Update- December 2013

Happy New Year! We are very excited to welcome 2014...

Everything is connected...

Listen while you read... Baylando Records - EL Kool Kyle



Ohhh YES! and here we are, a new year coming up with new adventures...! Personally, this year I am connecting with nature. Being with nature these last few weeks has been full of wonders... There is so much to learn and it is very exciting.

RE:

+ Sub-projects for Collective Wave:

- Kitchen Garden
- Proper Disposal of Waste Plan
- Urban Land
- Abuelito's Farm
- Fundación Cambugán's Farm


+ Highly recommended learning Institutes for resilient communities.

This is what Collective Wave is all about. These Institutes are very literal in terms of radically changing the way society lives and helps create alternative ways of conscious, sustainable and regenerative living. See below...

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*Kitchen Garden

At my Mom's house there is a nice and spacious patio. (Observing) The walls of the patio are covered with beautiful vines. We cut some excess of these vines for it to not take over the rest of the space. (Produce no waste) We learned that the excess of vines can be dried and used as mulch or for compost. Thus, we have started a Kitchen Garden for our family. We began by drying these chopped pieces of vines in different artistic shapes while accumulating food waste for sheet-mulching. We used the following material for sheet-mulching: Dry vines, food waste, some soil and earthwarms gifted from the Fundación Cambugan's farm in Pintag. Our next move is to build the garden bed and start thinking about what to plant. Fava beans has been recommended to be planted first, for it will help the soil with nitrogen. 

We have learned that a house of five adults and one kid produces (not "wastes") a full bucket of approximately 20 pounds a week of food waste. We have taken two of these buckets and started to regenerate about 10 pounds of dry soil. We have been flipping this compost once a week. We had a lot more food waste than soil, therefore we could not flip very often for the smell and bugs that we attract. We estimate that the soil will be ready for planting this weekend. The rest of the food waste that we could not use, is being taken every week to a near by urban land owned by my family. Information about this "Urban Land" is mentioned below . 

*Proper Disposal of Waste Plan
While using our food waste for compost, (Produce no waste) we are learning to properly dispose our overall waste in the house. It is challenging to reduce waste and maintain a consistent habit of recycling and composting, however there is great improvement.

During "Fiestas de Quito" on friday December 6th, we celebrated with our neighbors in Quito. It was a party of families. We had the opportunity to meet everyone and have a good time.

At this event we have observed that there are possibilities for improvement in our waste-leadership of the 10 home complex we all reside in. A letter has been issued to all the neighbors in order to propose a system that improves the proper disposal of house waste. We have contacted two "recycling-waste management" organizations that provide with the service of buying properly classified waste for re-use of material. With the money received from these organizations,  I proposed to the community for it to be used for the communities's projects and/or maintenance of the 10 home complex.



*Urban Land

This land is family owned and it is not being used. Therefore, we have decided to plant some food. Even though the work that is being done for this project has not been in the Collective Wave itinerary for this coming year. The opportunity practicing urban permaculture principals has been presented and it will be kept in mind for it to be worked on little by little.  Our first step has been cutting down all the weeds that has grown for the past 3 years. Second, we will work on regenerating the soil on this land with sheet-mulching. This is were we bring the compost from our house. This is where we could bring the compost from our 10 family home complex.


