Finca Rio Muchacho : the surface

Good day all!

Here are some quick news for you guys. We've decided to stay one more week in Rio Muchacho. The moments and experiences we are living are very liberating even if the project is far from what we've expected. But that's for next week.

The main concept, in theory, is near perfect. Almost everything you could find on the farm as an utility, either to feed, build or grow.

We eat wonderful stuff; a real detox session. We're living in another penthouse with view on the river.





Our work is mainly about preparing "beds" in the garden (dig holes, etc.), dry seeds, plant, caring of the animals and preparing a crazy amount of compost.

Cut up tumeric and ready to be dried in the solar panel

The compost system is pretty complete.
Every morning, pig's manure is picked up and put in one of the three circle holes of compost. To that, we have to add dry leaves and sawdust to complete the cycle. The circles are rotatives, which means we empty one at the time and we fill up one at the time also. There's compost all year long.

Following the pig' manure, a dozen chickens are released in that farm jungle and are out for some crazy fun. Here they go looking for worms and insects in the pile of compost. Therefore, there is no need to mix the compost ourselves! Those beautiful birds are working for us.

Manure and pee are very high in nitrogen and have to be balanced with carbon agents in order for the magic to be created and to eventually have the compost be ready to feed and regenerate the earth.

A ratio of 1/3 of nitrogen and 2/3 of carbon create a compost that litteraly smells like hapiness! It's no joke, we remove our gloves to spread it over our veggies and we barely want to wash our hands to eat afterwards!

compost circle

There is a second type of compost that uses cuys (guinea pig) manure, which are litteraly called caca machines here! Cuys live in small houses with a wire netting. Their oh-so-many-poops fall directly in boxes under the wire netting. Once again nature is working with and for us!

Cuys, horses and cows manure goes in "worms bed". In those beds are located super strong california worms. Those worms are worth a lot but their advantage is that they are quite fast to reproduce themselves. When we add the super caca mix, the worms, living in boxes, rush to the fresh manure and eat all the macro-organism on their way and transform them into micro-organism in a blink. The process is quite faster then traditional composting.

Compost beds

Any remains from the table go to the pigs. Lucky them. They have a very elaborated diet but the recipe is quite secret and we are still working on getting it.

As for the water cycle, next week it will all be explained, but we promise you very few is wasted!

So over all, it's a real jungle here and we are to well nourrished and spoiled to leave just yet. We learn a lot, volunteers are awesome and the animals too. The work tasks are very diversified and we have a lot of free time; just perfect to enjoy the unique environement we are in.

See you next week!

Simon y Soa