Techno-bohemian

Flowers and more flowers

2009-11-20T09:42:00.006-02:00

Spring is finally here and that means our fall/winter veggies
and flowering.
I must admit I had never really seen many of these before.

Can you guess what they are?

Evil ants!

2009-11-18T18:36:00.003-02:00

One of our greatest challenges is battling ants.

It's amazing how much damage these creatures can do in such a short amount of time.

We have tried many, many ways of ridding our veggie patch of these little pests but our efforts have been in vain. The only thing that has worked so far is "cebo granulado" which is basically an ant poison shaped like a grain of rice that you leave on their trail so that they pick up and take back to their nest.

The way it works is that the ants use it to feed their fungus and since it's specifically designed to kill the fungus, eventually the little guys will have nothing to eat and die or move to another location.

I personally do not like the idea of using pesticides, but since the ants were eating our food and your don't really need that much "cebo" we decided to go ahead and use it (only after trying many other natural methods). This is not to say the we will always use it, but for now it works.

However, this year's huerta will have some ant repellent plants as borders to dissuade them. Hope it works.

In the picture above you can clearly see the little guys feasting on the fava beans.

I must admit, though, that in the end, the fava plants were tougher than the ants, because even after cutting every single leaf on many of the plants, the fava, or broad beans, grew back and we were able to enjoy them.

Great slideshow

2009-10-12T11:07:00.001-02:00

I just found this, amazing pictures of wacky home grown veggies.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/foodanddrinkpicturegalleries/6174595/Wonky-Veg-Natures-odd-mistakes-compete-in-Garden-Organics-funny-looking-vegetable-contest.html

Huerta pix

2009-10-11T15:12:00.004-02:00

Here are the latest pix from our veggie garden.

Here's my gloved hand about to transplant zucchini (the little sis).

Our yummy lettuce.

Our broad beans.

These are our beets.

One of our celery plants.

Even though they are not enough for us to live, they are definately part of our learning process.

Three sisters

2009-09-30T18:11:00.001-03:00

Pix soon!

It's huerta time!

2009-09-30T12:15:00.001-03:00

I've already tilled the soil, put down seeds, now it's time to get down and dirty!

Look what I found!

2009-07-03T10:34:00.004-03:00

I was walking around the balneario and I came across this little guy. Is it cute or what?

This is what it looked like in its natural habitat, before we wacked it.

Stormy Bella Vista

2009-07-02T14:01:00.004-03:00

A huge storm blew over us this weekend, wreaking all kinds of havoc along its way.
Here are some pix of closeby damage.

Ok, this is not really damage, just a pile of garden waste I rounded up after the storm

Eucalyptus branches are everywhere.

More branches.

This is the worst one I saw, fortunately there's not much damage to the house.

Gates

2009-06-10T19:16:00.006-03:00

Well, we have decided to put up two brick pillars and a gate.

Don Felipe is doing the mason work and we did the design and construction of the gate itself. Still need to figure out about the brace and the third set of hinges.

Round two

2009-02-06T14:55:00.002-02:00

Despite my previous attempts at growing veggies, I have just put down more seeds. More seeds? Yes, more seeds. This time, however, I went for fall/winter crops only (mostly), seeing as how it is the end of summer right now.

I bought some turba from our local nursery and went straight to sowing, my (hopefully) future crops include: spinach, mustard greens, red onions, among others.

I'll post some pix when they start germinating.

Huerta difficulties

2009-02-05T12:55:00.012-02:00

Since we moved into our new house in September (Spring Equinox) we barely had any time to prep the land, study light conditions, get soil samples, start seedlings, get garden tools (we've pretty much always had a gardener so we were lacking most tools) and most of the good stuff that is associated to these kinds of projects.

The first thing we did was to decide where the veggie patch would go. We chose a pretty flat spot without any grass growing on it, though it had pretty much everything else (dog not inlcuded):

This is our "huerta" before, you can barely tell where the lawn ends!

Some of the earlier settlers on our huerta

Our next step was to buy and put down some seeds. Buying them was easy enough, the main problem was that other than a few tomatoes and lettuce here are there, our thumbs are not that green and we are trying to do everything with the least outside intervention as possible.

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Ok, so we have our little babies but we still had the problem of the weedy soil. I got a hoe and starting doing it by hand, but soon enough I realized that my extremely hard work was not paying off as the soil was too clumpy.

So we enlisted the help of the locals who came and plowed and gave us much needed advice.

Since we are going organic, we cannot fertilize so we decided to spread manure all over the area. I know it is supposed to dry out (it was hard as a rock!), in fact there are many things we should have done, but we had no time.
At this point the planties were begging to be set into the soil.

So we did, we put down or babies carefully into the soil.

Needless to say the ants were very happy about this and consistently munched on all the carrots, beets, watermelon, honeydews, mustard greens, arugula, parsley, cilantro, etc. What a disaster!!!

But we did not give up, we still had the zapallitos and tomatoes and one honeydew and the leeks. Unbeknownst to me cats love baby leeks, so there they went...

I have to admit that at one point I was pretty down about the whole thing. But then I realized that I will not become an expert overnight and so I'll have to keep trying and trying and trying.

