Year of the Ear: Nursing in the Tropics

Year of the Ear: Nursing in the Tropics

Ashley is one of our 2016 Apprentices in Sustainable Living. She has a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of Florida. This post is about the challenges of nursing in the tropics, common ailments in the community and how these challenges are managed at Rancho Mastatal.  If you would like to learn more about medicine outside of hospital settings, consider joining us this June for our annual Wilderness First Responder Certification.

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.

Halfway through a bowl of breakfast pinto, a student from the visiting Villanova University approaches me with the familiar symptoms of hearing and ear discomfort. David had just returned from a trip to the local waterfall and fell victim to an ear full of trapped water. This condition is called swimmers ear and not ironically is also called tropical ear. What is a nurse to do in the tropics? No otoscope, no problem. Allow the ancient wisdom of observation to begin.

The best way to examine an ear is to pull the ear gently down and away from the face to straighten the ear canal. A headlamp is best for visualizing blockages. "If the gentle pulling of the ear causes pain, then the canal is infected.(1)" A simple recipe, despite limited resources, can be the front line defense for ear infections. "Drop into affected ear 1 spoon of vinegar with 1 spoon of boiled water 3 to 4 times a day. (2)" Fortunately, an ear infection is not what David has. My headlamp has spotted a crusted golden plug. "The ear canal cleans itself by moving dead skin from the eardrum out through the canal as if they were on a conveyor belt. Accumulated debris and earwax tends to trap water that gets into the ear canal during a shower or while swimming. The resulting wet, softened skin in the ear canal is more easily infected by bacteria and fungi. (2)"

David looks around nervously, aware his classmates are peering into his ear with me. Their faces scrunch up with amusement and wonder. David's ear needs to be irrigated. We sit at a bench around the corner and he comfortably lays down. I proceed to place 10 drops of mineral oil into his affected ear. His classmates are commenting on the size of David's golden wax build up.

If mineral oil is not present in your community any natural oil is a good substitute. The oil needs to be in the ear for 10 minutes to break up the earwax. With the help of his classmates' good company, the 10 minutes flies by. When you irrigate an ear, warm water is important. Using an irrigation syringe, I gently flush his ear. With his classmates on my heels, I feel them starting to lose hope as I continued to flush and flush. I gave his ear a grand finale flush and the golden treasures came pouring out. The "ohs" and "ahs" of his classmates shortly follow. David faces us with a look of confusion. "I can hear again!" He says remarkably as he catches a glimpse of the golden nuggets that left his ear. 

Nursing in a small community has its challenges. With limited resources you are forced to get crafty. Books supplement my medical knowledge. The realm of Google and quick answers is unavailable. The lack of privacy can be daunting; as the majority of treatments are centered around meal times. The main house is the keeper of the medical supplies and the maker of all meals. Still, when David full force hugs me, I can feel his appreciation osmose into my body, up to my face where it turns into a smile. He thanks me for opening his ears to the symphony he's been missing. I've learned in the short time I've been part of this community that together we are capable of some very amazing things. 

(1) Berkow, Robert M.D., The Merck Manual of Medical Info, 1997

(2) Werner, David. Where There is No Doctor: a Village Health Care Handbook, 1992.

Ashley Chow

NEWS AND NOTES

We have a number of life changing workshops coming up.

• The Art and Practice of Live Culture Fermentation--May 10th to 13th

• Wilderness First Responder--June 8th to 17th

• Sustainable Homestead Design--June 22nd to 26th

Please share around if you know anyone who is ready for a trip to beautiful Costa Rica, a swim in the waterfalls, nourished with homemade meals, and challenged with an intensive educational experience.

Abrazos,

The Ranch Crew

Extreme Food Processing: Flaming Nuts and Poison Ivy Spray

Extreme Food Processing: Flaming Nuts and Poison Ivy Spray

I was harvesting fruits down by the classroom this week when Jenny walked by with a line of high school students, en route for the river trail. She paused for a moment as she passed.

“We're roasting cashews at five tomorrow. Why don't you gather some from the ground here and bring them?”

As I nodded in reply, she kept walking, the line of students slowly disappearing into the trees.

I looked down at my harvest—a small sack of red lovi-lovis, pink water apples, and green peppercorns. Friendly faces of the fruit world, each one unique in form and function. The lovi-lovis bright and tart, the water apples soft and quenching, the peppers prized for their addictive pungency. Understanding each one's harvest, preparation, and usage is one of the true joys of farming and cooking; each new discovery a revelation in the subtle and powerful nuances of the life around us.

The cashews, though. The cashews were dangerous temptations.

