The Process of Building On a Mountain

The first stage, mixing the cement, which is so much easier with a machine!

The second step is to fill buckets and walk them up the mountain side.

Once on location, I place the stones and pour the concrete into the form.


Here is the end of a days work. Total cost was only 20 euros for materials. Everything else was just laying around and needed to be placed correctly.
Above the wall is the compost bin, waiting to be dumped into its new home!

New Spring Garden

I built several poly tunnels using recycled greenhouse plastic. Locating them on the sunniest portion of our property has allowed a great head start on our tomatos, peppers and squash.


This is a bit of jungle that I converted to a garden. The fence is for wind and chicken protection.

Full Morning Sun

Wow, this is the moment when our little valley comes alive!

The song birds descend when Venus rises and then run from the sun to the deeper valleys.

We get direct sun from 7:30 until early evening, and every gardener knows that morning sun is the best!

Here is the view from our front door. I give credit to the unknown early builders of our little cottage, they went to considerable effort to build a huge stone retaining wall in the middle of the forest and off the road system.

I always figured there must have been a good reason for all the trouble, and now that we have cleared the jungle we are being allowed to see first hand why this awesome location was chosen.

Building a New Retaining Wall

This is a mixed Stone and Concrete wall being built for a new garden space. The posts will be used for a fence to keep the chickens out.

Here is the first level after the concrete has set. You can see the remains of an old wall along the base.

Fresh Strawberries

All organic yummy-ness. It took some trial and error, but we found a way to keep the water where we want it.

Progress in the Gardens

The gardens two years ago were mostly a hybrid jungle with some pockets of tamer areas of garden and few stone walls to support vegetables. The greenery was mostly a plant the locals call canna roca, very similar to ginger or galangal, but not human consumable.

Not necessarily the same view, but the photo below shows the same area, but revamped. Magnus and I built stone terrace walls. Then commenced the job of tilling and planting the lovely brown earth. We were lucky to have had a warm spring that year, such that our vegetables had a wonderful germination period and a head start on our growing season.

Taming the Wild

When we arrived at the quinta, Portuguese for farm, the jungle had taken over completely. The photo below was taken in July 2007, before rebuilding the home.

Below, is after three months of working to build the home. Not habitable yet, no doors or windows to keep out the elements.

And now, the picture below is at February 2008.

The picture below brings us to the current year.

Sunrises

We are going into our third year of living as farmers in Flores. As such we´ve observed the environment and adapted to the demands of the seasons and the land. Trying to render food from the earth is an exercise in patience. And it is a dance with nature as our partner. Sometimes it is less a dance and more of a stumbling. Like stumbling out of bed at daybreak, and trying not to trip and break the camera, while climbing above our home to snap a picture. It has been the most fun in our photo documentation, capturing the sunrises, tracking the movement of the sun throughout the year. Of course this means waking up early enough to catch the event at the exact moment it occurs. Fortunately we have our feathered friends, the roosters, to raise the alarm.

Below is the position of the sun in mid-March as we look towards the east, down the valley. By the way, it will be the same valley in each photo, but shifted perhaps slightly, we photographers are not exact machines after all. Notice the ocean at the junction of the valley walls, to the left of the sun orb.

The sunrise in August is shown below, see how far it has traveled, such that it is at the junction of the two sides of the valley. We overslept a little for this photo capture.

And the sunrise in August, notice how it returns to the same position as in mid-March. I love the appearance of the clouds, it really seems as though an angel could descend out of it.