Mud People, Pigs, and Flowers

Mud building is in full swing, and we just can't keep everyone clean! The house on the hill is looking great as we stack up the adobe bricks.
There doesn't seem to be a problem instigating laughter with this group!
Meanwhile, Mother Nature is doing her great work of supplying us with flower delights everywhere. Here, the garden chicory is starting to set up for seed now that the heat is creeping in.
The gift of flowers and loving helping hands.
And more baby plantlings on their way!
Also going in: bean trellises, sheet mulch gardens, keystone sesame beds, and the fields of mandioca and peanuts, amaranth, quinoa, and chia. Just trying to keep the birds from over-sharing their fair share!
Holy hogs! We got a pig! Her hobbies seem to include eating, spilling her water container 14 times a day, eating, oinking at the rooster, eating, rearranging the mud in her pin, eating, and oh, eating.
Also, we have hesperadina (an old family liqueur recipe) and mulberry wine on their fermenting ways!
The castle composting toilet is also getting re-loved up. Soon, we will all be on the throne of life connecting with the royal cycle!
Now that is stacking to a tee! The music must not stop just because one must wash clothes!
Bonus Photo: The Lirio, or Ground Orchid, in process of opening -- the same flower as the first photo above, but this shot was taken about 10 minutes earlier

Chicks, Kids, and the House on the Hill

Everything is in motion! Spring springing out!

We hosted about 20 kids from the local elementary school, helping them develop a class project on ecological living. They asked tons of questions, touched and smelled the garden plants, stuck their hands in compost, patted the Earthen buildings, marveled at the dry composting toilets, quizzed the interns, and awed at the rocket stove-prepared lemon grass tea! Gorgeous sharing experience, and our neighbors told us their kids just couldn't stop talking about the "farm at the bottom of the valley."

The same week the children came to visit, our mama chicken hat

ched a proud crew of spring cheepers. More to come next week...

We have been working in the gardens and the fields, and sprouts are popping up everywhere. (photos next entry...)

Also, the new building is underway, being floored and roofed, sometimes simultaneously! Since we are building on a hill, we decided to make it flow with the natural levels of the earth, giving it 3 different floors. Here you see the retaining walls and roof posts:

The roof frames (giant hardwood triangles) were built on the ground and then hoisted up into place.

The hoisting went like this: everyone lift the heavy upside-down triangle together and push one side up (leaving the tallest man on his tippie-toes), and then another coordinated heave and heft to get the other side up. Then the flipping: two guys on ladders, two on ropes, one with a tall stick in the middle, someone yelling orders, pushing, breathing, heaving... and voila! one was up... whew.

...only 6 more to go...

What an experience! A real blessing to have so many hands to help heave and hoist, and then admire it with afterwards.

Next step... hauling dirt in to fill the floor levels, and pack it down with our handy stump-stomper. Now we are ready to put up some Earthen walls!

In between all the building and gardening, we took a field trip out to professor Eric Barney's workshop to see his wacky and genius renewable energy creations. Homemeade wind turbines, water pumps, micro-hydro spinning electrical what-have-yous, and organic yerba mate.

Bonus Photo: Dead Beautiful Things in the Palm of Our Hands

Ah, Sweet Spring...

The equinox is upon us, and spring is in full swing! Flowers everywhere, the greening jungle, life abounds!

In the garden: gorgeous calendulas, fa-fa-fa-fava beans, fattening carrots, peas (still!), renegade cilantro, and more being seeded right now! The flats are full and spring plant-lings are popping up.
Food for the gardens: our delicious compost, sifted with love and worms!
We added fresh topsoil, a bit of sand (since our soil is so clay-rich), hardwood sawdust from the local mill, and two types of compost, plus some homegrown liquid microorganisms.
Aye! spicy peppers-- ones that didn't die back over the winter and are STILL flowering...
We've been keeping busy in the kitchen: making wild plantain balm, camphor infused oil, peanut butter, yogurt and kefir, and many sweets (of course!)
Skyler with his handmade tin can rocket stove-- only small twigs required! And it heats mate water fast!
Bonus shot: Life everywhere.
More photos coming soon...!

Winter Away!

Winter is waning, which means fast and giant rainstorms and hot wind pushing cold wind which swirls into manic fronts of flying leaves and floating bird feathers. We are keeping ourselves quite busy getting ready for the upcoming Internship. Much to be done with fixing up the buildings, preparing the new fruit orchard and working in the gardens.

We have been soil-minded lately, making lots of piles of compost for our spring beds (leaf mold, grass clippings, micro-organisms, etc) and digging up our ginger and tumeric. The animals are fabulous, and the chickens eggs-traordinary.
And there has been a good deal of baking going on here. Favorite jungle winter cookie ingredients: coconut flakes, dried cranberries (thanks Danielle!!!), sesame seeds (from our friend's harvest), Ecuadorian cacao (from the street markets of Quito) and mandarin orange rind (from our trees). Mmmmmm...
Bonus Shot: Amanita and Conan in their favorite morning spot-- in sunshine on poncho on Kimberly.

Going with the Flow

And so our Internship winds to an end. A wonderful group of people, lots of learning and exchanging of skills, friendships bridged, and lots of fun in spite of... unforeseen circumstances. Good news first...

The breakfast crew on chocolate chip banana pancakes-- a wonderful surprise:

Our freshly carved spoons a real success with the young crowd!

Candle making out of bee´s wax...We finished the wood-to-mud cabin convert, and it looks fabulous... photos soon to come...
Okay, so the month's drama goes like this: The Castle floor went in, a lovely hardwood tongue and groove.

The arched windows and bottled walls were built up...
And the final touches were being applied...
Rambo of course thought the castle was to be his new house... And wouldn't you know it-- a GIGANTIC storm came through and flooded our rivers, drenched our land, and...
...and conquered the Castle!
Shortly after the rains subsided, we attempted to rebuild the walls. Of course, it was still a little too wet outside and we were building too high too fast, and well, some instability and tumbling taught our determined selves some humility and a lesson about roofs on Earth buildings in the sub-tropics-- make sure you have one!! (We put up a provisional tarp roof for now to protect the remaining structure.)

But all in all, Earth is surprisingly resistant and the base stood strong, the floor solid, and now a good portion of the wall awaits for the full resurr-erection. So, you can guess our next project-- re-erecting the castle, maybe this time also adding a moat and drawbridge!

None of this mild catastrophe bruised our Easter celebrations. That´s right, chocolate chickens, scavenger hunts, fancy surprise cakes, and more! Always in style at Mama Roja!

Bonus photo: Dragon flies love the rains!