A day on the beach

We have spent very little time on the beaches since we arrived, yet on the day we went there last week, we were all deeply inspired by the rugged wild appearance of the public coast line. I mention the public coast line because there is another part of the Tulum beaches that is also very beautiful, yet in a more tame manner.  It is lined with quaint little boutique hotels, that offer anything from yoga, cleansing, vegetarian food, local art and the like to the more alternative eco minded tourist.

So back to the public beaches;

on one end you have Mayan ruins sitting up high on the cliffs, at the other end cliffs rise and fall, to open up to private little coves. Most of these have simple cabin rentals, but some are still perfectly abandoned, well not entirely, massive amounts of garbage do bare witness to the presence of humans, yet even with garbage aplenty it is a stunning coast line, and garbage appears only in certain areas. 

This beach is also the beach that 5 species of sea turtles have chosen as their nesting grounds, and each year around this time of year, mama turtles return to the place where they were themselves born years ago and lay their eggs. It is a delicate affair, first the nests are threatened by the presence of people on the beaches, if there were no sticks to mark the spot it would be difficult to identify the nests. Then, once they hatch, they follow the light of the moon, I wonder if they hatch right around the full moon, sometimes they get confused by the light from nearby dwellings and steer the wrong way.

For this reason and others there are always people on the beaches during these times of hatching to help the tiny creatures to the ocean.

We saw dug out rounds with sticks around them, placed there to protect the nests, and were told that in 30 to 40 days the turtles will be hatching. Kaleena said that for her birthday she would like to go spend the entire evening until midnight helping the turtles reach the ocean.

I am looking forward to it!

And here a few images

So many beautiful treasures to find

Meditation 

Can you make out the perfectly carved gecko on the side of the rock.

Someone must have sat on that rock for a good many hours carving it out, beautiful!

A couple of the first necklaces we made with shells we found, 

another was made and given as a birthday gift.

We finger knitted the strings out of hemp.

And finally a little alter we made in honor of the great oceans and seas. We made it with the treasures 

we had found.

                ~Blessings~

Inspirational visit to a neighbor

Today we went to visit Jullian's mini farm half an hour from us.

We went to get inspired, to see how organic food growing was progressing on his land and how he deals with some of the challenges presented in this somewhat extreme climate. He and his family have been working their garden for the past three years, and they are doing a lot of the things that we are looking forward to get started with.

Their house is off the grid, using only solar power and gas. Their toilets are composting (liquids and solid separated and composted for six months to use in garden on NONE edibles), and all of their grey water (all waste water from within the house) is used in the garden, including on a patch of grass for their son to play football. 

Besides the mosquitos, which simply cannot be avoided these days, it was an inspiring visit,

we left with many good ideas. 

There was an abundance of goodness in the garden, pumpkin, sweet potato, okra, eggplant, peppers, kale, lemon grass, basil, mint to name but a few...

below is a wild spinach climbing

raised beds

baby arugula sheltered from the strong midday sun

A first year papaya thriving after a good dose of homemade compost and worm castings

pumpkins..

5 passion fruit vines were planted, and now create a living roof over two structures that are used as dark and shade rooms to grow mushrooms in. The vines not only offer shades but also lovely fruit and beautiful flowers, permaculture at its best, at least three uses for each plant planted. 

Jullian gifted us with a passionfruit vine when we left, looking forward to get it in the ground..

For a roof in the house they had the traditional Palapa roof, which we will also have on our house.

It has amazing insulating properties, withstands storms well, and is so pretty. The leaves that were used to shade the baby arugula are the leaves also used to create these roofs

The children really enjoyed exploring his beautiful surroundings...

and Linus too...

We left with many good ideas, having made a new friend and even a few baby plants.

~green blessings~

Around the Land

I have been checking in on Farmama's Around the Farm posts on Thursday, and while we don't have much growing YET, I thought I would still like to join in and share the progress in a weekly around the Land post.

