A New Life In Costa Rica

Baseball, you bet

Usually this time of year I write about the Baltimore Orioles packing up the family and heading back to the states for opening day. I'm still seeing plenty around the house but many have headed back for spring training. What I didn't know was heading back to the states with the vacationing birds in time for Major League baseball from Costa Rica was the actual balls themselves.  WHAT? Yep, Rawlings

It was quite a surprise when I read this article on Inside Costa Rica a few minutes ago. I wonder if we go back to Turrialba if we can tour the Rawlings factory. I know Bill would love it, baseball fan that he is. There was a great little Mexican restaurant on the way as well.

 

Made in Costa Rica: U.S. Major League baseballs
By Leslie Josephs

TURRIALBA, Costa Rica (Reuters) - The average baseball is only used for a few pitches in the U.S. Major Leagues, but for the Costa Ricans who make them each ball is the result of hours of painstaking stitching by hand.

For 10 hours a day, workers at the world's only factory authorized to supply Major League Baseball, in the town of Turrialba in central Costa Rica, sit at desks yanking strands of waxy red fiber to form each baseball's 108 stitches.

In professional games the balls quickly become too dirty and scuffed by bats to use, or get lost in the crowd on a foul ball or home run. To feed the demand, the factory turns out as many as 2.4 million baseballs a year, all assembled by hand.

The cork and rubber cores, Tennessee Holstein cowhide and gray New Zealand sheep's wool yarn are shipped tax-free to the plant where more than 300 workers sit in neat rows to sew, their arms rhythmically rising and falling like a rowing team.

The finished balls are boxed up and shipped to Miami.

Famed for its stability in a turbulent region, Costa Rica is an economic success story in Central America, earning money from eco-tourism, coffee and fruit exports, and factories making everything from making microchips to pharmaceuticals.

Manufacturer Rawlings Sporting Goods, which has an exclusive contract to supply Major League Baseball until 2013, moved its factory here from Haiti in the late 1980s, fleeing the violent aftermath of a dictatorship in the Caribbean nation.

The workers are glad for the pay in a depressed farming town with few other jobs, but few show much interest in baseball in a country that is much more passionate about soccer.

"I really don't understand baseball," admitted Minor Quesada, who has worked at the factory for 17 years.

The work is tough and some employees have shoulder injuries from trying to churn out too many balls to win bonuses.

They earn a base salary of $1.60 an hour, slightly above Costa Rica's minimum wage but a world away from the $3 million average salary of a U.S. professional baseball player.

Still, for many in Turrialba it's a good deal.

"It's pretty hard to find work," said Rocio Gamboa, 33, who has been stitching baseballs at the factory for 11 years.

She produces 200 balls a week, and receives a 52 cent bonus for each ball she completes above the 156-ball minimum. The major league balls are sold at retail for $14.99.

Sunshine and flowers

As I posted earlier,  the cold front finally broke. Neighbors say the cold weather is over now. Hmmm, I'm not holding my breath but the sun did warm our bones and our hearts yesterday. Oh it felt so good. Like a drug. Remember we have no heaters or air conditioning so we feel the weather. It may not seem cold to you in the sixties but here it is noticable when the temperature drops just a few degrees.

This is so much better than ...

This !

  

It's another beautiful day today with blue skies and bright sun. If you live where it's still cold I hope these shots I took yesterday bring a little warmth your way. :)

 

  

 

 

   

The cold spell finally broke today! We had a beautiful, sunny day like one would expect in Costa Rica. It's a good thing the weather changed 'cause Squirrel Nutkin had had enough of the cold. Didn't look like his fur coat was helping much.

OMG! We actually have sunshine, real honest to goodness, shadow casting sunshine. WOO HOO!! Haven't seen the sun here in nearly a week. I'm off to soak up all I can. Oh yeah!

Cutie Hootie

 
  

I literally gush over this little guy. No other bird in the yard gets to me like he does. He mesmerizes me. When I see him, I stop everything and just enjoy the moments we share together. Precious moments, few and far between, normally.

Hootie was around quite a bit this past weekend. I guess he felt comfortable under cover of the fog. He had to watch his back though as the hummingbirds decided he was not allowed in their territory. The hummers and I need to have a talk about "who" is in charge around here.

 

I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the hummers chase this little guy not once but several times. They dove at him then chased him into several other trees until they decided he was far enough away not to be a nuisance.

Today, he and the toucanette took turns perching on this spot. Must be something about this branch or it's location as all the birds seem to want it. Maybe because it's the best spot to watch me through the window in the computer room?

 

 

It's a miracle!!! The fog finally broke this evening. We haven't seen the sun at our house since last Wednesday. Please Lord, give us a bit of sunshine tomorrow.

I'm so excited! I just spotted Toucan Sam in the backyard. Gonna go set myself up to hopefully get a shot if he comes back. I just hung a fresh banana rack so ....

Movie Madness~ Food, Inc.

