Thursday, October 15, 2015
Friday, September 4, 2015
Chickens: The Layout
The chickens will forage in a three paddock system, with chickens running in different paddocks thoughout the year. It will look like this.
If Pad 2 is the best place to grow a fast cash crop like lettuce I can serve in my future restaurant, it will be best to remove the chickens from Area 2 around December 1st, after four months of them cleaning and fertilizing it. At that time, with the chickens now foraging in Pad 3, I plant Pad 2 with lettuce and other vegetables and harvest them starting January 1st when the tourist season begins in earnest. Around May, when the rain comes and tourists die down. I can simply throw down a new chicken forage planting to be grown in for when the chickens return to Pad 2 the next year.
While paragraph form may work better for some, this may work better for others and myself who is actually figuring this out for the first time as we read:
A chicken planting is kind of unlimited, but here will include things like:
Here is what it looks in cross section (from the side), showing the slope of the land:
The slanted open areas above the fence and above the roost will fill in eventually with plant matter, wood chips, and chicken poop to level out the terrace with a compost pile mostly made by the chickens. It happens because the fance is planted on contour so the debris has no place to go except to stack itself up. This mix of greens and browns breaking down attracts insects which brings in protein for the foraging birds. That compost or partial compost could be harvested out to garden beds and coffee orchard and reworked by the chickens with more organic matter harvested from trees and elsewhere on the farm..
Other simplified options, with roost access to all areas:
When the birds are ready to lay eggs, they do so in a nest box,
and two nest boxes bedded with some wood chips is sufficient for my
quantity of birds up upward. I know this has been happening for a
long time and you may already know this, but this was still new to me
yesterday. All eight (say) birds share the two nest boxes. I think
they lay at any time of day or night. Most birds go, sit in the box,
lay an egg, and leave it there. I don't know how long they stay.
The next bird may come in, sit down on that first egg, and lay
another egg. That keeps happening. If a hen doesn't leave and is
testy about giving up her egg, that's called 'broody'. If there was
a rooster and the eggs got fertilized, one broody hen may incubate any
number of eggs from any number of her sister hens, and after the
right amount of time, they hatch more or less in a group. These hens
lay a brown egg, and hopefully lots of them.
Links:
Free E-book: The Working Chicken
Shad's article on deeply bedded runs for happy, healthy chickens in smaller spaces
Stay tuned for a future post where I publish a diagram with color. Photos still to follow of these beautiful and amiable birds.
If Pad 2 is the best place to grow a fast cash crop like lettuce I can serve in my future restaurant, it will be best to remove the chickens from Area 2 around December 1st, after four months of them cleaning and fertilizing it. At that time, with the chickens now foraging in Pad 3, I plant Pad 2 with lettuce and other vegetables and harvest them starting January 1st when the tourist season begins in earnest. Around May, when the rain comes and tourists die down. I can simply throw down a new chicken forage planting to be grown in for when the chickens return to Pad 2 the next year.
While paragraph form may work better for some, this may work better for others and myself who is actually figuring this out for the first time as we read:
- August 1st, 2016 to November 30th:
Chickens run in Paddock 2
- December 1st Install sprinkler or drip tube in
Paddock 2. Chickens run in Paddock 3.
- December 2nd: Plant lettuce and veg to serve
restaurant in Paddock 2.
- June 1st: Plant Paddock 2 with future chicken
forage giving it two months to grow hopefully with rain.
- August 1st, 2017 to November 30th:
Chickens again run in Paddock 2.
A chicken planting is kind of unlimited, but here will include things like:
- Sorghum
- Amaranth
- Grasses
- White Raddishes
- Alfafa
- Squash
Here is what it looks in cross section (from the side), showing the slope of the land:
Other simplified options, with roost access to all areas:
Links:
Free E-book: The Working Chicken
Shad's article on deeply bedded runs for happy, healthy chickens in smaller spaces
Stay tuned for a future post where I publish a diagram with color. Photos still to follow of these beautiful and amiable birds.
Friday, August 28, 2015
Dear Natalie,
It could be a good name. This sign came to me in Totonicapan, Totonicapan, Guatemala.
Just a suggestion.
Your brother,
Max
Just a suggestion.
Your brother,
Max
Monday, August 24, 2015
Chickens: [Intro]
When I got this land, I said I was going to quickly build a house
and get some chickens to get my soil fertility going and for the
eggs. Yesterday, a year and a half later, I brought home the
chickens.
Shad reminded me of my deposit placed on these eight hens and said I should take them by August 20th, with the birds around two months old and already through the most vulnerable period of their lives. A couple days before that, Shad asked me last minute to teach the Earthworks section of a Permaculture course that he offered out through the gift economy.
This bumped back the chickens again. The course ended friday. My plan was to visit Nancy and her son Joe in San Pedro saturday morning, get my Jacaranda tree, go to market to stock up for a few days and come home and do the final wiring in the chicken area and get the chickens sunday morning. Invoke Murphy's Law here: Friday night began one of what I call my 24-hour giardhias. I visited the bathroom in the night a couple times, something I do maybe quarterly.
I did go see Nancy and Joe, but I was too sick to my stomach to really buy food at market. I went home with a nice papaya (helps a bad stomach), a pineapple, an orange and some bread from my new friend Luis the baker from San Pedro who comes to Tzununa to sell and he invited me to his house to make pizza. Then I was too tired to do the wiring.
Sunday morning I realized I was nervous about the chickens. I stalled a little about doing the wiring and I realized I was just delaying finally getting the chickens, so I said "Fuck it, I'll go get the chickens, put them in their area, and I'll have all day to hang out with them and finish their house.", and that's what I did.
I grabbed a costal. This is a large, fairly durable, plastic bag. This is the type of bag bulk goods come in, maybe we would call it a sack in the US. It's this type of bag they use for 50kg of animal feed, sand, lime, corn, etc. In the US, people carry these on their backs much less than in Guatemala, and maybe for this, they don't have any specific name that I know of, but here they are called costales.
In the new chicken palace, we started grabbing birds, at maybe 1.5 pounds each, and stuffing them in the bag. Animals can breathe ttrough a costal. We grabbed a mix of big and medium birds, our thinking was that the biggest birds will eat more, but not necessarily lay more eggs. Mostly, it seemed like eight random nice birds from the lot of about 140.
