And We're Off - For Real This Time!

It’s been a long while since last writing anything related to our big project – that’s mainly because I felt like I’d jinx the last one by getting too excited about it. So instead, we just moved on with determination and lips sealed until we finally found what we were looking for – AND WE DID, *woohoo*!

Papers signed and hands shaken, and we are now the proud owners of 48 000m² of land (plus lake-thing formed by the river that runs through, which is going to be soooo beautiful once we pull out the dead trees etc and grow some of those huge lily pads)! Jeez it is a lot of land, the majority of which is forest – hurray, masses of forest to save and spend days wondering through admiring how beautiful it all is. In the future I’d love to look into a concept that’s called Forest Gardening, which basically involves planting perennial plants (those that last for years and years, bearing fruit each year and thus being superbly sustainable) in certain (generally height) orders in a forest so that they all look after each other, never needing much if any attention except when you’d like something to eat.

Check out these vids for more:

Robert Hart’s Forest Gardening (the creator of the concept)

Urban Forest Gardens (a few very pretty and inspiring pics)

A Forest Garden Year (the first part)

Apart from that, we’re about to move out to live on a nearby plot where we’re renting a house for a few months while we build our first communal place. After that we’ll have a better idea of how to build and the next few houses shouldn’t take too long to get under way.

Here’s a vid of the rented place and its AMAZING view!, but beware of the manic sound of a vacuum cleaner in the background (we were cleaning up the house at the time).

VIDEO TO COME

IMMEDIATE PLANS FOR THE PROPERTY

1. Cut lawn and knock down current mud houses to reveal flat terrain properly – this is luckily less than the first property and thus should take much less time to complete.

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2. Draw up plans and figure out costs of materials, etc., for our first building – communal kitchen, living room and a couple of bedrooms that will later be converted into offices or storage rooms, etc. – just somewhere to live in the beginning so that we don’t have to live in the rented place until all the houses are done.

The great thing is that there are a number of shops, albeit not particularly nearby, that sell absolutely everything in a sustainable form, down to recycled-plastic pipes and fixtures! Hurray! Really and truly ecological houses!

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3. Prepare soil for planting, based on Permaculture systems (anyone yet realized that I’m in love with Permaculture?)

Watch these vids to know why:

Quick Intro

What is Permaculture (just push past some of the singing bits)

Greening the Desert (just amazing!)

The Permaculture Concept – Part One (from its creator)

For more visit the Permaculture Planet

And look for more on youtube.com, there’s loads and loads to learn!

And check out how many Permaculture sites there are around the world! There's definitely one near you (check out how many there are in Africa!)

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4. Order organic seeds and begin seedlings during these months of winter – the nice thing about living in Brazil is that winter is pretty mild (though for us it’s terrible, having spent months basking in hot Brazilian sunshine), so things keep growing even when they’re not supposed to – I had a few onions begin sprouting in my cupboard so stuck them in a few pots and they’re going like a boeing. My two tomato plants are also making a mad scramble for the ceiling despite the chilliness that’s been upon us recently – maybe because they’re inside and each night I close the door and then the curtain so that they don’t go into shock as the cold seeps through the glass.

Tomatoes Going Bananas in Winter Onion Surprise!

Who knows, but it’s great news for planting because we won’t have to wait for the end of frost or snow – as we get near-ish the end of winter I’m sure we’ll be able to plant loads of seedlings, and in any case we’ll have constructed our greenhouses by then (plastic versions that can be completely opened during the day to allow for some nice direct sun and pest control by birds and beneficial insects coming in to land) so the seedlings will bask during the day and be protected at night. I really can’t wait to get it all started!

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5. Figure out and build a small water wheel to generate electricity from the little waterfall we have on our property, which will in turn be used by the pump that we need in order to get the fresh water from the river up to our homes for drinking.

The mini waterfall and river on our property

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6. Buy and install catchment systems for water to use on the garden or in basins and toilets so that we don’t need to suck on too much of the river water.

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Obviously there are loads more ideas that we need to muddle over and organize (many of which I mentioned in some of the first entries) but that’s it for now.

Excitement is in the air! Only 3 days to go!!!

A bit of a broken heart

My little heart has been (temporarily) broken. And my mind has been reminded of the fact that rather-less-than-nice people roam the planet, and for some unfathomable reason, seem to be allowed to go along their merry ways with what seems like not a moment’s worry about the consequences of their actions. Even in such a religious country as this, where you’d think people would quake under the continuous reminder of potential Catholic hell. Yes, I know that Karma will eventually dole out what’s due to each person based on how they treat other people, but it can seem slow in coming for those that have been effected.

Here’s why things are a little sad at the mo: after having seen what was for sure the most ideal spot for starting our dream, we were told by the middle-man who was liaising between the property agent and the owner of the land, that everything was ok with regards to the offered and accepted price of the land. Over the next week or so we went back and forth, even getting hold of some documentation, but were constantly asked for varying amounts of money ‘to connect something’, or ‘to fix something’ or simply as a show of good faith (the amount starting at R$10 000 to fix the house, R$5 000 to connect the electricity, and eventually just R$1 000 for … well, nothing really). We, thankfully, declined the offer of doling out random cash. A few days later the property agent called the owner to confirm that everything was still A-OK, and discovered the staggering truth: Mr Middle-Man had not in fact spoken to the owner, the owner had not in fact agreed to the price, and it turns out that he has some strange plan to build an office in the bush, for … who the hell knows!

If you’ve looked at the pics in earlier entries, you’ll see that there’s bugger-all around the site, so who in the world would make any effort to drive along what is often an impassable road due to how wet and mushy it is most of the time, to sit out there (with no electricity, phone or internet) in the middle of nowhere every day before trundling off home, potentially getting stuck in the mud along the way? And right on top of a piece of land (the part in the front of the property) that surrounds the start of a big river system, which means that he probably won’t actually get the permit to build and he’ll be stuck at the end of the day with property he could have sold but wasn’t clever enough to when the opportunity arose.

*Sigh* so we’re back to square one. Last weekend we went back to the same area and were shown, in order, 1) had a huge pond in the middle of it, requiring a bridge to be built across it in order to get to the forest, 2) an entire property built on a slope, and 3) another spot 1/6 the size of what we’re looking for L. Not quite what we were hoping for, and rather disappointing.

The up side is that I finally drove on the other side of the road! – the ‘other side’ coz here we drive on the right, whereas back home it was all on the left and I got pretty used to the same thing in the UK - *teehee* seriously almost got my head smashed in during the first year here by super-sonic buses hurtling down the steep hill outside my apartment while I gaily looked in the other direction J So that was pretty cool and surprisingly not that difficult to get my head around.

Anyway, holding thumbs that there’s some good news regarding other options to go and see this weekend… Think happy thoughts for us!