wOrK iS gOinG wELL...

I have lots of news about the last 2 weeks of work in the land... 

Last sunday I went to Moses for some rest and I ended up trapped by the snow...so I could only come back to the land on tuesday and then had lots to do...

 I wrote a bit here on the MOunt of Oaks blog... I'm still trying to figure out what to write on my blog and on The Mount of Oaks blog...I'm not sure if it makes sense yet to have 2 blogs, but hopefully in the near future it will not only be me writing about life on the land here...

As you can see, the bath roof is done...

After that I started to work on the plumbing system for the washing station near the kitchen and the bath house...as you can see here on the same post I mentioned before...

I gave up on the idea to build a shower place before the permaculture course as I'm seeing the weeks flying by and I don't think I would have the time to finish all I wanted in the first place...

Willi is determined to fix our road down below because it keeps raining and it's getting almost impossible to go up with the cars... it´s not so nice when we need to carry heavy material for the things we're working on...

As I said I went to visit the Winter's at Moses, and I ended up getting trapped by the snow...they convinced (it was not so hard) to stay overnight and go monday morning...it was also Joshua's 13th birthday, so, another good excuse to spend some time with them all... we watched this movie "Avatar" online, and I have to say that I highly recommend it (if possible for you, go to a good theater and watch it 3D)... It´s so impressive... I was really touched by the story which, even though fiction, we could easily relate with our sad reality throughout history... when out of fear of the unknown people kill each other in the name of "peace" (or for the sake of money and good busyness)...it made me cry in a few parts of the movie... I can say that after the Lord of the Rings, it's definitely my favorite movie...beautiful pictures too...

Anyway, monday morning I left, and I just needed to drive up the hill to see this...

Yes, snow again...and more was ahead...

I literally had to go around trees that were falling on the road with the weight of the snow... It was actually quite exciting and beautiful... but then I got trapped here

these were the tracks of my car wheels as I tried to drive up this hill...I got to a point where I lost traction and I had to go back...I was literally sliding to the edges, so every once in a while I had to go up a bit to straighten my wheels and slide back again... it was fun and exciting... I also knew I would be fine because I could just call the winters to pick me up if I was in trouble... but I did it ...

I was taking another way to go to Fundao, but then I thought the road could be worse ahead and I was not far at all from Moses... so I went back... it was not snowing in Moses, so they were all surprised when I told them what happened... they had planned to go to Coimbra and watch a movie for Joshua's birthday, but they thought it wouldn't be a good idea if it was snowing...

we enjoyed one more day in each other's company which was great... But not so great was the fact that the electricity was "acting" weird and ended up damaging most of the computer chargers, Josh's play-station, the internet modem and the washing machine... shit!

We did have a good time playing the guitar and me and Andy playing Djembes... Vonny ends up falling asleep with the drums...

Tuesday morning I was again ready to leave...hoping I wouldn't get trapped with snow again...

well, I didn't... But looking at the road, I was glad I decided to stay one more night...the road must have been blocked with snow...
It was good to spend those days with the Winter's, but I also had my mind in all the things I had to get done these next weeks...

when I arrived, Willi and Sebastien were fixing the road below...such a good timing as I was just arriving with the back of my van filled with stones from Moses...I was already thinking we needed to put some more stones on our road...

but Willi was far ahead in his thoughts, and now he's determined to fix it properly... 

That's a lot of hard work there as you can see... Thank you Willi...

nice pictures by Sebastien...



While Willi was busy with the road...I kept working on the plumbing... I fixed the taps on the washing station because they were leaking from my first attempt...I opened a trench from the kitchen to the drums (next to the big bus), and dug the pipe in the ground...

And now I'm starting the second stage which is the solar water heater...here in the picture I was starting to build a small tower to put one more drum, which will fill the drum inside the insulated box next to it where our water will be heated... I have to build it with bricks, and that's why you can see a small foundation being prepared on the right side (facing the solar south)... I have to confess that this will be a great challenge for me, and I do hope that in the end of it, it will actually work :-)
we'll see...the tower is done now, so tomorrow I'll buy the bricks and start with it...
It's been a really exciting time for me to learn all this different things :-)

It's now 3 weeks for the permaculture course to start, when 20 people will come to stay for 9 days...
I do hope we'll have time to finish the bath house walls with a shower compartment (as I said, I gave up on building a whole shower place for now), the compost toilet and the shed for the course in case it rains... I feel the rain will stop for a while after the next full moon on the February 28th...but we never know really ...

Anyway, I hope you all have a good week...and time to process and rejoice for the week that is past...