Connie and Jeff from Seattle, Washington, stayed with us as our last guests of the season before we close for September and October. They are super nice people and brought a lovely end to another fabulous 10 months of being B&B hosts.

You can read their guestbook comment here.

It's been a very busy week for trout selling, too. We sold over 1,400 trout this week (for Roberto, Martin's friend and another very good contact we just met who bought 1,200 of our 0.5 kilo size fish). This guy is coming back next week because he wants some bigger 1 kilo-ish fish and more of the 0.5 kilo fish... about 600 more in total!). He wants us to go visit his farm where he has three small ponds (but too small to grow a variety of sizes) and he apparently fillets the trout and sells to restaurants, etc. From what I understand, he wants to buy from us regularly (but we don't know if that means once a month... once a week?). We definitely cannot accommodate his request for ongoing supply right now as our fish are accounted for, but if we can strike a deal, then we're happy to raise more fish for him. Always nice to find new clients.

The request for so many fish from our large pond put our new net to good use. This is how it's done...

And this is the scale we normally use...

But we might have to graduate to this version (this one belongs to the man who bought the fish... he came prepared!)

In other news... I will be flying back home to Canada on September 1st for a little over two weeks to visit with my children, my parents, one of my sisters and brother-in-law, my sister-in-law, and a few dear friends. Of course, there's so many more family and friends I will not be able to see, which is always the challenge of not enough time. So I apologize in advance if I cannot stop in this time around. I will not be writing my blog while I'm away, but you can expect my next post, Sunday, Sept 25.

While I'm away, Kevin will be staying here taking care of things (thank you, Kevin!). Some great news (although not so much for me) is that one of our friends from Burlington (who now lives in England with his family) will be taking a short detour from a business trip to visit Kevin. Geoff will be staying at Hush Valley Lodge next Sunday and Monday, which will be super fun for Kevin. I'm so sorry that I will miss seeing him, but I can't be in two places at once. Geoff has been following our journey so it will be lovely for Kevin to show him in person our progress.

Sooze and Michael caught their dinner the day after my last blog entry, so here they are with their catch.

Oh, and although it's not really the time of year to spot Quetzals, Sooze saw one and took a picture and showed us. It was a beautiful female and she was hanging out in a tree across from the guesthouse. Sooze was thrilled, of course. And we were thrilled for her.

We had such a lovely time with Sooze and Michael. Super nice people (I know, I say that about all our guests, but it's true... we have the best luck!).

Click here to see what they wrote in our guestbook about their experience at Hush Valley Lodge

They left last Tuesday and we're now waiting for our next guests, Connie and Jeff, to arrive any minute now.

In the meantime, Kevin and Martin worked on this huge net. We can't find any nets around here so Kevin ordered one from the U.S. and our guest/friend, Krista, brought it down when she stayed with us a couple of weeks ago. Martin wanted his own for his ponds so Kevin bought enough to split in half. The entire net measured 100 ft x 8 ft and it weighed 35 lb (this one you see here is just half, so 50 ft long). Here Kevin and Martin are weaving twine on both sides and attaching floats on the top end and weights on the bottom end. The idea is to have the net span the width of a pond, one person on one side, another person on the other side, and they slowly drag the net closer to the edge collecting the trout in a smaller area, making it easier to catch. Hopefully, it works. We're always trying to improve the process.

So our tiny little village as been manoeuvering around bridge workers and big machines for several weeks now. Two weeks ago, Martin has said it would be complete by now... but this is Costa Rica and every runs on a different clock. But, they are making good ans substantial progress. Since my computer was giving me trouble last week, I couldn't post any pictures, but this week we can see a significant change in the landscape. This bridge, I think it's fair to say, won't be going anywhere! It's huge! They said it would be, but it's not until you actually see it that you realize they weren't kidding. The river it crosses is not a deep, scary flowing river... it's pretty tame actually. The size of the bridge feels rather disproportionate large compare to the feable trickle below. However, the issue is not about the river below at all... it's about withstanding the weight of the vehicles crossing it that matters, right? Here are some pictures showing the progress...

Now, I know what you're thinking (or should be thinking)... that road below seems awfully low compared to the height of the bridge. And you'd be right. We're all hoping they've thought this through. We are assuming there will be a lot of back filling involved and a gradual ramping up to it. Otherwise, this hunk of steel and concrete will be completely useless. So, we're trusting they've figured it all out and hope for the best.

 But for a little perspective, this is where my affectionate name of 'Hoover Dam' comes from.

We welcomed B&B guests yesterday - Sooze and Michael - originally from Leeds, England, but they've been living in the Cayman Islands for the past four years. They went on a horseback riding tour today and tomorrow they'll catch some trout for their dinner. Super nice people. They leave us on Tuesday.

We also had something fun happen. A week ago, one of our friends - Victoria - contacted us to see if we would be willing to let her sister-in-law, Mercedes, who is a photographer, use our property as backdrop for engagement pictures. We said "sure". They came by yesterday, early in the morning while it was sunny, and spent about three hours taking pictures all over the property. They seemed to be enjoying themselves. This made us think that we might "rent" out our place for such occasions. Another possible revenue stream. 

And a short computer update: I spent many hours deleting hundreds of files from my "All Images" folder, and recovered a lot of hard drive space. Although it's still not running perfectly, I think it can limp along for a wee bit longer. I emailed a friend who is an technology wizard and asked him if I would be able to update my computer. He replied saying that my computer is too old... time for a new one. At least, now I know. But as long as I can still write and upload pictures, I'll count my blessings.

This blog post is going to be short. I'm dealing with computer problems. Kevin and I have been working all day trying to solve the issues, but we're kind of stumped. A message saying that my start-up disk is full, yet when we investigated into it, it appears the glitch thinks I am using 10 times the amount of memory. It's all very confusing. So, before everything crashes, I'm just writing to let you all know, we're both fine, we had a great week with our repeat guests from Oregon, Krista... and this time she came with her son Quinn. They were here for the whole week, which was lovely. I have picture of the bridge progress, but cannot upload them at this time. Things are coming along. The Bettys are now laying up to 11 eggs a day. Good girls!!

Okay, I'm going to shut down my computer and hope for the best. If you don't see any blog posts from me next week, it's because things are going well technologically for me. I think it might be time to get a new computer. Wish me luck.