Birds in bag, my adrenaline began to flow. We chatted for a moment longer and I set off for seventeen minute walk home. The load was easy, but by the end I was switching hands pretty often. I thought, "In less than seventeen minutes and counting, I will have chickens. They will not be in this plastic bag for long because I'm going to dump them out in their new run and I will finally have the chickens and I can probably stop being anxious soon."
Dry mouth and heart beating from the climb, I tipped the costal so they would exit right by their coop. They came out one by one slowly, but after a moment I grabbed the bottom and shook out the bag to allay my fear of one chicken coming out smothered and dead. All eight birds seemed fine, looked around a little and commented to each other about how nice the new surrounings were and began about normal chicken behaviours of scratching and pecking in the dirt and eating low-hung plants to chip away at the slow and steady task of feeding themselves.
Chickens like people. While I cut the chicken wire from the doorway, rehung the door, and added wiring for the propped open and locked closed positions, the chickens worked in close at times, and at times I would grab one for a closer look and to introduce myself. I got pecked a few times; it's nice to know that among my whole day of being poked, stabbed, bitten and stung, a chicken peck ranks low on the pain scale.
Photos and more info to follow in Parts II and III.
- Breed: Leghorn
- Hen Count: 8
- Rooster Count: 0
- Color: Red Orange with variable amounts of white plumage near
the egg butt
- Birthday: June 15, 2015
- Advertised Production: 300 eggs per year
- First Eggs Expected: November 2015
Shad reminded me of my deposit placed on these eight hens and said I should take them by August 20th, with the birds around two months old and already through the most vulnerable period of their lives. A couple days before that, Shad asked me last minute to teach the Earthworks section of a Permaculture course that he offered out through the gift economy.
This bumped back the chickens again. The course ended friday. My plan was to visit Nancy and her son Joe in San Pedro saturday morning, get my Jacaranda tree, go to market to stock up for a few days and come home and do the final wiring in the chicken area and get the chickens sunday morning. Invoke Murphy's Law here: Friday night began one of what I call my 24-hour giardhias. I visited the bathroom in the night a couple times, something I do maybe quarterly.
I did go see Nancy and Joe, but I was too sick to my stomach to really buy food at market. I went home with a nice papaya (helps a bad stomach), a pineapple, an orange and some bread from my new friend Luis the baker from San Pedro who comes to Tzununa to sell and he invited me to his house to make pizza. Then I was too tired to do the wiring.
Sunday morning I realized I was nervous about the chickens. I stalled a little about doing the wiring and I realized I was just delaying finally getting the chickens, so I said "Fuck it, I'll go get the chickens, put them in their area, and I'll have all day to hang out with them and finish their house.", and that's what I did.
I grabbed a costal. This is a large, fairly durable, plastic bag. This is the type of bag bulk goods come in, maybe we would call it a sack in the US. It's this type of bag they use for 50kg of animal feed, sand, lime, corn, etc. In the US, people carry these on their backs much less than in Guatemala, and maybe for this, they don't have any specific name that I know of, but here they are called costales.
In the new chicken palace, we started grabbing birds, at maybe 1.5 pounds each, and stuffing them in the bag. Animals can breathe ttrough a costal. We grabbed a mix of big and medium birds, our thinking was that the biggest birds will eat more, but not necessarily lay more eggs. Mostly, it seemed like eight random nice birds from the lot of about 140.
Birds in bag, my adrenaline began to flow. We chatted for a moment longer and I set off for seventeen minute walk home. The load was easy, but by the end I was switching hands pretty often. I thought, "In less than seventeen minutes and counting, I will have chickens. They will not be in this plastic bag for long because I'm going to dump them out in their new run and I will finally have the chickens and I can probably stop being anxious soon."
Dry mouth and heart beating from the climb, I tipped the costal so they would exit right by their coop. They came out one by one slowly, but after a moment I grabbed the bottom and shook out the bag to allay my fear of one chicken coming out smothered and dead. All eight birds seemed fine, looked around a little and commented to each other about how nice the new surrounings were and began about normal chicken behaviours of scratching and pecking in the dirt and eating low-hung plants to chip away at the slow and steady task of feeding themselves.
Chickens like people. While I cut the chicken wire from the doorway, rehung the door, and added wiring for the propped open and locked closed positions, the chickens worked in close at times, and at times I would grab one for a closer look and to introduce myself. I got pecked a few times; it's nice to know that among my whole day of being poked, stabbed, bitten and stung, a chicken peck ranks low on the pain scale.
Photos and more info to follow in Parts II and III.
Saturday, August 15, 2015
2000 Words: Santa Clara - 8.11.15
5:45 alarm.
Stop by Francisco's on the way down to give back two tortilla cloths and try to get on the same page about the tortilla subscription. Daily tortillas are great when Negra lives here but when she doesn't the tortillas stack up faster than Whitney Brown and I can eat them.
It's 6:15 and I've never come down thru Francisco's this early. Santa the lying, thieving bitch is making tortillas in her dark adobe kitchen and I peer in because I'm blind in the dark. I say hi in a friendly way and she says hi back in a friendly way like we both don't know she walked off with Esperanza.
Down to Francisco's and he's eating breakfast in his dark adobe kitchen with his wife and some number of his lovely daughters. They're a little surprised to see me. Their small, dark adobe kitchen is full of people and warmed by a healthy cookfire in the stove. The scene is lovely and it makes me feel lonely again but not in a bad way. I'm sure I smelled bacon or some pork cooking but maybe that smell was tied up with the emotions of seeing such a nice family having a warm breakfast together.
Here are the napkins, thank you. Today ends the tortillas right? (Negra ran away again two days ago, so it's timely if it does end.) Eva came two days ago on what I thought was Day 6 and told me it was the final day and I said I thought there was one more day and then yesterday Cruz came with tortillas and today would be Day 8 so I wanted to say THANK YOU GREAT TORTILLAS BUT LET'S TAKE A BREAK which I don't really know how to say in what needs to be very clear Spanish RIGHT NOW NO MORE TORTILLAS! Thanks again, I'm going to Santa Clara.
