Panama Farm Life December 16, 2024
Scratchy, scratchy, scratchy.... Nope. This early morning, 5:10a to be exact, it wasn't Codi. The new early morning signal comes from Lilly inside her crate and telling me she has to go pee... and NOW! I whisk her outside on the terrace and put her on her pee pad. Success! She knows the reward is to burrow under our bed covers and snooze for about another hour before Codi taps at the door and the farm wakes up.
We have just returned from a family cruise in the Caribbean and relished every moment of sleeping in without twitchy paws or herky jerky rudely awakening us. But then, we did miss the pack toward the end and could not wait to return home. My hope was all would be in order, nobody died and the dogs remembered us! Yes, check, check and check. Except my favorite plastic coffee measuring spoon disappeared and I suspect it is another victim of Lilly's mandible munchies.
The day beckons and my list of chores is too long to comprehend. So, I focus on the priorities. The farm animals. The dogs sprint out the door and I follow at a much slower pace and head toward each of the horse stalls. Above, the trees are filled with birds in full morning chorus. Gary continues his slumber. How he sleeps through all of this...no idea.
All the horses are standing and chewing hay. A good sign. A new mare is in residence being treated for an altercation with a trailer tow hitch that tore much of her hide and muscle on her patella/tibia area of the right rear leg. Similar to our knee cap. I will spare you the visual. She is not a particularly friendly girl so I talk sweetly to her while visually inspecting from a distance. The other farm residents are all good. No worse for wear during our absence. Alex, filling grain buckets, flashes a morning smile. Porky squeals for a share. I relax.
The abnormally heavy rains of late November robbed the farm of nutrient rich topsoil in several areas. We were lucky. Neighbors lost much more due to foundational soil slipping downhill or flooding inside the house or mudslides from above. As I said, we were lucky. No structural damage. And now we have a clear picture of what needs to be done to better channel and control the water that falls from the sky and sometimes in biblical volume.
The seasons shifted while we were gone. Dry season arrived early. Humidity is down by 25 points, skies are mostly sunny and the gentle breezes are quickly drying things out. The likely downside of this early arrival is an impact on key crops as the dry cycle extends. And also impact on local livelihoods. Our 10,000 gallon tanks of collected rain water began overflowing in late September. At least we have that in reserve. just in case. My dad's words flash through my mind...prepare for the worst...hope for the best.
Our project list includes a rebuild of the greenhouse, fencing areas set aside to grow grass for the horses, digging out all the stalls and implementing a better bedding system, painting all the metal rails, replacing the laying hens, planting additional fruit trees and, oh yeh... water drainage. Maybe I will find time to ride Che!
The next priority is to...prioritize! In the 7 years that I have lived in Panama, only two friends and one cousin have come to visit. Now, the flood gates seemed to have opened. Ummm, perhaps not the best analogy give the rains here last month. Suddenly family and friends are blocking calendar time to roll into Boquete to visit starting with the Christmas/Hanukah week. We will have visitors for a week each month and sometimes more visitors in the same month through May. I love this! But I need to prepare the guest rooms and get the villa finished. Priority One!
I am my auntie Gerry's niece. When she passed, her daughter Malori had to change the locks on the house to make it safe for rental. She had no idea who had keys as Gerry would hand them out to family and friends with an open invitation to come and stay while in Los Angeles. Whenever I dropped in for a visit, there was always someone at the house. Sometimes a relative and sometimes not. It was always a party. The baton has been passed... Now to be ready!
One of the foals from Carlos farm has been successfully started (trained for riding) and now resides on the farm for riding pleasure. Toffee is a beautiful young man whose name is derived from the candy and suggested by his coloring. He has been with us for a few days and is adjusting well. With a beautiful gate and mindset to match, I am looking forward to us becoming acquainted.
One of the benefits of belonging to the horse community here is horse trading. Sometimes no money exchanges hands. Other times a very fair price is asked but only for a good home. As we are considered a 'good home' (how can we not be with two vets living here, stalls, paddocks, riding trails and anything else a horse might need or want), replacing Rocinante with a a more suitable steed will be easy. A big, handsome boy, he was more horse than Gary or I could handle. Carlos will take him back to his farm before the end of the year. In the meantime, one less horse to feed will be a welcome budget break for a time.
And then, there is this horse. From Texas. Excellent blood lines. A friend had bought this mare not long ago. We had ridden together and I know this horse to be solid, well trained, a good mare and I know the former owner who brought her to Panama. The current owner and her husband have decided to sell their home and leave Panama and the mare behind...
I set to work on yanking out a parasitic vine that grows rapidly on the trees and bushes in Panama strangling them to a black death. Each dry season the fruit trees and ornamentals need to be stripped of this vine that wraps tightly around the branches starting at the top of the tree and dropping down like a Tarzan rope. The vine feeds from the sap and has no need to put roots in the ground. The lighter green crown at the top of this tree is that vine.
When we purchased the farm almost 4 years ago, I convinced Gary that we needed an ATV. I had a plan. As with horse trading, expats trade a variety of things acquired then seldom used or left behind when moving on to the next adventure. A friend no longer had use for a large ATV and it had a trailer hitch. I knew what to do.
The well maintained machine needed new tires and brakes. Done. Updated tags. Done. Wind blowing through my hair to dry the sweat? Priceless. The ATV has become the go-to machine to move large amounts of, well, anything...hay to soil to garbage to compost to leftover shards of building materials. My second horse. Gas is cheaper than feed. I repurposed a seldom used trailer and cut it down to the size of a large dump cart. Voila! Finally, Gary sees the value of the purchase.
I am teaching Alex to use this rig. He has a motorcycle license but... was T-boned a few years back and the bike was totaled. Luckily, he was OK. Riding an ATV dragging a trailer requires some practice, license or not.
After another night-time routine of Lilly scratching for her 3a pee and Codi tapping to be let outside at 5a, I sleepwalk into the kitchen to start the coffee. The bag of whole beans sits aside the grinder. I tip it over. The Mr. Coffee plastic measure falls out. How strange that a cheap plastic tool brings so much joy! All is good with the world. I smile. The house sitter must have put it there.
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