Now back into the swing of things after our trip to Bogota and well and truly skint thanks to all of the unexpected expenses of the past couple of months (visas, car troubles, extra staffing and suprise costs at the hostels), we have turned our attentions once again to the things that we can do for free (or nearly free) around the house.
The past two weekends have been spent weeding, burning scraps, digging the bio-pond, leveling the driveway, tidying and retidying after the builders and generally pottering about in the garden. We also tried to decipher the gender of the chicks using the ring-on-a-string technique. Results proved inconclusive. It has been really nice actually and although we initially though that we would prefer to be doing something fun and expensive, it´s been really nice to enjoy the free stuff; the sunshine, the ´super-moon´, the birds and that great feeling of exhaustedness after being outdoors all day. The cold shower is almost bearable, maybe even refreshing on a sunburn!
The solar water heater has arrived and is taking up one of our two rooms while we wait for it to be installed. The tubes are all fitted, the sun is shining and we´re good to go. We just need the guy to come and install it for us. Hopefully in the next couple of days.
A friend introduced us to a great little family who live in Popayan last week and we went out to their house, not too far from where we live, with the plan to have lunch and visit a waterfall. When we arrived however, we were amazed to see that they too are
a wee bit green... actually, quite
a big bit green! They built their house from scratch with traditional techniques using clay and bamboo, plus local and recycled building materials. They have even solved the lime paint puzzles which have been plagueing us for months by using earth dyes that they dug out of the ground around their house. The house is mains connected for water and electricity but has no black or grey waters as the grey waters are filtered and used on the plants and the black waters are non-existant as they use only a compost loo which all goes back to the earth once composted down. Needless to say we probably wont be invited back after bombarding the poor hosts with questions for the entire afternoon. We didn´t feel very
green at all after talking with these guys! I think that
green splits off into a few different categories. I´d say they are more
hardcore rustic green while we´re more
moderate high-tech green and I´m sure there will be many more variations to come accross. The family are very helpful and nice people and although there are many of their systems and ideas that we dont want to or cant implement, there are loads that we do want to and they have said they are very happy to help with whatever we need. They are our new
green gurus!
A couple of things that we have taken from our visit with a plan to implement straight away is to make an animal / garden shed type thing in a corner of our garden. The idea being to keep all of the things which help each other together. It will be a small structure in bamboo with a solid floor and a roof (I think 2 msq should be plenty), divided into three parts. The back half will be for the chickens so that they can have an organised indoor area where it´s easy to feed them, collect eggs and clean out the poo which we want to start composting for the plants. The other half will be divided in two and will have an enclosure for Florence (the second hand rabbit we should be aquiring next month) with a poo collecting system and storage for her and the hen´s food. The little section left over we want to make into a little cubicle with a compost loo, just as an alternative for when we´re out in the garden or when we know (thanks to Tony´s weather station!) that we are entering or in a period of drought. That way we wont have to waste so much rainwater in just flushing the indoor loos as often. I´m also excited about the idea of dirty wellies not traipsing in and out of the house just to use the loo all day long. The idea would then be to make a composting area right next to our shed which would in turn be right next to our plantain trees and veggie plot. It´s all still in the planning stages so far but it shouldn´t be too difficult to do and it´ll be great to have everything more organised.
Speaking of organisation, I´m just about at my wits end with the builders! They dont tend to do things room by room but rather one job at a time. That means sanding everywhere one day and painting everywhere the next, then drilling eveywhere, then grinding everywhere.. you get the idea. It means mess everywhere all the time! Not even one corner where you can hide things so that they dont get covered in dust or cement or wood shavings. I have given up even cleaning up after them and there´s nowhere to put anything anyway so we are living like pigs... or more like snowmen at the moment with everything covered in white dust! They promise that by Monday they will be finished and will move on to the outdoor things again. That´s the plan anyway. On Monday we start building again, more men on the job with the plan to get a few more columns and walls up this month. Meanwhile, though, the relaxing has to be done in the garden!
