ecuadar may 20th and 21st

Monday May 20th
So many new people arrived on the farm today for the permaculture class that starts. There´s such a wide variety of diversity, culture, and language surrounding us. People from all over the world, Columbia, Italy, France, Canada, Austriala, New Zealand and Belguim!
It was overcasty today making work in the garden a lot more barable than last week. I started out by laying new irrigation lines in the new beds we made last week. Its really cool to see how much this section of the garden has come together in the time i have been here and how much i have helped to make it what it is now! I then helped weeds some radishes, ginger and then on to the onions. I really enjoy weeding. It may seem dorky but i love it and its super relaxing. I really looking forward to tomorrow morning because we will finally be working with animals as morning chores !!

Tuesday May 21st
This morning was awesome. Super disorganized but fun haha. We were assinged to work with the cows and hores. Yet, none of them were where they were supposed to be! After rounding them all up and cleaning thier stales we were able to feed them and that was that. I learned that the cows and horses are feed (when not grazing) this really tall plant (ill have to get the name later) that grows naturally on the farm. They love it! Afgter breakfast was my first class in permaculture. Today we went over the basic principles of organic farming in depth and detail.
Quickly they are:
1- return all organic material to the soil
2- feed the soil, not just the plant
3-create biodiversity
4- plant in associations
5-. proctect your insect populations
6- crop rotation
7- grow what grows well, don´t force it
8- minimize tillage
9- happy animals are healthy animals
10- PREVENTION not cure

Nicola is so educated in this area. She is an organic certifier and has certified farms for organic farming all over the world. and when i say ALL over the world i am not eggarerating.

Later in the afternoon i helped do random things in the garden, it was a good educational day.