“Cousins and Grandparents” by Libby Doll October 20, 2009
I went to a pig roast with my cousins, Tyler and Maya. We ate hotdogs and chocolate.
I got to ride on a tractor with Maya. We went many places, but it was only imagination.
I got to stand on the table and watch Uncle Kork saw open the dead pig. Kork let Maya and me put salt and pepper inside the pig. We put it in the pig with our hands. I was not afraid.
Tyler sat on a log and ate pulled pork with my Daddy and his cousin Carrie. (She jumps out of airplanes.)
I got to see all of Poppie’s brothers and sisters. I think I like Poppie the best!
Maya and I played beauty shop at her house. Before Poppie and Grandma came for the pig roast, Maya, and Mommy and Aunt Anne, and I went for pedicures.
I went to a museum in St. Louis. Maya and Tyler went too. The museum had a very big slide. Maya and I came down the slide all alone. I wasn’t scared.
I saw turtles and a big ole catfish. Not as big as the catfish in Carlyle Lake. 
Maya’s friend, Catherine, was at the museum too.
We did a lot of crawling through things. We climbed on things too. I walked on balance beams with Poppie. We rode on a train. It went round and round three times. It was fun.
When we came home from the museum, Maya and I rode in her pink jeep. I like to drive her jeep. Maya and I take turns driving up and down the street. Jack sometimes walks with us. I drove across Uncle Brett’s grass!!
That night Uncle Brett and Maya played guitars and sang songs.
The next day, Maya and Tyler went to school and I went to Champaign with Grandma and Poppie. We stopped at a pumpkin patch on the way to 
Champaign. It was cold. I got to ride in a wagon. I picked out my own pumpkin. It was still in the big field.
I painted the pumpkin with glow in the dark paint. It wasn’t very scary. I killed a spider in Poppie’s house. I stomped on it with my shoe. It was a very very big spider.
Grandma and Poppie read me stories at bed time. They read Mama Do You Love Me and Dance Me, Daddy. I like those stories. Poppie tells me stories about dinosaurs at the playground and about the mermaids in Carlyle Lake.
I got new clothes. My winter clothes are in storage — somewhere.
I went to a beauty shop with Grandma Kathy. I got my hair trimmed.
Grandma and Poppie brought me to Louisville and Daddy was there. Grandma drove all the way and Poppie sat by me. (Poppie is my favorite.) I went home with Daddy. He’s my favorite, too. I slept all the way to my house.
The End!!
Healthy Living Made Easy October 18, 2009
Make a big fire –
Get a very large carcass –
Roast roast the hog in the ground over night –
Remove as much fat as you can.
Enjoy!!!
Simple and easy!
Sunday food 10-4-09 October 4, 2009
[some formating issues, but it's good enough]
Weekends always have the best food . . .
milk biscuits and black tea
Same breakfast as yesterday
This time I had 2 of the biscuits
Bread and Juice
World Communion Sunday.
To the left is the actual sacrement.
To the right is some left overs that
I was given to eat on the way out.
Lunch - a dandy salad with ranch dressing and hot sauce
Dinner – I made Indian. Aloo mateer (potatoes and peas) and Chana masala (chickpeas in sauce)
So good, I had a second helpingDessert was a homemade apple crisp with vanilla ice cream that Jennifer and Libby made. I ate it before I rememebered to take a picture so here is a picture of my near bowl -
Almost done
And another of Jennifer,
and Libby and the apple
crisp and ice cream.
Yum. Yum.
Another day of food 10-3-09 October 4, 2009
I realize compared to Marielle’s glorious food photos, mine are the naked folks in National Geographic. Just my documentary style. On to the food -
milk biscuits and black tea
I did not eat the entire pan. This was just the most convenient time to take the picture. I probably ate 3 of them, including the parts of Libby’s that I finished.
lime shortbread
Libby wanted to make “cut out” cookies. Instead of making a dough we had to chill for hours, we made shortbread. Libby cut most of them out.
sauteed peppers, onions, and garlic . . .
. . . with guacamole on corn tortillas
one more shortbread for an afternoon snack
very creamy vegetable chowder for supper
with a side of fresh applesauce
Daniel Family Pictures October 3, 2009
They loved the moon walk too.
A great day for the kids!
Saphia and Laila in our puddle
Jobe and Sammy celebrating Dave's birthday
DebiAnn visits!
Matt's family
What I ate – 10/02/09 October 2, 2009
Breakfast - homemade granola and yogurt
Mid-morning snack of a handful of almonds
Lunch - build your own buffalo chicken salad, from Wendy's
A few more nuts after lunch
Cheesy Toast, butternut squash pasta sauce and beer for dinner.
