Camping At Home or At Home In Our Camp

After weeks of staying in tents and tukas of gracious hosts and getting to call their home our home - the construction of our own home started coming to a close. At least close enough to move in.

You'll have to forgive me and be patient till the next blog entry for grand unveiling of the Roots Farm Homestead - there's some tidying up to be done and finishing touches to be made. (And I'm just trying to build the suspense.)

But what we will reveal are glimpses into the life of setting up camp in our new home or starting to feel at home in our new camp...or something like that.

How quickly the body adjusts to life outdoors. Because even within our little homestead, we are pretty much outdoors all the time. Our own four walls doesn't really have walls in the traditional sense of the word, and so we let nature in, out and through (like we have a choice). Wind and sunlight and, one day probably rain, come and go as they did before the house was there - we wake up to the sunlight creeping into our beds, hide out from the noon heat beating down on our hill, watch the sunset paint the sky behind us and fall asleep with the breeze tugging at our mosquito net (and if we make it till 10pm, we call it a "late night"). For a few nights, we actually fell asleep to the gusty wind quite literally rocking us to sleep - and then we added stabilizing bamboo elements, because I kept waking up in fear the house would collapse with the next gust. Amazing what a few bent bamboo poles can hold in place. 

Sunrise, sunrise. From our window. Yes, our window.

A kingfisher. From our window.

A few shades of gray.

Is it still called a window when there are no real walls?
This little tree is sprinting towards our roof - slow down, little buddy!

I could stare at this roof all day.

Water is Life

One comfort that we are yet to develop is the possibility to turn a tap and enjoy free flowing water. Though one of our first big island-life-developments was having two jet pumps installed, this also turned out to be one of our first island-life-scams, as one of them ran out of water quite quickly and the other one broke out of its "cement" holding. And despite the one year guarantee and promise to return to fix them, the guys were never to be seen or heard from again. Great. 

This setback really showed us how essential a strong, working and accessible water source is. Good thing we still had our hand-dug well, which seemed to be a consistent source, as it held its level long after the rains had stopped. 

Part of our daily routine became water - pulling up small buckets from the well, filling medium-still-able-to-carry-without-breaking-my-back sized buckets to fill big containers. For showers. For washing dishes. For flushing the toilet. For wetting the compost and the vermiculture. And for watering plants - many thirsty plants! Sore shoulders, arms and backs became the beginning and end of our day. Everyday. 

And because our well really was the center of our life, we decided to spruce it up and make it official.

In a few days work, the occasional logistical challenge and an incredible amount of sweat and strength, our trusty water source was 'civilized' with some cement culverts and a pump of its own. 

And lucky us - because one of the biggest obstacles during this process was the ever-gushing water, refilling the well faster than the workers could work on it. 

Water is life. Civilizing our well with cement culverts.

Water is life. And it's being carried up our hill. 2000l capacity.

Buho bamboo spiral - our shower in the making.

Neverending (Work)Story

I think I had mentioned before that the day just doesn't have enough hours. Well, this principle has definitely continued to prove itself. And even on days when we wake up thinking "There's not THAT much to do today.", we somehow still end up ending the day thinking "And there's this, that and that left for tomorrow."

May it be that yet another little add-on idea has emerged for the house and materials have to be found, cut, gathered, soaked or bought. Or yet another DIY home-improvement project gets set in motion... Because after being homeowners for just a few weeks, we are realizing that, if we're honest with each other, we will never be 'finished' with this house.

Picking up nipa (toilet, water house and others roof).

Dropping off sawali (toilet wall) and buho (blinds).

Detouring with our mattresses.

We have started the banana circle for our own house and after having help digging the one for the staff house, doing this one on our own really got us into the rhythm of life in and with nature. Wake up and start working at around 7am (yes, could be earlier, but hey, we're just getting started), stop for breakfast at 9:30, when the sun has taken over your work space and then... find something to do in the shade till at least 3:30-4pm when the sun is more merciful.
And three mornings later, our circle was dug and immediately fed with the scattered piles of construction site rubble - perks of building with light materials: it's almost all compostable. Now we just wait for the water to plant and enjoy.

Blisters before breakfast.

One shovel at the time.

Another DIY project was started with the help of my father who visited for a few days and brought some new perspective and energy into the place. We have a few different types of floors and one part of the house was missing one completely. So in a morning or two, we gathered, crushed, wet, squished, dried, stomped on, wet again and stomped on again... the many abandoned termite mounds around our hill. This very sticky and stubborn wet material becomes very solid but soft and smooth when dry and can make a lovely floor for bare feet. However, getting it to get that solid, soft and smooth turned out more difficult than we thought. We were given the advice to just keep wetting it over and over again and then, one day, it will stop cracking and become that floor we want. 