Every Tuesday and Saturday, pickup truck to Santa Clara for the market. Leaves at 6:45 and 10 and comes back respectively with LOAD. It's a good truck, beefed up. Big tires, suspension, metal rack for people to hang on to and tying shit down. There, that's not going anywhere. Leaving and returning to Tzununa is the crappiest road section.
Santiago's mom and sister, Alejandra and Ilda, hop on and greet me in Kaqchikel. Ilda is great. She's beautiful, she's strong, sweet and she loves and adores her mother. Sixth grade and enough is enough with school. Alejandra's sister Maria hops on, that's Santa's mom, maybe the nutcase deranged leader of that family, though her face just reads miserable, paranoid and tired. Alejandra and Maria do not greet each other. I know like half the people on the truck. A simple looking guy gets on. His one eye is wonky and his lips and teeth just very far out. Besides that, he seems with it, well-dressed, and on his own. I find this a little strange because I clearly a remember a dream from last night where I had a conversation with a mentally retarded person who conversed much better than expected.
I remember the early morning sun backlighting the low, thick haze of cookfires over San Pable as we began the stunning climb up to Santa Clara. My buddy Juan is sitting on the hatch and I'm standing with my ass in front of his face. I held in like three farts, or one fart returned three times, which I almost never do, but Juan is a totally sweet guy and a friend of mine and I want him to show me where to buy chicken feed when we get there so I don't wanna fart on his face, although the truck was moving.
Chicken feed is not open yet so to the market. Juan's toted his two sons who've toted a basket with three chickens for sale likely for slaughter and consumption. I'm hungry enough and not earnestly interested in anything at market so I hit the comedores. It's about 7:45. If it was this time in Panajachel all you'd be offered was huevos con frijol but not here in Santa Clara on market day. Full on assault from the tortilla girls at the first two comedores ¿DESAYUNO JOVEN? ¿VA A COMER? HAY POLLO DORADO, CARNE GUISADO, CALDO DE RES, CALDO DE PATA, Y PEPIAN DE POLLO. ¿VA A COMER USTED? Hands are pushing me toward a seat The first two places look exactly the same. Same arrangement of tables and benches, very similar menus and it's a little dim in here but all the Marias look more or less the same, too. Caldo de Res con Elote. Elote means corn on the cob, which the people are crazy for just like tortillas, tamalitos or anything else that's 100% corn. Good soup, delicious elote, which is a piece about 10 kernels left to right on the typewriter. If you take a bite of elote and a bite of tortilla at the same time, that's 200% corn. Full half of a well chosen avocado still in the shell. Five tortillas given, I ate five. You can always get more. Lady tried to hit me with a gringo markup of 20%. I busted her back down then tipped her one.
When I see Juan, two chickens are gone and a lady comes by and lowballs him on the last. He sends her packing after a discussion in a language I don't understand. Where are the donuts? There's these little donuts that are always sold by a lady at this market and they're not here and I dunno how to get around this. I count on these markets, which have been exactly the same for years before I ever concieved of their existences, being the same every week. If I'm here, I want to be able to purchase these tiny donuts that are too greasy and not sweet enough and generally not risen in the way we know donuts. But I like them and they should be here.
Ponedora is feed for chickens that you want to lay eggs. I don't know what's in it. There's no ponedora at the Aliansa distrubutor but the guy is really nice and introduces himself YO SOY CARLOS HERNANDEZ PARA SERVIRLE and I like him even though my first impression of his little place is associated with the terrible smell of cleaning the trays beneath the young poultry. Well there is 35 pounds of ponedora so I buy that and I'm sad that Juan won't be able to buy any for Shad's farm because they actually have chickens and I don't but I'm happy because 35 pounds is an amount I can carry and 100 lbs is better negotiated with the help of any local man or woman 14 or older.
I let the truck go, still on the ground, to not rush back and get a couple more things. I see an old veg seller lady Iknow from San Marcos and I hit her with all the questions that often to me seem rude or just plain too boring. WHAT ARE LOOKING FOR? WHAT DID YOU BUY? HOW MUCH DID IT COST? BUENO SEE YOU. Donuts have arrived and they're in the same spot as always. A pretty younger girl attends, the older lady has walked off. The old lady always has dirty hands but this young girl's hands are clean. I always bought donuts from the dirty handed lady anyway but why come to market wth such dirty hands? I've always paid Q1 for a tiny donut. HOW MUCH ARE THE DONUTS. 50 centavos. GIVE ME Q3. That's how you buy stuff, by how many Q it is. Donuts, they're kinda good.
I looked at chicken feeders and waterers and decided on cheap, simple plastic solutions that you fill up and flip over and they autofeed and it should just be a once a day thing. Now I have nothing to do so I stand in the sun and watch the parade. Tomorrow is the main day of the Santa Clara fair so there's activity today. I can't believe how long this parade is. I can't believe how entertained I am by it even though I'm concious of being sensory deprived lately viz. entertainment. I can't believe how many bands there are and how many instruments they have. I especially cannot believe how many trumpets there are. One band was just twenty trumpets but most bands were xylophones first, then trumpets, then small drums, then big drums. Long parade, I saw a portion.
I bought some chode bananas and a quarter chicken from a really nice guy. These people are really friendly because they're just plain really friendly and they like to build relationships. A lady selling corn gave me her number and told me next time I came to buy corn her husband would take me hiking to a mirador. That was Clara from Santa Clara.
Back in Tzununa, I leave my personal items and chicken feeders and have lunch. Down at the center where my supplies were dropped. 35 pounds of layer feed and 30 pounds of broken corn. That's 65 pounds. I heave the heavier bag up onto my shoulders and neck and can't really heave the other bag on top of that one. There's a frail, maybe fifty-something year old lady at the store and I ask her to help heave up the 30 pound bag on top of the other one on my shoulders and neck. She's on board but this is actually experimental on my end. The 65 pounds feel fine, but a lot of loads feel fine right when you pick them up, but are horrible after walking uphill for a number of minutes. At the Bambu, I consolidate the heavy into one bag for autoloading capability and hang onto the other shit and think to myself THIS IS A BAD IDEA. But it really doesn't seem like enough for two trips and if I go slow it's possible. I got about halfway, to where Santiago and Alejandra and Ilda live and thought about leaving the heavy there and coming back. Alejandra and Ilda were right there. I called up the Q5 change for my laundry that Ilda did because I dropped it off the day Maria was due to give birth. Her mom spotted the Q5 and Ilda gave it to me and I gave it back to her when she agreed to carry the 65 pounds the rest of the way home. Ilda's 13, even though she was 10 when I met her and I've only been here two years, less. I dumped off the load I couldn't carry onto a 13-year-old girl. That said, she's strong and healthy and her mom must've agreed because she helped load it onto her back and head. At 13, Ilda should be able to carry 65 pounds. From what I've seen, Ilda's specialty is chopping wood, she just likes to work. She took it slow and said it was heavy even though at first she said it wasn't heavy then I gave her a glass of water and she and Usho went home.