Marcia – I am not dead! August 24, 2009
While I was in Costa Rica, Marcia called Kathy and among other things wanted to know if I had died since there has been no new material on the pocahontasproud blog since a tree fell in the woods in Kentucky. Kathy assured her that I was not dead, but that I was in fact out of the country. This is further evidence of my existence. So, here’s the scoop.
My sister, Janice, and I along with 9 others from my church went to Costa Rica the second week in August. Our ages ranged from 15 to 83. Most of the week we ate, slept and worked within the metropolitan area of
San Jose, the capital city. My two little pigs went along also. They thoroughly enjoyed their time away from their mundane daily routine in the US.
We stayed at a Methodist church in Guadalupe, a suburb of San Jose. We had dormitory style accommodations and we slept on bunk beds. We ate breakfast and supper here. The church compound was gated and had razor wire around the perimeter on top of the walls. When we went to bed at night we locked the gate, locked the door to our dormitory, and set the alarm for the areas we would not use at night. I felt very secure!!
We had hot water showers even though there was no hot water faucet. Turning on the cold water closed an electrical circuit which caused a heating coil in the shower head to heat. The cold water was heated and we had warm to hot showers. Obviously, the faster the water was running over the heating element the less time it had to get hot, so the trick was to regulate the flow of water for the desired water temperature . Who says that water and electricity do not mix?
The organization we worked with, StrongMissions.com arranged for us to have an interpreter and a 25 passenger bus anddriverwhile we were there. We would leave Guadalupe for the work site around 8:00 am, or whenever our interpreter arrived to go with us. We worked at the Los Guidos Methodist Church in Desamparados, an area adjacent to San Jose to the south. We ate lunch at the work site andwouldreturned to Guadalupe around 5:30. This is the craziest thing we saw on any of our bus rides in the city:
Typically, though there was just a lot of traffic.
Supper was at 6:00 and it was dark by the time supper was over, as sunset was 5:55pm. (Sunrise was about 5:30 am.)
The work at Los Guidos church consisted of putting a skimcoat of mortar on the cement block walls and over the concrete floor of two rooms. One 
room will be the wood working shop, where local craftsmen make wooden crosses that are sold in several shops in San Jose. The second room will be a class room.
Another small job was to build a couple of concrete steps to get into the area of the two new rooms. And after the concrete cured for a couple of days we did put a skimcoat on it, too.
Janice and I got to build an interior, steel studded wall. I had 
never worked with steel studs before, but I think that is the way to go. Very easy to work with. We built the wall with doorway, 
put up the drywall, and taped and mudded on one day. Janice is really good with the drywall drill. The next day we sanded and painted – margarita green like the rest of the rooms. That was a very fun project, mainly because I got to do it with Janice. One of the first jobs our group completed was painting the walls and ceiling of a small two bedroom apt. The entry to the apartment was just to the right of the wall that we built. The walls in both bedrooms, the living room and the kitchen were all the same color, margarita green. The ceiling was white.
After the wall was done, I worked with Will, one of the paid carpenters working with us (so we didn’t screw anything up too badly), on 
hanging two doors in the apartment. These were custom doors – which means the door didn’t fit the opening until we customized it. They got hung and they work. Function trumps fashion.
And we helped the head carpenter, Wilburth, with installing the security fencing, mesh and steel that all the buildings have.
The meals were absolutely delicious. All of the meals prepared in Guadalupe and at the worksite included rice and usually black beans as well. There was always fruit (watermelon, pineapple, banana) and usually a salad of greens and vegetables for lunch and supper. I think mostly because we are North Americans that we also had meat for lunch and supper. Many time the meat was in a hardy “stew” with many kinds of root crops – carrot, potato, sweet potato, yucca, cassabe. We were definitely not lacking for starch in our diets. I did gain weight while I was there.
It was not all work every day. Sunday, August 9 was our first full day in Costa Rica. After an early breakfast we boarded our bus and rode to Poas Volcano. It is listed as an “active” volcano. It last erupted in the 1960’s I 
believe. But today it was quiet. As we left San Jose and rode uphill to the volcano we went through large acreages of coffee. It is grown on very steep hill sides that can only be harvested by hand. Coffee is a major agricultural export of Costa Rica. Higher in elevation as coffee production is no longer feasible the hillsides are dotted with canvas and plastic covered structures. They protect the flowers and vegetables from the intense and 
direct sunlight. Many of the cut flowers in the US are grown in Costa Rica. The packaged flowers are consolidated at a warehouse near the airport. When the US bound passangers and baggage are loaded, the cargo meister calls the warehouse and orders as many boxes of cut flowers as will still fit in the cargo hold. The airlines make money transporting the flowers, and the growers save money by not having to pay the full air freight for getting them to the US. Win – Win!
