And the countdown begins

Today was a beautiful Costa Rican summer day.  The sun was shining the whole day and just a few times showers fell to cool off the air and remind us that we are in the heart of a beautiful rain forest.  It is our second to last day for building the oven and we were able to get everything done we hoped to get done today.

We started out the day by cleaning out the oven itself.  John spent most of the morning in the oven filling in the joints and cleaning up the mortar.  It was a long and tedious process.  John definitely earned his title of the day as “YOU DA MAN”.  Cristina also agreed that John won the award of the day because he is always hungry and never turns down the abundance of food that she is constantly offering us.  Both Cristina and Laura agreed he should just stay here and they would adopt him because he is such a hard worker and eats EVERYTHING!  

After cleaning up the inside of the oven, we broke open our last bags of cement and poured the final layer covering the dome.  We then to a few minutes and enjoyed a little artwork on the top of the dome.  We each wrote a message (or drew a picture) as a way to lock in our memories of these days together.

Lastly, we began working on the front of the oven in preparation for the outside arch and chimney.  This was everyone’s least favorite part of these past days building the oven and our craftsmanship seems to show it.  We all agreed to blame the Costa Rican mortar and decided that each person’s flaw represented their signature to the project.  There were just a few too many signatures and we aren’t even done yet.

The proud owner of a new hand crafted brick bread oven

Tomorrow I hope to blog with a picture of the beautiful sunsets at Tamarindo Beach.  We hope to be done by 12:00 noon with the final arch and chimney work.  We will then meet up with the Amelse, St. Clairs, Schwieters, abuela and niece Karen and head for the beach for some well deserved R&R.