Sunday, March 6, 2011

Day 34

Mornings from my hammock tent look like this (stuff tent ahead):Every morning when I unzip my tent, Rambo comes over and sticks his face in to say hi and get his morning scratch.
Today Marcelo and the menfolk (every time I say this it makes me giggle, thinking of the Heyerdahl’s and Jack mentioning that the menfolk went golfing while at Moosehead lake) used a crowbar to remove the wood from the outside of his house and they added some back. The new plan is to mud the outside of their house, and then we’ll paint it white with lyme. Marcelo says it will look like a German barn.
After removing the boards, we worked on mudding in the first wall of the house. We’re doing this with cobb, which is a thicker mix than the mortar we have been making for adobe building, and is slightly different recipe because it contains cow poop, which apparently makes it dry hard as well as adding fiber and making it stickier. The mix we made was 20 buckets of sifted subsoil, 10 buckets of sand, 5 of cow poop, 1 ½ polypropylene bags of pine needles, 4 tablespoons of linseed oil, and some water.
And some images from today. Here is Jo with a new friend:
Maggie and Sasha found this little spotted rainbow-colored leaf hopper by the river...
and there was a very long spider too...
This little caterpillar was sitting near the river this morning. I wonder what he'll become!
Kim and Marcelo's potted garden by their house:
Yesterday during siesta I started hatcheting out the shape of a spoon from the wood they gathered from the river. While shorter than I might choose, there are some lovely pieces of wood here, still wet (because it’s been soaking in water- is that bad?), with pink stripes and a distinct smell. I think it’s rosewood, which Marcelo says is possible because it grows around here.
My spoon beginnings inspired us to plan a carving class last night, so today I taught everyone how to hone their pieces of wood down enough that they can start carving away with a knife to see what comes out of the wood.
Here's the beginning of my spoon in the foreground, Marisa working in the background.
This afternoon during our gardening session I dug up some little potatoes that had grown in the old compost heap...
and we sifted compost too... and found this grub. SO*FREAKING*HUGE! That's my thumb in the picture for comparison. Woah.
Amanita thought him a delicious treat.

2 comments:

  1. Nice spoon, girl!

    And that grub KILLS me. Jungle sized. Mama. I am impressed but unsurprised by your constant refocus on learning and growing. Keep making time for yourself and having fun! Spring has just sprung in Seattle and I have been planting up a storm, thinking of all I learned from you and Maggie and Kim and filling the garden with mama roja love.
    xoxo
    keren

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  2. Awww... we've been thinking of you here too! This month we have had many nights singing late around the campfire. We sing everything we can think of, and often end up humming things we know the tune to but can't remember the words... and we say "I wish Keren were here! She'd know this one for sure!!!"

    Sending you and your garden Argentine sunshine and dewdrops of vibrant love!
    xoxoxo

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