Still gaining elevation the flower and vegetables give way to pastures for dairy and beef. Costa Rica is self sufficient in both dairy and dairy products. We drove passed one dairy farm where a bulk tank truck was picking up the milk. We also saw later in the week a truck with 3 or 4 large milk cans of whole milk. The dairyman would fill smaller containers for individuals and store owners. At roadside stands there was both sweet and sour milk for sale in ziplock bags.
As we neared the entrance to Poas Volcano National Park, the clouds began to thicken and we walked the quarter mile trail to the crater in the clouds and mist. When we reached the rail overlooking the crater, there 
was nothing to see but gray. (The little picture to the left is a photo of a poster that was hanging on the wall of the gift shop.) By the time we completed the 3/4 mile loop andreturnedto the bus the mist had given way to a drizzle which in turn had given way to a steady light rain. It was a cloudy ride down the hill much of the way back to the compound a Guadalupe. We ate a late lunch, got cleaned up andwentto church. We left the compound around 3:00 pm andreturned around 7:00. The service was lively!
Both boys and girls dance at the front of the sanctuary. The worship service began with an hour of singing and dancing. Then came the sermon which was translated into English for us, and finally the offering and much hugging and hand shaking and blessings for all.
Friday we were at the beach town of Manuel San Antonio ant the entrance to Manuel San Antonio National Park. We hiked in the park with a tour guide. 
Our guide had lived on the banana plantation and rain forest before it was sold a
nd later became a national park. He was very knowledgeable of the vegetation and animals in the park. Two of the nicest beaches along this stretch of the coast are in the national park and this is the reason it is now a state park. The land was sold to someone from the US who blocked the access to the beaches for the native Costa Ricans. They caused such a toodo and much bickering back and forth that the government just took the land and designated it a national park. But I digress. 
Our guide walked and talked and always had his eyes and ears tuned to the tree tops and understory. He was able to locate animals that I would have never known were there. We saw howler monkeys, 
white-faced monkeys, sloths – two toed and three toed, herons, ants, spiders, bullfrogs, grass hoppers, ants, iguanas, land crabs, tropical cedar, bamboo, eucalyptus, poison fruit trees, so much to see! It was advertised as a 2 hour hike andheshowed us around for 3 1/2 hours. Needless to say we were tired and 
hungry when we got back to town. There is nothing quite as good as seafood when you’re sitting in a restaurant watching the ocean waves lap onto the shore. It was’t Hawaii but nothing else is. This may have been Hawaii 75 years ago.
After lunch some of the group headed back to the motel to loll around the pool or to take a nap. Others of us went to the beach to 
play in the surf. It is a long stretch of beach and there are very few people using it on this afternoon. This is the “rainy” season and a less popular time to be at the beach. The “less rainy” 
season is mid-November to mid-February and our translator, Jaime, says the beache here are very crowed, especially on weekends. But for now we just enjoy the sand and the surf. Oh, look — the Bay of Pigs!!
Saturday morning Janice and I went to the beach for a jog. As luck would 
have it I didn’t bring my jogging shoes, so Janice ran alone. After breakfast we packed and loaded 
onto our bus for our return to Guadalupe and home. But on the way we take 3 hours to zipline the canopy with vistas of the Pacific Ocean. It was 
a wonderful experience and so inexpensive when compared to the prices on Maui. We had 14 zips and the cost was only 15,000 colones. 
One last experience getting home was the detour across an old (1930’s) bridge while they are upgrading the current bridge. We did this same crossing on the way to the beach, but we did it at night. We heard the rumbling of the bridge deck, but had no idea of what the bridge actually looked like.
Back in San Jose, we have supper with our new friends and then it’s packing 
and to bed. We leave for the airport at 3:30am.
If all of this – the volcano, the work, the beach, the food - were to define what a mission trip to Costa Rica was all about, I could walk away in an instant and say, “Been there, done that!” But I cant say that. Some day I will return to Costa Rica (and I’m setting here typing this with tears in my eyes) because of this–
We got to meet these children because they live in the area around the church where we were working. They come to the church at noon for a free meal. Every day while we were there we got to serve these children what would be for many the only meal they would have that day. It absolutely breaks my heart when I think of the future these children have compared to that of Tyler and Maya and Libby.
The reason that I will come back is that there a possibility that a painted room, a new wall, a door in the doorway, a couple of steps, or a skim coat of cement will make a difference in the life of one of these children. I also know that by just being there I am saying that they matter to me. I care and I will go back.
Final post devoted to the Whiskey Barrel Planter June 29, 2009
So I felled the third tree over but it survived.the with the assistance of my father-in-law Tom. We did not get a picture of that tree relative to the Whiskey Barrel Planter,
Yes, a little worse for the wear but still usable. Let’s see if it can survive the next round of heavy equipment (in a few weeks).
