Friday 10 June 2011

La Yunta Photo Models

Since today the weather was very nice again, I thought it would be nice to take some pictures of our farm. Here you go…

The pigs were not aware that today is a photo shoot day. I guess, they would have had a bath otherwise.



We have 6 new chicks. They are adorable and very friendly. The love my shoes apparently.



The older chicken are getting fat and more relaxed. You can approach them and they stay put.



The 2 cocks are cool. Whenever one of the neighbor’s cocks come around, we have a bit of a fight. So far, La Yunta won most times. Inspired by that, I placed one of the figures that we sell in the garden and waited to see what would happen. The cock took quite a while until he figured out that the potential enemy was made of wood.





If coolness was judged, our rabbits definitely would win any prize. They don’t only have the coolest house around but are just the happiest and jolliest in our little farm. Since the sickness is cured, they are now awaiting some more members of their little Playboy family. Their mansion has a balcony that fits 3 rabbits (they love it), 3 living floors, Hef’s private bedroom, La Gruta (the cave) and some smaller rooms to hide away and do whatever bunnies do in private.





Our geese are growing up and settling in very nicely as well. That is partly good. A side effect of this is that they are getting very confident and protective with the surrounding they live in. They behave a bit like dogs. If you cross their terrain, they don’t really appreciate that. I hope that they will get used to the fact that we live in the same space and that they will not attack any of our customers. If they do, they will be put into the oven. Yummy :) However, they make a bloody good appearance on camera.




Finally, the cows. They are slightly boring. Eating, drinking and shitting all day. Anyway, they are nice and funny at times as well. Here is a picture where Miss Holstein tries to taste my camera. She only missed it by an inch or so.


Monday 6 June 2011

Amazing weekend

Having a bit of a negative touch in my previous post, I have all reasons to cheer up. We had the most amazing weekend in our business. No problems, great food delivery, a very busy shop with constant sales and great weather. Really nothing to wish for more.
We have reached 300 friends on our Facebook page and have received the first orders and reservations via that page.

Now, I will enjoy my free day with great sunshine again :)

Thursday 2 June 2011

Rain, dead bunnies and a private change

Hi again,

I have decided to use the time of low business to keep my blog up-to-date. I can write while being in La Yunta and just copy the text to the blog at nights. Hope you’ll get more information like that :)

After more than 2 months of the business running, I can share some of the experiences we had with our business. We have seen some very good days – usually Sundays – and also some very low trading days. Those are during the week and seem to be not really foreseeable. Today is one of those. The weather is not very pleasant, it’s raining a lot and people seem to rather stay at home than travel towards the south. Some may be put off by our car park and the low temperatures we have in our restaurant. Having said that, we have put measures in place to solve both. Yesterday, we bought a truck load of gravel (14 cubic meters) to make our car park really nice and clean. Customers can now enter without getting their feet wet and dirty. It was long needed and is a great improvement. Also the temperature is now under control with two gas heaters, each with 4 kilowatts of heat production. It’s getting cozy :)

Our little farm has been extended. We now have rabbits and gees. Unfortunately, the some of the rabbits have not survived for a long time. We first thought that the biggest male is killing the little ones but now feel that some disease has killed the poor bunnies. The latest dead bunny is currently at the vet for autopsy. Hopefully, he will find the cause of the deaths.

Many of our customers are still first time visitors. We receive very good feedback on both, the goods we offer in the shop as well as our food offering. So, all good there. Also, we have already developed a good number of frequent customers. Our furniture is continuing to be the biggest driver of shop sales. We have thought about extending our business to furniture production, although this would be a big step and we are not sure it’s worth the effort. We’ll see.
I believe that currently the weather is the biggest harm to our business. Once it gets a bit more steady with longer intervals of sunshine, we should see the business improving as well.

On the personal side, I have very exiting days and weeks behind me. The most important part of my private life has been impacted by the fact that I got engaged with my girlfriend. Yes! I am getting married in October! What a change in my life. Not only the move from Europe to Ecuador but this. I am over the moon.

Jim and Sole threw us a surprise champagne round to celebrate our engagement. Nice!

Also, my father came over for a 2 week visit and we were travelling a couple of days through the mountains and to the rain forest. The country is continuing to impress me. It’s so beautiful and has so much to offer. Apart from these great news, I have started again to play football. Every Wednesday night from 9 to 11 PM, a group of work colleagues and their friends are playing the so-called “indoors”, which is a 3/4th size football pitch with artificial grass and a roof over it to cover from the rain. It was quite tough for me, not having done any sports for almost 6 months at the high of 2.500m – but I will get used to it and manage to add to the game. Yesterday, I was most of the time in the goal to not push my luck too much.