to bite their ankles, and they hate that.  Mostly, she does it to the smaller black one, Junio. 
I think the bulls are doing really good Kevin! 

When its a nice day, my dad will let us take the river trail home. I like the river trial because there are lots of places to look for cool rocks. My dad likes to look for specs of gold. I like to look for multicolored rocks with or without crystals. But I prefer with. Lots of the rocks have crystals built into them. They're very sparkly in the sunlight but for some reason you cant make a picture show them. 
In Oregon, I had a geode. It was beautiful white, purple and clear crystals inside. I would like to find some geodes here. I think that would be very cool. 

I took some pictures of cool rocks in the rock garden. I promise they look much more amazing in real life.  I like that they are all different colors. I'm trying to make a rainbow by the campfire because  there are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple rocks. Seriously! 

Sometimes you can see little tiny pieces of gold in the sand in the river.  It has to be in the right light. 

Today while we were feeding the fish, there was a rainbow over the big pond. It was really pretty. 

I was reading the comments from the last time, and Kevin asked about the bulls. I think the next blog will be about the bulls.