The compost pile which I started last week is looking really good, I do so love the process of making good healthy humus for the garden, nothing like watching nature at work..

 While working on the main path to our homesite, Miguel disturbed a Tarantula who had made a home in an old rotten log. Miguel scooped her out only to find a toad hanging out just there, for a moment it seemed there might be a hunt, yet both scrambled off in opposite directions.

 Miguel saw these bugs on the Hibiscus, never seen ones like this before they do not look friendly, yet I do love the picture.. 

 I wish I would have taken a before and after picture, yet here is how far Miguel has progressed with the path to the homesite. While he is leveling the path, moving many rocks he is also planting along the sides with all the plants he is moving out of the way, as well as with cuttings from around the land, it is starting to look like a pretty path.

The rabbits have been moved to a large pen, mimicking their natural habitat. 

They now have little tunnels and caves and a huge area to run.

In the back ground is where the chickens live and the chicken house is in the process of being built.

 Keenan is becoming friends with the bunnies

 And here is Facundo and friend working on the chicken house, I really like how it is coming. All the wood is from the land, mostly from trees partly burned by the fire a couple of years back. This style of building is very traditional to the area, and blends in so nicely

 Before the chickens had their larger free range area behind the chicken house they lived here.

The area is nicely shaded and the soil nice and loose, less rocky and also nicely fertilized from the chickens, today I worked on enclosing little beds between the large immovable rocks, tomorrow I will continue on this project until it is ready for planting in the next few days.

 The main path leading to the animals is also coming along nicely, all this work was done between today and yesterday.

 In the garden so far we have only corn, peppers and pumpkins growing. These were all planted before we arrived, and we shall soon have gardens filled with herbs, veggies, fruits and love.

~Blessings~

The Land

I thought that I might make a formal introduction to the project that we are undertaking and taking part in. At times it truly feels more as a dream than as a "project". A dream in the sense that... well, more like a dream in the full meaning of the word. It all started as a concept, that came from a dream which brought up a"project" which became a plan of action, that then brought us here to this piece of jungle that we like to call; The Land...

A few years ago 5 friends got together and purchased about 4.5 hectares of jungle in Tulum Mexico.

The idea was to create a self sustainable beautiful piece of land, that could also somehow create and income, likely through renting cabins, offering seminars on permaculture and the like, perhaps a nursery and/or other ideas.

From what I understand two of the partners moved to the land initially (about 3-4 years ago), they built a very simple structure to live in and a simple kitchen. These structures are used today by the workers who currently live and work on The Land.

They (the two partners) stayed for a few months, leaving behind some very creative points of interest.

Most of the work that the workers have been doing these past few years, have been to clear the under brush, as well as take down dead trees, of which there were many, due to the forrest fire about two and a half years ago. There are between 4 and 8 workers, plus Jose who is the head of the workers, they work on which ever project needs attention at the moment, currently that attention has moved from the bridge to the chicken corral, hmmmm

All around the land there is pile after pile of forrest debris: "gold" once mulched.

There is also the free range chicken neighborhood under construction, complete with three different roaming areas, nesting house for laying hens, separate nesting house for expecting mamas, nursery for mama and her chicks and a separate area for young chickens. This is being built as we speak and was already in the process when we arrived.

There are also a few goats intended for milk, some rabbits I believe for meat and a few turkeys.

The reason that we are here as seen through my eyes, is that while the partners are all excited to see their vision unfold, none of them really want to make the move out to The Land, being still so unfriendly and remote.

We, on the other hand love everything about the lifestyle of creating just such a place, in true Robison Crusoe style. We will be able to build our own home, building it as much as possible with what we can find locally and naturally, preferably straight off the land itself. We will Terra-form it into a sustainable piece of heaven, paying close attention to the naturally occurring tendency of the land. Preparing the soil, planting the seeds, tending the seeds and harvesting the mature fruit. Recovering and reforesting the jungle into a producing ecosystem, perfect and balanced... permaculture, Rudolf Stainer, medicinals, endangered species... We will be living with animals as friends, for eggs, milk and cheese. 

