You waste 2 gallons of water per flush.  The average person flushes you 4 times per day.  So daily, per person 8 gallons of water, usually drinking quality, go down the toilet.  Literally.  What a lovely thing to do to perfectly good water, eh?  Mix it with poop and send it away to be treated by sewage plants.

Oh, Flush Toilet.  How we don’t miss thee.

In the last two years, we’ve hosted approximately 400 people for a total of 6,807 people-days.  In those days, Flush Toilet, you would have been flushed around 27,228 times.

That is 54,456 gallons (206,138 liters) of water that has not gone down you, Flush Toilet.

54,456 gallons of water that can be used instead to water important plants, cook healthy meals, and bathe in.

And, Flush Toilet, just look at your replacement!

Comfortable, well-built composting toilets are clean, close to living spaces, and turn human waste into humanure: perfectly good dirt that we can use in our gardens.  We can even use it in veggie gardens (though we don’t, because despite studies that show properly composted human waste is fine to use in food gardens, it tends to gross our visitors out).

What’s that you say, Flush Toilet?  You think these new composting toilets stink??

You’re wrong!  By throwing in a handful of sawdust or tree leaves after use, the compost toilet doesn’t smell.  When we anticipate heavy use we throw in a few gallons of sawdust before and after to keep them smell-free.

What’s that you say, Flush Toilet?  You think you’ll never be replaced by city-folk, only by some weirdos living in the woods in Mexico??

You’re wrong!  Composting toilets are gaining popularity.  Indoor compost toilets are increasingly becoming an option for facilities that want to conserve water and have a proper way to deal with waste.  In fact, Flush Toilet, toilets like you didn’t gain popularity until the late 1800’s.  You’re a new invention, and if I may be frank, a stupid one.

So, Flush Toilet, here is our ode to you, the outmoded commode:

Ode to the Outmoded Commode

For more information on composting toilets, see:

• The Second Addition of the Humanure Handbook, free online copy (pdf, may take awhile to load)
• The Third Addition of the Humanure Handbook, available for purchase
• Compostingtoilet.org
• Composting toilet on Wikipedia.org

Senguio is a small town close to Ciudad Hidalgo.  Once a year its residents host the mushroom fair.  They set up a long table full of identified wild mushrooms.  Several stands sold spores of shiitake and oyster (seta in Spanish) mushrooms.  Town restaurants cater the event with a wide variety of mushroom dishes including tamales, posole, tostadas, soups, burgers and more.  One table was set up with over 20 filling choices for mushroom quesadillas!

The fair was tastefully organized with events and educational workshops throughout the weekend.  There were tours of the area, workshops on medicinal mushrooms, even a hot air balloon making workshop.

We felt warmly welcomed by the town.  The director of the fair, Carlos, was busy the entire weekend coordinating events and activities but still took time to chat with us.  The owners of the restaurant “El Coyote” were so kind, offering to take us mushroom hunting after the fair.  We were stuffed again and again with mushroom treats.

Senguio was decorated with mushrooms!  Mushroom trash cans, mushroom posters, even little kids dressed up in mushroom suits.  The drawing on the fair poster was the winner of a drawing contest among the children in Senguio.  We loved looking at all the entries.

For anyone interested in mushrooms, this fair is very impressive.  It was well organized and attended by some of the most respected mushroom experts in Mexico, including Pátzcuaro resident and author of our favorite regional mushroom book, biologist Horalia Díaz-Barriga Vega.

So we send a big virtual thanks to the lovely people of Senguio.  We’re looking forward to next year!

The Mushroom Fair / La Fería de Hongos photoset on Bosque flickr

Oh, we feel so sorry for our poor tomato plants.

They have a hard life in this climate.  During the dry season we choose a few to water with our kitchen greywater, but aphids become a problem.  During the rainy season they tend to rot, so this year we planted several of them in pots that we can move in and out of the rain to protect them from too much water.

And then the hornworm showed up.   At first we thought, “How pretty!” and snapped a few pictures and let it be.  Then we looked the worm up and found that it is the culprit that has eaten the first 4 signs of fruit on our Oaxacan tomato plants!

We will be on the lookout for more of these little buggers and try to get some yield this year from our tomato plants.  We are not planning on using any chemical control to get rid of them, however they will be great food for our chickens!  Hopefully some of the local birds will come help us out as well.  Hornworms are notoriously difficult to find since their green color matches the plants, but they glow under black light.  At night we can use a black light flashlight to easily spot them and remove them from our tomatoes.

]]> http://www.bosquevillage.com/words/?feed=rss2&p=742 http://www.bosquevillage.com/words/?p=738 http://www.bosquevillage.com/words/?p=738#comments Sat, 17 Jul 2010 00:00:57 +0000 Marie http://www.bosquevillage.com/words/?p=738 Thousands of mushrooms have begun popping up all over the forest in the last couple of weeks.

