Today before we left Monteverde, we went to visit Life (Low Impact for Earth) Monteverde, which is a farm that has animals, food, and coffee. We started out with seeing the animals. They had cows, chickens, goats, and sheep. We got to feed the goats some hay which was super fun. The farm also cuts up the hay for the animals manually by pedaling on a bike. We got to see all the chickens and even a hen getting ready to lay eggs. Our tour guide tried to teach us how to do a goat call which was so funny because every time he would make a noise to the goats, they would respond right back to him. We then went on to see all of the plants and veggies that they grow in the greenhouse. We visited the coffee plants and were refreshed on our coffee knowledge from earlier in the week. We got to see where they do all their composting which was super important to the mission of the farm. We were split into two groups for our tour and when all of us where done, we climbed up the beautiful tree and all sat in there for a little but. After that, we, of course, tried some coffee and then had lunch with much of the food being fresh from the farm and it was delicious.

As cheesy as it sounds, I think what makes the farmers at Life Monteverde happy is just being one with nature and knowing that they are running their farm in an eco friendly and sustainable way. Our tour guide seemed really eager to teach us about what they do. The biggest challenge for the farmers is things that are out of their control such as the weather. Our guide asked us how we would make a sustainable way to produce water if it had gone too long without rain. It was really interesting because all the ideas people were putting out there, he found a flaw in almost all of them. Engineering plays a big role in how the farm is managed especially with all of the environmental stuff. We had to learn about and explain the process of bio fertilization using diagrams that they has displayed. So, it’s important to know how fertile the soil is and how much nutrients it needs to grow the best quality plants.