lights

these outside light switches were a fun project. i could not find a premade box to represent the outside light design so i just bought some simple switches and made a little thing to hold them. i bought the type with a built in LED pilot light, but for some strange reason they are not working, i mean the lights work, but not the pilot light.

you can see the door to our shop/temporary home in the background

pochote tree

this is one of 3 Pochote trees we have planted, aka floss silk tree. they produce a type cotton when they flower. they grow in to monsters, really, their adult form has a human like shape, i have seen some over 300 feet tall near the beach. another pic

me and gabriel

just a little photo of me and my son gabriel

brick laundry patio

i made this patio to do laundry more than a few months ago and i believe it was a really good choice. the bricks are baked adobes over a sand bed and has multiple slopes in it to drain the water to the right spot. after two rainy months its still working well

in the bottom left is the laundry maching. the blue thing is a tarp covering my woodworking jointer. and on the right are bricks i am storing to extend the patio one day. the wires are to sun dry our laundry. one day i plan on using the same bricks to finish that ugly grey wall.

another days work

this is another wall i am starting to cover with vines, edible fruit, and flowers




this may not look like alot, but it took me hours to make this ramp up to my shed. before it was a rocky rutted gunky trail that i tripped on many times. when i finished it, gabriel ran down it screaming "look, i dont fall down"

family work

this is the driveway leading down to the shop and stream. we planted vines to creep up the fence and provide privacy.
we planted passion fruit, jasmine, a vine that hangs thousands of small orange flowers, and another vine that has big purple flowers

Laura's birthday

Laura and Gabriel on her 31st birthday

bad architect

we had water leaking into the shop/our temporary home from this back wall, so i dug out a canal and paved a thin concrete ramp to drain the water more effectively. it seems to work for now, and we will eventually build our home over this area and shut off all rainwater from entering the shop.

so, i say bad architect because this all happened because we did not remove an existing containment wall, we built the shop right next to this wall, i now know the old wall should have been removed, and now its impossible to remove. fill dirt used to fill the area now dug out, you can almost see on the far left where i planted 200 vetiver plants to contain erosion

you can also see my homemade solar hot water heater on the roof.

green moth

this moth was visiting us two days ago, he has a wingspan of close to six inches

first post

baby primavera and roble trees

last monday we acquired 100 trees free of charge from the state nursery to help reforest and rehabilitate our land and stream. our treasure now sits at

24 primavera's and roble's; these trees could somewhat resemble a common maple tree. they flower yellow and pink respectively and are deciduous.
25 montezuma cypress's (savino). these trees can grow to be some of the largest in the world and can live 3000 years or more. they are specifically to be planted next to our stream to prevent erosion
10 white cedars
10 common oaxacan pine
5 eucalyptus
2 native oak's which i plucked from the mountains above us, i plan to plant these on the stream as well, they seem to do really well and prevent errosion
3 floss silk's (known as Pochote or Ceiba here)
25 more misc. please reply if you are interested in knowing the names as most are hard to pronounce and are indigenous names

i replanted all the savino's into large plastic bag planters to let them grow more and have more of a chance next rainy season.