Organic Design (blog)

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Bananas & Barefeet
Posted by Nad on 24 May 2014 at 21:55
This post has the following tags: Our second year on the land
We've decided that we'll try and go somewhere every week so that we get more and more used to cycling and walking. This week we went to Canela again, we didn't really have any urgent supplies to get, but got a few things anyway. One thing we noticed while walking down a street we don't usually go down that was very interesting was some very large healthy banana trees. This is very inspiring because the climate in Canela is almost exactly the same as our land, it gets snow when we get snow, and frost when we get frost. We heard that the main problem with growing bananas in this kind of region is that their trunks are very sensitive to the cold, so we've been surrounding our small ones with piles of grass clippings. But what we noticed with these big ones in Canela was that they had Hydrangeas growing all around their trunks! Hydrangeas grow really well here so we're going to plant them around our bananas too :-) After we got off the bus at Vaca Velha to begin the 8km walk back to the land, we again decided to try doing it in bare feet - last week we were interrupted by our 4x4 adventure after only a couple of kilometres. The trail is roughly three segments about a third of the distance each. The first is normal dirt road with some loose-metal and some muddy bits which we were quite confident about doing barefoot. The middle section is forest, half native and half pine, and the last section is mainly fields. We didn't think we'd be able to handle the native forest bit because there are many Grinfa (fallen Araucaria leaves) which are very hard and prickly. We decided to keep going and just put our boots on if and when it got too difficult, but surprisingly we got all the way through the forest without any problem! walking barefoot is really an exercise in awareness, you put your feet down flat so you can shift weight easily if you feel something sharp somewhere, and you always observe the ground and pick a safe point to put your foot down. Applying this process got us through the forest surprisingly quickly. Again as we were nearing the last section of the trail we were thinking that we wouldn't be able to handle it because the long grass is too dangerous in bare feet, but the same thing happened - the problems were all in our minds, and in reality the cow path we follow was all short grass, and there was always a place to step where the ground was visible! in the end we got all the way back home without any problem :-)

Fruit trees, cycling and bare feet
Posted by Nad on 21 May 2014 at 16:08
This post has the following tags: Our second year on the land
When we went to Canela in the weekend, there were a whole lot of young native fruit trees being given away in the town square. Some companies give away native trees as an environmental action to reduce their tax burden, and increase the value of their goodwill. We decided to grab a few (well eight actually) since we had just a few days earlier, with the help of Barry, prepared a space along the northern fence line on the side of the hill especially for fruit trees! Unfortunately there was no way we could take them back home with us, because after getting off the bus at Vaca Velha we had two hours to walk with heavy bags of groceries - we didn't know that we'd be getting a ride in the back of a 4x4 all the way to our door! So we left the plants on some wet ground at the side of the road at Vaca Velha and cycled back the next day to get them. We cycled along the Vaca Velha trail because Eduardo told us it was perfect for mountain biking, but unfortunately Beth found it quite stressful, as she's not used to biking on steep trails full of mud and rocks, and her bike has the wrong handlebars for that and also has broken suspension! On the way back with the plants we went the long route via Lava Pes which is about 23km, but on normal dirt road in good condition. Beth can handle the long rides on good roads better than I can as she's better at conserving her energy. But after the first half I had learned how to build up and maintain momentum on the flat and downhill parts without using much energy, and then using this momentum to save most of the uphill work, so I found the last half a lot easier than the first half. It took us about two hours to do the 8km Vaca Velha trail and about three to return on the 23km route via Lava pes, so there's a lot of room for improvement there yet :-/ Then today we got the plants in the ground, I made the holes and Beth put them in. She worked in bare feet since we're now inspired to go without shoes a lot more after seeing Eduardo tramping through the muddy forest with no problem! So far I've only been going to our beach, and walking the first part of the Vaca Velha trail in bare feet, but next time we go to Canela I'm going to try and do the whole 8km of the Vaca Velha trail without shoes :-)

Mindinho on the Basil
Posted by Nad on 19 May 2014 at 22:05
This post has the following tags: Our second year on the land
This little fly thing is called a Mindinho and is one of the many visitors to the Basil and Chia plants. It's very small, only about 5mm long so was difficult to get a detailed shot of it.