Everything about this lifestyle excites me.

I might have chosen a different part of the world to create this lifestyle had I had a range of choices, yet I have no doubt that life brought us here for a reason.

We have a lot of work ahead of us, and we do have a tight budget, we are not completely free to do exactly as we want without consulting the group of friends who are funding the endeavor, yet what an honor and a privilege to have this opportunity, to help make a realty of this vision.

At a point in our lives where we were completely starting over without clear direction, without capital, yet with an openness to be guided and a wish for a certain lifestyle, life brought us here.

It truly is a win win situation.

I trust we will create something amazing here.

~in gratitude~

A long day

Yesterday was a long day, I felt very overwhelmed by the magnitude of the work in front of us.

When we arrived at the land I looked around and for a moment it seemed almost impossible to do what we have set out to do, so unfriendly and harsh is the terrain.

Rocks are everywhere, and the first step is to be able to get around the land with a wheel barrow without braking it on all the rocks in the path, so in reality before anything else the paths must be formed. That job alone is huge as many of the rocks will not be moved easily, and we must instead fill in with gravel and such, and how to get any gravel to the back of land...well it is an organic process, and by simply moving forward one step at the time, we will work out how to best proceed. Patience and more patience!

But I am getting way ahead of myself, the day actually started by scavenging for food scraps at the local market, we were able to get plenty of fruit and veggie scraps for the chickens and the compost piles.

Then we went scavenging for other material to use, and found a big pile filled with discarded wood from a recently finished construction. Keenan was a great help, and worked proudly until we had finished.

 Ready to go..

Once on the land I did a simple soil test and found that the PH in our soil is just slightly acid, just below 7 and perfect, yet every other nutrient is depleted, so far as I could make out from the tests. To remedy this we need to create lots of good compost, as well as mulch everything heavily. I was able to get two good piles started, attempting a good balance between carbon and nitrogen material. That being one part nitrogen (chicken manure, fruit scraps and such) to every ten parts of carbon material (generally brown dry material, such as leaf litter, saw dust news paper , cardboard and such) We have so much woody debris on the land, but for the best result we would need to mulch it all, for now, we do the best we can with what we have. It is no problem keeping it moist as we are in the middle of rainy season and getting lots and lots of rain. We will 

be poking sticks deep into the piles everyday to aerate them and turn them once a week, hoping to have dark rich compost in a few months.

Keenan was again a great help getting sawdust to the piles..

 I am pretty sure it is not a good idea to put many whole citrus fruits in a pile, yet for now we will use what we have an observe the different results, also the big sticks will take longer to decompose, again using what we have..

Then, time for a swim and a snack in the shade by the cenote

Some planting of plants and little trees that we found discarded and broken. We created a whole garden at our house in Miami by using mostly abandoned plants and cuttings from all around us.

Then a last swim before piling in the truck tired, sore and plenty bitten by mosquitos 

The children and adults alike adore the freshness of the cenote, it really makes it all worth while..

My favorite part of the day was to see how inspired Keenan was from watching us work the land.

When we arrived home he brought out his wheel barrow and proceed gathering soil from around the garden, then with his boots and gloves he walked around asking all the neighbors if they needed any soil, when they did not, he asked Miguel if he would please walk around town offering soil to people. 

The two of them headed out, wheel barrow and all for a ten block walk to Frida's Garden, a little garden cafe, where I am right now using the internet, asking Rafael if he might need some soil. He happened to have a banana palm in need of soil, and in return for the soil Keenan was promised some bananas from the tree once it fruits.

It was the most precious thing.

Ahh and the other favorite part was a hot shower, yeah, it turned out we just needed a bit of patience to get the water heater working.

Now we just need internet at the house:)

 On the way Keenan found a bat that had been run over, he found a nice spot on the side to put the body to rest.

~in honor of the organic process~