All is going well… perhaps better than it ever has here.

The solar guy is nice and smart. He is installing things.
I got a 1500 watt fancy ass inverter which will allow my system to expand later.
Two nice panels (130 watt each?), and one of my old panels can add another 50 watts to the system.
We testing the 300 meter run and it has a low voltage drop only. Yay! Tommorrow we will run the cables

It is a small system, but when you live in total darkness in the night… as small light is a big thing Music can happen.
I am very excited. This is the most major advancement!
And it apears that from my reading I understand a good bit… though still I am ignorent of much electical stuff.

Everyone is alive… A friend wasn’t one of the new puppies. (Then they are old enought.)

I bought tons of fruits and veggies at the market…
I bought supplies to make

The old guy I hired to do some reedweaving for wooden chair seats is teaching on of my young workers how to do this dying art. Very cool. I can pay people to continue a tradition and I get cooler comfier chairs.

Tired out. But happy.

I found a fresh dead turkey vulture. I am pulling the best feathers off it to use for something. Will try to figure out how to best keep its skeleton.

The day has gone very well.
Up early and insane.
Off to do things right and… all went right. No injuries. It was a simple thing.
I am thinking more and more about the genetics for the last two years. And combining all the thoughts I have read.

I am making a genetic liferaft. And perhaps a genetic boat.
Near natives are the current project…. meaning… they don’t grow right here… but there near native plants are from down the road 10 miles in some microclimate….
In other words…. these plants represent the genetic diverse points of this region in general. Climate chance will alter the topography of the factors which allow native plants to live where they do… Plants will die.. plants will slowly blend over into the new similar climate zone, if any… if not… they will die out in that region.

The idea is to get more tiny pockets….. and microsclimate should be filled with diversity. Nearby diversity that wanted to be there anyway..
Changes of invasiveness are very very low since the plants are genetic friends over the climate changes of the last several climate changes.
I am force planting some of that diversity… into nearby neighborhoods. Infecting compatible life into spots where it will be happy.

Also… domesticaing plants…
I am also evaluating which plants are pretty or useful in pots. Mostly just randomly collecting plants here which are common and seeing how they do in pots. Generally I am against potted plants… but perhaps I can find some which need no care and are human compatible or inspiring.

There is a danger that if a plant is domesticated and valuable, then locals will rob it from the wild and sell it too people who do not replicate it.
Anyone who takes plants from the wild must be replicating the heck out of them….
If you are going to take from a place… you should help it. Duh.
You should reproduce the plant for the home market so that you can undercut the effort it takes to collect it, and if you sell to the home market… then you should teach you customers how to propogate.
Any nursery which sells native plants should teach people how to propogate their native plants.

Blah blah…
The guys are all out planting the collected plants. I am inside writing this.
Back outside.
Yay!

New cistern to be built of stone:
-4mx7mx3.5m=98 cubic meters. at 1000 liters per cubic meter that is 98,000 cubic meters. (25889 gallons!) Pretty big!
Cost is estimated at $6400 pesos for materials.
Labor: $7500 pesos maybe.
Total: $13900 pesos… or about USD $1400. A much better deal for a better product than the large plastic cisterns.
Plus it will have a deck on top to hang out on.

And it costs my attention… which I don’t like giving to construction. But… I gotta capture more water.

I guess I should figure out how much is the max rain I can capture off that given a certain amount of rainfall… gotta figure some other formulas.

For today for the art studio I ordered a truck of sand, a truck of gravel, and 30 peices of transluscent laminate for the ceiling.

A fellow asked me how I survive here without electricity and refigeration…..

Fridge:
Yah, no fridge. Actually I do have a broken gas fridge, but it is very broken… I got it working for a month once. I could buy another one but they are very expensive.
I just don’t seem to need a fridge. People here don’t refrigerate eggs, so I don’t either. Cheese seems to last a few days. Tortillas too.
Fridges in my experience tend to fill up with stuff you are not using right then. At least mine always did.
The more people here are eating from a single kitchen source, the less refrigeration is needed for leftovers. When there are more people living here… trips into town for group supplies could happen fairly often. I tend to believe it is healthiest to eat lots of simple raw foods. Fruits, veggies, nuts, berries… along with some other healthy stuff and that doesn’t need much refrigeration.
The closer you live to your food source (gardens, fruit trees, fish farming, chickens..) the less you need refrigeration. I do plan to build a root cellar for any building with a kitchen for storing squash and other crops. They work very well and can have a lot more space than a fridge. I am not even 1% of the way towards producing enough food for a group here…. check back in 10 years.