Offroad hitch-hiking adventure!
Posted by Nad on 17 May 2014 at 21:21
This post has the following tags: Our second year on the land
Today we got up early and walked for a couple of hours to the bus stop at Vaca Velha to go into Canela for some groceries and to meet Barry at our favourite cafe, Confeiteria Martha, and have some beers, coffees, cakes, pizza and pastels and to say goodbye. We could only stay a short time because on Saturdays the bus back to Vaca Velha leaves Canela at 2pm instead of 4pm, so we said our goodbyes and left for the bus station at twenty to two. We decided to try walking back in bare feet after Eduardo had inspired us so much, but we'd only been going for about twenty minutes when we saw a couple of 4x4's approaching. Well walking is good, but we like to always take advantage of a ride for part of the way when the opportunity arises, especially when carrying a heavy load - we also get to meet some interesting locals that way too. These guys were happy to give us a ride, but they warned us that it would be bumpy and probably muddy sitting in the back, we said we were fine with that and so off we went. It turned out these guys were actually on their way to São Francisco de Paula, but were taking this out of the way route purposely to find the worst muddy rocky road in the area! This road connects our local area where we and our neighbours all live with the bus stop at Vaca Velha on "highway" RS-476. We've done it once in our Lada Niva, and never wanted to do it again! But these guys do this route for fun!! And they know of some other areas slightly off the track that are even worse which they went on - while we were clutching to the sides in the back!!! We stopped at a couple of muddy ponds so they could film each other going through them and got to talk with them a bit. Once they heard we had a Niva, I think we made some kind of a connection with them, like we were automatically in the same "club" or something :-) We were really happy to hear that one of their 4x4's ran on alcohol like ours! We'd thought that alcohol was a really bad idea because it doesn't work in winter at all, but they said to just mix 30% or so of petrol with it and it'll be fine! One of the guys, Geremias, is a mechanic and was fascinated by the fact that we live all the way out here in the middle of nowhere. They decided to drive us all the way back to our house to have a look at our place and our Niva! Barry was telling us what good "hole in one" luck he'd had with hitch-hiking (when you get a ride that takes you all the way to where you want to go), but this takes the cake! Who'd ever have thought we'd get a ride literally all the way to our door in the middle of the forest!?!?

Ladybug season
Posted by Nad on 16 May 2014 at 22:49
This post has the following tags: Our second year on the land
May is ladybug season, we have hundreds of them all over the house and on many plants. They're really good because they keep the pests under control. We have at least three different kinds, the traditional red ones with black spots, "Brazilian ladybugs" which are green and yellow like the Brazilian flag, and another kind that are yellow with black spots.

Barry leaving
Posted by Nad on 16 May 2014 at 22:16
This post has the following tags: Our second year on the land
Barry left this morning so we're by ourselves again now, but we're going to Canela tomorrow for some supplies so we may catch up with him again at our favourite cafe, Confeiteria Martha. We took a couple of shots of Barry as he was preparing to leave. The second one shows the fire pit that we cooked the Pinhão in Sapeco style, which still has some Grinfas in it, then behind that Barry is standing next to a baby Araucaria with a young one directly behind him and a large old one in the background.

