Leaving Volcan...

The Volcan/house sitting chapter is over. We packed up last week, said our goodbyes to the neighbors, Sally, Penny and the 11 puppies, and had one last good night of laughs with Carlos and Yari. It was definitely hard to say bye to Yari, we have grown to love her like our little sister. We were only there for 2 months but made great friends like Yari, Carlos, Louis, Ryan and Kelly, and of course our peace corps friends Dee, Annie, and Matt. Here are some pictures of a day we spent with Matt at his place milking the goats and at our place for a coffee tour and tasting. 

Oh, and the pups. We haven’t told you about them yet. Last Saturday our very pregnant Penny decided to start the birthing at 10pm. Great timing Penny. We came home late from a friend’s house and she didn’t come to greet us, so I went to look. I found her, distraught and making this weird, tiny, squealing noise. Except, the sound wasn’t coming from her, it was the tiny pup under the blanket. I quickly picked it up and Penny followed me inside to her birthing bed where she continued to pop out 6 more every 30 minutes. It was quite fasinating to watch. She cleans up everything!!! So easy for us, we just watched in case she needed help. She was a great mom from the start. At 3:30am, we thought she was done (I was hoping she’d be done with 7) since it had been an hour since one came, so we headed to bed. In the morning we found 4 more. 11 beautiful black pups some with white chests, necklaces, and paws.

Sunday morning we took an hour bus to David then a 5 hour bus to Penonome where John Douglas (founder of the Lazy Man’s Farm – Finca de los Perezosos) picked us up and drove us another 30 minutes to the beautiful paradise we are pitching our tent. We will stay the month of July to learn all his wonderful permaculture techniques. He and his trusty, super smart friend Marcelino (a Panamanian with a knack for growing everything) have already taught us so much about growing food in these first few days. Their secret….it’s in the garbage!!! You’ll understand more as we continue to post their methods. Check out his website at http://www.organicpanamapermaculture.com/