Ironically I find myself sitting in our handmade shack in a place that is even for Mexican standards remote and isolated. So writing about survival in an urban setting doesn't seem at order and about survival in the mountainous jungle behind our street I know little to none, I can identify about three plants and about most birds I can tell you that I've seen one before.
All this doesn't mean that I don't have anything to blog about.
We are still looking for a camera so we can upload videos on a regular basis because it simply would save time. Writing and editing blogposts has proven difficult and expensive as we live far from 'fast' internet.
With this camera we could keep regular updates about everything we are trying to achieve: the construction of the house, the washroom, or dry toilet that is really starting to take it's final shape with three walls nearing completion. We had a mild catastrophe when in the night after the first session of 'mudding' the entire wall fell down. Fault on my behalf: I hadn't properly attached the bamboo framing to the concrete posts. It turned out to be only half so bad because after the framing had been re-installed, properly this time, it was only little work to re-apply the still wet mud.
The house is at this point a very drafty shanty. The framing and roofstructure of the 'shack' are up. The only problem is that the framing is still exposed and all kinds of wood-eating insects have given proof of residence by leaving everything covered in sawdust.
Then there is the process of us generating our own electricity. We're still voluntarilly off-grid, the powerline still runs outside our lot and although our neighbours think we're crazy we are still set on generating our own 'juice'. I would love to build a bike-powered generator. I know they exist already in the Netherlands. Also there is Maya-pedal, an organisation that build all kinds of things our of bicycles: de-grainers, mills, waterpumps, you name it... I will try to find links and add them to this post later for those who are interested.
My personal challenge however is building something with an interchangeable mount so we have one device that can power a generator but also a mill, or 'molino' as it is known in Mexico.
Furthermore I would like to blog about the fish that swim in these water and the way the locals catch them.
Then there are our animals, who all have their stories too, the chickens with their round, mud chickencoop, the pig with it's A-frame shack made out of a recycled skid. All things we would like to talk about more in depth here on the website/blog. If I only knew where to begin.