Of Flowers and Mud

 

So many colors popping up around us! Full bloom of spring in the jungle. How many eye delights can one find?!

 

The duckling (yes just one) has arrived! Hatched perfectly healthily under mama chicken, now she is learning the duck version of chicken ways, and likes to show off by swimming in the water bowl.

 

The mud building project has been steadily growing upwards.

 

The bottle wall of many colors:

 

The adobe bricks getting slotted for holding the old car window in place:

 

The middle wall with the built-in furniture:

 

Nope, it's not earthen human shackles we're building, but in the meantime, the shelving holes serve many purposes. Ill-behaved (returning) intern “learning” devices? :)

 

Mud meatballs in a bucket. Mmmm...

 

Transporting buckets of mud, balancing over planks of wood on the unfinished floor-- just an extra challenge to keep us on our toes.

 

Even our smallest visitors catch the spirit of mud building!

 

The old meets the new!

  And voila! The structure is complete. Now onto mud plastering- our favorite!!

 

Back to the Nature around us... The bananas are in flower, and fruiting up for the summer.

 Cauli-flower power!

 Dill in flower.

In the in-between times, we bottled (and sampled) our mulberry wine. It's good now, but we saved a bit to let it gather more flavor and umph.

  We have also been keeping up with the growing garden, and experimenting with sheet mulch bed making.

 Gathering herbs for our bug repellent balm.  Calendula, rosemary, camphor, pennyroyal, lemon balm, citronella, eucalyptus, and a few more.

 

The kittens are in that ridiculously cute phase, venturing out of their little love nest, crawling all over each other, and wibbly-wobbling onto the great big world of the porch. Here's mama Monkey keeping her watchful eye over their explorations.

 

Caterpillar season is upon us again, and butterflies are bursting out of cocoons all around us.

 

Can anyone identify this flowering wild plant?