Electricity: No electric except when I run the generator for internet. I charge laptop and camera batteries at the same time. I do want to get enough solar panels to run the internet (low power need) and a few laptop computers while the sun is out, and for a couple hours after it goes down. That would eliminate generator use except as occasional backup perhaps.
I also would like to put solar on each house… but really it would just be enough to power some LED lighting at night, and charging for laptops and camera batteries. Being alone a lot, I like to read at night and like to have good lighting for that. This is a problem on long winter nights. Currently I use my headlamp and nearby candles. My candles are a petroleum product so I would prefer to switch to beeswax, especially if I start beekeeping. I don’t know how many folks can be kept supplied with candles per hive though.
For the headlamps.. rechargeable batteries tend to be expensive and wear out quickly. But living without electricity, I can say that LED headlamps are the best nighttime lighting. Leaves your hands free to do things. LEDs run off the larger battery and positioned right for reading might be the best option.
I could get electric run in at great expense…. and then it would get used more… so many possible electric devices. For this experiment, it is better for me to not have it, so I can learn to create a fulfilling lifestyle with low electric use.

Water: Water is trickier… though I am going to build enough cisterns to handle that.. I hope. The composting toilets and sauna should decrease water usage by about 80%. I could run water in from town at some expense… but I would rather learn to not use a lot. There is a needless water shortage in this area. I am going to town today to buy PVC piping to make gutters with. All buildings should capture the rainwater.

Wood for heating: Future buildings will have a passive solar design which will radically reduce the wood needed for heating. And future fireplaces will be airtight stoves.

With the right systems in place I should be able to live cheaper, with less time fixing systems and getting fuel for them. That leaves me more energy for the better things in life.

Damn I love this place…. It is so beautiful…

Yo gringos! Do you know where your pretty birds went? They are down here vacationing!

Yah. The medicinal garden is still a good project. I have some seeds which I haven’t used. (From seeds of change.) and there are some plants here already with medicinal uses. I don’t know much about them. Locals come here and say “that is a plant good for this.” I just write it down and take a photo of the plant. A guy from a Michoacan plant research place wants to come visit. I hope to let them put whatever they like here or put in whatever sounds cool.
A lot of my plant work right now is in plant propogation. Not too sexy, but today I made about 50 rosemary cuttings direct in ground. (It is the rainy season right now) and I played with a bunch of Maguey sprouts I made. Very happy about that. I have about 20 timber bamboo starts and many many other plants in progress. 4 test gardens now.

I just id-ed a bolete which is good to eat. I forget the name but they are al over right now so I eat them for breakfast. I tested them two days ago and had no ill effects. there are three other edible mushrooms coming soon. I need to build a solar dryer to dry them.

Right now the second house is ready except a plumbing problem I am fixing. I and a friend were muraling in there yesterday. Two cabanas are ready for habitation too. No water in them yet though. Need to build composting toilet up here on the “mesa”.

I have no other residents yet though visitors come though. I had 4 people here last week, though now I am down to 2. My mom just arrived and will stay 2 months. Most people come for a week right now.
I know many locals (morelia) and will start carefully inviting those who won’t litter on the place. (literally and metaphorically)

I have dirt to put under your nails. Lots of ways to play here.

I have done some basic cob tests on my soil. I want ongoing cob and strawbale projects here.

Last visitor built a cool bench thing and a second stage composter. He tricked my into getting painting again. Good boy.
The recent visitors have helped get the place into a more confortable space. Cleaner and more organized. Things where pretty chaotic when Gustavo was here. I was alone for a while which as good though hard for my head.

