News and thoughts from the Bosque Village

One of our volunteers, Hugo, has helped us finish our solar oven.  Finally!

The solar oven is made out of plywood and mirrors.  The angle of the box and the mirrors direct the heat energy of the sun into the box, which is well insulated.  The result is an oven that bakes cakes, breads, and pizzas and cooks beans, rice, and soups with no wood or gas needed.  Since the oven was completed a week ago, we have made cake, banana bread, beans, rice, vegetable split pea soup, and oatmeal bars.  The top recorded temperature was 280 degrees F, or 138C.

Hugo is on a bike trip from Quebec, Canada to Tierra del Fuego, on the southern tip of Argentina.  We were so happy to have him around for a month during his awesome journey.  Hugo and Rochelle, a recent visitor, are below with the nearly completed solar oven.

A few of our recent visitors directed us to the amazing social networking website, couchsurfing.com.  The website links travelers to hosts that have a couch (or bed, or floor) available to stay, and does an such amazing job of reputation management that the only stories we have heard of couchsurfers are fantastic.  In general, couchsurfers listed on couchsurfing.com are responsible, kind people who offer their home to other travelers, and in return can find free places to stay while traveling themselves.

We thought the idea was so great that we decided to sign up on the website and host a bunch of couchsurfers for a one weekend event.  The event allowed couchsurfers to meet each other and to enjoy a break from city life in the forest.  All of our volunteers worked really hard to provide our guests with food, hospitality, and fun.

Normally we don’t host couchsurfers because we generally have paying guests.  But we think that an event once a year to bring couchsurfers together in the Bosque seems like a fantastic idea.

The event was about 50 people large, and gave us some great experience in hosting large groups.  It was a joy to have so many people around enjoying the forest.

Archery games:

Volleyball in the forest:

And campfires at night:

Sometimes dogs are very messy beings…

We have started building our first cob hut.

Cob is a mixture of clay, dirt, pine straw, sawdust and a bit of water.  We get sawdust from a woodmill in a pueblo nearby, and the clay, dirt and pine straw come from the Bosque.  Cob is much like formed adobe.  We mix the ingredients together on the ground (sometimes with our feet!), and then sew lumps of cob onto the existing structure.

Every hut will have a bed, a nice desk and a chimenea (small fire place).  They should be very well insulated and comfortable for our visitors.

Here are Dani and Adrian working with cob:

Our sauna is now in the process of being built!

After many months of waiting - due to lack of materials, plans, etc, we’re finally able to start our cobwood sauna.

We are building a sauna described in Rob Roy’s book, “The Sauna“.  It will be made out of cobwood - or rounds of wood sandwiched in cob (a mixture of clay, sand, and straw).

On completion, the sauna will provide us with yet another way to conserve the amount of water we are consuming.  Taking a sauna before showering will leave us clean and reduce total shower time - a big win for us, especially in the dry months when our water supply is low.

We were happy to host our largest group of day visitors last week.

The visitors came from Morelia. They are nearly all foreigners (2 Mexicans, the rest ex-pats), and are part of a group in Morelia which helps support a local orphanage. They were happy to adventure up the bumpy road to the Bosque!

The group enjoyed a casual permaculture tour and luncheon on our terraza.
Visits to the Bosque can be arranged by contacting us through our webpage.

Our lemon verbena plants are doing great this year. We have two big plants near the main house, and lots of smaller plants which have been propagated by cuttings throughout the forest. The smell of the leaves alone is a great reason to find a way to have it in your home garden - sweet, lemony goodness!

The leaves can be used to brighten up rice and bean dishes, as an infusion in oil, vinegar, or even vodka, or, the best way, in my opinion: tea!

I’ve made tea with lemon verbena alone, but this combination of ingredients has become my favorite tea to sip on after meals. The jamaica (hibiscus, in English) is rich in vitamin C, the lemon verbena relieves stress, and the ginger aids digestion - making it the perfect after dinner drink.

You can use cheese cloth as I have done in this recipe, or you can simply strain the tea into a new pot.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 handful dried jamaica, or hibiscus flowers
• 1 handful fresh lemon verbena leaves, torn
• 2 T chopped fresh ginger
• 6 c. water
• honey, if desired

DIRECTIONS

1. Combine herbs and fold into a cheesecloth - secure with string.
2. Bring 6 cups of water to boil. Remove from heat, and add the bundle of herbs.
   
3. Let steep for 5 minutes, remove herbs and serve! Offer honey if you desire, although I like this tea just the way it is - tart! This serves 6 people one cup of tea.
   

Two of our recent volunteers taught us how to make peanut butter!

A very good addition to our foods - we don’t like the commercially produced peanut butter which has partially hydrogenated oil, and organic, natural peanut butter isn’t yet available in this part of Mexico.

Thanks to Allison and Suzanne!

We had our first group of birders visit!

Their goal was to spot a trogon, and immediately on arrival a beautiful Elegant Trogon perched on our capuline tree just next to our terrace, where the birders were drinking cups of hot tea.

Georgia, a local birding guide, toured our guests around the property and helped point out the various birds who have made their home at the Bosque. There were a couple of botonists in the group who were thrilled to see the variety of plants throughout the land - especially ferns!

Georgia was awarded Master Birder designation from Seattle Audubon and has founded a birding club for bird enthusiasts in the Lake Pátzcuaro area.

We have identified the following birds in the Bosque:

• Elegant Trogon
• Common raven
• Yellow-eyed junco
• Pine flycatcher
• American robin
• Accipiters
• Orange-billed nightingale thrush
• Black-headed grosbeak
• Hooded grosbeak
• White-throated thrush
• Pine siskin
• Violet-green swallows
• Acorn woodpecker
• Mexican whip-poor-will (heard)
• Hepatic tanager
• Blue-throated hummingbird
• White-eared hummingbird
• Eastern bluebird
• Rufous-capped Warbler
• Grace’s warbler
• Olive warbler
• Painted Redstart
• Striped sparrow

As part of our push to have more well-insulated huts available for visitors, we have begun making adobe bricks. We have enough bricks now to complete a small hut!

Our huts will be very basic. Well insulated walls, earth or metal roofs, and windows to take advantage of passive solar. We will use natural building techniques - cob, adobe, cobwood, and strawbale. Folks who attend our natural building workshop will get the experience of building with all of these styles of construction, as well as earthen floors and earth ships.

Every hut will have a desk, a bed, and a small chimenea.