Invisible Infrastructure: How We Build Our Lives Together

Invisible Infrastructure: How We Build Our Lives Together

Developing the physical infrastructure of our campus gets me up every morning. I don't need coffee nor an alarm clock; I'm just excited to keep building. Building the orchards and earthworks, furniture for my home, a better feeder for our chickens; these are the projects that rev my permaculture engine. They are concrete, you can see the results of your physical labor immediately, and they are often the first projects of burgeoning permaculture sites. It requires little effort to dedicate the time, space, resources and money to these projects. Yet their impact on the success of a project, despite all this dedication, pales in comparison to another type of infrastructure; the invisible infrastructure.

Top Ten Tips for the New Apprentices

Top Ten Tips for the New Apprentices

"Everyone is looking at my feet," I say to my dad.

"No they're not," he scoffs back. Sure enough, he glances sideways at a group of teenage girls eying my dirty toes clad in Chacos. 

We are not in the jungle any more. It's December in New York City, I am traveling on the subway with a large backpack, and five layers of sweatshirts, never having worn more than one at a time in the tropics. Fresh off the airplane, here I am with my exposed feet and disheveled appearance-- "Is she homeless?" the girls snicker.

Help Improve Workshop Access for Central Americans

Help Improve Workshop Access for Central Americans

Workshops, one of many forms of education, are expensive to organize, risky to run, and an immense amount of work to pull off and host well. They can also be transformational and inspirational for the participants and provide them with an amazing educational experience. We have been offering life-changing courses and classes in a vast array of areas related to sustainability for over 15 years

No Pickup, No Problem: Social Capital Trumps a Shitty Situation

No Pickup, No Problem: Social Capital Trumps a Shitty Situation

My hands are grappling the rumbling, rusty wheelbarrow handles, and as we walk half a mile through the village, everyone can hear the five Rancho apprentices clunk on through. In a village of 120 people, your whereabouts are everybody's business. Don't worry, I want to say, this will all make sense soon. They'll be having a chuckle by the end of the day. For now, we are five warriors defending alternative energy. We are making the best use of our woman power (and Dan power) when the white pickup truck is out of commission. We are going to pick up poop.

Farm to Table Tales

Farm to Table Tales

Good food takes time. I've heard this phrase many times before, but after nine months at the Ranch, I've truly come to understand what it means to me. The local Costa Ricans are called the Ticos. The Ticos live by the mantra "Pura Vida", which directly translates to pure life. This is indefinitely how they choose to live. "Tico time" is another phrase I've heard and come to understand here. Ticos work at their own pace, never feeling the need to hurry or stress at time. They are the happiest people I've ever met. The western way of life has much to learn from this, no more so than in the world of food. I have three stories to tell that I think shed perfect light on this matter.

Non-Traditional Education: Reconnecting to our Roots

Non-Traditional Education: Reconnecting to our Roots

Modern, conventional education systems do not work for everyone. They cater well enough to many of today’s students but not to a significant portion of the population that might be better served by alternative pedagogical approaches. In most countries, at the age of 4 or 5, or even younger, kids are shuffled into busy classrooms to learn subjects that will reportedly prepare them for a successful future. As our economies become less predictable, politics less appealing, and the environment ever more damaged, current educational models are losing traction with increasing numbers of people who recognize that the one-size-fits all approach to education is not working for our society.  

Making Microbes: Fungal vs Bacterial Soil Life

Making Microbes: Fungal vs Bacterial Soil Life

Organic gardeners and farmers understand the need to cultivate and protect soil microorganism life. The strategies to do this involve mulching, composting, and avoiding soil disturbance as much as possible. We know that these strategies, in addition to many others, encourage a healthy soil-food-web.

Build Your Skills: 2017 Workshop Series

Build Your Skills: 2017 Workshop Series

Our 2017 workshops exemplify the type of world we hope to shape. They train students to look at their landscape, shelter, and food with a new perspective; one that honors ecology and craft, that promotes a sense of place in an often disconnect world. We hope you will join us for one of these powerful courses.

The Peace in Knowing Yeast: How to Brew Your Own Ginger Beer

The Peace in Knowing Yeast: How to Brew Your Own Ginger Beer

I knew there was something wrong when the fraternity brothers put codeine in the keg, when my friends got so sick that they went splat, when thirteen year old me took a sip of every wine bottle in the house when mom and dad weren't looking and I felt like I had done something naughty. European culture is renown for serving alcoholic beverages to children, yet in the USA where I grew up, something about alcohol is taboo. The cultural history reflects just that. Alcohol in Native American early history is absent, contraband could put you behind bars or blind you, prohibition made speakeasies a mischievous and alluring excursion, and even today a cultural lag in how we enjoy alcohol still exists. 

