Season's food

It's the first time in my life that my vegetable and fruit diet is based almost entirely on what's in season. When you go to the supermarket you can't really tell what's being grown now and what comes from greenhouses or is imported from all over the world.

I now know that in the summer you eat tomatoes (in this case until you get completely sick of them because we have plenty), cucumbers, zucchinis, ocra, beans, artichokes, corn, potatoes, green beans, prickly pears, figs, pears, watermelon...





There is something magical about waiting for the fruits to be ripe, and about being able to associate the seasons with the smell and taste of what's available at that particular time of the year.

cybertrauma

Today, after 3 weeks I got access to one of my e-mail accounts. One day I just couldn't sign in. I don't know what was more of a pain, the process of getting it back with customer services or to realize that in 3 weeks I got nothing exciting on my inbox .
In any case I recommend making sure that you are on the real web page every time you sign in, to remove any important information from your inbox and outbox (I freaked out because I realized I had details on my credit card there) and to make sure you know the answers to the security questions you set up when you opened the account...
So for those of you who know me as Tmelanie, you can contact me again, I'm back in.

The Story of Stuff

On a follow up of my last post where I spoke about the consumer culture and the incredible amount of waste we produce, here is the clearest, most concise well made clip that talks about this issue, check it out it's worth it.

http://www.storyofstuff.com/

Mugre ra! Basura ra! y Esmog ra ra ra!

El ecoloco habria estado orgulloso de las 4mil personas que disfrutaron de un evento en un parque de diversiones en Tel Aviv. Ayer trabaje muchas horas preparando pizzas para muchas personas que tienen una vision muy distinta de la mia en lo que a basura se refiere. Fue un evento para empleados, celebridades y colados de un canal de television. Habian puestos de comida y bebida y juegos mecanicos, todo gratis. Cada puesto de comida regalaba productos con envoltura, en platos desechables o botellas (donde yo estuve solo cartones y servilletas, al menos..). El poco tiempo que tuve para dar la vuelta y observar fue suficiente para entristecerme, la basura se desbordaba fuera de los botes, la gente estaba sentada rodeada de basura en el piso y todo parecia muy natural. En el puesto de pizzas estuvimos como locos tratando de satisfacer las demandas de gente a la que no le falta nada, pero esta lista para quejarse porque tiene que esperar 3 minutos a que salga la pizza del horno o porque no tiene exactamente los ingredientes que quieren. Tambien tuvimos que limpiar constantemente la basura que dejaban en nuestro puesto, botellas de las que tomaron solo un traguito, servilletas, plastico, todo porque no pudieron caminar 10 pasos al bote de basura mas cercano y tirarlo ahi.

Donde vivo reusamos o reciclamos casi todos los materiales que pasan por aqui, hacemos composta de los restos de comida (o se lo damos a las gallinas), y solo lo que de plano esta en un estado deplorable y apestoso se va a la basura.

En contraste, hoy como cada ultimo sabado del mes organizamos un 'mercado'(shuk en hebreo) en el que la gente trae lo que ya no quiere y puede llevarse cosas que otra gente trajo. Lo que para uno es basura para otro es util. El shuk nos muestra una y otra vez la abundancia a nuestro alrededor, llegan miles de cosas, le gente sale con bolsas llenas y aun asi siempre sobrea al final para donar o reusar. Cuando necesitamos algo especifico lo pedimos (al universo..) y muchas veces ha llegado con el shuk. Desde un cable, cera, utensilios, mapas, libros.

Vivimos en una epoca de escasez, escasez que nosotros mismos hemos creado porque en realidad lo que nos rodea es abundancia pero muchas veces no logramos verla porque estamos corriendo para ganar mas dinero para comprar mas cosas.

No espero que todos vivan como yo pero si puedo influenciar el sentido de abundancia y los patrones de consumo de unas cuantas personas estare satisfecha.

Fijaciones

Hay jardineros que tienen tendencias bien definidas...

Lotan

Kibbutz Lotan is the place where I found the path I'm on, the path of Permaculture, of doing things, of acting small scale and influencing the world in a big way. We went to speak about Yesh meain 2 weeks ago. I arrived with the usual anticipation, of seeing the progress at the Bustan Neighborhood, of walking into the dining room and hugging people that always greet me with a smile, of walking around the Eco-kef to check what's new (more vegetables, or another structure in the children's playground).

When I studied the Green Apprenticeship Course (GA) a year and a half ago we worked on the bustan neighborhood that was to host students like us in the future. During this visit we saw a neighborhood with students finally living and working there, making it more functional and prettier every day, a dream come true for many in Lotan and a sense of completion for the many hands who have worked there.

The bustan has now 8 geodesic domes made out of a steel frame, straw bales and mud plaster, they are beautiful and very nice, you almost don't feel like going out. Here is a picture of one of them.

The new composting toilets are one of the nicest I have sat on, so nice I could easily spend there a couple of hours.

Every dome is different, with its own personality.

The showers are also a very pleasurable experience, too bad it's not environmentally friendly to take long showers...

We started this part of the bustan! A grill and a wood oven.

This huge project is maybe one of the most important endeavors Lotan has embarked on, a constructed wetland to treat the kibbutz's waste water.

tan tan, the end

News from the Farm 2

The eco-educational center to be has a roof now!

I'm back at the farm and it feels like I never left. There are many more flowers, and a washing mashine with a tank that can be conected to fill the WC, and one hen less (but one rooster screaming his lungs out everyday), and carrots, potato, calendula and garlic growing on the old sand seedhouse, and yet everything is as small and beautiful as it was before. There is still hard work, financial need and abundance of resources and great people (it's truly amazing the amount of fantastic people that pass through here).

After many plans, many mistakes, many solutions, I am proud to announce that our composting toilet is now in use and I was the very first one to take a shit (sorry but I had to say it like this) and it feels great! I am no longer polluting perfectly clean water when instead I can create compost.

Here is Ilai, doing the things that would take me hours or months in no time. Here you can see the little ethiopian-style house he built.

This is the sand greenhouse with root crops.



Our carrots and peas are sweeeetttt azzzz

Idan and Lara are working on the taboon

Lara, Renato and Maya were our guardian angels during winter and part of spring (taking care of business and of Merav while I was gone)






After months hoping to have a grey water system, we got one and not without a story, when digging the hole to have our little constructed wetland we found a hand grenade from the period before independence. This is our very own constructed wetland, it cleans our greywater an will irrigate a tropical tree area.

Something new also happened while I was away, Yeshmeain started its first Permaculture course, it is a diverse, smart and fun 8-people group, and it's led by Shai which is a pleasure to listen to everytime. For me it's also an opportunity to keep on learning and to increase my eco-freako-hebrew-vocabulary

A 'moving' for our chickies was also planned, so one afternoon we decided to give it a go and now the chicks are sooooo happy under the mish mish and the pomegranate looking for bugs all day.