Four obvious mushrooms grow here in the forest that we can harvest to eat.  There are a number of other mushrooms that are edible and those with experience sometimes harvest them for food or medicinal use.  The first ones to pop up every year are the “Yellows” - Amarillos. The scientific name is Amanita caesarea.  Because other mushrooms in the Amanita family are very poisonous, if there is any question about whether we’ve got an amarillo or not, we don’t cook it up to eat.

The amarillos are incredible to add to dishes for body and distinct mushroomy flavor.  Around here people roast them on a comal to eat for a snack, letting them cool a bit before eating plain, with just a touch of salt.

At the Bosque we try to spread the mushroom love as far as possible, so we add them to soups or send them to the Casita for folks to add to their eggs in the morning.

The next edible mushrooms we expect to see are trompas.  Trompas grow like crazy here.  After a couple of rainy days it is easy to walk around and collect bags full of the bright orange goofy-shaped mushrooms (though, as wikipedia mentions, this mushroom is not a ’shroom at all, but a parasite that grows on mushrooms).

And apart from the edibles, hundreds of other mushrooms are all over the place.  Some prefer to grow under the pines, others under the oaks.  Some grow on trees, others on the ground.  The beginning of mushroom season is our final sign of life returning to the forest after months without rain.  We welcome the forest fungi!

Read about the list of mushrooms at the Bosque here.

]]> http://www.bosquevillage.com/words/?feed=rss2&p=738 http://www.bosquevillage.com/words/?p=733 http://www.bosquevillage.com/words/?p=733#comments Tue, 06 Jul 2010 15:15:29 +0000 Marie http://www.bosquevillage.com/words/?p=733 Tomatoes are in season.  This means they are cheap - as little as 3 pesos per kilo (about 10 cents per pound).  So we bought boxes of tomatoes to preserve them so that during their most expensive time we can still enjoy salsas and tomato sauces for pasta without paying nearly six times as much as we can pay right now.

This year we made two types of sauces, and skipped canning whole or diced tomatoes.  We made about 10 quarts of savory sauce for pasta or minestrone soups, and 15 quarts of spicy salsa for tacos, chips, or Mexican style soups.

Sterilizing jars:

Blanching tomatoes to easily remove their skins:

Laura removing skins off of 15 kilos of tomatoes!  She was good at this:

Ingredients for the spicy salsa:

And the final product:

Today, we have over 1,400 grafted trees throughout the Bosque. Walking around the other day we spotted one tree that is doing particularly well, with several small quince fruits starting to show up.

These grafted trees are a very clear example of successful permaculture and food forestry.  The pear and quince trees have strong, native roots of the manzanillo tree, and require no water, fertilizer, or care.  As we mention quite often, we would love to keep irrigation to a minimum at the Bosque.  Planting fruit and nut trees that can survive here through the dry season is a total win.  And a volunteer here right now recently spoke very highly of quince jam he made and preserved in a farm in Europe…  we may be trying that soon!

The fruits showing up remind us of our need to make a solar dehydrator and think of other ways to preserve and use the fruits.  Pear cider?  Quince jam?  Ideas?

On Monday a few Bosque volunteers noticed a large fire on the north side of the land as they were returning from town.  They alerted Brian and ran to get shovels, and volunteers, visitors, and friends all joined to help us put out the fire.  Within a couple of hours the fire was controlled, and in about 3 hours rains rolled in and we stopped the constant monitoring.  Yesterday volunteers spent the morning putting out all remaining smoldering areas.

During the dry season the fire risk is incredibly high.  One of the reasons we’re so uptight about our no-smoking rule is that a single cigarette butt could actually burn the entire Bosque down.  We are unsure how this fire started, but we are very fortunate that we caught it when we did.  We’re also fortunate that the rains are here; a few weeks ago this fire would have been much more dangerous.

The last forest fire at the Bosque was in 2007.  Brian wrote about the experience on his own blog, and we’ve reposted it here.  In 2008 and 2009 we didn’t have any fires, though we did notice several small fires nearby.

One of the reasons we’re at high risk for forest fires is that, unlike our neighbors, we don’t have a manicured forest.  People tend to pick up all the dead wood and brush and burn it.  We don’t do this because we are trying to heal the soil and increase the level of mushrooms, animal, and plant life.  However, we have also created a huge network of trails and are beginning to widen them.  Trails serve as fire breaks, making it difficult for the fire to spread quickly.  The trails around where the fire was helped slow its spread significantly.

