Kimberly woke up this morning with her eye swollen shut. We found some plantain and put a poultice on it using this ace bandage. It was the liquid from the Santa Lucia that was really soothing though. Each morning it collects a little drop of dew in its neck folds, and those drops are great for eye problems of all sorts they say.
We dug peanuts out of the mandioca field this morning!
Here's one of the two types of mandioca we grow here on the farm...
And here are the peanut leaves. The peanuts are generally dug once the leaves all turn brown and fall off.
Can you see the nuts on these roots?
After they are planted, they shoot more rootlets down, and the earth is heaped around the outside of the plant to encourage the growth of even more nuts (called mani here). This means we have to dig a reasonably deep hole in order to collect all of the nuts from each plant.
The fruits of our labor...
fun to be learning something new!
We also found some wild pepinitas (teeny cucumbers) that were juicy and absolutely delicious!
And this space-age spider...
This is the other type of mandioca leaf... this one has these pink growths on it for some reason. Don't they kindof look like tics? They're not though...
There was a lovely wild passionflower vine growing up one of the mandioca plants in the garden... passion flowers are so cool!
And this crysalis was hanging there too... I wonder who will hatch out? When we touched it, it would squirm. Does that mean the butterfly is about to emerge, or that it is a newly-formed crysalis? I have no idea...
Jungle love...
And the beautiful chicory flowers from our garden. Chicory is related to dandelion, and we eat the leaves in our salads often. They are bitter and delicious! 
Lunch today was amazing. Sasha and I helped Kim make a feast, and Matias joined us to make mandioca leftover cake too- so yummy! 
We had steamed carrots, pickles, cabbage salad, and creamy rice with spinach and green onions. Oh heck, it was good!
Siestas have been filled with owl making since Marisa taught us how...
The work days have been feeling long since we’ve been mudding in the morning and afternoons both. This afternoon Maggie, Jo, and I went hunting for more fiber- pine needles. Maggie turned up a bunch of beautiful geodes as well, as she cleared the forest floor. It was nice to be out in a different place, working and chatting as we did so.
After a good bathe/ mud bath in the river, I taught a reiki class to anyone that wanted to learn. There were 8 of us all together, and it was nice to be together in the yoga shala, working with each other, learning together. Everyone got something out of the class, I think (it was the first introduction to energy work for many people, I think), and they all seemed quite happy about it. Next time we’ll learn craniosacral therapy.
We had a delicious dinner of butternut squash and ginger soup, and then sang around the bonfire. I taught everyone the chorus to Wanting Memories, and we got a good a-cappella group going! Matias leaves tomorrow, on his way to the Rainbow gathering and then to Mexico for a vision quest with the Red Road (Camino Rojo). It was interesting that Clay left, and the next day Matias arrived, and fit in so seamlessly with our group. I wonder what the dynamic will be like once he leaves.
I want to make owls!!!
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