Sanding the Beams for Children's Bedroom

We got enough rain to turn up the hydro turbine and use the electric sander for a few weeks.

Our wwoofer, Luka, did a great job sanding the beams that will be installed in the children's new bedroom that is under construction.

Very dusty work, but great fresh air and sunshine with an amazing view to keep morale high.

Upgrading Drainage to Control Storm Damage

After another heavy rain, we nearly had another disaster like the 2015 disaster.

We had already built a spillway to accommodate the thunderstorms that seem to be increasingly frequent in the last 3 years.

However, this was not enough to keep the rising flood waters away from our gardens and home.

With the help of Fiona and Elisa, our two young wwoofers from France, we increased the drainage systems downhill from the spillway.

After the soil is piled downhill of the new trenches, we planted the new berms with Taro for both erosion control and edible functionality.

SuperBowl Garden is in Full Swing

Sylvia brought her awesome organizational skills to our farm and helped to plant and weed the gardens.

Transporting Building Supplies

We were lucky to have a strapping young lad stay with us for a few weeks.  We put him to good work helping to fill bags with sand and gravel and then send them down the zip-line to the concrete mixer.

Odin and Mitra had a great time wheeling the line back after the load was removed at the other end.

Frank was a huge help in bringing the concrete blocks (CMU) from their drop off location to the building site.

Thank you very much FRANK!!

Returning to Zone 0 aka Ground Zero

After expanding the farm for the last five years, I am finally satisfied that Zones 2 and 3 are producing well enough to feed us through the winter!  This summer I turning my gaze again to Zone 0.

The first step was to install a new zip-line to get materials to Zone 0 from our Zone 4 drop-off point.  The limitations of our summer-only dirt road dictate that heavy construction be done in the dry summer months only.  I asked my good friend Augusto to build me a new and improved post with a return wheel to bring the empty wheel and hook back after sending down a batch of building materials.  He used a recycled trike wheel as the base of his design that includes a brake to control the speed of the descent down the mountain.  Odin and Mitra love to help operate the brake!

The first job is to build my boys their own private bedroom.  The original stone house had two dividing walls inside to create two bedrooms and a kitchen.  Those walls were built of wood and decomposed into the forest many years ago.  I prefer concrete construction for a host of reasons.  Before building the concrete block wall, I built an iron reinforced concrete base to be sure that the wall does not settle and crack in the future.  Above, the form wood has been removed and the base is ready to built on.

Next, the blocks are built up layer by layer to create the partition wall with a door and window.  I am no mason, but I can keep the wall fairly straight and true.

After the first block work is done, I made a second iron-reinforced  concrete beam that tied into the exterior walls.  Breaking out the original stones was tedious, but by allowing the iron to enter into the huge stone walls creates a very stable interior wall.  The beam will act as the lintels over the window and door also.

After the concrete is poured and the form wood is removed, the new beam can be seen clearly.

The second Zone 0 upgrade is the installing of a bathtub.  At the moment we have a great outdoor shower, but it can be a bit drafty in the winter months. 

The first step was to build a reinforced concrete slab to take the full weight of a water filled bathtub and its occupant(s).

 I made a wooden form to allow for the drainage system to be mounted below the tub and then filled in the remaining space with concrete.

After the slab set, I built a concrete block wall to house the tub and help support the weight along the rim.

The next step is to tile the bathtub and the bathroom floor.  

Volunteering on Flores, Azores - Travel for free/WWOOF

Sweet Potatoes

Last year I had a good Sweet Potato harvest, but not nearly enough to keep my family fed through the winter.  This year I have cleared more land and planted about 500 slips of 5 different varieties.

Above the forest trees are cut down and then the exposed roots are cut to kill the tree.  As it dies and rots it will feed the soil for me.

Above is an experimental patch using recycled cardboard as a pathway mulch and fresh cut grass to mulch the Sweet Potatoes.  

Another forest patch above.

Above is the Super Bowl garden with Figs and Banana on the hillside and Sweet Potatoes on the drier level areas before the land drops into a boggy Taro garden.

A row of a new experimental variety is above.

The tools of my trade.  I am an OG (original gardener) .  A mattock and a hoe are all I need to take virgin forest land and transform it into fertile beds, just like my ancestors before me.

A steeper garden cut into the mountainside is above.  In theory the steepness will allow me to leave the crop in the ground until I am ready to harvest.  The rain should runoff and not rot the Sweet Potatoes.  One of the problems I have is storing all the food I produce, my house is not large enough.

Above is one final shot of the newly cleared forest and some of the gardens that are visible now.  Still much work to do and some great Winter Solstice burn piles to ignite!