I got a kitten. My first experience in the cat world. I named him Nimbus.

It appears that the forest here is healing. Continuing 50 year process of healing after being cut down.

A local who had know this forest since he was a child, his father was the caretaker of this land and collected resin from the pine trees says….

He says: There are more birds visiting my land than there were in the past. I have put in more plants which the hummingbirds and butterflies like and am going to propagate each year for exponential growth.
He says: Because the cows have been kicked off the land there is more small plant growth. And I guess I can see that. The nearby lands don’t have small plants and trees. They get trampled and eaten. So I have more capuline, more baby fresnos, etc.

Overall the forest is in a state of healing here since these hills were deforested long ago. It was re-planted with pines, which though they represent mono-culture, but they can serve as shade for a new generation of the native trees and plants returning.
And I am helping that along by planting more of the native species along with other valuable trees and plants. And I have planted native baby orchids from the orchadarium in Morelia. Quite a few died though. And I took cuttings of local natives from nearby microclimates to put in here. I suspect that some where here but did not survive the deforestation period. Another thing which matters a lot of the human element… the forest has always been manicured… wood taken out, trees cut down… oak leaves on the ground harvested… I am letting it go back to natural. For example right now there is only one dead old tree on the property. A natural forest would have many. That one tree houses lots of birds, since some birds can only next in dead trees. I girdled a dozen trees so they will die, which clears a view spot over time and will also provide more bird housing. Also I am making more spots with water the birds can get at in the dry season. They love that.

It is encouraging to hear this and see this. I am pleased.

Planting is going well!
Putting in two macademia nut trees, a hazelnet, two pear trees, the exotic fern collection, 4 more avocados, hydrangas, cup of coffee and cup of gold plants. A fig tree, and many more.
Timber bamboo, regular bamboo… tons of stuff.

I am uncertain though… I am designing a landscape.. trying not to make mistakes. Not block a view, not place a tree where it will conflict with something else… I wish I had a master plan.

The succulent seeds I collected and put in a tray of wet dirt are sprouting! Yay! I have never grown those kind before and this means I can have in infinite number of such plants. The Jades here are producing seeds too. Yay!

Back to it!

I am getting more and more contact with people who have compatible visions and are looking to be involved in something like what I am doing. Yay! And I now have 6 people scheduled to come down this month.
Hopefully they can help me prep up spaces to host more people. One will come to muse me on my art.

A lot of people want to work on a farm type thing. This site allows people to find farms to learn on:
http://wwoof.org/
http://www.argos.net.mx/wwoof/
I guess I should sign up to allow people to come work.

I prepped up a few hundred more little pots for cuttings and emailed the permaculture people to visit and take cuttings. I will visit others too.
Here is how to propogate plants:
http://ianrpubs.unl.edu/horticulture/g337.htm
I plan to do air layering for many trees as well.

I hope ave I am not too early for cuttings. (Rainy season won’t come for months.) I don’t want them to fill their peat pots too fully before the rains come.
If this works though I will be able to make hundreds of all kinds of useful plants at very low cost and this place will be a huge bramble of edible and pretty things.

Back from burning man now. It was kinda intense but kinda limbo too. I just tried to be caring and be mellow inside. I was among the sweetest nicest people. It was really quite wonderful.
Two people mentioned to me how burning man restores their faith in humanity. And I kinda agreed. Felt nice.
I gave a talk at singularity point about the ranch and my community visions for it. It went well.
And I met some people who might come down to visit and apply their special skills. I met some nice people and had some good chats, but much of my head was too elsewhere to engage fully.

I drove up to burning man; 2400 miles in three days. I was like a machine.
The drive back down was harsh. Coming down was much much harder. Got stuck tired and sweaty in the hot coastlands. Trying to sleep in the van which was a sauna. Has one odd run in with the police while trying to sleep in my van in a town known for narcotrafficing. They were nice enough and I paid my first bribe. It was cheap. I kinda of toyed with them for a while pretending not to understand what they wanted. They were kinda oddly shy. Funny. The other adventure in the same town involved a party I briefly went to, decided things were not right, left to the police arriving and then took backroads fast to get out of the area since I believe I may have been a target or something. It was all a bit odd and got my adrenaline going. Turn fast here. Shut of lights. Wait. Weeeeee!

