Remember the guy we were trying to give away? Well, he had a stroke this week. He is currently in the hospital. He is asking for his family but nobody knows who his family is or where they are. We know of a nephew that lives in California but doesn’t talk to his uncle now that we bought this farm. He was the same nephew that convinced his uncle to live on this farm for 25 years as a “watchman” and promised to give him one half of the selling price one day when it sold. He hasn’t called his uncle since he took our money out of the country. So, we don’t think he’s coming to visit. Then there is the 23 year old daughter that the old man had with a married woman some time ago. She lives close enough but hasn’t visited him in 12 years. She hasn’t wanted anything to do with him…until now as he lies in a hospital bed and she happened to get the keys to his house (which is a padlock by the way) from his pants pocket at the hospital. She knows that he keeps his money in his mattress like most people without cars that live in the village. This is where we fit in to this equation. His “house” is on our property (We have allowed him to live here because he is actively building a new house down the road). I saw her during visiting hours at the hospital yesterday and she kind of TOLD me that she would be coming by to do his laundry and stuff. She hasn’t visited him in 12 years and she wants to come over while he is dying to do his laundry! If he recovers and gets out of the hospital only to find his money and stuff all gone he won’t be able to build his house and get the heck off of our farm. We want the old man to get better but it is weird buying a farm in a new country and getting a sleazy, self-imposed grandfather with the deal. That wasn’t in the contract. We have had plans to add a camping area in that spot. This situation will truly test us and I’m not sure if I am going to pass.
On top of that, our husky, Smokey has now eaten 8 baby chicks and 4 large laying hens that belong to our neighbors. The baby chicks belonged to Alfredo and Maria whom we consider friends as well as neighbors. When it happened a month ago I promptly went and bought new chicks and a bag of food as an apology and they put up proper fencing in their chicken coop. The 4 layers belong to a caretaker that lives along side of us that we haven’t met yet. He told Alfredo to tell us that if he sees our dogs in the pasture again that he would kill them. I can understand how he feels. When a person’s third largest asset is his laying hens and some worthless dog kills them he has every right to save his food source. Notice I didn’t say Smokey eats them I said kills them. He just shakes them around really hard until their guts fly out. I don’t know why.

This is Antonio’s house. The rocks are helping to keep the roof on over his bathroom, just so you get a feel for the layout.

We are currently taking photos and writing about our fruits and vegetables that we have here on the farm. The next post will feature the Cacao.