I looked up from my harvest. The Ranch cashew trees were close enough that I could smell the fruits, softly sweet, with a piercing astringency. Cashews are mythical beasts of the fruit world, strangely formed in an unlikely combination of parts. The fruits themselves are soft and oval, and vary in size and color like apples do, most red or yellow. They have a soft, waxy skin and extreme juiciness—which ironically leaves your mouth completely dry when you bite into one, courtesy of the high quantity of astringent tannins. But the strangest part is the seed. Instead of hiding buried inside the fruit's flesh, the cashew seed dangles in a curved shell on the bottom of the fruit itself, like a tiny curled finger, beckoning and warning.

Each February and March at the Ranch, as soon as the first mythical cashew beasts begin to form and dangle from the trees at eye level, an urgent announcement is made to all apprentices, guests, and passersby: do not touch the cashew nuts or they will get you!! Like all mythical beasts, cashews come with a set of strange powers. In addition to the fruits sucking all the saliva out of your mouth when you eat them, the nuts are covered in urushiol, the same chemical substance that gives poison ivy its poison and people a terrifying rash when they touch it. Nuts nuts nuts!

I happen to be extremely allergic to lots of plants, including plain grass. My legs from the knees down still bear hundreds of poison oak scars. Urushiol is my nemesis, and I always lose our battles. So when Robin warned us about the cashew nuts' latent danger—don't touch them the wrong way, don't look at them the wrong way and above all else, don't try to roast them—I took the message to heart as fair warning and good advice. After all, this sound advice was preceded by experience: on the two occasions when people attempted to roast the nuts at the Ranch, both events ended in trips to the hospital for steroid injections. Swelling of the entire body after consuming urushiol is apparently even worse than itchy legs. “Robin had a cashew trauma,” Jenny later described it. Some fruits are better left untouched.

And yet. My friend Amanda who, bless her lovely heart, is afraid of nearly everything in the jungle, including insects, sounds, and rainstorms, happened to tell me just that morning that she was enjoying cashew processing with her four-year-old daughter Lily. “We just cooked them in the fire and then Lily broke open the nuts with a rock and they were really good,” she said. And then there was the time last year that we filled a whole sack full of cashew nuts from the driveway, and Junior was thrilled to lug the things back to his place to roast and eat. And of course the fact that there are cashew trees everywhere in Mastatal and everyone seems to eat them. Maybe it was time to try again.

The next morning at meeting I announced my plan to collect the nuts and bring them to Jenny and Marcos's to roast. A small sea of terrified faces looked back at me. “Its okay!” I said, “It's okay!” Having no idea if it would be okay or not, but hoping.

“For anyone that chooses to participate, we will help you in any way we can, but you will be responsible for the cost of your own transportation and hospital visit,” added Robin.

That afternoon I took a bag to the cashew tree patch, scavenged for fallen nuts, and thought about my future. Would it be bright? Painful? Delicious? It was easy to gather a good quantity of nuts in a half hour or so. I stuck them in a backpack along with a take-out container of salted Maya nut seeds to share. Just before leaving I asked Robin what part of the roasting process she had been allergic to. “The nuts, the utensils that handled the nuts, everything that touched the nuts, the smoke, and everything the smoke touched,” she said. I added a bottle of benadryl and an emergency inhaler to my backpack, and Rachel Jackson, Jess, and I set out walking to Marcos's.

When we arrived Arabela was sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch, and Chilo wandered up with a shovel in his hand. I could see smoke coming from behind the house, and Chilo pointed us around the corner.

There was Marcos, shirtless and stirring cashews over the fire with a very long stick. In front of him sat a small crowd of young tourists and volunteers, watching, chatting. Someone strummed a guitar. No one looked terrified or swollen. Jenny greeted us. Smoke wafted from the fire onto the crowd, and Rachel, Jess and I stepped back out of its reach. We explained our trepidation to Jenny, and she shook her head. “It's fine!” she said. “As long as the toxins spray out and burn up its no problem, its good.”

We handed Marcos our sack of cashews and he tossed them on a roofing sheet over the fire and poked them around with the stick. “You have to stir them until they pop,” he explained, “then they open and spray out all the toxins, and it runs into the fire and burns.” After a few minutes the cashews looked black and charred, and I heard the hiss and pop of shells breaking. Marcos pointed out the rivlet of liquid running off the roofing sheet onto the ground. Once he deemed that all the shells had opened, he dipped the end of the stick into the fire, and brought the burning tip up to the cashews. They ignited immediately, and burned like an enormous flambe. After a minute or so Marcos told us to step back, and he flipped the roofing sheet with the flaming nuts onto the ground, where they burned out in the dirt. Jenny used a stick to gather them into a pile and brought them over to us. They were completely charred, the husks burned through. She put one on a rock and tapped it with a piece of wood. The husk fell off, and she picked up the nut. A cashew! Golden brown, with one end toasted slightly black. “If its wet, and bends, don't eat it, its got the toxins,” she said, pressing the nut between her fingers. “This is good.” She handed it to me to eat. It was warm, and tasted sweet and tender-crisp.