Then Walter came over. He's a younger guy, friend of mine. I gave him a small satchel of marijuana when he told me he'd bring me three costales of cow shit. He wanted a costal. I gave him one and when he came back we had tea, which I've been doing a lot lately while planning my tea market garden. Walter sometimes shares in and tries and gives me his opinion the best he can express and I can understand but he enjoys all the teas and we have a nice chat. Today I tried a daring blend of lemongrass, yerba mate, hibiscus, basil and papaya seeds with a garnish of spearmint. Hibiscus gives any tea a beautiful red but here, the mate deepened the color. The basil was overwhelming and really presented its qualities of butteriness and texture more than ever and I think I discovered aromatherapy while brewing this tea. We liked it, and were both excited for second cups from the big pot. Walter hung for a while and we talked about a number of things and we looked at the coffee and the gardens and then we chatted more. Then I told him BUENO WALTER, I'M GONNA RELAX WITH A BOOK but I lied and when he left I wrote this.
Stop by Francisco's on the way down to give back two tortilla cloths and try to get on the same page about the tortilla subscription. Daily tortillas are great when Negra lives here but when she doesn't the tortillas stack up faster than Whitney Brown and I can eat them.
It's 6:15 and I've never come down thru Francisco's this early. Santa the lying, thieving bitch is making tortillas in her dark adobe kitchen and I peer in because I'm blind in the dark. I say hi in a friendly way and she says hi back in a friendly way like we both don't know she walked off with Esperanza.
Down to Francisco's and he's eating breakfast in his dark adobe kitchen with his wife and some number of his lovely daughters. They're a little surprised to see me. Their small, dark adobe kitchen is full of people and warmed by a healthy cookfire in the stove. The scene is lovely and it makes me feel lonely again but not in a bad way. I'm sure I smelled bacon or some pork cooking but maybe that smell was tied up with the emotions of seeing such a nice family having a warm breakfast together.
Here are the napkins, thank you. Today ends the tortillas right? (Negra ran away again two days ago, so it's timely if it does end.) Eva came two days ago on what I thought was Day 6 and told me it was the final day and I said I thought there was one more day and then yesterday Cruz came with tortillas and today would be Day 8 so I wanted to say THANK YOU GREAT TORTILLAS BUT LET'S TAKE A BREAK which I don't really know how to say in what needs to be very clear Spanish RIGHT NOW NO MORE TORTILLAS! Thanks again, I'm going to Santa Clara.
Every Tuesday and Saturday, pickup truck to Santa Clara for the market. Leaves at 6:45 and 10 and comes back respectively with LOAD. It's a good truck, beefed up. Big tires, suspension, metal rack for people to hang on to and tying shit down. There, that's not going anywhere. Leaving and returning to Tzununa is the crappiest road section.
Santiago's mom and sister, Alejandra and Ilda, hop on and greet me in Kaqchikel. Ilda is great. She's beautiful, she's strong, sweet and she loves and adores her mother. Sixth grade and enough is enough with school. Alejandra's sister Maria hops on, that's Santa's mom, maybe the nutcase deranged leader of that family, though her face just reads miserable, paranoid and tired. Alejandra and Maria do not greet each other. I know like half the people on the truck. A simple looking guy gets on. His one eye is wonky and his lips and teeth just very far out. Besides that, he seems with it, well-dressed, and on his own. I find this a little strange because I clearly a remember a dream from last night where I had a conversation with a mentally retarded person who conversed much better than expected.
I remember the early morning sun backlighting the low, thick haze of cookfires over San Pable as we began the stunning climb up to Santa Clara. My buddy Juan is sitting on the hatch and I'm standing with my ass in front of his face. I held in like three farts, or one fart returned three times, which I almost never do, but Juan is a totally sweet guy and a friend of mine and I want him to show me where to buy chicken feed when we get there so I don't wanna fart on his face, although the truck was moving.
Chicken feed is not open yet so to the market. Juan's toted his two sons who've toted a basket with three chickens for sale likely for slaughter and consumption. I'm hungry enough and not earnestly interested in anything at market so I hit the comedores. It's about 7:45. If it was this time in Panajachel all you'd be offered was huevos con frijol but not here in Santa Clara on market day. Full on assault from the tortilla girls at the first two comedores ¿DESAYUNO JOVEN? ¿VA A COMER? HAY POLLO DORADO, CARNE GUISADO, CALDO DE RES, CALDO DE PATA, Y PEPIAN DE POLLO. ¿VA A COMER USTED? Hands are pushing me toward a seat The first two places look exactly the same. Same arrangement of tables and benches, very similar menus and it's a little dim in here but all the Marias look more or less the same, too. Caldo de Res con Elote. Elote means corn on the cob, which the people are crazy for just like tortillas, tamalitos or anything else that's 100% corn. Good soup, delicious elote, which is a piece about 10 kernels left to right on the typewriter. If you take a bite of elote and a bite of tortilla at the same time, that's 200% corn. Full half of a well chosen avocado still in the shell. Five tortillas given, I ate five. You can always get more. Lady tried to hit me with a gringo markup of 20%. I busted her back down then tipped her one.
When I see Juan, two chickens are gone and a lady comes by and lowballs him on the last. He sends her packing after a discussion in a language I don't understand. Where are the donuts? There's these little donuts that are always sold by a lady at this market and they're not here and I dunno how to get around this. I count on these markets, which have been exactly the same for years before I ever concieved of their existences, being the same every week. If I'm here, I want to be able to purchase these tiny donuts that are too greasy and not sweet enough and generally not risen in the way we know donuts. But I like them and they should be here.
