It was overcast all day today, with the temperature hovering around 80 F. A welcomed break. For the past seven months the weather has been so pleasant I had forgotten we would at some point face some pretty rightous heat. And April brought it. It has been stifling. Sticky. And without a refridgerator to offer any sort of relief.

This Easter weekend we had a party on the property, down by Churro, for our good friend Neri's two kids. Neri is an El Salvadorian who has been working at Spanish Creek Rainforest Reserve since the beginning. He and his crew helped to clear the land once the owner, Marc began development. Neri and his crew of brother (Artoro), his son (Antonio), and a 73 year-old local man named Mr. Moody work on the farm every Monday through Thursday. They do the hardest work on the farm by bush-hogging, construction projects, casting concrete, building the bay leaf, thatched-roofed palapas, farming, and so m... [More]

After not having a toilet for the last 7 months, we finally stepped up and built ourselves an outhouse. We dug a 4.5 ft deep hole and casted a concrete foundation around it. With pine lumber, we framed out a simple rectangular, zinc-roofed outhouse. Like so many of our other projects, we included local bamboo and mahogany. Our new outhouse does not currently have a door, but we will be sure to add one before the mosquito season. We placed it about 40 feet away from the palapa, in the bush. The "throne" is made of local mahogany.