My place feels like home now. I love it. What a dream to live in this park. Is this really my beautiful house?

The ranch is so peaceful. My housesitters did a great job and even worked to get rid of the bats. I was down to two or so when I got home. I saw a mad one last night and a burned copal and used some pepper spray (this time i used a glove) and then it was gone. I hope it stay gone. It was kind of cute and I feel bad, but I think it living elsewhere is easier than potty training it.
New birds are here now. Some interesting blue ones and one with white on its wings and red on its head.
The lobsters muchrooms are still coming up strong. So they have at least a 2-3 month growing season.

I am cleaning things up, removed the tarps protecting from bats, putting away burning man objects. I put up some tents and the dome for workers to rest or to live in while they build the cabanas.
The cabanas are making good progress and the boss lady is quite excited to make them cool. She had idea for some cool mixed stone wall types for one of the bathrooms and I am going to give her some designs to combine with hers for some carved wooden doors.
The terrace I am having built is quite huge. For some reason I didn’t really imagine its height when we went through the design. I a pleased though. The roof of the outdoor space will be around 20-25 feet tall I think. It will be a great space for dance parties.

There are a million small adventures. I chased some people on my land the other day. They were carrying things near the construction and they ran, so I chased. Almost lost them but found them hiding near the ravine. I introduced myself. They were nice. A mom and son crossing my land with bags of mushrooms which they assured me were not from my land. (ha!)
They were relieved that I was nice and I that there were not stealing stuff. (A few items have been stolen)
And the same day I heard chopping and went to find an old guy chopping wood. I introduced myself and we had a chat about that. He is a local politically active guy and invited me to visit their office. I cannot legally engage in politics here though. very illegal. He won’t be chopping wood on my land anymore perhaps. He is the second person I have found doing that.
Besa is happy though a bit lonely. One of my houseitters, a gringo, has a nice dog, so they play.

The trees and plants I put in are doing well except one.
I will have a wait until next spring at the start of the rainy season for the real big plantings. I should get a landscape architect down here too to help me think about biological design things.

I think I will name the road I had built: “Serpent”
It has a shape like that. I will slowly think about names for other places. This grove or glen. This trail. Naming things will be fun.

I have estimates on running power in. I will investigate some other options first. It is quite pricey.
And I don’t know that I need it. I guess I will with guests in they want to be anything other than very rustic.

Here now in the internet cafe swapping messages from an old laptop to a new. I hope to soon improve my online communication so I am compose email offline at home.
I do hope soon to get a hughes satilite dish for internet at home. It is a pricey solution but one I hope will work well.
I feel pretty out of contact and didn’t really get a chance to walk and talk at burning man with some of my favotite poeople there.

There are so many excellent people in my life. So many I miss. I would like to walk and talk with them. Soon I will have a wonderful spot to host them. And I guess abscence makes the mouth have new things to say!
There are some locals here too I will host a bit more. Good times ahead. The house is almost ready to start hosting people up for the weekend. I don’t know many down here yet who I think would like what I am creating, but I can start with a few folks.

This is the most amazing project I have ever worked on. It stretches me on so many levels. I am happy with the work I have done and feel the right amount of challenge to be in the zone with it. And I love love love the trees. The madrone and oak. So nice.

The thing I must do the most is paint. Need to get a bunch of canvases and paint solid busy for a few months. I have a huge backlogue of ideas in my mind. Then drive to mexico city with a van full of art. I need to start a solid fast career down here within the next year.

I have many things to get done.
I have some things to get done internally as well. Got to fix some of me. And I think the tranquil space with much work will be good for that.
Best of luck to us all. We will need it. How to be the most loving? How to be balanced some? How to care for both others and outselves? How to choose what parts of the universe to interact with and how?
It really feels strange to be so far away, living in the dark woods and out of communication. I will use it for good. I think it will make me into a different person. Maybe a better one.
Or maybe I will slowly… heh. we shall see.