You might recall that I planted fruit trees in the wrong place on our chacra. I finally got around to transplanting them: pathetically poor root structure in the impermeable soil that turns from incredibly sticky mud in the winter to something resembling concrete in the summer.
I planted one each on the two piles left from the installation of the septic system, complete with wind protection with fencing and shade cloth I had on hand.
The only other shade cloth I had had stripes, so now we have this jaunty little display in our back yard. But this is by far the wettest year we’ve had here, and particularly bad for mold in houses and plants in the ground. Will they fare better in their new location?
A few kilometers from here, we have a vineyard and winery that produces exquisite wines: Viñedo de los Vientos (Vineyard of the Winds). Once a year they serve a gourmet meal with their wines, and it always seems to be very cold. Last year it was in April, at night, and they had huge and welcome bonfire and heaters in the covered area. This year it happened at noon, and not only was there no bonfire, neither did the propane heaters inside work, nor did they have the plastic windows that used to block the wind, and it was rainy and windy.
This picture, taken from where I sat, looking into the wind, illustrates the absence of at least five people who apparently made reservations and thought better of it, given the nastiness of the day. Fortunately I had a couple of knit caps in the car.
As usual, the menu was themed, meaning the same thing was served over several coarses, in this case lamb (cordero). It was delicious, and the company—a gringo and Uruguayan couple at our table—fun.
Teacher Pilar (our neighbor in the campo) measures out mycelium and shows us how to do mushroom farms in bags. Cool stuff!!
Well, OK, no badgers. Our last organic gardening class was all about growing mushrooms. In a plastic bag, I placed alternating layers of boiled wheat straw, and two types of white gunk of ‘shroom spores (because, given the choice of one or the other type of edible mushrooms, I replied “yes”), inoculated in wheat and sorghum.
Mycelium? I’ll get up to speed on this.
The problem is that now, equivalent of early December for you northern-hemispherians, trying to maintain germination temp of20-24°C (68-75.2°F) inside your single-brick uninsulated Uruguayan house presents, um, challenges.
I have found a solution, but it won’t arrive in time for this batch: ebay > temperature controllers > free shipping from Hong Kong / China. Build a little insulated enclosure, connect an incandescent light bulb inside to the TC and chau (ciao in Italian), let the electronics do the heavy lifting.
Worth pursuing: while any mushrooms (much less fresh) were scarce here when we arrived five years ago, you can usually buy fresh now, but freaking expensive.
The exercise triggered an avalanche of other “project” ideas: aquaponics, which involves in my case explorations of solar panels and related electronics (again, eBay), since interruption of grid electricity in the country is not an emergency in the eyes of those who fix it. Fish make for awesome fertilizer, but I don’t really want fish I’m raising to eat to become soil amendments because of an electrical outage.
One of these days I may actually DO something. Stay tuned 😉
When planning for a windmill, it seems a good idea to consider the height of the tower and the height of your storage tank, as well as the distance and the number of bends in the pipe between. Because, given enough resistance and a strong wind, you may end up with an outdoor shower.
Last year, we installed a windmill over the hand dug well at our chacra (small farm). I got an upgrade by taking a larger-than-quoted demo unit in place of a brand new one. Hey, why not, these things last a long time. They had to disassemble this unit; win-win. Almost: sometimes when you engage it, something sticks and the tail fin doesn’t go perpendicular to the rotation of the fan blades.
In other words, it does nothing. Which it did the other day.
And the something that sticks is way at the top. Where I have never ventured. But now it’s out of warranty, so up I went the wire ladder, consoling myself that it would at least make an awesome photo op.
Which it didn’t. Oh well.
The more I looked at the mechanism at the top, the less I could understand where the problem lay. Then I looked further up, and saw the tail fin perpendicular to the fan blades. In other words, the mechanism worked. But the windmill didn’t, given the unusual and complete absence of wind. Problem solved? Ya veremos. We will see.
Careful, kitty, the Great Dane has you in the focus of his transmogrification device!
We visited with our country neighbor, Mariana the veterinarian, who boards dogs and took in the lovely dog in the upper right, Benji, whom we rescued from a neighbor’s yard (with their permission; poor thing was on a 5-foot chain and yowling all day long in misery). Unfortunately, Benji has the people skills of a database technician (due apologies, yada yada), and during his last “interview” with an enthusiastic family with kids, walked away from them, curled up under a tree, and went to sleep.
Windmills that work, but don’t; dogs that are lovely, but aren’t. Must be a Zen thing.
And they were both males. So they got six more, expecting similar attrition (which hasn’t happened). And they’re more sociable than ever. As I was leaning on the gate talking to the neighbor, one, then another, then two more fluttered up next to me.
Then they all followed us back to our place, where one of these days I’ll get back to making kitchen cabinets. (Found a stainless steel 20-tube 150 liter solar hot water heater the other day for USD 675 🙂
Then we got back to town, wondering if we had really left a bag of garbage on a chair with the gate open? Last time we did that wandering dogs left a mess. But no, simply several kilos of oranges left for us by another Uruguayan friend.
After a delicious lunch inside this splendid pile of rock yesterday, we wandered around Carrasco.
I know what you’re thinking: Look at those buildings! We must be in South America!
Amazing dwellings seem to be the norm.
And look at this—a fixer-upper! Some paint, a little TLC, and …oh. Actually, I don’t like the look of the vertical steel “I” beam outside the front door. Maybe we’ll pass on this one.
Lovely day to have lunch with friends at the refurbished casino in Carrasco, the closest part of Montevideo for us suburbanites. Also a lovely neighborhood, a place I’d find desirable if I had to live in the city. (And wanted to spend a lot more than I do.)
After seeing this building empty for several years, it does my heart good to see it alive again.
Delicious meal, and we got the full 22% tax knocked off when I used my US Visa card, and paid in USD as priced on the menu, so no need to exchange to pesos. Sweet! The little things ….
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Plus we got to see not one, but two, full-sized plastic horses. With lamps sticking out of their heads.
Cuartel General de Bomberos, on the Plaza de los Treinta y Tres Orientales. Fire Department Headquarters. Today was t-shirt weather, the way it should be in March.
This is the strip of our land that borders the neighbor who advised me this would be good to fence off (hence the fence on the right) to provide passage to the back fields (the red arrow indicates the back end of our property). Unfortunately, he thus advised me afterI had planted fruit trees (white arrows) which have been doing not at all well in any event, given fierce sun and winds. You may recall that I was not able to fence the back of this strip (which is now fenced).
I was out there to cut the grass in this strip, when I fortunately stopped brush-hogging with the lawnmower just short of this, in a tangle of grass in a corner near the simbra.
Though not very conspicuous in the photo, this pile of wire trimmings (here pulled from the tall grass) were inches away from being discovered by the lawnmower blade when I spotted it. My neighbor came out to say hello and complained that the alambreros always do that, but I was impressed it was all in one place, and not strewn everywhere.
