April showers...bring May veggies, we hope

It RAINED! Once on March 28^th, another time on Marth 31^st,. I still have that leak in my roof, but now I have precious books I must be sure to protect. And I believe it will keep raining, but I may be too optimistic, though other people seem to have taken these first rains as a green light to be celebrate. April is when one plants around here, so I’m following suit. If it doesn’t rain, I think I can water from the tap enough until it really does rain all the time, since my community finally had a meeting to decide who would go every day to close and open the water tank so everyone can have water for a little while every day. Only took 3 months of drought for that to happen. So I’m living a bit easier these days, being able to bathe and drink water enough to combat the heat. I didn’t realize how crabby and bothered I’d been until I wasn’t any more. I feel more energized and very happy these days. I think it’s a combination of the impending rainy season (and thus agricultural activities), bathing and drinking water, and generally feeling like I’ve hit my stride with my community. I’m spending lots of time hanging out with people and reading with the kids -they start school April 13th, finally- and working a bit too.

We finished another stove recently. I didn’t want to put up a picture until it was truly finished, with a chimney. This one was much harder to make, since it was bigger (space for two pots) and it was just me and the younger woman in the picture doing all the work. I think start to finish it took us 2 weeks, but maybe it was like 4 or 5 days that we worked. But the good part is that the woman we built it for (older woman in picture, the mother), really wants it and is psyched to use it. She’s mostly excited to have the smoke go out a chimney, and as someone who sits in that kitchen an awful lot, that´s probably what I´m most excited about too. Hopefully if we do more of these we’ve learned to invite people to help work, because mixing and pounding the mud is a lot of hard work for just 2 people.

In the process of making a tin can chimney. I cut myself, but luckily nobody else did.

Completed! Next to the old open-flame stove which we will smash in a few weeks.

Notice the two places for pots, and the completed chimney. Out front is where the wood goes in...we were experimenting to see where the smoke came out and where we needed to make a better seal so it would go out the chimney and not escape from under the pots. My friend Nik was really excited about this stove design and how it´s all about thermodynamics and stuff. I think my dad was pretty into it too, for the same reason.

I´ve been working a lot with this woman the past few month, we´re about to incorporate compost that we ripened this dry season into her raised beds, along with charcoal we´ve been trying to make..with limited success. We also did a little seed starting this week, inspired by the rain.

And now, for some of my own agricultural activities

Mona thinks I´ve been making her lots of new playgrounds lately...it will be a miracle if anything I direct seeded comes up where I put it. This is the Bad One sitting on a pile of horse manure about to be incorporated in the future tomato bed. She´s cute, but clearly possessed by evil spirits.

Lettuce in rows, under a shade structure. Mona looooves the palm fronds and the nice soft diggable hilled soil. Right after I´d made the hills she dug dug dug and did her business. Oh dear... I´m proud of my Panamanian-inspired repurposing skills used in this shade structure. My ex-Bolivia volunteer friend Michelle described Bolivians as McGyvers, always jerry-rigging and re-using materials. Panamanians are the same way, deconstructing things when necessary and re-using parts. I bought nothing new for this shade structure. The supports are made from left over wood scraps from building my latrine, and I happened to have just enough nails left over from that too. I used to have more nails but left them outside when I was out of town and surprise! they disappeared. I guess someone really needed them. The palm fronds are from my neighbor, and I attached them with string that used to be the clothes line before it deteriorated and fell down with all my clothes on it and I bought something that is actually supposed to be used as clothes line.

Below...starting seeds in recycled egg cartons. Germinated as of today are zucchini, Cherokee Purple tomatoes, broccoli, basil and peppers. Thanks to Beverly Gast, Uncle Kevin, and Mom and Dad for the seeds. I´ve been sharing the copious lettuce seeds around, but the more precious stuff I´m starting on my own, and if I have left over plants I will distribute them. As soon as I buy appropriate things for controlling pests, the zucchini will go in the ground because they are growing fast. Also pictured is the old lace curtain that was on my property, perfect as a mechanical pest control against hungry hungry crickets.