*Abuelito's Farm / Dec. 11th - Dec. 13th

My Abuelito's (Grampa's) farm is located near Yunguilla via Calacalí. It is interesting to say that My Abuelito's farm is in a very hot location yet very cold,  more than Quito. Keeping in mind that Quito is at 2,800 meters (9,350 feet) above sea level with the coldest temperature being 8.6 °C, and my Abuelito's farm is at 2,400 meters (7875 feet) above sea level with an approximate temperature of 7.5 °C. The temperature in this area drops from 20.3 °C to 7.5 °C in less than hour. In other words, we could only work from 6am to 12pm, when the sun shines. By 1pm it is too cold and the fog is all over the place, we can't see further than a couple of feet. This dramatic change of temperature has been a problem for my Abuelito to cultivate since he has this farm over a year. He said that the reason of this particular weather in this area is due to the costal region meeting the Andes, where this location is surrounded by many mountains very close to each other, capturing heavy fog and heat, creating extreme temperature changes. My Abuelito said he tried many strategies for cultivation and it has not been doing very well. Currently, the farm is dedicated to rabbits, chickens and eggs for sale plus a couple of cows for personal use. My brief observation through Permaculture eyes, is that it is possible to cultivate in this land since it is full of life by other plants and species. There can be many reasons why cultivating is not working well. The first to do, I believe is to regenerate the land healthy soil. My Abuelito has not applied this option yet. Therefore, I have shared to my Abuelito  that I am learning about Permaculture and he seemed very interested, specially after being involved with Agriculture for over 20 years. While we talked about how we can regenerate the soil, we had a wonderful time building/extending our relationship and the chicken coop. This farm is being rented by my Abuelito and his contract ends in May. By that time, we are looking forward in working together in the future with my Father's land in Canoa-Manabi (Our first hands-on Permaculture Design).




*Fundación Cambugan's Farm / Dec. 18th - Dec. 20th
More pictures here

Fundación Cambugán is a non-profit dedicated in re-forestation of the Cambugán watershed in the western Andean mountain range of Ecuador. http://www.cambugan.org/. For the last year the organization has been working on organic farming in Pintag near Valle de los Chillos, where Cleo and I have decided to go visit and volunteer. We arrived to Pintag at 9am after a 1 hour bus ride from Quito. We met Daniela on the way. Daniela runs the farm applying permaculture principals. This farm is going through a transition, from traditional Agriculture to Permaculture. Daniela has been part of the farm for about 7 months, in which by that time it was already established as an Agriculture farm. Daniela has slowly been understanding this land and improving its production. When we arrived, Daniela suggested for us to take a moment to ourselves in order to understand, feel and observe the land. We briefly applied the first Permaculture Principal, "observing" as our first exercise. We observed that is a very calm area, understanding the sun, the wind, the weather, the sounds. It felt like a place of harmony. Even though it is Fundación Cambugán's first year producing organic food, they are doing great. Keeping in mind that there is a lot of work to be done. It is a big farm and there are only 2 daily workers plus Daniela who take care and are the producers of this land, therefore we would like to mention that they need help. More volunteers are needed and perhaps some financial help to improve certain aspects of the farm such as the house where volunteers can stay and some tools to facilitate the experience. We wish we could stay and help but have other projects lined up and of course we will maintain communication with them in order to help each other in the future.

 For the time of our stay, some of our work at the farm was the following:
- Weeding the garden beds by hand.
- Mulching the beds with wood chips
- Gather weeds that were cut, dry them for future multching as well as using for compost beds
- Setting up compost beds with proper order of layers: Dry material, green/live material, cardboard, healthy soil with warms, horse waste, and repeat the sequence of layers 2 more times, cover again with cardboard. (Flip the compost every day or at least once a week.)

                                    

It is definitely hard physical work at the farm. "Integrate rather than segregate" - Many hands make light work... Eventually, we will get there. Completing all principals in one space. Creating a healthy ecosystem.

We learned many different types of plants and even planted a few. We also did some seed saving. For future reference I will have a pocket notebook in order to write down everything  I learn. It is a lot of information we need to keep track of. We will be working on sharing information as accurate as possible.

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+ Highly recommended learning Institutes for resilient communities.


The goal is to establish a healthy environment for future generations to come. Please register on both Institutes below and learn about the understanding of resilient communities. (No person is turned away for lack of funds, There is work trade and more... More info below

Urban Permaculture Institue of San Francisco Wed. January 8th, 2014 - March 8th, 2014
(I attended the summer course 2013)

Regenerative Leadership Institute May 4, 2014 - May 10th, 2014
(I am looking forward to attend this coming May)