The Neighbothood

There are a lot of these little elevated cage things in front of peoples' houses. Guess what they are for? Right, they are for the garbage. Ours does not have one so we just put the garbage on the grass in bags.

This is an interesting building that juts out over the street. It is a coffee warehouse and the trucks pull up under them and coffee pours out of the little doors. I thought it was old and wasn't used any more but I did see a truck being loaded a few days ago.

Another garbage cage. Some of them are more decorative, but all are elevated.

Coffee bushes in our neighborhood.

Bird of Paradise. We had these in the back yard in Phoenix.

Another Bird of Paradise.

The Temple.

Hydrangias.

Our Home.

The Park in the middle of our street.

Countryside Near Sarchi

They tell us that soon there will be lots more of the orange blossomed trees in bloom, along with some in pink and some in yellow. The terraced hillsides are planted in coffee which is an important crop grown here. There are coffee plants close to where we live. Many of them have large shade trees planted among them.

Interesting Plants and Flowers

These pretty pink bananas were at the butterfly farm. They looked so good but we weren't offered a taste. They and the regular bananas all have a huge blossom at the end of the stalk. The other pictures are of pretty flowers, but I don't know what they are called.

Butterfly Farm

Some of these Butterflies were mounted, but most of them were flying around in their netted enclosure. It was fun to be among them. The large one that had kind of an owlish look was bright blue on the other side of it's wings and was really pretty. There were quite a few of them. But when they lighted, they immediately closed their wings so I couldn't get a photo of the blue sides of their wings.

Sarchi Costa Rica

Monday we had a little excursion with the other senior missionaries. We couldn't drive our new car because we don't yet have insurance. The govt. offices are closed all week for La Navidad. So we went with President Porter and another couple named Jarman to a town called Sarchi.

This town is famous for these painted carts. Don't ask me why the computer is changing my centered format? But the carts started out as real work carts drawn by oxen. They hauled the crops of the area such as coffee which is grown here.

The elaborated painting is a lot like the designs on tole painting. They offer a lot of little replicas to the tourists. I thought maybe I would buy one in red a use it as a Christmas decoration, kind of like the little red Scandinavian horse and candle holders.

The man showed us how they make the wheels. They are made out of a really heavy wood and rimmed with metal.

This is a close up of one of the tole type designs they use. This particular one was on the building.

Here is another example of a design.

This was a display showing how the wheels have evolved into a kind of folk art from the real working cart and wheel.

This was a huge example of a wheel, not a real one and not on a cart. We had a fun day and ate dinner in a restaurant called Le Finca--the Farm. Took lots of pictures so will show some of them at a different time.

This is what Santa Claus brought us for Christmas. It is big enough for 7 passengers so come and see us and we will explore this country together.