Mud Era

The mud season is coming to an end, we are almost done closing the building and it's becoming too cold to keep playing with mud. We have done a lot of work, with the help of many hands that made this building project happen. Here are some of them.

Fire of Life

I recently started a course that teaches hunter-gatherers skills in order to achieve a better understanding of the (natural) world and of mankind. It seeks to provide knowledge and sillks on three circles: man to man, man to the Earth, man to the creator.

This organization (shomrei Ha gan = keepers of the garden) is partly inspired by the teachings of Tom Brown who in turn was educated by an Apache Indian -Stalking Wolf.







I found an excerpt in Tom Brown's Field Guide to Living with the Earth
that brought inspiration and gratitude, here it is

We had thought we could create fire just by ourselves, but now we realized just how impossible that was. Our efforts alone could never make a fire. Sunlight and wood and plants and animals and water and many other entities went into it too. Fire was not just a result of skill; it was a gift from the Creator.

This perspective is not easy to grasp when we know we can make a fire with the strike of a match or the flick of a lighter. But up until the last few hundred years, that is the attitude people had toward it. Fire was a sacred entity. It was a powerful purifier that could transform almost anything. It consumed the cold and the darkness when the sun slipped below the horizon. It purified water and cooked food. In the sweat lodge it purged the body and warded off disease and despair. With time it even broke up and consumed rocks.

It’s when we do without fire for two or three days that we really begin to appreciate it. It becomes precious beyond words. Even in nonsurvival situations we can feel this. Until that spark of life begins to flicker inside a cold, dark shelter, the shelter is dead. But once its heartbeat grows strong, the shelter comes alive with light and warmth that brings much inner peace and happiness into our lives.

As we cast our eyes into a fire, we can feel it not only warming our bodies but making our spirits glow. The effect is almost hypnotic. It’s as though the coals held part of the secret to our existence. There is something in a fire that brings out our own inner glow and pulls us closer to the earth, it is also the center of attention, the center of the lodge, and the center of the sacred circle in our hearts.

Images

I just felt like posting some pictures

News from the farm 4

As many other people in the region we picked our olives and cured them, winds of the fall and beautiful clouds started to appear in the horizon and these last few days it already feels like winter, it's raining a lot (thank god) and it's cold.





We are kind of ready, the kitchen and all the furniture is inside the "Center", yes we have walls and windows and doors and have a big living room now.



Ilai is putting up the roof for his house





We cannot catch as much rainwater as we would like bot we have already collected a very good amount that we are using to prepare mud for the walls. We have still a lot of plastering ahead of us but the fact that the building is standing brings a sense of comfort and security.






We are a bigger group living at the farm now and it feels great, it reminds me how important the force of many is, and how rewarding (and also difficult) it is to live in community.




We have a lot more mud on the way and need to finish before the winter really comes, so if u are reading this and are close come and give us a hand, it is as fun as it looks.

geodesia

we just put together the aluminum pipes that will be my new home (yeiiiii!)



We prepared the pieces from existing pipes and put together 2 geodesic domes



We cut, flatened the ends, drilled holes, made an angle and removed sharp edges for 130 pieces.



We put together two 2v geodesic domes, each one is 4.5 m in diameter and consists of 65 pieces.



It only takes a few friends



and sooner than you think



taraaaaaan one dome is up!



And everyone is on top, it's one of the strongest structures that exist


And sooner than you know
Second dome is up!


Yeiiiiiiiiii

Mouth revolution y pulgarcitos

La moutholucion, the mouth revolution es un corto de free range studios que va a dejarlos boquiabiertos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nicOP2NLC0

Y pa curiosidades chequense estos pulgares, tres personas con estos dedos coincidieron en un mismo lugar, yo nunca me habia fijado que existen pulgares como estos

News from the Farm 3

Work in progress!!

This is our brand new taboon, soon we'll be able to bake pitta and pizza.



There is so much happening here lately that if I try to keep up with the changes and the new pictures I will never finish this post, so here it goes after several attempts.
Two big changes have taken place at Yeshmeain (the permaculture educational farm where I live): about 2 months a go we finally moved the kitchen outside, got the composting toilet and shower up and running and just moved there. Life takes place on that common area rather than inside the small house we used to gather at.

The second big change is that we have started building "the Center", a 200 square meter straw bale builing that will host all of our activities. Down here you can see the building; an old greenhouse frame with a new roof, used tyres filled with gravel are the foundations or "good shoes" where we hqve stqrted lying the straw bales that will soon be a wall. The good shoes also have stones and lime on the side. All of this will prevent moisture from reaching the straw and the mud plaster
Here you can see Gal and Merav digging the pool andh channel for out most recent grey water system and in the background the solar water heater that Ilai built.
This is how the garden looks now
After a great workshop on earth building with Tal Bashan we finished Ilai's walls and some shelves for the new indoor kitchen.

On the right you can see part of the 'good shoes', tyres stuffed with gravel.









The best hanging out spot is now under the mullberry tree








We hosted a lime plaster workshop, we made a pond for the Grey water system, lined the canal, did repairs on the composting toilet-shower building and finished the floor for Ilai's house.




We had a mud plaster workshop that was only the beggining of the full refurbishing of what was once the donkey's barn.



This is my own little place also known as 'La Choza Cachorra'; it keeps fresh at all times during the summer.


here's our new open kitchen

If u are around and want to give us a hand we will be very grateful, we still have a long way to go and need to finish the mud plaster before the rain comes.