Earth-shaping, Zone One
During this stay at ViVerde, I tackled the landscaping of the prominent hillside stretching down from our “Centro”. It is not only our main view from our open air dining area , but it also gets the most sun on the property. Because of its proximity to the...
Our Own Cob Bench
When you mix art with dirt you get earthen building. Our cob bench has been a process, slowly coming to life as we have had visitors and volunteers come and work with us. Cob is a mixture of clay (straight from the ground), sand and straw. It is like adobe, but...
Mosaic magic
Art is coating the walls at ViVerde, quite literally, with a number of large new mosaics.
Learning to Timber Frame
Just as I was getting settled into life in Granada, Gerard and I packed our bags and took a few different buses to Costa Rica to get to renowned sustainability educational center, Rancho Mastatal, to spend ten days taking their Timber Framing course. The instructors,...
Animal Life at ViVerde
The theme of this post is animals. Much of our fifteen acres is wooded, so you can be sure there is a whole world happening we don’t see. Every day we do see plenty of birds, squirrels, lizards, and iguanas. We find turtles every now and then. We put a dot of...
Lots More Construction at ViVerde
Eight months into 2016 and the fun and work never stop! We continue to do more building, more planting, more infrastructure development. We renovated an existing animal structure, turning it into a material storage area and added a large open-air workshop and locked...
Greening ViVerde
In the past year and a half we have planted over 150 fruit trees and shrubs, including 40 different species: banana, avocado, lime, coconut, pomegranate, and other exotics like cacao (chocolate pod), ojoche nut, jackfruit, nispero, surinam cherry, star apple, and many...
Feliz Año Nueve from ViVerde
I am amazed by how much Diane, Gerard, and Brett have accomplished in only one year (not alone, of course). This place is beautiful, way better than I expected. Because I was there during rainy season, everything was green and lush. Since my arrival mid-September I...