Ponedora is feed for chickens that you want to lay eggs. I don't know what's in it. There's no ponedora at the Aliansa distrubutor but the guy is really nice and introduces himself YO SOY CARLOS HERNANDEZ PARA SERVIRLE and I like him even though my first impression of his little place is associated with the terrible smell of cleaning the trays beneath the young poultry. Well there is 35 pounds of ponedora so I buy that and I'm sad that Juan won't be able to buy any for Shad's farm because they actually have chickens and I don't but I'm happy because 35 pounds is an amount I can carry and 100 lbs is better negotiated with the help of any local man or woman 14 or older.
I let the truck go, still on the ground, to not rush back and get a couple more things. I see an old veg seller lady Iknow from San Marcos and I hit her with all the questions that often to me seem rude or just plain too boring. WHAT ARE LOOKING FOR? WHAT DID YOU BUY? HOW MUCH DID IT COST? BUENO SEE YOU. Donuts have arrived and they're in the same spot as always. A pretty younger girl attends, the older lady has walked off. The old lady always has dirty hands but this young girl's hands are clean. I always bought donuts from the dirty handed lady anyway but why come to market wth such dirty hands? I've always paid Q1 for a tiny donut. HOW MUCH ARE THE DONUTS. 50 centavos. GIVE ME Q3. That's how you buy stuff, by how many Q it is. Donuts, they're kinda good.
I looked at chicken feeders and waterers and decided on cheap, simple plastic solutions that you fill up and flip over and they autofeed and it should just be a once a day thing. Now I have nothing to do so I stand in the sun and watch the parade. Tomorrow is the main day of the Santa Clara fair so there's activity today. I can't believe how long this parade is. I can't believe how entertained I am by it even though I'm concious of being sensory deprived lately viz. entertainment. I can't believe how many bands there are and how many instruments they have. I especially cannot believe how many trumpets there are. One band was just twenty trumpets but most bands were xylophones first, then trumpets, then small drums, then big drums. Long parade, I saw a portion.
I bought some chode bananas and a quarter chicken from a really nice guy. These people are really friendly because they're just plain really friendly and they like to build relationships. A lady selling corn gave me her number and told me next time I came to buy corn her husband would take me hiking to a mirador. That was Clara from Santa Clara.
Back in Tzununa, I leave my personal items and chicken feeders and have lunch. Down at the center where my supplies were dropped. 35 pounds of layer feed and 30 pounds of broken corn. That's 65 pounds. I heave the heavier bag up onto my shoulders and neck and can't really heave the other bag on top of that one. There's a frail, maybe fifty-something year old lady at the store and I ask her to help heave up the 30 pound bag on top of the other one on my shoulders and neck. She's on board but this is actually experimental on my end. The 65 pounds feel fine, but a lot of loads feel fine right when you pick them up, but are horrible after walking uphill for a number of minutes. At the Bambu, I consolidate the heavy into one bag for autoloading capability and hang onto the other shit and think to myself THIS IS A BAD IDEA. But it really doesn't seem like enough for two trips and if I go slow it's possible. I got about halfway, to where Santiago and Alejandra and Ilda live and thought about leaving the heavy there and coming back. Alejandra and Ilda were right there. I called up the Q5 change for my laundry that Ilda did because I dropped it off the day Maria was due to give birth. Her mom spotted the Q5 and Ilda gave it to me and I gave it back to her when she agreed to carry the 65 pounds the rest of the way home. Ilda's 13, even though she was 10 when I met her and I've only been here two years, less. I dumped off the load I couldn't carry onto a 13-year-old girl. That said, she's strong and healthy and her mom must've agreed because she helped load it onto her back and head. At 13, Ilda should be able to carry 65 pounds. From what I've seen, Ilda's specialty is chopping wood, she just likes to work. She took it slow and said it was heavy even though at first she said it wasn't heavy then I gave her a glass of water and she and Usho went home.
Then Walter came over. He's a younger guy, friend of mine. I gave him a small satchel of marijuana when he told me he'd bring me three costales of cow shit. He wanted a costal. I gave him one and when he came back we had tea, which I've been doing a lot lately while planning my tea market garden. Walter sometimes shares in and tries and gives me his opinion the best he can express and I can understand but he enjoys all the teas and we have a nice chat. Today I tried a daring blend of lemongrass, yerba mate, hibiscus, basil and papaya seeds with a garnish of spearmint. Hibiscus gives any tea a beautiful red but here, the mate deepened the color. The basil was overwhelming and really presented its qualities of butteriness and texture more than ever and I think I discovered aromatherapy while brewing this tea. We liked it, and were both excited for second cups from the big pot. Walter hung for a while and we talked about a number of things and we looked at the coffee and the gardens and then we chatted more. Then I told him BUENO WALTER, I'M GONNA RELAX WITH A BOOK but I lied and when he left I wrote this.
Monday, August 10, 2015
Dan & Kate: Happy 2nd Anniversary
For today, a deviation from the standard El Jocotel Blog content to wish my good friends Dan and Kate a most happy second anniversary. I miss you guys.
If you think it isn't right that Kate herself makes no appearance in this never-before seen set of eight photos, check the seventh photo of the installment where Kate's lovely upper back is visible frame right.
Cheers yall.
Tuesday, July 14, 2015
Flor de...[Part IV]
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| Mandarin. The tree is about waist high and is infested with a small bug pest. |
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| Canna Lily. Dad, you will enjoy the many Canna varieties around when you visit. |
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| Local perrenial basil. Full time abundant flowers which pollenators love. Good for flavoring in food and tea though Im looking forward to also growing Italian Basil, Black Basil, Purple Basil, Lemon Basil and more to follow. |
Friday, July 10, 2015
Monday, July 6, 2015
Dear Lees,
Growing white raddish from my own seeds. Good veg, edible greens, good for the soil.
I keep a lot of sweet potato around for the greens and ground cover, not a big enough potato fan to actually dig any up.
Grew lots of amaranth, steady harvesting for greens, plenty of seeds to come.
Nasturtiums are active.
Today I'll be putting in air layers (rooted on the branch of the parent tree) of pomegranite, macadamia, orange and lime.
I've got at least 7 types of bananas in stands all over the place. Bananas are a big part of the future machine.
Cucumbers were looking good until the rain dried up about a week ago and they seem to have died off. I got one mature one to taste and save seeds from.
