Back to work...

Today the builders are starting again up at the plot of land. Hopefully measuring up the roof so that we can order the materials for that and the water tanks.  We´re trying to stay optimistic about moving in by Christmas but with all the work at the new hostel, it´s not looking that hopeful.

Yesterday we ordered the windows and we´re going to try and go to Cali this weekend to order the Onduline roof sheets which we found for the rainwater recycling system. Hopefully then it´s just a matter of sticking it all together. We will still be missing the solar panels and the plumbing system but at least we´ll have somewhere to store things and to go on the weekends in the mean time.

As far as side projects go, we´ve been reading a bit about making walls out of recycled plasyic bottles. There´s an organisation called Eco-Tecnologia and they have done some cool projects in Cali making parks and recycling centres out of earth and rubbish filled plastic drinks bottles.  You basically use them like bricks, cement over them and can make pillars, walls, supports etc. It´s really cool and we´re thinking it might be a good plan for our front, garden wall.  I spent the whole day Sunday filling bottles with mud though and I have to say, there are few jobs more boring! We´re going to stick at it though because our hostel generates bizillions of plastic water bottles and it seems like a fun project.

 This is a photo from a project in Cali.


In the absence of plumbing at our soon-to-be house, I´ve been researching compost toilet ideas on the internet and have really come to think it´s a great idea. The humanure handbook website gives a great set of building instructions and it doesn´t look all that complex.  As we´re planning to plant coffee bushes this month too, it would tie in nicely with their fertilizing program as it takes several months to process the ´matter´.

This is a photo from the Humanure Handbook

The hens are loving their new enclosure (what used to be the veggie patch!) and have shredded every living thing from the soil. It´s going to make a great veggie patch in the future though as the hens are clearing and fertilizing all at once. You can actually see the difference in the colour of the soil already and that´s just after a month. We´ve started selling the eggs and cant keep up with the demand!  I cant remember the last time we ate our hens eggs, they are all sold straight from the nest.

Our multi-use Renault Clio got to play at being a steamroller yesterday. We have been taking the rubble from the new hostel up and burying it under what will one day be our lawn. Tony thought some flattening was in order. We almost lost a bumper, but on the whole, the lawn´s looking great!