Building a roof!

We are currently in the process of building a straw bale cold storage for the farm here. We have been busy putting chicken wire around the straw so we can mud it and building a roof as you can see above for protection. We are learning how to build a roof which is a really good skill and having fun doing it! Soon we are going to put tin on top of the wood frame and then finish mudding the straw bale house once the night time temperatures are not so cold. Below Winston is cutting the edge of the roof framing.

Beans and Veggie's!

Caitlin harvested most of the beans as you can see in this picture. This consisted of picking the pods off the vines and then crushing in bags. After crushing the pods she put them in a bucket and picked out the empty pods and the remaining beans in the pods. After this she waited for a good gust of wind to come and blow the empty pod remains away. You can see all the empty pods on the ground. Yay for beans!
This is one of the greenhouses where mostly chard, arugula, collards and mustards are growing. It is luscious and green and keeps us fed every night. Every morning we open each side of the greenhouse and pull off the remay cloth so the houses can warm up. Then at night we put the remay cloth back down and close the doors to keep in the heat and the plants don't freeze. This is just one of the greenhouses. The other greenhouse which is much longer has some chard, carrots, shallots that we just planted and beets.

Mudding a Straw Bale House

Today we spent most of the day re-mudding a chicken straw bale house. We will finish the mudding this week and then start on the cold storage house next week. Here is a little sneak peak of mudding a straw bale house.

Herb Garden

Here is a little video about the herb garden we made. More herbs will be planted when we get them!

Calliope Collaborative

Our life at Gavilan has come to an end and we have moved Southeast of Santa Fe to a farm near Anton Chico, NM called Calliope Collaborative. It is much warmer here being 2000 feet lower with almost 80 degrees today! We are living in a yurt which is next to a passive solar straw bale house with solar panels and solar hot water. There is a family of 4 with the kids under 5 years old. They are a very sweet family with lots of energy and motivation. There are 6 acres of farm near the river and irrigation with goats, a pig, chickens, roosters, dogs, cats, 2 horses and lots of ducks. They have 2 greenhouses with abundance of greens, garlic, and onions growing right now. So far we have butchered one goat, (which was an experience), feed the animals, cleared weeds from the yard, made an herb garden, cleared tomatoes and tilled the ground with manure compost and planted shallots and we sheet mulched the front yard for yummy soil in the spring! We are learning a lot here and there is much more to come. We will begin mudding the walls of the straw bale food storage house next week. They are very knowledgeable about living simply, sustainably and close to the Earth and are constantly experimenting and trying out new things. We are having a great time here! More to come soon!