BTW: This mail can be forwarded to interested people
Dear friend,
it's time to let you hear from us again. Many of you have been able to follow the progress of our work on Facebook, and for those who can't, here's an update:
Our house is now almost finished, all that's missing is the floor in the living room and the shower tray in the bathroom. The hot water also still needs to be installed. At the same time, we have decided to have a large pond built. It will have several functions: Firstly, we can use it to keep enough water in stock for watering our plants and trees; secondly, we can submerge the entire area around us in water in the event of a fire. And thirdly, it is of course nice to have a small pond where you can go for a swim. Picture of the new lake (still without water) behind the old pond
The construction of our shelter is also in full swing. Constructing the shelter
As our house is small, we need somewhere to store lots of things, including things for the community (construction timber, etc.) and the shelter should be the solution. The rough construction is ready
Unfortunately, we have a loss to report. It's not easy to be compatible with many other people. It takes a certain discipline to do things that you have committed to and if this is not honoured, then a community cannot cope. So our German family decided to look for another place. We had all worked on solving the problem, but in the end we failed. This means that Stéphane, Lucie and Joé are alone with us at the moment, but we are working to ensure that other young and aware people continue to join us and that the community can grow organically. Stop, it's not quite true that Stefan and Lucie are here at the moment because they've travelled to France to do important things there. So we're currently alone with Pawel from Poland, who is helping us with things that require a lot of energy.
This summer, we put a lot of energy into the communal kitchen that is being built down in the forest. Zeger holding a beam of the kitchen construction
Our woofers Zeger and Stoffel had their first experiments in building mud walls. Stefan planned the whole thing and we will continue working on it when he is back. Stoffel and Stéphane building the kitchen construction
We have also started planting trees, especially citrus trees. Here we have already experienced the first diseases, the so-called citrus leaf miner has infested entire trees and we had to remove almost all the leaves in some cases, as otherwise it would take away the tree's strength to bear fruit.
Next task is to plant the walls of the lake so that they will soon be green again and so that the plants can also keep the wind at bay.
In all of this, the construction of houses has taken a back seat. Stéphane has started to build something in his area, but we haven't been able to construct any more buildings yet. This means that anyone who wants to help us here is best advised to come with a van where they can stay overnight. I think that next year we will be able to build the first structures for Stefan and his family as well as for other residents who come. By then we will hopefully have had a rainy winter and our newly created lake will be able to store the water that would otherwise run down the mountain. Perhaps we will then have new members. At the moment, two couples have expressed an interest in taking a look at our site. Let's hope we find the right ones. We have space. I hope to be able to send you new messages again soon. For today we send you sunny greetings from Monte Parreira, Sabine and Tom
