We’ve now been at La Finca Tremoulet (our friend Jeanene’s Tremoulet’s estate) for eight days. I’m not entirely sure what a finca is but I think it might mean something like property?

We’ve been teaching Luis, the horse manager, a little about clicker training. He knows the Parelli games very, very well and is very gentle and natural. The Tremoulet’s have several rescue Dominican horses. A couple have odd gaits because they are gaited mixes, with a little bit of a lot of different breeds, I am told. They are a bit bitter about having some amount of trouble with the active NH games because of their gait issues. Les and I taught Luis how to use clicker training to make everything more enjoyable for them.

Luis took us on a very cool ride the other day. We had to cross 3 rivers. One of the rivers was almost deep enough that the horses had to swim but the horses just waded out and stood there enjoying the water. It was clearly the best part of the ride for them. We sat with our heels up on the horse’s rumps so we wouldn’t get our shoes soaked. Things take awhile to dry here because it is so humid! During the ride, we saw Cocoa trees, avocado trees, mango trees, banana trees, plantain trees, and a bunch of other fruit trees that we are not familiar with. We tried one that Luis was calling little lemons. They are about the size of a Robin’s egg and have a big pit. I guess the Dominicans eat them for snacks because there really isn’t much fruit. You just suck on the pit and spit them out. It kind of tasted like peach, but looked more like a lemon on the outside.

Luis and Les have so much in common it’s strange. Luis does yoga, is a computer programer and horse trainer, reads lots of motivational books, and likes to mountain bike. He even has a dog with a disposition similar to Tovi’s. And, he rides a horse that is built like Koa with a little bit of a Roman nose, little legs, and big belly…

We have had 3 undesirable encounters with spiders in our house… All 3 have been at least the size of a Daddy Long Legs. One had very long legs and was very fast. One had a medium sized body and, after we built a chute with furniture, Les was able to squash it with a mop (normally we aren’t spider-killers but this one was scary at 11pm!). The third had a body the size of a small cockroach and short legs, and was very slow. After seeing it had hair on its legs, we called Luis. It was a Tarantula! Luis said it not dangerous as long as we didn’t do anything to make it jump. Ha! Luis put a glass over it, scooted it outside, and poked it with a stick until it was dead. Yikes and ick! I could do without ever seeing one of those again. We were told their bite is deadly.

Yesterday we rode bikes to the river and taught Luis to play a game with a clicker. In the game, one person is the “learner” and another person tries to use clicker training to get the “learner” to do something like spin around in a circle. It was cool to be able to use the clicker to communicate so much without words. Luis, Les, and I get along quite well with a mix of half English/half Spanish words in a sentence, but I think it would have been very difficult to explain the rules of just about any game… This one, since it is a non-verbal game anyway, Luis was able to understand after one example. It was the first time Les and I have got to play the game next to a river, so that added a fun twist. We were on a mini island made of pebbles so we had to contend with uneven ground and sensitive feet. That’s part of what makes the game fun – guessing what the animal is more likely or less likely to do given the environment.

It has been nice to have the break from work to spend some time thinking about what we need to have better sustained balance in our lives. It’s funny because Les and I have both noticed things that the other person has been saying for a long time but we’re really only “hearing” now. For example, Les always talks about backpacking and we’ve only ever gone backpacking one time in the 8.5 years we’ve been together. Finally I understood that he not only wants to go backpacking but wants to do more things that are like backpacking, ie., things that are calm, take all day, use a lot of energy, are casually social, involve new locations, and allow a person to exercise without running around a whole bunch. Ha. Can’t believe it took me that long to realize that that’s what he was saying. I thought he just wanted to put on a backpack and trounce around in the woods for miles once a summer. Understanding what the backpacking is about makes it so we can actually integrate more of that into what we do regularly, but who would ordinarily have time to think about what backpacking is about?

We’ve been eating a lot of different foods here. It is much easier to push the diet here because if you eat something not good, you are not as miserable because of the distractions of being someplace new. We’ve been eating more rice, lentils, potatoes, beans, etc. We actually made yogurt from the milk of one of Jeanene’s cows yesterday! We were very careful about the directions on the packet because they were in French. We kept a close eye on the yogurt with the thermometer. We are happy with the result, and it was a unique experience. My hope would be that we will have developed some new tolerance for foods by the time we come home. Les knows a place where we can order cheese making supplies and we are planning to make our own goat cheese with milk we get from a lady at the barn.

We got some amazing photos of Les doing yoga on the lawn here. We are hoping to do more clinics in the upcoming year. Les is particularly interested in yoga/horsemanship clinics. Clinics are nice because of the change of scenery and highly appreciative students. Since Les and I can’t go out for a drink, or really even a meal with friends because of our go-around with Candida, we have to get our entertainment from somewhere! I think we did a reasonable job last year – having horse shows in Jan, Feb, and Mar, a clinic in Apr, Parelli in May, Joseph in June, clinic in July, wedding in Aug… Next year I hope will be equally exciting. This long vacation has afforded us much time to reflect and dream!