Life & so on mostly on Flores

Start of this year has been calm. We talked with Tino to have a bit less crowd here, so there has not been new volunteers here (almost, one from last year & one couples short visit). Also there has been a couple of other visitors. Anyway nothing to compare last year... I counted about 20 workawayers, 20 long time visitors & 40 nightly guests. One other host here said as a joke that after 10 years everyone on this island Riku´s workaway. The year also started with a big party in Lajes. I made a conscious decision to start drinking coffee and quit alcohol. Still danced like a crazy person at the party, but I think that is nothing to worry about. I had missed a good party for a long time. There was kind of parties here last year, but nothing compared to year 2018. The parties we had last year were more like dinner & small party gatherings. As one volunteer said when I was thinking there has not been a party for a long time that we had 3 parties in 3 day when he arrived and ...

Lets call the time after the great hurricane winter. The great hurricane ended the growing season. I had been living mostly off pumpkins with the volunteers before the hurricane. Hurricane killed (by blowing the salt) all the leaves of the pumpkins, tomatoes, tamarillos and fruit trees. First after the hurricane I was obviously worried about the cottage in Lomba. My wonder and relief was great as house has withheld well. Only the roof plastic and a couple of windows had suffered a thing. And those were all minor. Even more wondrously the plastic greenhouse was still ok, even though a small tree next to it had fallen. The thing to do after the hurricane was mostly to cut the fallen trees for firewood. Clear the path to the waterfall. And fix the roof. Fixing the roof I noticed that it had been made without a lean over plastic. That was foolish I thought and since been looking other peoples off grid houses and they have the plastic going over like the Lomba cottage has now. Also the go...

During the fall the main thing was moving the trees from the garden near the Lomba cottage to the next fields. There was a lot of energy used & needed to move the trees, getting the water barrels up and clearing the garden. At some points the weather was so bad, that the things got almost to mud wrestling. The visits to Faja become more important as the weather made the clothes wet and there was not very much dry firewood. Preview attachment IMG_1605.JPG IMG_1605.JPG 4 MB

At the start of the summer, I was very worried about Tino. Also the breaking of the car left the Lomba with little care for a while. Then two premature deaths in Finland left me kind of exhausted as it seemed that there was too much coming against. However Tino´s garden got well on the way thanks to a volunteer working with Nadia. I finished the things in the big room. That allowed me to move a lot of stuff to there, me included. With the even better organized garage the house started to look more clean. Before that the whole house seemed always like storage at some level. When I got used not to have a car, things started to go very smoothly. I noticed that by using a bus, I actually had more time to do stuff. With car I used to drive too much around. Even like when I didn´t want to make lunch, I could go to a restaurant. Bus forced me to have a better schedule, so now I´m not so in hurry to get the car back. The favas my first real (I mean connected through website) workaway pl...

The spring started with good energy. I did at least one raised garden bed with each volunteer. However I maybe should have done the basic improvements first. During the year Lomba got new beds, gas stove (which is nice especially, if there is no one there constantly keeping the fire) and renovation of the chimney. With chimney especially I took too long before getting into the heart of the trouble. It had collapsed completely from inside. So there was no way it could have worked last times before the restoration. The garden beds worked very well, if done with the care. I mean, if the protecting mulch (dry incenso leaves) was put on the right time (when the desired plant has sprouted, so its sprout can be over the mulch), the garden didn´t need much care taking. Also the cryptomeria paths did their job of keeping the snails away (at least I felt it was the reason). Putting the water cleaning plants to the greenhouse in order to keep moisture and nutrients for chili worked also very we...

The year started with baking. I was fortunate to save a volunteer/worker/friend from Lomba who escaped the growing paranoia that was rooting in there. He had many skills and hints regarding living in Lomba. However his "real" trained profession had been baker. So at the start of the year I learned a couple of techniques and recipes which encouraged to me continue on the path during the year. However I had small regrets using so much wheat flour as it has been one thing I´m trying to reduce in my diet. Well lets see... now I kind of agree using it when doing something. However trying to do more salty than sweet things now. Like the last one was dim sum. It was the start of doing Lomba also. Previous owners had done a wonderful job. However when they decided to leave the effort had gone down noticeably. First I actually did more of carrying palettes & stuff than anything else. I see now that I should have started with the garden earlier. And motor sawing the firew...