Permaculture
How to Build a Compost Toilet Part 2
Friday, June 26th, 2009Danny Law, friend and Master Eco-Builder, recently came by to bring our compost loo up to decidedly posh standard. We used pine off cuts from the local wood yard to build the walls inside and outside, so hopefully it won´t be as windy in there as it was last winter!
Its got a very beautiful view […]
Permaculture Action Learning Pathway Spring 2009
Sunday, May 17th, 2009“I think if we could get Earth in a living and stable state, not a constantly degrading and dying state caused by our actions, then we have won some right to go to the stars. But at present I don’t think we’d be welcome anywhere else in the universe. You wouldn’t welcome anybody who’d laid […]
How to Mix Cement in Portugal
Saturday, May 16th, 20091. Struggle with about a ton of material in many many trips, up and down steep terraces only accessible by slate stairs built sometime in the last 500 years.
2. Carefully gather materials and fail to properly mix them in the right proportions.
3. Perch oneself on the falling edge of a levada, and make sure to […]
Seedballs in Spring
Friday, May 8th, 2009“Life on a small farm might seem primitive, but by living such a life we become able to discover the Great Path.”
Masanobu Fukuoka
Masanobu Fukuoka is one of my biggest inspirations in this journey of developing a new conscious awareness of our co-creative existence in the world of nature. His idea of making seedballs is so […]
The Bank of Mizarela
Wednesday, May 6th, 2009A Radical Cleanse was just what I needed. After my last stay down in the Algarve, where I cooked an awful lot… well I am accustomed to the need for a fast now and again, but the switch to a mostly raw food diet upon arrival at Quinta de Mizarela certainly triggered a response. A […]
Ram Pump Victory…Water in Abundance!
Tuesday, March 17th, 2009Well it has been a long and winding road but a few days ago it happened…After much tweaking of valves, sealing of drive pipe from stream head and getting air blocks out of delivery pipe, our Ram pump finally kicked in! And as it did so, with one bang and then another and another, like […]
How to Build a Compost Toilet Part 1…
Friday, January 23rd, 2009There are two items conspicuously absent from our off-grid house, a cooker, because we eat almost entirely raw food, and a loo, because it’s, well, outside…
The modern norm of flush toilets that scoot our “waste” away down underground pipes to some municipal cesspit, sewage treatment centre, or worse, a nearby river or the sea, is […]
Sustainable Living Project in Central Portugal
Monday, June 2nd, 2008Here is a message and invitation from fellow eco-warriors in the area, Sophie and Andy at the Farm of the Bees…
Eco-Living Central Portugal has a new focus! We (Quinta das Abelhas) set up the eco-living project with the intention of offering courses, workshops and practical experience of sustainable living on a large riverside quinta we […]
Reflections on the Green Gathering/Encontro Verde
Friday, March 28th, 2008A BIG THANK YOU to Karyn, Steve, Becca and all the other good folks who contributed to making the wonderful Green Gathering happen! I don’t know quite what I expected but these four days over Easter were deeply inspiring and heartwarming beyond my expectations.
While there were creative workshops and presentations of all kinds from soap […]