The Art of Stacking Functions

The Art of Stacking Functions

Stacking functions. What does this phrase mean to you? It could mean any number of things depending on what you apply it to. In this case I'm referring to the term as it's used in permaculture. It is one of the primary principles of permaculture design. Here at the Ranch we employ as many of these principles as we can in our work and in our daily lives. 

Poop: The Secret to Sustainable Solutions

Poop: The Secret to Sustainable Solutions

Poop. Shit. Mierda. Caca. Crap. Boñiga. Excrement. Feces. Dung. There are countless ways to say what comes out of an animal’s body as solid waste. As most visitors to the Ranch realize soon after their arrival to Mastatal, we talk about poop more than the average learning center or household, and it’s not uncommon for it to be the center of a meal conversation.

Going Home: The Long Road Leaving Mastatal

Going Home: The Long Road Leaving Mastatal

The journey starts with a 5am wake up; just as the sunlight is starting to spread through the jungle. I take a couple deep breaths as I admire the beautiful place that I am in.I take a last look around, heave my heavy backpack on, and head down to make a cup of coffee before embarking on what will be a 36+ hour adventure back "home." I have done this journey multiple times now, from California to Costa Rica and back and forth, and each time presents new challenges and exhausting travel times.

Cultured Butter & the Culture of Butter

Cultured Butter & the Culture of Butter

When my dad was in third grade, his class followed the cirriculum laid out in a workbook. In times of boredom and monoteny, he would flip ahead and learn new material the class was soon to arrive at. One day he came across a particularly interesting bit: a tongue twister. My dad spent the next six weeks practicing the tongue twister in secrecy of his classmates until, finally, the class caught up to that point in the workbook. The teacher gave each student the opportunity to recite the tongue twister from the book, and each student who attempted this tongue twister stumbled through a slew of "Betty botta buddhas," until it was my dad's opportunity.

Lard, the new Super Food?

Lard, the new Super Food?

Everything we eat at the Ranch is homemade or made from scratch as we'd say on the east coast of the United States. It takes a lot of time, and is made with a lot of love, which makes it taste even better. Since I am someone who cares a lot about what is going into my body, I became very interested in how our food is grown, where it is coming from, and how it is being cooked.

How to Design, Plant, Maintain, and Feast from your Food Forest

How to Design, Plant, Maintain, and Feast from your Food Forest

When you visit the Ranch you will not find rows of squash, tomatoes and carrots as you might associate with a temperate climate organic farm. You won't find deep layers of topsoil. You won't find tractors and their associated implements. What you will find is an agriculture that blends pleasantly into the forest. To the untrained eye it may even be challenging to tell where the forest begins and the farm ends. This is because our agriculture is based on the ecology of the place we live. And we live in a tropical monsoon forest. Our agricultural practices, often cited as agroforestry or food forests in the permaculture jargon, mimic the forest around us.

Life with Limited Communications: How We Thrive with Crappy Internet

Life with Limited Communications: How We Thrive with Crappy Internet

I’m unable to answer all of the emails that I receive into my inbox everyday. Even though I do receive my fair share of electronic correspondence, my inability to reply to all messages is not likely a result of the inordinate amount of inquiries that I receive compared to many of you out there. The reason is that I live in a place with shitty Internet. 

Year of the Ear: Nursing in the Tropics

Year of the Ear: Nursing in the Tropics

The sun rises in Mastatal around 5:30 am, and with the light comes a symphony of sound. Buzzing, chirping, and humming act as constant and steady instruments to the jungle orchestra. Every morning without fail they fill the Hankey with music. In the comfort of my bed, I can hear the roosters crowing and a chorus of bird songs. This natural symphony signals the dawn of a new day. But recently many of the residents of Rancho Mastatal have been unable to hear this daily symphony. Tropical ear has literally blocked the music of the jungle.

Transition Ethics: The Art of Compromise

Transition Ethics: The Art of Compromise

Permaculture Design is many things to many people, but one of its pillars is a set of three ethics.  These as originally laid out by Bill Mollison are

  • Care of the Earth
  • Care of People
  • Redistribution of the Surplus

These are our primary directives for how to act to sustain the earth.  Or on a simpler level these are the ways to a good life.