Maybe we'll just end up getting some nice pebbles. We'll see.

Bahay ng Anay. Termite Mounds.

And then there are the many other things that fill up our day. Fixing things, planning things, starting things, finishing things and basically letting the day throw its things at us. Trying and failing. Experimenting and succeeding. Our skin is crispy, we have lovely slipper tan-lines, have forgotten the feeling of not being sweaty and clean hands and feet are 5minute occasions right after showering. If those aren't signs of us becoming islanders, I don't know what would be.

What to do when the next handyman is hours of drive away? Become a handyman.

On a 'shopping' trip. Yes, island life has its perks ;)

Camping At Home or At Home in a Camp 

We sleep on the floor and sit on the floor and take naps on the floor and have our bags on...the spare mattresses on the floor. That is minimalism due to lack of furniture. That is camping in our home.

We live out of bags that are lying around, somewhat organized at times (times after which I have organized them) and somewhat chaotic most of the times. Friendly bees have tried building homes in our bags on hot days - that's how comfortable our setup must be.

We live off mini solar systems - solar lamps and lanterns, portable solar panels and solar power banks that we move around the house to catch the sunlight all day long. And when we want to charge our laptops we visit friends with power - that's how off the grid we are.

We live out of boxes. Little boxes, big boxes, white, blue and black boxes. They contain our comfort in form of pillows, blankets, sleeping bags and hammocks. They contain our food in cans, bottles and double secured in tupperware, with diatomaceous earth sprinkled in, on and around it against ants. They contain our kitchen and laundry room and bathroom cabinet and office... Boxes.

We even cook in a box, because otherwise the wind would blow out our gas stove. 

We have the most beautiful roof over our heads and all the creature comforts of camping. What more could we ask for? Well, actually, quite a bit more. This is the first chapter of our home. Our homestead. And with every day and week that passes, this place transforms into more than it was before and yet another goal is reached. It is a project and a challenge and we are in the middle of it all, living and breathing it, taking every step alongside it. And that is a wonderful feeling. (Plus, we actually do enjoy camping.)

In Farming News...

Summer heat and lack of water slowed down our farming developments, but since there is always more work to be done around the farm, we didn't run out of things to fill our few hours in a day.

One difficulty we faced after some time living here was the accumulation of trash and utter lack of waste management systems in the area - as in most rural areas in the country. And for us, burning or burying the trash (as most people do), just didn't seem right. An organic farm that burns plastic on their soil? Or hides cans deep within it? So instead, we set up a system in which we reduce reuse and recycle as much as we can and got everyone working and staying on the farm to join in.
Cans are turned into plant pots, paper is biodegraded in the banana circle or vermiculture bed, glass will be used for cashew vinegar or brought to a recycling plant and plastics...

...are turned into Ecobricks!
One sack of plastic stuffed into one bottle and one day we'll have enough to build stuff.

Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.

Cans, bottles and cups for seedlings. 

The greenhouse has been prepped and bedded, with space allocated for a nursery and Mo's Microgreens (I think that should be his brand name). The beds have been sprinkled with guano and are just waiting for the water...

Beds.

And when the team gathers in the shade, we find what we do best and work side by side to get those farming gears going.

Mo the Mad Scientist testing our soil.

Sana the OCD planning, organizing and writing down what needs to be done (to make sure nobody forgets it).

Noelle the Green Thumb talking to her freshly planted seeds to make sure they grow.

Seedling soil - a combination of science, planning and planting.

And a week later we had babies...

...many babies! String beans, winged beans, okra, passion fruit,
malunggay (moringa), tomatoes and some trees and question marks.

Baby okra!

Drying for seeds. Nature's abundance at it's best!
Two beans and some chili will someday be lots and lots of bean and chili plants. 

We will get there. Soon we'll be eating more of our homegrown fresh veggies - more than the string beans we share with the ants at the moment. Water will be the game changer. Rainy season will open the floodgates (hopefully not too literally). Seasons, the land and time will show what this farm will be able to offer and what potentials are there to be homed in on and nurtured.

Party Time!

A blessing is a must when moving into a newly built house. So we had one. We blessed our bamboo floor with young coconut meat, making the Pinoy party favorite buco salad (young coconut meat, canned fruits, cream and condensed milk). We blessed our kitchen floor with the juices that dripped from our lechon (roasted pig). And in the end, we were blessed by the presence of friends and family, great food and company - and completely forgot about the priest. Oh well, we had puppies instead.

Buco salad.

Lechon. Mo's pampering made him extra delicious.

A small group of the hard working men that build us our home. THANK YOU!

Puppy in a food coma.

Another puppy in a food coma.

OUR puppy in a food coma. Meet the newest member of the Roots family.