But eventually we started getting zapallitos and tomatoes (though I have lost about 1/3 of my prized tomatoes to birds) and it is good enough for now.

Close to home

2009-01-20T15:28:00.005-02:00

Relentless heat added to a serious lack of rainfall have lead to a string of large and dangerous fires in the Piriápolis area. Though Bella Vista has not been directly affected, our neighbors in Solís, Las Flores and Playa Verde, to name a few, have been witness to the devastation caused by the scorching flames.

Here are some mobile pics of the latest fire in Cerro del Burro and Cerro del Toro.

The smoke is so thick that you can't the hill from the beach

In the back, you can see a helicopter with its 1,000 liter tank that was just filled at the beach

Digital close up of Cerro del Burro on fire

Wide shot of Cerro del Burro

This a shot E took from the top of Cerro del Burro a couple of days after the fire

Home Improvement

2008-09-30T09:57:00.007-03:00

Since we are about to move to our new house, we decided to get down to work on aome of the projects we have lined up. The first one we tackled was our chairs. They have been around for at over 25 years as my parents bought them when we had just moved to the States. E loves them cause he says they are the "right" height (as opposed to the tiny Uruguayan ones) and he feels very comfy sitting on them.

Here's E taking the chair apart .

Here's a close up of the seat.

This is the side of the chair, BTW cute nose!

You might actually recognize the chair from the pic in the Solar Cooking post, I guess solar cooking on wooden chairs is not such a hot idea after all!

Almost done.

You can pretty much see the amazing job E did on those. They look great now, almost brand new!

We found one!

2008-06-18T15:55:00.002-03:00

After the seemingly endless efforts invested into finding a home, we think we might have found "The One."
Location's great, between the Sierra de las Ánimas and the ocean. The house has a breathtaking view of the hills and you can actually hear the ocean from the yard.
Of course, once you actually find something you like, you discover you are at the tip of the iceberg!
So much to do!!!!!

Solar cooking

2008-03-22T17:35:00.003-03:00

Though I have not yet been able to have my own solar oven, I have managed to use solar energy to aid my cooking. Here's a picture of pretzel dough being leavened using the oldest technology available.

We have also used this system to defrost food, especially during the summer months.

Passive solar water heating

2008-01-26T12:08:00.000-02:00

As we plan for our new home to be "off the grid" we are looking into simple technologies to help us achieve this lofty goal. One technology available in Uruguay harnesses the sun's energy to heat water for a variety of purposes. Interestingly, a house a block away from our current home in Solymar has this. Water runs through the panels and travels into the tank.

I think it would like to create a hot water loop for all our hot water and heating needs (kitchen, bathroom and radiators). The loop would have different intakes, including passive solar water heaters, active solar panels, wind turbines and a wood stove. This way, we can always have hot water and heat.

The trick is to make it all be esthetically pleasing at the same time, something that the passive solar water tank doesn't offer out of the box. The system does not use a pump; the hot water naturally travels up from the panels into the tank and from there into the house. The pump can be placed below the panels, but then a pump is needed that consumes electricity.

Destination: Piriápolis, Uruguay

2008-01-03T12:26:00.001-02:00

Hi, I'm E, the other half of the dream house project. P and I really like the area around Piriápolis for our new home, especially the rural area. Here is a picture showing downtown Piriápolis, with la Sierra de las Ánimas in the background.

Techo verde

2007-12-26T14:58:00.000-02:00

E and I spent the weekend at "Miraverde" a vacation complex built with green roofs. The picture here is the inside ceiling.

Incognito

2007-11-19T10:03:00.001-02:00

Here's a picture of a hidden house we almost didn't find near Pan de Azúcar.

Green Roofs

2007-11-13T11:56:00.003-02:00

Here's a picture of a house we found in Piriápolis, it's one of many here in Uruguay.

Below is a link to a very good article on grass roofs. Great reading.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/cash/story/0,6903,1350580,00.html

Straw Walls

2007-11-13T11:54:00.000-02:00

I just saw this great video on straw bale walls. It's actually a green school that's being built in the US. It seems this kind of construction has been around for hundreds of years, but only now is the world waking up to it. There are 200-year old buildings in Europe and a century old house in Florida.

Here's a link to the video:

http://video.msn.com/v/us/v.htm?g=1A90A394-3DCC-4D8F-A46F-14E31D4AC6B3&t=c150...

Organic Architecture

2007-07-24T18:51:00.001-03:00

When I was a teenager I stumbled across a book on Fallingwater. I had absolutely no notions of architecture whatsoever, but was completely captivated by the images in the book. While reading the book, I became aware that the building had been designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

Not surprisingly, now that I am researching building techniques I, again, come face to face with the renowned architect. This time, however, it is not the admirable beauty of his creations, but the concept of organic architecture that has allured me.

I only just discovered it, but it seems it has been a life long search.

WiTricity

2007-06-12T18:15:00.000-03:00

I picked this up from Scientific American's e-zine. It just blows my mind that all the things I want to have in my self-sustainable home are becoming a reality!!

http://sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=07511C52-E7F2-99DF-3FA6ED2D7DC9AA20

Can't wait to use it!!!!

Finally online!!

2007-05-16T18:12:00.000-03:00

Congrats to me!! This is, obviously, my first entry!!