Sapeco
Posted by Nad on 14 May 2014 at 20:33
This post has the following tags: Our second year on the land
Unfortunately Eduardo had to leave today as he could only take a little time off work, but before he left he wanted to show us a really good way of cooking Pinhão called "Sapeco" (not to be confused with Seppuku!). This method is really nice because it's about cooking the Pinhão with the tree's own fallen leaves ("Grinfa") and nothing more. He went into the forest for half an hour and collected a couple of barrow loads of Grinfa and about a hundred Pinhão and then we stacked the Grinfa up in a big pile with an indentation in the top to pour the Pinhão into. The Grinfa are extremely easy to light, even when they have moisture on them you can get them going with a lighter or match with no need for anything else like paper. It's best to light it at three or four locations around the base so it burns evenly. Once it gets going it's like a volcano with really thick smoke and gets really hot. After a few minutes it's all burned and collapsed down, and you then scrape the cooked Pinhão out of all the ashes to eat them. We all had them for breakfast with Chimarrão :-) Shortly after our Sapeco breakfast, Eduardo packed his things and left, but promised to return soon with some other friends who he said would also be really inspired seeing how we live out here. Just last week we were thinking how hard we've been finding it out here, and came to the conclusion that what we really needed was to find some good local friends who really share our ideals and values. Well the universe definitely seems to have heard us and promptly manifested a solution! thanks universe!! - and thanks Barry for introducing us :-)

Italian day!
Posted by Nad on 14 May 2014 at 19:58
This post has the following tags: Our second year on the land
On Monday Beth and Eduardo went to the neighbours, Antonio and Donna Belinha to buy some eggs because Eduardo wanted to do home made pasta for lunch tomorrow. Since Eduardo had also bought Polenta for breakfast we decided that we should have an Italian day! This also meant we could have coffee for breakfast since it would be a special occasion and because they'd also bought milk with the eggs :-) Eduardo is of Italian decent and showed us the traditional way to make really nice pasta and polenta. In addition to all this nice traditional food, Italian day involves shouting loudly at each other in an Italian accent while waving the hands around a lot!

Fixing the south-west fence
Posted by Nad on 14 May 2014 at 19:33
This post has the following tags: Our second year on the land
Eduardo's a civil engineer and knows heaps about concrete and how to use it really efficiently. His arrival was really timely because we'd just bought a sack of cement for a few projects around the land, but we haven't worked with concrete before and didn't know the best proportions and how much sand and rock we could get away with adding to the mixture. The most urgent job was to make a better solution to the south-west fence because the sack of rocks idea really hasn't worked and is also very messy. My new idea was to make a long concrete pole with wire hooks all the way along it. The bar would sit on the river bed under the fence going all the way across and then vertical lengths of barbed wire could attach to the fence and the hooks in the concrete bar. We started by carrying all the cement and tools to the site which is quite difficult because it's very muddy. Beth and I were amazed that Eduardo walked through the grass and the forest in bare feet! this was really inspirational for us because in New Zealand we have bare feet all the time, and feel that it's really important to be in contact with the Earth and it's also really good for raising awareness and for the nervous system. We'd thought that this was something that really wasn't practical in Brazil due to all the poisonous spiders and caterpillars, scorpians and snakes, but Eduardo had the attitude that as long as you're aware and can see where you're putting your feet there's no problem! so we're going to start being in bare feet a lot more now :-) When we got there, I made a trench in the ground as a mould for the concrete and filled it with lengths of twisted wire for reinforcing. Eduardo and Barry collected stones and sand for the mixture, then we mixed it all up with water, poured it into the mould, evened it all out with a trowel and stuck loops of wire into it for attaching the fence to. Now we just have to leave it for four days and then try and manoeuvre it into position!

Barry & Eduardo visiting
Posted by Nad on 14 May 2014 at 19:02
This post has the following tags: Our second year on the land
My long time friend from New Zealand, Barry, arrived on Saturday the 10th. He's been cycle touring around Brazil for a few weeks, he started in Rio and cycled over 1000km to our place, visiting São Paulo, Florianópolis and Cambará on the way here. He also invited his friend Eduardo from Caxias to come too who he met on one of the cycle touring sites, Eduardo arrived the next day on Sunday the 11th. It was really good to catch up with Barry who I hadn't seen for a few years, and great to meet Eduardo who's really local to us and shares so many ideas and values in common with us! they taught us a lot about how to cycle more efficiently to go further while expending less energy, and what the best and lightest weight clothes, tents and sleeping bags are. After Barry cleared a spot in the bracken, they pitched their tents ready to settle in for the week :-) I installed some hooks for them to hang their bikes on since we have mice around who love to chew plastic and rubber things!

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