I bought a small ginger (edible, I have ornamental ginger also) plant from the nice vivero lady in Pana.
I've got a couple small green tomatoes on a vine.
Jocote harvest looks great.
Coffee harvest looks OK (with no fertilizer so far) but we had a late bloom of flowers.
Trying another run with Ethiopian Kale though we didn't make it to seed last time.
Sweet cucumbers are growing and flowering.
My comfrey has not become a nuisance; I read about there being two kinds and one is not so bad. Got my first comfrey flower blooming right now.
Arugula grows, I'll be doing a more organized salad garden in a sunny spot sometime soon.
The big news is my watercress terraces where the overflow water comes in and lets out.
 |
| This is one terrace step out of four for watercress, a delicious spicy green of Watercress Salad or Watercress Sandwich fame, not to be confused with water chestnut, These little patches will fill in to form a lovely carpet of watercress. It will be harvestable continually for home use, or harvestable wholesale every 40 days if sold off at a market. I have yet to add in a specific snail type that lives happily the watercress. Thanks to the workshop for constructing these terraces. |
Plenty of flowers and ornamentals still going in. Yesterday a local buddy Walter went around and picked some flowers and green stuff for a small bouquet and told me the local people would pay five Quetzales for it and that he's connected with five churches in the village that buy flowers twice a week every week and their flower guy sick and stopped taking care of the flowers and the flowers died. So that may be a thing, I'm planting lots anyway.
Sorghum grows well and looks real pleasant like corn but is less of a nutrient suck.
That's all I can think of for now.
The other big news is the pond is happening and is starting to shape up.
Max
Tuesday, June 30, 2015
Tikal 2015
 |
| [Not a bottled water ad]. Here I am with my great buddy Ben at Tikal early in the morning. Ben, repping Austria, was a great help, motivator and ear at El Jocotel and a great travel buddy. We buzzed around El Peten and Izabal for about nine days. Great buddy, travel companion and a seriously funny dude. |
Thursday, June 25, 2015
Saturday, May 16, 2015
2014 Annual Report
The hummingbrids are activated. This is a place to be visited now
or else deep, tricky-to-gather nectar is being wasted.
The cabin is still the same, although now at the corner of the house, there's a viny plant growing that will string itself along the porch ceiling and drop down a cord with flower after flower, a maroon and gold hummingbird attractant. It grows until it reaches the floor or is cut by a human or detroyed by a kitten. In trying to manipulate the flagship vine, I snapped it clean off. Sometimes, I'm my own worst enemy in the garden, but less and less so recently. The offshoots from lower nodes seized this oppurtunity to spring forth, and the old top has now been replaced and will die off unnoticed.
Around this time of year, in a beautiful, hazy, hot calm period before the rain begins, I'm wishing I had a closed-in cabin, a tent or a mosquito net. I wake here and there at night itching my hands and wrists, but then in the morning there's never any trace that bugs were leisurely feasting on my blood .
The plants have proved themselves. We worked, we shaped, we planted and we had theory. With time and light care, plants thrived. The plants said this: "We like the land and the air, we like the animals, we like you, we like eachother and we like the coffee. We will grow. Some of us will sprout more than others, some will grow more often, some will grow and die and others could outlive you." The plants have grown, but this time around, in the next wave of planting, I still doubted the seeds dropped and the sticks jammed into the ground would lead to much, but it's working again, and the gratification and confidence that derives causes a motivation that makes the growth and development exponential.
Yesterday, for instance, we got some yuca(cassava) cuttings from Brian. We chose a little area by the house and leveled it out a little. Ben planted the six yuca cuttings but you can't grow something by itself so we planted a quick food forest around it. We tried for each of the layers of the forest, bottom to top:
Area by area, this is what we're doing. Some coffee goes down in the process and a lot remain.
The coffee is delicious, the process elegant. Handfuls of ripe coffee lit up red in small patches here and there around the orchard, and one recent sunday afternoon, I grabbed a basket and started picking, nice and gently to not disturb next year's growing harvest. Ben, eager as always, jumped in to help and an hour later, at sunset, we had about seven pounds. Long story short, I pulped the fruit by hand, which took a long time and set it to bathe in a small bucket for 2 nights. I completed the process of drying the coffee and cleaned it little by little removing bad beans, small beans and peices of leftover pulp. It was a truly ridiculous amount of time to spend on such a small batch of coffee, but I'm sure I'll never love a batch of coffee as much as that final final pick of 2015. In the end I filled the dried green coffee with the shell still on into a small basket, the size the kitten eats from. Without any other plan for this minibatch of pergamino, I decided to roast. I hand shelled the parchment layer from each bean and this also took forever. Finally I had my mug almost full of coffee beans ready to roast. I put the fire pretty high under a black saueepot dropped the coffee in, and put on the lid. To imitate the constant agitation of a professional roasting oven, I shook the coffee every 20 or 30 secnds for a about 20 minutes. With the second half of the batch, with the experience from the first time, I pushed for a darker roast. I heard the cracks for the first time, having only read about them. They're much softer than I expected, not like popcorn at all but much more faint. I smelled continously, not coffee, but what seemed like the smell of caramelization. I think in this unrelated aroma lies the key to roasting coffee well. When the second cracks slowed down, maybe only moments from burning, I killed the fire and dropped the coffee into a ceramic bowl and began to stir with a wooden paddle. After a minute or two, I dropped again into another ceramic bowl to hasten further the quick cooling process. I had a beautiful dark roast, a false black which when held in the sun revealed a deep, dark brown. It's still so fresh I don't need to put a lid on the jar for it would stifle the curing that's still active. I got with the grinder, which had become sloppy and loose and gummed up with cacao. I cleaned it and learned how to align it well for a powdery, crack espresso grind. Today and yesterday, I had the best cups of coffee I've ever had, and the drink went from tree to cup without leaving El Jocotel. Goal 2015-16 coffee season: process all coffee harvest from El Jocotel, feed the pulp to the worms.