Guinea Fowl are Reproducing

The 20 Guinea Fowl eggs that I ordered on the internet 2 years ago, hatched four healthy keets under a broody hen.  This year the four adults are breeding well and are giving me 2 fertilized eggs daily.  There was a power play by the males, and now one male gets both hens and the other male is lonely.  Those guys fight rough!  I thought the loser was going to die for sure.

Above are my two year old adults and genetic starting point for my new flock.

The guineas boss around the chickens, but the rooster still gets his fair share of food.

So far, I have 8 new keets and hopefully more coming before summer ends.  I keep them in their own cage to be sure they do not stray into the jungle and get eaten or lost.

Above the keet pen is seen within the larger adult fowl pen.

The parents patrol the area, keeping  threats far away.  Apparently they can take on snakes, rats, cats and dogs.

I had a fun surprise in the genetics with several white keets mixed in.  Soon I hope to have about 100 adults free ranging in the second part of the day and winter times.

Taro Expansion Summer 2017

I have been steadily clearing boggy areas of our property and planting more Taro.  I think I have enough plants now to feed the farm and visiting friends year round on these tasty vegetables.

The original Taro patch is below.

My boys enjoy playing under these massive leaves, a good way to stay cool in the summer months.

I am now incorporating Water-cress into the Under-story of the Taro with great success.

Below are two cultivars of Taro with Water-cress thriving among them.  In the periphery is Nasturtium, another summer salad favorite.  This is my second Taro Patch.

A closer view...

Below is the newest Taro Patch, it is still filling in, but soon it will be larger than the previous two patches combined.

Below is another view of the Third Patch with Sweet Potatoes growing in rows in the drier areas of the land.

New Tropical Micro-Climate Garden

Magnus has been working diligently to remove the jungle and debris from a great location on our farm for several years.  

The first steps were taken in earnest last year and recorded at this blog post from 2016.

With the help of AviChai, Magnus managed to get the "Super-Bowl Garden" cleared of large trees that had accumulated over the years.

This year with the excellent help of Anne and Matts, the garden if functional and beautiful.

Above Anne uses cut Canna Rocha (Hedychium gardnerianum) to mulch around freshly planted Taro.

While Anne mulches, Matts pulls all the cut wood out of the stream bed and stacks it for future compost.

Above, the scope of the garden can be seen, with a beautiful spring fed stream running through the center.

Banana trees are planted near the mountainside, with Taro in the boggy areas and fig and avocado in the dry areas.

Young Taro transplants are growing their true leaves now and harvesting the solar energy.

The cool spring water creates an ideal climate for the Taro to thrive.

 Clearing a bed for the water to follow was a huge priority.  Before we cleared the channel, the water spilled over the entire area and created a boggy mess.

With Matts help, the stream runs free and clear now, allowing us to harvest water as needed.

The garden is located in a natural depression in the land, giving it amazing sun catching abilities.  As more stones and cliffs are uncovered, the area will retain the solar radiation and become more Tropical than the surrounding forest and gardens of our property.

Painting the Chimney and Oven

We decided to paint our chimney and oven a nice fiery color to complement our cool blue house.

Last year we finished refinishing the area, but ran out of time to paint before the rainy season arrived.

With a good cement job covered by quality primer and topcoat, this job should not need redoing in my lifetime at least!

2017 Jungle Clearing Season Commences

Jungle clearing is a labor and time intensive process to do correctly.

The goal is not to kill the jungle, but to make it a useful space.

This land was abandoned to nature over 50 years ago.

Below, the dark forest is seen in the background of the fallen giant.  With no sunlight available, not much vegetation occurs under this canopy.

The first step is to cut all the smaller incenso trees (pittosporum undulatum) and canna (Hedychium gardnerianum) plants from the area, in order to expose the fallen trees blown down in previous years.

The insenso is then stacked for drying and future fire wood use.  Below, a nice stack is prepared.

  

Below Beatrice separates the branches into one pile and the logs into another for drying and compost. Thank you Beatrice for helping to collect and stack all this wood!

The giant eucalyptus trees are carefully cut one at a time, as seen below.  With the inceso cut to a meter above ground level, they will regrow.  If they were left intact, the eucalyptus would break them or uproot them when they fell.

As part of our wwoofing program, we teach people how to safely and effectively operate chainsaws and how to fell trees in the direction intended.  

After the trees are felled, they are de-limbed and our wwoofer, Beatrice, removes the limbs and piles them for compost and kindling.   

After the land is cleared of the smaller trees, some of the giant eucalyptus are ring-barked to kill the tree, but leave it standing until a time when it can be cut down.  

After the eucalyptus trees die, all the leaves will fall off and allow more sunlight to penetrate our fertile gardens and allow our seeds to thrive and grow healthy foods for us to all thrive and grow also!