Muddy Holes and Baggy Buildings

It´s butterfly time again, and they are delighting us with their spontaneous wind dances and quick licks and kisses! Of course, they also want to kiss us as caterpillars, which is much less pleasant...
So. Just so that no one gets the wrong idea from the last blog entry, that all we do is eat cake and make moonshine, here are some photos of our real hard work-learning.

The cottage is in full bloom-- here we are Earth-bagging the foundation stem wall (a mix of Earth, rocks and lime) while reinforcing the posts for our roof, which are only partly in the ground since we are building on top of bedrock. Don't worry-- they are extra braced at the base with wood and na¡ls.

We dug a giant hole, used part of the dirt and rocks for the Earthbags, and the other part was sifted and poured back into the hole with sand, (composted) cow manure, and woodash. This is an experiment (based on local indigenous methods) with a fermented Earth mix for the Wattle-and-Cob technique we will be using on the wall construction.
After stomp-dancing the hole, we added cut-up and de-spined cactus to help the ferment and stickiness. Lucky for us, a storm broke down a few cacti and we were able to put them to good use just in time.
The roof framing team just after all the tedious cuts were made and squared and almost-perfect corners done just right.

All in the hole for prepping the mix!
Sometimes the work is a little dirty.

We mostly speak English in this course, but there are occasional Spanish classes at the river for deep study...
One of our neighbors came down to take us on a medicinal plant walk in the forest. Here he is blowing through a type of fibrous bamboo which can be used to clean wounds if ever you get stranded in the jungle with deep gashes that won't stop bleeding. Hmmm... not that that happens often, but good to know.

And Marcelo, when he is not framing the roof, is usually suspended in the Mulberry tree behind the house. He says he just has to climb up often to beat the birds to the fruit...

Our Halloween Mexican-Food Fiesta Full Moon Costume-Contest Party...

Bonus photo... Mamas and babies everywhere.

Bamboo. Beds. Brewing. Bugs.

The Spring Internship is underway and the creative learning juices are flowing! Our focus for the last few weeks has been mostly on the gardens, composting, bamboo building, and kitchen creations.
Some California red worms were donated to us, so now we are vermiculturing with these little beauties.

We split and wove bamboo for our garden fencing, which will also be a spectacular trellis for the beans and some other vining fruits.
The cucumbers also received a lovely bamboo trellis which they are already starting to climb with vigor. Soon enough, we´ll be eating and pickling!
The interns also designed and planted a gorgeous garden, in which life is already sprouting. Green beans on the way...

Our fall gardens are blooming, which means seed saving and gathering. Here is a little fella hanging out on a carrot flower.
And the tiny grasshopers are back with their spontaneaouly-corregraphed group stem-dance. They still haven´t found our delicious gardens... yet.

In the meantime of all that gardening, to entertain ourselves on those rainy days, we have been brewing up some intoxicating concoctions. Dandelion wine: dandelion flowers, raisins, orange and lemon juice and peels, and yeasts from our wild mulberries...

And Mulberry wine....

... the leftover berries, not to be wasted, went into this little treat... Also, while we were in the fermenting mode, we went ahead and cooked up some beer. Our first attempt, and looking good!
The under-the-sink fermentation cabinet. Beer in the white buckets with their blow-off tubes, and mulberry wine in the bottles with balloons which we have to "burp" every so often. (And some olives curing in the back too...)

As for the building site (home for a little Earthen cottage), we have started digging the Hole to prep the earth for a fermentation tecnique we will be trying, as well as some earthbagging. Next week, roofing!

Spring Peace

The month of September has been relaxing, refreshing, decompressing, full of love and wonder, new discoveries and appreciation for where we are and what we've been able to do so far. We have been working some, prepping for the upcoming Internship, and relishing in the delights of spring. A few funky creatures have popped out of the forest, as well as some lovely aromatic flowers to fragrance our days...

A Tung tree flower...

This is just an itty bitty baby snake, could fit in the palm of my hand... not that I tried...

This little guaviroba flower is the best fragrance for hammock-hangers.

The translucent, trancendental grasshopper and the giant pecan...

In a nearby town are these inspiring hand-built and -sculpted ruins left from the idealist Jesuit-Guarani community built in the 1600s. It was a place for protection, communal work and living, and peace and worship. Kim took a little side trip there to see and feel...

This is one of our neighbors... a gigantic Grapia tree that locals say is at least a thousand years old. A tall, silent witness to the changes of this place. Oh, the stories it could tell, I'm sure. Would it not weep for so many lost friends, cut down for modernity and replacment by non-native pines and eucalyptus? Would it not scream in anger at the selfish acts of human greed? Misiones is a still place of wonderful forests and water, but that is quickly disappearing. This tree stands as a momunment and a reminder...

ArmadillosMoreMudCrystalLove

This last month has been a busy one... working in between the lovely spring showers and enjoying warmer weather, getting ready for more planting and our upcoming internship! The field of oats, spelt and rye look great after so much rain, and we have added some quinoa and mandioca too। Planting seeds.. tomato, eggplant, peppers, jalapeños...

Expanding our gardens, double-digging into the super rich clay red earth...
The fenced veggie garden has 3 beds now, and we are adding another 4 super long ones for our springtime delights. Just behing the garden is the mud pit for making Earthen bricks, mortar, plasters, etc. The existing gardens are still producing beets, carrots, lettuces, etc etc...

The peas are climbing up the bamboo trellises!
The adobe bathroom is coming along... slowly because of the rain... but still on its way. Looking great, if I do say so myself!This is not the final roof (just a covering for the rain showers), and the walls lack a few more lines of bricks and bottles, plus plaster and paint, but you can get an idea of how it is progressing.
It is citrus season here, and we have oodles of mandarinas, oranges, sour oranges, and grapefruit to get creative with. A grapefruit mate anyone?Or perhaps some delicious mandarina marmelade??This full moon, we transplanted palm trees (Pindò) from our jungle to the entryway...Suki is still milking and so are we. She´s a lovely calf, ain´t she?The yoga platform floor is finished! We sealed it with linseed oil and wax, and now it is ready for some good-lovin yoga and meditation.

And some acrobatics and capoeria too...

This little fella, a tatu, or armadillo, lives next to the yoga platform and can be heard schuffling about in the early evenings. He showed me where his house-hole is, but I had to promise not to tell the neighbors (who might just eat him!) All the lovely showers hav brought forth gifts from the earth-- crystals and geodes and other rocky spectacles are showing up in our walking paths.