I'm good. I thought about going home to the US this summer and it seems like I won't. I have no car, no cell phone, no money and a lot going on here. If I need a vacation, I have Guatemala and the rest of Central America to explore. El Jocotel is legitimate. It's been a year, and everyone who comes loves it. Ben left the work he was doing to live in a tent here and help out for two months. Ben is a gregarious Austrian 26 year old. I know I'll be sad that when he leaves, he'll take with him the hilarious turns of phrase that come from a German speaker with his level of English. While I still LOL on the inside, I'm now focusing more on his point for the benefit of the conversation itself. He helps on the farm and casually arranges delicious meals when instead I would go hungry, go to the comedor or just eat peanuts. We discuss life, women, plants, animals, medicine, government, etc. The exchange involving work, food and beds usually enter much more into the mix than just those three and I'm happy for Ben's presence and learning much from him. I met a Mexican guy Eric who was looking to volunteer and now he's up here, too, sharing the tent with Ben. We weren't sure because Eric was a no-show in the afternoon but ended up coming in the dark at 8:30. Also, his English and our Spanish are so bad that, while we can tell he's a really nice dude, there's this barrier we all have against expressing ourselves quickly and well in our second (or third) language. I know the Eric that bumbles through English doesn't really represent the Eric who grew up in Mexico city, speaks Spanish, and almost became a commercial airline pilot but decided to try for a life of service, away from the grips of money and regular work hours. I'm glad Eric came, and he will have helped a lot, hopefully learned something, and in a couple more days, he'll probably vanish into his journey again.
I have it all really, except companionship. I've had some nice partners, ones I've loved, but the vast majority of my experiences have been alone. I'm fine with it and everything else in life is quite fulfilling, but as time clicks by faster and faster, it gets harder but I know you can't force it so I'll just keep plugging along and trying to enjoy all the people that come into my life.
The restaurant has a roof. As Brian accurately stated, 'It needs a human presence.' My tentative plan is to move the tent down there, where it will be roofed under and live down there, letting the ideas for develpment come as the do with presence. Checklists for the success of that plan include finishing the perimeter, erecting a front entry and creating some kind of pooping facility.
Tzununa's fair, which coincides with the day of Santa Elena de la Cruz, kicks off this Friday. It is almost undistinguishable from any other fair in Guatemala, if maybe smaller, but it's our turn to have some different snacks, clothing for sale, arcade tents, music, light dancing and planty of beer-drinking. True to form, Tzununa drunks remain polite and minimally molestive, often resting their heads on the table or their entire bodies by the side of the street. Most times, it is too loud to really hear anything, anyway. We didn't pull much together for Feria 2015 in terms of food selling, but in 2016 we are aiming for some tasty offerings.
Hope everyone is well.
The cabin is still the same, although now at the corner of the house, there's a viny plant growing that will string itself along the porch ceiling and drop down a cord with flower after flower, a maroon and gold hummingbird attractant. It grows until it reaches the floor or is cut by a human or detroyed by a kitten. In trying to manipulate the flagship vine, I snapped it clean off. Sometimes, I'm my own worst enemy in the garden, but less and less so recently. The offshoots from lower nodes seized this oppurtunity to spring forth, and the old top has now been replaced and will die off unnoticed.
Around this time of year, in a beautiful, hazy, hot calm period before the rain begins, I'm wishing I had a closed-in cabin, a tent or a mosquito net. I wake here and there at night itching my hands and wrists, but then in the morning there's never any trace that bugs were leisurely feasting on my blood .
The plants have proved themselves. We worked, we shaped, we planted and we had theory. With time and light care, plants thrived. The plants said this: "We like the land and the air, we like the animals, we like you, we like eachother and we like the coffee. We will grow. Some of us will sprout more than others, some will grow more often, some will grow and die and others could outlive you." The plants have grown, but this time around, in the next wave of planting, I still doubted the seeds dropped and the sticks jammed into the ground would lead to much, but it's working again, and the gratification and confidence that derives causes a motivation that makes the growth and development exponential.
Yesterday, for instance, we got some yuca(cassava) cuttings from Brian. We chose a little area by the house and leveled it out a little. Ben planted the six yuca cuttings but you can't grow something by itself so we planted a quick food forest around it. We tried for each of the layers of the forest, bottom to top:
- Root Veg – Yuca, White Raddish
- Ground Cover – Yarrow, False Peanut
- Grassy Things – Spinach, Arugula, Comfrey, Broccoli
- Herbaceous – Cilantro, Celery, White Raddish, Black
Amaranth, White Amaranth, Sorghum, Rosa de Jamaica
- Bush – Pigeon Pea
- Small Tree – Yuca, Tree Tomato
- Large Tree – Exempt
- Viny – Exempt
Area by area, this is what we're doing. Some coffee goes down in the process and a lot remain.
The coffee is delicious, the process elegant. Handfuls of ripe coffee lit up red in small patches here and there around the orchard, and one recent sunday afternoon, I grabbed a basket and started picking, nice and gently to not disturb next year's growing harvest. Ben, eager as always, jumped in to help and an hour later, at sunset, we had about seven pounds. Long story short, I pulped the fruit by hand, which took a long time and set it to bathe in a small bucket for 2 nights. I completed the process of drying the coffee and cleaned it little by little removing bad beans, small beans and peices of leftover pulp. It was a truly ridiculous amount of time to spend on such a small batch of coffee, but I'm sure I'll never love a batch of coffee as much as that final final pick of 2015. In the end I filled the dried green coffee with the shell still on into a small basket, the size the kitten eats from. Without any other plan for this minibatch of pergamino, I decided to roast. I hand shelled the parchment layer from each bean and this also took forever. Finally I had my mug almost full of coffee beans ready to roast. I put the fire pretty high under a black saueepot dropped the coffee in, and put on the lid. To imitate the constant agitation of a professional roasting oven, I shook the coffee every 20 or 30 secnds for a about 20 minutes. With the second half of the batch, with the experience from the first time, I pushed for a darker roast. I heard the cracks for the first time, having only read about them. They're much softer than I expected, not like popcorn at all but much more faint. I smelled continously, not coffee, but what seemed like the smell of caramelization. I think in this unrelated aroma lies the key to roasting coffee well. When the second cracks slowed down, maybe only moments from burning, I killed the fire and dropped the coffee into a ceramic bowl and began to stir with a wooden paddle. After a minute or two, I dropped again into another ceramic bowl to hasten further the quick cooling process. I had a beautiful dark roast, a false black which when held in the sun revealed a deep, dark brown. It's still so fresh I don't need to put a lid on the jar for it would stifle the curing that's still active. I got with the grinder, which had become sloppy and loose and gummed up with cacao. I cleaned it and learned how to align it well for a powdery, crack espresso grind. Today and yesterday, I had the best cups of coffee I've ever had, and the drink went from tree to cup without leaving El Jocotel. Goal 2015-16 coffee season: process all coffee harvest from El Jocotel, feed the pulp to the worms.
