Paul and I have our 15-acre eco-organic farm in Utuado on the market. It’s a little bittersweet because we’ve achieved everything we set out to achieve back in 2008 when we decided to move to Puerto Rico to be farmers. We’d spent 20 years each in the corporate world, stressing out nearly every day of those years.
Mayani Farms has been a lot of things for us:
- Healing
- Restorative
- A source of endless learning
- Our salvation
- A place where we can get as far away from stress, politics and drama
Our decision to put it up for sale is a bit of a double-edged yet inevitable sword. We left out jobs in biotech, sold our house in Southern California and moved to Puerto Rico after having been on vacation for two weeks. I kid you not.
When we found this farm we’re on, it had 8,000 coffee trees and it was heavily sprayed. We didn’t come here to do monoculture and we definitely come here to use the trio of toxicity: pesticides, herbicides and chemical fertilizer.
This is what the house looked like when we bought it.
At just under 500 square feet, it had a small kitchen, a small living room, no dining room, two 10×10 bedrooms and a bathroom that was no bigger than your standard U.S. powder room. It had an apartment downstairs that we figured one day we’d renovate for long-term guests. We particularly didn’t like the small, closed off feeling of the tiny rooms. Walls galore, we knew it had to be open.
There was no shade to speak of anywhere around the house. It was hot!
This is essentially what the house looked like before.
From a drawing alone, the foreman/carpentero, Don Antonio and his crew got to work to expand the house to 1672 square feet. They added a patio and a marquesina (covered carport). We’d had an open-floor plan in our house in California and wanted this again.
This is what wanted them to create:
What we were trying to mimic was our first floor in California:
I’d say they did an awesome job from just a sketch by someone with zero drawing talent (me).
While the construction was going on, it was time to rip out the 8,000 coffee trees and figure out what we wanted to do. We got a few starter chickens from our neighbors. We hired a consultant who went through the farm with precision and expected us to keep up.
As he pointed, he would utter something. “Medicinal plant, invasive weed, erosion control plant,” and if we hadn’t had a pen and paper and weren’t quick, we’d have missed his entire walk through. And he’s not the kind of person who likes to repeat himself.
Next, we bought some bamboo and lots of fruit trees from him. We then got some starter goats from him.
We then bought and devoured about 75 books on sustainable agriculture in the tropics. And lastly, we employed the trial-and-error method. By the end of 2012, we were noticing the farm was looking dramatically different from what it looked like when we bought it.
It can take fruit-bearing trees and some types of bamboo up to 15 years to mature. Given this, we’ve achieved everything we ever wanted. We created the farm we hoped to create when we bought it in May 2009. We learned about sustainable agriculture in the tropics using a three-pronged approach:
- We hired a consultant
- We bought and devoured tons of books on sustainable agriculture in the tropics
- We used the trial-and-error method, which sometimes yielded amazing results, and at other times was a complete disaster
And here’s the double-edged sword.
Today, we’re consultants helping others who are new to sustainable agriculture in the tropics try to figure out. We do things a little differently from our mentor. We take copious photos and from there, Paul designs what the property can look like in the future. We base this on clients’ preferences, soil type, drainage, and what works. Here is an example of what we do:
And because our trees are fully mature and we’re now helping others do what we did, we’re, well, bored. Yup, I kid you not. We forage for food for the goats in the morning for their meals throughout the day; we remove some invasive vines and every few months we prune some trees. It’s a bit routine. We’re excited when tree orders come in because we can transplant some seedlings and watch them grow with the same excitement we had when we were new to growing.
People ask us why we want to move and buy a new farm. We want to rehab a new farm while we’re still young. We’re in our 60s and our life expectancy is pretty long, so while we are still able, we need to do this.
So what does Witness Protection have to do with this narrative?
On the eve of when a potential buyer comes to see the farm and house, having spent the day cleaning up, we end up on the sofa reminiscing about the last 17 years in Puerto Rico and the last 15 on the farm. We pick a topic and talk it through.
We’ve experienced lots of highs and lows on the farm. When we were brand new, everything was exciting. Getting the dogs (first Gigi and Yum Yum, then an assortment of satos we adopted) was all brand new to us. I’d grown up with cats and Paul didn’t have animals growing up. We had cats in California but dogs were something brand new.
We adopted Gigi and Yum Yum from a backyard breeder. They had so many health issues. They lived to 10 (Gigi) and 11 years old. Héctor, named after Héctor Lavoe was a beautiful soul who was dropped off to us in 2013. He was only with us three years. When he died, it was so devastating.
At one point, we had five at once: Sumi, Zaina (who is 15 and barely hanging on), Marcos (a rescue), Gigi and Yum Yum. We still have Colita (little tail), who will be six in August. And then there’s mi ñoño (mama’s boy) Bolo.
Watching Amani give birth to Goatita and her sister Sofrita was the most amazing experience of our lives. It brought us as close to God as we’ve ever been.
When Amani died in labor (from a rare genetic disorder) less than two years later, followed by Goatita also succumbing to the same condition just two weeks later, we decided to stop mating our goats.
Then, of course there was Hurricane Maria on September 17, 2017. I’ll just leave you with this blog I wrote. Apart from losing many trees, we thankfully didn’t have any structural damage. I’ll also leave you with this follow-up article I wrote a year later.
Oh and Witness Protection?
Well, that’s an interesting story. My neighbor, Olga, whom I affectionatelyl call “Olgita, La Locita, La Jefa del Barrio” (the crazy Olgita, the boss of the neighborhood.) has a nephew named Miguel. He’s now in his late 30s, which is odd because he was 22 when we met him.
Miguel couldn’t believe that two Americanos with no ties to Puerto Rico and no ties to this BFE town could possibly have chosen Utuado to live. It was (and still is) unfathomable to him. Whenever we see him, he reminds us that we must have been in witness protection. Who seriously chooses Utuado to live in when most Americanos move to the metro area or Rincón? “That’s precisely why we didn’t move to those areas,” we remind him. We wanted peace and tranquility, but also we left the U.S. behind. Not wishing to emulate that life, we’re here.
He doesn’t buy it. He swears we ratted on some mobster or were whistleblowers, hiding on our mountain, living in obscurity. The sad thing is that our lives were much more mundane than he believes. We sat behind desks for 20 years, working hard, stressing out and making someone else rich.
And here we are, looking forward to the next phase of our lives.