Vegas experience:

My time in Vegas has been certainly very different from most tourist that come here. I stayed at my friends home, he is a performer in Love by Cirque de Solei, and of course most his friends are performers too; quite an interesting crowd. I have taken a couple of hike down at the Red Rock National Park and have seen several shows, Love and Mistere by Cirque and another production called Absinthe. All of these were amazing and sometime really funny.

Ekenah and I back stage of Love

On Tuesday evening, a most unexpected pain on my teeth started to attack and after a sleepless night I decide to seek help. After making after several phone calls I got an appointment at a friend's dentist who diagnosed me needing a root canal on a pre-molar. the following two days were a roller coster of thought mixed with emotions accompanied by pain. There was an idea of going to Brazil in order to cut expenses, but after a day o research, making phone calls and other stuff I figured that it would end up costing the same amount to do it here. Plus the amount of pollution of a flight and haslle of travel would not make up the short two weeks in the motherland.

Red Rock National Park

As soon as I made the decision to stay I received great support and help from everyone around me, namely Ekenah, Maricau, Randy, Peter, Gene, Felipe. Thank you... into the evening Randy put me in touch with an old friend of his that is a dentist; Brett he fit me into his busy schedule and gave me a great discounted price. This morning I find myself refreshed and ready for the journey to come... Thanks to everyone who gave me support in anyway during these days here is Vegas...

Resting on a fallen tree

Now with a sligthly shorter time-line it is of greater possibility that I will end up trying to hicth-bike most of the way to the Lama Foundation...

stay tuned...

Enjoy the photos and videos on my flickr page (click here)

What is a Hitch-Biker?

My time here at The Flying Disc Ranch is coming to an end and even though the mud house is still not complete (see most recent slide show of the site), it is time to set sail from here. Where to? I need to get to northern New Mexico in 3 weeks (May 16th). I will be going via Las Vegas, as I have a long overdue visit to a friend (Ekenah), and will get to go to see him perform in Cirque de Solei. From there to the Lama Foundation the route is still not clear, except that I would like to see some contacts in Durango and Crestone CO.

Travel me, on the road of life

The journey ahead (around 750m/1200km) is adopting a new kind of thinking in terms of trasportation. I have done some experimenting and now have been coming to terms with this new concept of travel that depending on some factors can easily double the distance traveled in one day... I call it Hitch-Biking... "Imagine yourself biking down the road at any given point you glace back and see a pick-up truck coming down the road. With in a split second you might decide to stick your left arm out with the thumb pointing up. Chances are, they will pass you with out the blink of an eye, however, it might strike them as intriguing and interesting to pick up a hitch-biker. They would at lease be up for some interesting conversations... Once stopped you will spend a few instances getting the bike on the back, but soon after you'll be back on the road resting, catching up on your miles and making new friends. this way if you don't get any rides you can still enjoy the road and don't waste time waiting for a ride... It come to you!"

Here is my first hitch-biking ride in Ranchita, California

This is it for me... Will keep in touch as the road reveals its contour to me...

- one love

Lama Land Intern at Lama Foundation

The weeks are flying by and my time here at the ranch is coming to an end. The natural building project is progressing rapidly. Click here to watch a slide show of the work site





The good news that will be shaping my entire summer is that I have been accepted to do a Permaculture Internship at the Lama Foundation from mid-May till October. The Lama Foundation is a 40 y/o spiritual intentional community located in northern New Mexico. To read more about this opportunity Click Here

I will be blogging my experience through out my time there, so stay tuned!!!

Details on the Mud House

I have been wanting to find the time and energy to sit and write about the current Natural Building project that I'm involved in for the last month and a half here in Thermal, California.

the roof structure

Here at the Flying Disc Ranch, Eric Lower and myself have been working long hours building this small but really stylish duplex house with lofts. We began by measuring, squaring the foundations, that here in the desert only needed to be 2 feet deep. After pouring the cement for each of them we were ready to start building the self-sustaining roof/loft structure. It consisted of 6x6 poles and 6x12 beams with 2x8 rafters.

me and mud

When the roof was set in place we started with the walls, this is were the fun part comes in. Working with mud is really enjoyable and make you feel good because it is full of Negative Ions :-)

Natural Building is based on building houses out of local and natural material and as much as possible staying away form manufactured and chemical material. Of course, especially when it comes to building according to municipal codes, some times you have to use a little cement or other manufactured materials... So here is a list of some of the main material being used and where they came from.
> Lumber - a local family owned supplier
> Sand and Clay - right of the foot of the mountain here in the Coachella Valley
> StrawBales - from El Centro south of the Salten Sea
> Palm Laths and Frowns - from our Date Palms

Straw bale wall with electrical

The centre wall that divides the two separate living areas, we made it out of strawbales for its great sound proofing properties. For the East wall we made it out of laths, otherwise known as the French Technique, all of the laths were cut from the centre of palm leafs and the fiber for the mud mix of that wall was palm frowns also from the farm.

French Technique or "Quincha"

The North and East walls of the North Unit, we decided to use the technique of "Paja Encofrada" or Compressed Straw. It is a fast and easy way to put up a wall by wetting lose straw with pure clay slip, like a salad dressing. Mix it up till every straw is moistened by clay slip, then compress it into the frame of the wall (supported temporarily by plywood on either side). Beside it being fast and easy to build, it also has great thermal and sound proofing properties.

we have started to put on the first coat of
mud on the bottom half

To all these walls there will be at least 3 coats of mud before it is finished. The site is rapidly changing every day especially now that we have another worker, Adolfo helping everyday. If any of you take interest in getting your hands muddy feel free to contact me and come down to have some fun with Negative Ions.

Do check out the link below as it contain photos from all phases of the project.

Click here to view a slide show of the Building Site

Enjoy the photos and videos on my flickr page (click here)