Guest impressions

I have long since forgotten what it's like to experience life here on the farm for the first time. But my mom's visiting for a few weeks, and I've grabbed some excerpts from an email to family. Hope you enjoy.

We are surrounded with chickens, roosters, ducks and ducklings, birds of all kinds, fruits I've never tasted and trees of all sorts: bamboo, palm, eucalyptus, cashew, teak, lime, orange.

The weather is warm and humid but not insufferable. The room in which I am staying is air conditioned (if I choose). I am beginning to sleep peacefully after several nights of unsettling dreams, followed by deep drug like sleep. Although there are few city noises, (cars, sirens, neighbors, phones, pagers, doorbells, snow plows etc.), the relative quiet is filled with an occasional plane, and nature's sounds: roosters crowing, and ducks quacking, unlimited songs and calls of well over one hundred fifty species of birds, crickets, gentle breezes and last night a "torrential" rain.

Most of the food we eat comes from the farm: meat, eggs, milk, yogurt, homemade bread, vegetables, different lettuces, fruits and juices. Evelyn and Clovis have two washing machines but the clothes dry on the line within an hour or so. We've been once to the "city" for ice cream, a specific weight of hammer, and some grocery items. (they wheel the groceries to your car and put them in the trunk even if you're not handicapped!) The driveway to the farm is a mile and a half dirt road and the farm itself is about a half hour from Cuiaba central. All in all it is a calm and calming space.