Facebook friends had been talking about the movie Food, Inc. recently. We'd seen previews on other movies we've rented and thought it was worth watching. Our local video store didn't have the movie so we sent out an on-line plea via facebook and one of our friends brought the movie down to us.

The friends were coming down anyway, they are a couple hoping to move to Costa Rica later in the year. Like many, they need to wait until their house in the states sells. If you're looking for a house in Utah, let me know & I'll put you in touch with them. Thanks for bringing the movies N & M!

Anyway....back to Food Inc. We all watched the movie together the night we got it. WOW, eye opening. Not really if you think about where your food comes from in the states. I mean a lot of people just go to the store and buy what they want without a thought to where it comes from. I like to believe that is changing but I don't live there so I don't know.

I do know where my food comes from. The majority of it anyway. Our fruits and veggies are locally grown. We can get imported items if we want them. At times we do. For example Bill will splurge on plums from time to time and we buy Chilean grapes pretty regularly. We know when we're buying local or buying imports. It's not something we're preoccupied about but we know.

Fruits and veggies are cheaper here than in the states. We're outta touch with prices in the states having lived here 4 years now. I understand bananas are much more expensive there. I bought two racks of bananas the other day. That's the entire rack that the hands of banana's you buy are cut from. My racks had combined probably a little over 100 bananas. I paid 3000 colones or about $5.50 U.S. dollars. These were locally grown not imports. I quick check on-line tells me bananas are selling at one grocer in Arizona for $0.40 a pound. My racks would've cost me about $40. There's no way Bill would let me get away with buy banana racks for the birds in the states. Holy cow!  I had no idea. No wonder people from the states look at me funny when they hear how many bananas I go thru in a week just for the birds.

I ran into a local fruit market the other day and picked up a pineapple, two mango's, two cantaloupes, two boxes of strawberries and a head of lettuce and paid 3,630 colones about $6.67 U.S. dollars. All locally grown and not imported. I did a comparison shop on-line for the same items. The store I used didn't have pineapple. The cost for the items minus the pineapple, $14.15 before tax. OUCH!

As for our meats, they do not come from one or two packing companies. I see my little piggy, the whole piggy at my local butcher shop. Yep, even the head sometimes. My meat is cut right in front of my eyes, usually. Sometimes we buy what was cut earlier in the day and is in the case. There are plenty of times we can't get what we want because they are out. We try to go first thing in the morning if there is a specific cut we really want. Or we can order something and our butcher will have it packaged and ready, waiting for us.

Ah, the beef. We realize now that we have been programmed to believe the flavor of beef in the states is "the best'. Now we know different. Most of the cattle here ARE grass fed. This produces a beef with a very different taste. Before seeing the movie we preferred corn fed beef and made trips into the city specifically for buying U.S. tasting beef. I think we've changed our minds now.

This post started out about the movie Food, Inc. but it's taken me in a whole new direction. I am glad I'm not living and eating in the states. Thrilled. I'm happy to know where my food comes from and know that I have the ability to take even more control of what we eat than I would if I lived in the states.

Other than the quality of the food we eat I'm now interested in the cost comparison. I've heard for years expatriates whining about the rise in food costs here. I'd blindly accepted that they were right. Now I'm curious what my grocery bill here would be compared to the states. Check back for a post on that!

Fog makes for great birding

 

This pair of emerald toucanettes doesn't seem to mind the fog at all. They've been hanging out at the house all day. I finally got brave and went out to shoot this video of them.

First time blog visitor from F.Y.R.O.M.

What the heck is F.Y.R.O.M. ????? AND where the heck is it? I had to go right to Wikipedia to learn more about this place! 

The following is a piece from Wiki:

Macedonia (Macedonian: Македонија; English: /ˌmæsɨˈdoʊniə/  ( listen) mas-i-DOH-nee-ə), officially the Republic of Macedonia (Република Македонија, transliterated: Republika Makedonija [rɛˈpublika makɛˈdɔnija]  ( listen)), is a landlocked country located in the Vardar Macedonia region in the central Balkan peninsula in Southeastern Europe. It is one of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991. It became a member of the United Nations in 1993, but as a result of a dispute with Greece over its name, it was admitted under the provisional reference of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia,^[3][4] sometimes abbreviated as FYROM.

A landlocked country, the Republic of Macedonia is bordered by Kosovo^[a] to the northwest, Serbia to the north, Bulgaria to the east, Greece to the south and Albania to the west.^[5] The country's capital is Skopje, with 506,926 inhabitants according to a 2004 census. Other cities include Bitola, Kumanovo, Prilep, Tetovo, Ohrid, Veles, Štip, Kočani, Gostivar and Strumica. It has more than 50 lakes and sixteen mountains higher than 2,000 m (6,562 ft). Macedonia is a member of the UN and the Council of Europe. Since December 2005 it has also been a candidate for joining the European Union and has applied for NATO membership.

WOW! Very interesting. Welcome new visitor, hope you continue to check in on the blog and perhaps one day comment and share a bit about your country.