Earthbag, Mirthswag

TGIF.  Tomorrow marks our only free weekend of the entire program.  Although I entertained the idea of accompanying a few friends on a trip somewhere, I think I'm going to take a much needed break from the whirlwind nature of the program's structure and have a slow weekend of hiking and decompressing.  I wish I could camp somewhere, but almost all land is privately owned around here, which makes things difficult. We'll see.

Last Sunday I got the chance to see the nursery/reforestation project where my host dad works several days a week.  It is in the country just outside of Monteverde on land that used to belong to a handful of cattle farmers.  Being away from touristy (though beautiful and fun) Monteverde proper made me realize that I have been sorely missing open country, so it was a welcome breath of uncluttered air.  Lorenzo (my host dad) and I took a brief hike to a waterfall on the property, which was beautiful, and the cleanest I've ever seen since it is only 50 meters from the stream's source spring.  Then he took me to the station run by the reforestation foundation, which had rocking chairs on a porch overlooking the valleys to the West.  It was easily the best view I have seen in the Monteverde region and as Lorenzo said "La unica lo que falta es una cerveza en la mano."  (the only thing missing is a beer in my hand).

So far, both the experimental and control beds of lettuce seem to be growing pretty well.  It's too soon to draw many meaningful conclusions though, so we'll have to wait until after our next two week trip (i.e. three weeks from now) to see if the organic/synthetic mix is a viable alternative to 100% synthetic fertilizer.  While we're waiting, I am working mornings at the greenhouse.  Although it's repetitive work (mostly cleaning lettuce beds after harvest, removing roots and leaf litter), it's methodical and therapeutic.  Plus, working there has its benefits.  I've been able to improve my rice/beans lunches immensely with the addition of delicious cherry tomatoes and basil, and I've been able to supply pitchers of refreshing mint/lime water out to the retaining wall crew, which I've also been working with in the late mornings.

The wall project is proving hard but rewarding, and the technique is really interesting.  It's called earthbag or superadobe construction and was developed by an Iranian-Californian architect as an entry in a lunar domicile construction contest held by NASA.  It is based on the idea of using locally available materials to create housing, and did well in the NASA contest because the vast majority of the materials wouldn't have to be expensively carried by shuttle to the site, but rather collected on the moon itself.  The basic idea is that you use long bags of the material used to bag agricultural feed, stuffing them with an earth-concrete or earth-lime mix.  You build them up in layers, tamping each one and letting it harden.  Each layer is connected to the next with barbed wire, and the finished product is a dome or collection of domes (when building a house, we are just using it to build a retaining wall).  Interestingly, it has been re-pitched not as lunar housing but as an emergency shelter option in post-disaster or war-stricken areas.  It can use materials of war (barbed wire, trench dirt) to create homes, and quickly too (with community efforts).  Here's an example of a finished but unplastered structure:

And here is a picture of Michelle and Carrie working on our wall:

I am looking forward to using this technique to design a new outbuilding for our cats at the Homestead this fall so they have warm shelter for the winter (and so they don't poop all over our common spaces in the people cabins).  If you are as interested in superadobe as I am, you should check out this website:
http://calearth.org/building-designs/what-is-superadobe.html

In other news, at a coffee farm we visited recently, I saw/used a nice composting toilet!

Well, that about wraps her up for now, I suppose.  Pura vida.