The trees will all live, and very few important plants were in the area of the fire.  We are sad to have lost one snag - a dead tree that housed several birds.  The burned, ash covered land will be excellent for planting.  When we began burning plagued tree branches to fight the pine beetle plague, Chilino started to plant lettuce, radishes, beans, and herbs in the ashy soil.  Because of this and a few freak rainstorms during the dry winter months, we enjoyed organic salads throughout the dry season.  We will plant vegetables in the ashy soil soon, and anticipate high yields from this part of the land.

Thanks to all who helped us fight the fire!

He saw all sides of the Bosque Village.  He was here through a large social event with 50 people, through slow times with just 2 volunteers, and through normal times with our average crowd of around 10 people.  Niklas is easy going, so friendly, and so intelligent!

Niklas worked on a variety of projects, including preparing for the rainy season by digging gardens, fixing the sauna, working on the chicken coop, repairing a large cistern, building benches and other construction work, and building a cob hut.  He also set up a few meditation spots and helped us discover some particularly magical places in the forest.  In his free time he spent many hours reading about permaculture and food forestry, and came up with some great suggestions that we immediately implemented - the most important project is a new small pool to collect water during the rainy season.

A Buddhist, Niklas often led meditation for other visitors and volunteers.  He meditated daily in various spots in the forest, and included people who were interested.  Brian and Niklas worked together on future plans for a spiritual center at the Bosque.  His experience with Zen Buddhism and his dedication to his own practice helped us understand what we need to do to make a great spiritual center here.

Niklas is also a talented graphic designer.  He created a logo for the new spiritual center, a banner for the center’s website, and he also spent many hours working on the Bosque Village map.  We now have a vector based map to work with and we couldn’t be happier with his help!

Our volunteer manager, Chilino, was also so happy to work with Niklas.  Chilino often has trouble communicating with our volunteers, as the majority (Niklas included) don’t speak much Spanish.  But for some, the language barrier slips away.  Niklas and Chilino grew close over the 2 months he was here, and Chilino was appreciative to have such a great helper.  Niklas is so respectful, smart, and thoughtful that any barriers of language, class, or ethnicity were completely irrelevant.

Dogs and cats and people and all living things, Niklas is a kind hearted person and takes care of the beings around him.  We had a recent fly infestation (it happens every year as the rains come), and the expression rings true for Niklas: he won’t even hurt a fly.  The dogs will miss his presence and his daily dose of love.  And as for the people, another volunteer mentioned to me that she was amazed at how much she missed him.  Having known him for just three weeks, Niklas made such an impression on her and on the other people around him.

For anyone who gets a chance to know this guy, know him deeply and enjoy.  He’s a story teller, a hard worker, a talented artist, and a great musician.  This man can’t have enemies; he’s just so darn like-able!  We miss you Niklas, and we hope to see you soon.

Working on the map:

Reading outside the Casita:

With a kitty!:

And playing guitar:

]]> http://www.bosquevillage.com/words/?feed=rss2&p=708 http://www.bosquevillage.com/words/?p=691 http://www.bosquevillage.com/words/?p=691#comments Tue, 08 Jun 2010 18:46:42 +0000 Marie http://www.bosquevillage.com/words/?p=691 We have an annual tradition to provide mulled wine and hot tea at sunset during Semana Santa - “Holy/Easter week” - for our guests and volunteers.  During this time of year the nights are chilly and mulled wine and cinnamon tea are nice warm beverages to comfort all as we enjoy the sunset at Cute Hill.

Mulled Wine ala Marie

Please don’t use a nice red wine for this recipe.  Mulled wine is a perfect excuse to use crappy dry reds - you’ll mask the flavor beautifully by adding the right spices and sweetners.  It is a Scandinavian tradition around Christmas time to make mulled wine.

Ingredients

• 1.5 liters dry red wine
• 6 inch cinnamon stick, or 2 T ground cinnamon.
• 2 or 3 cloves
• 1/2 cup brandy
• zest of 1/2 orange
• juice of 1 orange
• honey, piloncillo (unrefined cane sugar), or sugar - to taste
• water, to taste
• optional: vanilla (liquid or pods) and a pinch of ground nutmeg

Directions

1. Combine all ingredients, minus water, into a large pot.  Heat gently until hot.  Don’t boil.
2. Keep on low heat, stirring frequently, and avoiding bringing it to a simmer, for 20 minutes.
3. Taste and add more sweetener if necessary, and a bit of water if it is too strong.
4. Serve warm.

Directions

1. Combine all ingredients in a large pot.
2. Bring to a simmer, turn off heat, and steep for 5 minutes.
3. Strain and serve, accompanied with more honey or sugar for people to add as wanted.

This year at Cute Hill:

And the cats.

And all living creatures.

A great guy who makes life better for animals and people around him.

(photo by Ang)