Our Time at Villas Mastatal

Aside from practicing our Spanish with the lovely owners (Javier and Raquel), talking with the dogs, pigs,

geese,

turkey,

and cows, and avoiding the large grasshopper like insects,

we have engaged in various projects on the farm. We have milked Lucrecia (the vaca),

Lucrecia gives almost 3 liters of milk every day!!

mixed manure to create a more nutritious environment for plants, cleaned the pig pen

to help foster the biodigestor (as the poop decomposes, it creates a gas with which you can cook!),

planted pineapple tops, (peeling back to expose the roots)

(digging and planting the top right into the ground)

harvested bananas, re-planted banana trees (that had fallen),

cleared and planted a field with corn (maiz), planted orange and guayabana trees, cut bamboo,

cleared and created terrazas for planting chayote,

harvested and replanted yucca roots, cleaned the yucca to make yucca cakes,

cleared a garden and planted mustard and cucumbers,

and built a bus stop for Villas Mastatal complete with a green roof (plants on the roof tend to moderate the temperatures below the roof - its a permaculture idea).

To keep us energized, Raquel has made amazing food from delicious gallo pinto (rice and beans mixed) to arroz con leche. Other food: mustard greens with fresh farm eggs, empanadas, salads, platanos, yucca cakes, pancakes (for breakfast), ...the list goes on... (but we did NOT starve).

Beans and rice are a staple for almost every meal, and we helped to pick the rocks out of this huge bag. The orange bag lasts the family for about 6 months! They planted them in Sept-Oct, harvested in Jan, and dried them until April, when we arrived to eat them!

Rice and beans, meat skewers, and delicious yucca cakes:

We had pineapples coming out of our ears: Can you find the pineapples in these pineapple plants?

Here they are:

Yum!

All this food has to go somewhere, so we greatly enjoyed contributing to compost via the compost toilet, with an amazing view:

In the afternoons, we have rested on the hammocks (hamacas) with or without precious Miguel the dog,

read, played games,

hiked, and told stories. It has been a wonderful two weeks!