Summertime!!

Once again, summer rolls around here in Montezuma just in time for the Holidays. Although we are north of the Equator, we're south of the tropic, and the rains stop and the sun shines from December to April...

Not to say that we have been idle. Lots of new things are happening at the gardens, not least of which was a facelift for all our rooms:


Our caligo room, with a large balcony overlooking the butterfly garden and a vista del mar, now rents at $70 per night, and includes A/C, Satellite TV, private bath, and of course our breakfast and butterfly tour.



Our Morpho room, which features the same amenities as the Caligo, with a much smaller balcony, rents at $60 per night, and allows for Holas to the folks who are walking by on the way to the waterfalls during the day:



The Juno room is a bit smaller, and without a balcony, but with a double sized and single sized bed with it's own bathroom, A/C and Satellite TV, is a good way to share more comfortable accommodations for a lower budget at $50 per night.



If you want to get away from TV, try the Dryadula Room. Air conditioned for comfort, and with a bunk bed, a great deal for $40 per night.
For December of 07, and part of Jan 08, this will also be our Work/Stay room, until our new casita behind the butterfly garden is complete.

All the rooms above assume up to 2 person occupancy, add another $10 per person over two.
Additionally, we are trying something new this year. For another $10 per room per night, we are opening our kitchen for guest use! It will be a true open kitchen experience, as all of our spices, condiments, and cookware will be at your disposal.

Work/Stay:










There are always lots of things to do around the garden, and the butterflies appreciate a lot of TLC, and we would like to give a shout out to everyone that helped make our Work/Stay program a wonderful success this year!!

For $250 per person per month, which works out to $8.33 per day, we can accommodate two people who trade 5 four hour days of work in the garden for cheap rent and breakfast and lunch. This works out well for everyone, and affords the work stay folks a reasonable means to get to know the people and the area for an extended period of time:

Contact Us:
josh@montezumagardens.com for email.

We do Skype with our satellite connection, username Mariposario1

If you are in country, and want to give us a call:

26 42 13 17

We are in a very rural location, so if it takes a day to get back to you: smile, whisper "pura vida" to yourself, and imagine living on the beach in a country where deadlines and your sense of time are....flexible.


pura vida

Fuego de April

So we had a little kick off for the fool moon. It is cashew season, and our tree did us right this year.Have you ever danced by the fuego of the cashew?

cuatro minutos antes

and introducing....

Elle

Elle has been around for the last few weeks, and due to her amazing nature, has now been adopted, and is now cared for, by the folks here at Montezuma gardens. Very sweet, a little bit naughty, but throughly nice, she has been getting the word out about our great little place here, and the care that they show to those in need, and so, now we have someone who has adopted us:

Deja

Who absolutely refuses to leave, even though she drives Jack crazy. They're getting used to each other, though, and i think she might just have our back. She definately took care of the cows that showed up while i was away in Panama, and kept them from "disturbing" our yard.

Well, if she wants to work, we want to take care of her.

Working in the Garden

What is life like in the Garden? Varied and various. We are always experimenting with our grand terrarium, and each day there are newborns and new visitors, and we try to find the best locale for each. Here are two new Morpho larve ready for their first meal.

And, someone looking for a buffet:

Not to be outdone by one of our little friends, here's Luke working all the angles for dinner....

It's been a full month, and we were blessed with two amazing women who stumbled upon us while trying to get away from a less pleasant volunteer situation, but they quickly fell in love with the garden and the butterflies, and as the feeling was mutual, worked and played hard to keep everyone cared for and happy. Here is Elizabeth collecting Parides eggs:

All things change, and new adventures are just around the bend, but that won't stop Jack from doing his puppy dog best to keep you here as long as possible.


Photos in this post courtesy of Danielle Colvin

Pura vida

A weekend afternoon....... Just cause I can.

Summer flowers in the Garden

An adrenal rush to keep things active on a hot day.

"town"

New Butterflies

We have some new guests in the Garden:

The Caligo, or owl butterfly, is an enormous beauty, but considered a pest by banana farmers, because of their immense appetite:

They are rather quick on the wing, so here is one under glass:

And, we just recieved another zippy little Dryadula, who loves to hang out under our lemon tree

Work Stays

This is our Lab, where we raise the morphos, mural courtesy of Nasa.
This is our work stay room, with it's own bathroom and shower, and quite the deal for 250 a month, with breakfast and lunch for 20 hours of work a week. As a shameless plug, those who are interested can email josh@montezumagardens.com

The butterflies

This is our mascot, the blue morpho, who was kind enough to spread his wings and let us have a close up shot on one of our plantanos.







Keep yours eyes peeled because you never know what you will find in the garden:


The final instar of the Morpho

The Morpho Pupa

The Parides mating (male on the bottom)

Our Heliconiinae

Life out in the Garden

This is the entrance to the garden as of January of 2007, while we still have a long way to go, we sure have come a long way, baby. Mainly we go out on a day of discovery every day, reaping what we have sown, and getting to know the friends in the area who also enjoy our little slice of butterfly filled bosque

Daniel with his Motmot friend

Daniel has been with us for the longest, now, and due to his love, our garden has grown immeasurably

Life at the house

Summer y Mami relaxing at the house.

During all the work, we had a recent addition to the family, Summer Jasmine Bickle-Sandoval, who gets a little work in too (getting papi to chill out)

But all the hard work came together, and we have a little house, and our first office in Montezuma, costa rica:

• 
  Our new treeside living room
• 
  
• Market Day
• Welcome to Montezuma Gardens!!
  

Raising the barn

It's taken a lot of sweat and many people to get us from an unfinished house and open netting to where we are today, although these don't really do everyone justice, here's a sampling of those who helped us along the way:


The Shannontree















Barnraisin the office










Linda Nasa!
And mom, pointing the way:

Montezuma

This is the house in costa rica, at it's most funkiest angle. Oblique, I think.

It's from the summer of 2006, right before we started working on completing the butterfly garden.

It doesn't take long for things to change completely around here. You can't see the house from this angle anymore, but mainly because our back yard has really grown since we started:

This is the Papaya tree that grew right behind the rear balcony in six months.

We've eaten almost all of the fruit by now

Here is the butterfly garden in Febuary of 2006, when we started, and in Aug of 2006.

You can tell some love has gone into it since then.