I'm good. I thought about going home to the US this summer and it seems like I won't. I have no car, no cell phone, no money and a lot going on here. If I need a vacation, I have Guatemala and the rest of Central America to explore. El Jocotel is legitimate. It's been a year, and everyone who comes loves it. Ben left the work he was doing to live in a tent here and help out for two months. Ben is a gregarious Austrian 26 year old. I know I'll be sad that when he leaves, he'll take with him the hilarious turns of phrase that come from a German speaker with his level of English. While I still LOL on the inside, I'm now focusing more on his point for the benefit of the conversation itself. He helps on the farm and casually arranges delicious meals when instead I would go hungry, go to the comedor or just eat peanuts. We discuss life, women, plants, animals, medicine, government, etc. The exchange involving work, food and beds usually enter much more into the mix than just those three and I'm happy for Ben's presence and learning much from him. I met a Mexican guy Eric who was looking to volunteer and now he's up here, too, sharing the tent with Ben. We weren't sure because Eric was a no-show in the afternoon but ended up coming in the dark at 8:30. Also, his English and our Spanish are so bad that, while we can tell he's a really nice dude, there's this barrier we all have against expressing ourselves quickly and well in our second (or third) language. I know the Eric that bumbles through English doesn't really represent the Eric who grew up in Mexico city, speaks Spanish, and almost became a commercial airline pilot but decided to try for a life of service, away from the grips of money and regular work hours. I'm glad Eric came, and he will have helped a lot, hopefully learned something, and in a couple more days, he'll probably vanish into his journey again.
I have it all really, except companionship. I've had some nice partners, ones I've loved, but the vast majority of my experiences have been alone. I'm fine with it and everything else in life is quite fulfilling, but as time clicks by faster and faster, it gets harder but I know you can't force it so I'll just keep plugging along and trying to enjoy all the people that come into my life.
The restaurant has a roof. As Brian accurately stated, 'It needs a human presence.' My tentative plan is to move the tent down there, where it will be roofed under and live down there, letting the ideas for develpment come as the do with presence. Checklists for the success of that plan include finishing the perimeter, erecting a front entry and creating some kind of pooping facility.
Tzununa's fair, which coincides with the day of Santa Elena de la Cruz, kicks off this Friday. It is almost undistinguishable from any other fair in Guatemala, if maybe smaller, but it's our turn to have some different snacks, clothing for sale, arcade tents, music, light dancing and planty of beer-drinking. True to form, Tzununa drunks remain polite and minimally molestive, often resting their heads on the table or their entire bodies by the side of the street. Most times, it is too loud to really hear anything, anyway. We didn't pull much together for Feria 2015 in terms of food selling, but in 2016 we are aiming for some tasty offerings.
Hope everyone is well.
Sunday, May 10, 2015
Flor de...[Part III]
 |
| Cosmos Kenikir |
 |
| This is a parasite, kind of like one of those air plants, that grows on coffee and other trees. This one grows on the Jocote by the house. |
 |
| Here's a zoomed in crop of that last photo. |
 |
| We call this one Corazon de Leon, or Lion's Heart. This is a test shot while waiting for the (male) hummingbird to show up, which he has not done yet. |
Friday, April 10, 2015
Meet Mako
 |
| Mako(sp.?) is a walking ice cream truck from San Pablo who comes daily to Tzununa. He is sometimes sober, sometimes tipsy and will gaze coyly at you with puppy eyes while crooking his elbow so his hand rests up by his chin holding a pink, wafery cone with a frozen, yellow sludge, essentially modeling the product while giving you every reason that now is a great time for an ice cream. In case you don't see him, his bell will helps bring you in. |
Tuesday, February 10, 2015
Thursday, February 5, 2015
[Probably the Best] Jocotel Review [Ever]
1.2.15
I'm sitting right now by your front porch watching the flame of a candle dancing with the touch of the wind. The flame is not resisting to anything, she just moves gracefully. The moon is really big and shiny, painting everything on the hill with a magic glow. Just the biggest stars dared to make her company tonight. Nature is performing a sweet concert. Every sound penetrates my cells, changing their frequency. The river is singing, caressing my ears. Even the dogs respected this melody and stayed quiet.
I closed my eyes and felt embraced by all this energy. I felt so grateful that I started laughing and at the same time, I cried. Have you ever had that feeling? I laughed more and cried more, feeling so small compared to everything that surrounds me, but at the same time realizing I'm part of it. At this exact moment, I feel complete!
All of these make me realize the greatness in simplicity. Why we get stuck in many stupid dramas? Why we get lost in what is in the surface, instead of realizing the essence of everything? Why we think so much instead of just feeling?
As I told you, I felt like I was home here. Maybe after you, I was the second person to really love this place. I love its simplicity and how I feel embraced by nature and why not, the universe, too. It seems like a different reality here. I don't want to get back. I want to get lost in this moment. But the law of impermanence is always there.
I hope you keep it simple like now. You are really blessed. I hope you can give back to others, to the world, what life gives you.
Sorry if I have spelling or grammar mistakes. I can see you laughing, but I don't care. I just wanted to give you this words as a New Year's present. Thank you for the gift of letting me enjoy the sunrise without moving from bed. Thank you for sharing this space where I can enjoy the present moment, and I hope you don't make fun of this later.
Wish you the best,
[name withheld]
Written by a speaker of English as a second language. Edited slightly for privacy.
Sunday, February 1, 2015
Meet the Lizard
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| Coffee dripper serving as a trap for small lizard. He did not meet the size requirement for slaughter and consumption and was released into the nearest coffee tree. |
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
Flor de...[Part II]
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| White Radish |
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| Pigeon Pea aka Gandulas |
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| Abutilan Pictum, aka Flowering Maple aka Tropical Cotton. Hummingbirds love it and we EVERYONE loves hummingbirds. |
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