This is our first blog entry and I will be posting every week on Thursday evening.
Seven years ago we sold our farm in Hawaii and came to Costa Rica. After a couple of years here our children, Sam and Olivia, were asking to have a farm again so we started up again. We have had the farm here for 5 years now and lately I am realizing that there is a lot going on here. So I decided to write a weekly blog about it. Since this is our first blog I thought it would be good to recap some of the highlights of this last summer season. Summer in Costa Rica starts in December. It is not actually a true summer but the beginning of the dry season when the weather is perfect.
We started off the summer season in Dec when we hosted David Lichman. 5 Star Parelli instructor and a great person, this was the third time we helped to arrange for his workshop here in Costa Rica. Over the past two years we have learned so much about natural horsemanship from this phenomenal teacher. He has given us the tools and confidence to really enjoy our horses like never before. You can visit his website www.davidlichman.com if you would like to know more about him. 
In January, my son Cyrus, his wife Brooke, and three of their friends took a break from the cold Maine winter to come down and work on their tree house.
In March we had our week long ride from the farm to the beach. Guests Vanessa from Australia, Johanna from Germany, and Juli, also from Germany joined Olivia and I on the adventure. 
We traveled through the mountains for 5 days , staying with families along the way. 
Our mountain horses are always amazed when they see the ocean. On our next trip we will plan a few extra days to play with them in the waves. We have lots more pictures of the trip on the horseback riding page. 
Then it was Easter and the kids celebrated with an Easter Egg Hunt on horse back all around the farm.
Right after Easter, Guests Karen and her daughter Franzi came to the farm from Germany for a week of riding. Franzi loved riding Silky and Karen’s favorite was my favorite too, Paloma. We rode out every day on different mountain trails every day. We visited the sugar mill and swam in rivers and bathed under water falls and of course enjoyed the beautiful scenery all from horse back. We all had a great time riding and making new friends. Karen writes to me now about the cold weather in Germany. It is hard to imagine while it so hot in Costa Rica!
On the farm scene, we have had several new arrivals. We’ve had 5 baby pigs, 9 baby goats, several dozen ducklings and even a chicken that who hatched 7 ducklings!
Since December we have had hosted 13 WWOOF volunteers and 11 farm and horse interns. It seems that we always have great folks around helping and learning and just having fun. They come from all over the world. Just recently we had volunteers from Hungary, France, Mexico, Finland and the USA, so we invited our Costa Rican, Columbian and Cuban friends to join us for an international pot luck dinner. It’s great to have the influence of people from all over the world here at the farm. It’s a learning experience for our children and for everyone.
Even when we don’t have guests we go on trail rides at least 3 to 4 times a week. Just a couple of weeks ago our friends joined us with their horses and we set out for a trail ride with 13 horses! That’s the most horses we have ever taken out at one time. The horses did great considering they were coming from three different herds.
From here on down you will find photos from some of the rides we have gone on with our guests, volunteers, and interns, in the past few months. 
