Gracias a la Madre de la Tierra, y Buen Provecho!

Right before digging into a big dinner at the Ranch, these are the words that float out into the jungle from our cob-floored dining room. Everyone looks forward to this way in which we end our full days: all staff, volunteers, students and guests gathering along both sides of a long caravan of hand-made tables, hands joined, glancing with gratitude at faces illuminated by palm oil candles and the glow of our new LED Christmas lights, perhaps sharing aloud thanks, hopes, instances of learning and humor from a full day. The moments of silence in between allow our world to sink in; the essence of chisels and lumber, rebar and dirt rubs itself into biceps and knuckles, a pleasant conversation hangs lightly on the crook of my arm, and revelations playfully tousle sunbleached hair before resting warmly upon my head.

It’s good to be here, folks. Things are rolling along, and I’m simultaneously settling in and steppin’ out. Thought you’d be interested in our daily schedule and the building where I sleep, so here are some pictures of “The Hankey” as we call it. Most of the Ranch’s buildings don’t have traditional floor to ceiling walls; none have mechanical ventilation or air conditioning units. The Hankey is a fine example of this. It’s built on a slope, and its structural members are round timbered teak logs, stripped and drawknifed by hand. The floor is hand-planed tropical cedar boards, each of the screws meticulously plugged with a dark hardwood. So many creative minds have etched their visions in the Hankey, from the flower mosaic sink and the bamboo/cedar shelf Sam and I just made, to the hand sewn privacy curtains and the bas relief tree on the main entry wall. One of the the Hankey’s long sides faces a main path, so an undulating cob half wall (which my bed is adjacent to) gives us a bit more privacy. The south-east facing back side is completely open to the forest, which delivers us sun rays strained through banana leaves and palm branches at about 5:45 every morning. Most of us get up shortly thereafter, reading, doing yoga or helping prepare breakfast, which is from 7 to 8. Then is a staff meeting, work, lunch, and knocking off sometime between 4:30 and 5:30 in order to play a bit before the sun sets around 6. Dinner is around 7, which leaves time for dominoes, ping pong, Balderdash or guitar pickin’ before folks start dropping like fruit flies into their beds around 9:30 or 10. We typically end up working 6 days a week, with Sundays as the big day off. Ah, what a satisfying way to fill a week.

Since it’s been a month since we arrived, we interns are now pretty familiar with the daily and weekly tasks—the soap making and bread baking, the garden watering, compost attending to, and of course, several meal shifts per week in which we spend 4-6 hours per meal making everything from scratch. So now that we’re comfortable with the necessities, we’ve chosen other projects to focus in on. With fellow intern Anne (also an ex-Yestermorrow intern), I’m designing the foundation system and timberframe for an outdoor bathroom up at a new residence we’re building called The Cork. The small structure will be covered by a single pitch shed roof, and will include a double vaulted composting toilet, a plumbed cold-water shower, and a plumbed sink. Luckily one of the main builders of the Cork is a mason, an easygoing, huge muscle of a man named Geoff. Geoff spends the winters here every year, and is a great teacher. The pictures of this project show that we’ve dug out the ground for a poured concrete pad as well as for a couple piers. Right now we’re in the process of contructing the wooden forms along with bamboo and rebar reinforcement.

A second focus for me has become a community outreach project at the home of Juan and Anna and their two pre-teen daughters. Anna and Juan live with family a couple days a week near Puriscal (about 2 hours away), where Juan works as a security guard. The other days they live on their rural farm near Mastatal, which is quite a hike from the main road through cowpastures and streams and hillsides. Their house is a simple two story stick frame structure, about 20’X20’ with an A-frame tin roof and no walls. The Ranch just included them in a sustainable energy institute course we hosted, which installed a small solar panel that provides them with enough electricity for four light bulbs. With fellow interns Britt, Taggert and Carolyn, I’ll be organizing a work weekend for a Ranch student group in which we’ll install siding and walls upstairs and a better wood-fired cookstove downstairs. We’ve been researching a lot of stove designs based on the rocket stove model, which, described very simply, is a fire of small tinder and twigs burning in the horizontal part of an insulated L shaped 5” stove pipe. The pot is placed directly on top of the stovepipe. The design has proved extremely successful in developing nations because it requires far less wood and creates far less smoke than an open campfire. Anna’s kitchen is currently in a corner of the bottom floor which she has partially enclosed with scrap tin roofing to keep out the wind and rain. She makes an open fire on top of a concrete topped table. The smoke is definitely detrimental to her health, so we’re all excited to build something more efficient, whether it is a metal rocket stove or a similar multi-burner stove with cob or sand and clay.

That’s all from me for now. Feel free to drop me a line via email, facebook or the comment option on this blog. As always, I think of y’all often and can’t wait to give you a big booger hug in a couple months!