We spent the rest of the evening by the fire, cracking open cashews and passing around May nuts. The Maya nut, also called ojoche or ramon, is a native rainforest tree that produces an edible, high-protein nut. The week before, Jenny accompanied us deep into the forest in Zapaton to track down one of the last known mature trees in the area. We hope that by valuing the Maya nuts as a food source and the trees that produce them, we will help drive sustainable food economies that are financially viable and promote conservation of forest ecosystems.

One of Marcos's volunteers took a Maya nut and popped it in his mouth. He looked at Marcos poking another roaring ball of fire on the roofing sheet. “If cashews were in the states people would go crazy, there'd be like cashew parties every year or something. Its so cool!” He took another Maya nut. “What are these, these are good?”

Around dusk it began to rain, and we crowded under the awning of Marcos's house, snacked on Maya nuts, and talked about the cashews. Marcos explained the differences in varieties and processing techniques. We concluded that the Ranch Cashew Trauma was probably a consequence of ingestion of un-combusted urushiol and a serious allergy to it. Even though Marcos made it all look easy, the complete combustion of the toxins in cashew nuts is an extreme food processing technique honed by many seasons of experience. I certainly won't be roasting them by myself any time soon. But hopefully Marcos and Jenny will let us continue to celebrate the season with them in years to come.

A Ranch guest recently asked me why local food traditions are important in Mastatal. Why trek into the jungle to gather rainforest seeds? Why feel the adrenaline spike of watching someone combust toxic nuts in a ball of fire? Why prepare three meals a day from local foods--no boxes, bags, or can openers involved? Why do we do this, and why is it important?

Food is constant. It builds us, it forms us, it unites us. Sustainable food systems are the heart of resilient communities and regenerative ecosystems. If you can do this one thing—food--on a sustainable community scale, everything else will follow. Community cohesion, local economies, conservation of diverse ecosystems, health and wellness, celebration—all fall into place as we create successful, vibrant local food systems. Its not just about the flaming nuts, its about the whole picture, and that's why it worth it.

Laura Killingbeck

NEWS AND NOTES

We have a number of life changing workshops coming up.

• The Art and Practice of Live Culture Fermentation--May 10th to 13th

• Wilderness First Responder--June 8th to 17th

• Sustainable Homestead Design--June 22nd to 26th

We rely on all of the amazing ambassadors to our project to spread the word; if you know of anyone who needs a get-life-into-gear experience, send them to one of our classes!

Abrazos,

The Ranch Crew

Transition Ethics: The Art of Compromise

Transition Ethics: The Art of Compromise

By Scott Gallant

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.

Teaching these ethics during our annual Permaculture Design Certification (PDC) course is one of my favorite topics.  It inevitably brings up pointed and challenging conversations, commonly around how to live these ethics in a world that often does not care for the earth, nor its people. How do we live and design for today’s world and for the parallel world we want to create?  This discussion leads to fear and anger based responses, a tear-it-down approach easy to rally around in a classroom of like minded, fed up and passionate souls.  Unsurprisingly, this is not an effective route for change.  It became apparent to our teaching team that this conversation on ethics lacked a route to speak about compromise.  To fill this gap we utilize a fourth ethic in our PDC curriculum; the Transition Ethic.

The Transition Ethic is a guide for how to be effective in creating change. In their recent book Practical Permaculture (one of the few references to the Transition Ethic in permaculture) Jessi Bloom and Dave Boehnlein state that “the transition ethic says that no one is going from zero to sustainable overnight. Making the transition takes time.” We have to meet people where they are at.  We must understand their cultural context.

When I first began learning about the industrial food system and what it was doing to our personal and environmental health, I was angry.  I desperately avoided all participation in that system.  This was easier to embrace while living and working at the Ranch, a NuMundo impact center. But it was challenging when I returned to my parents’ home during the holidays.  While they eat healthy by many standards, I was disappointed to find apples from Chile, processed meats, and corn-syrup fueled snacks around the kitchen.  It was not a local food paradise by any means, so I jumped on my soapbox and preached.  They needed to support local economies and take care of their bodies!  Didn’t they care about the amount of pesticides used on those tomatoes?!

They responded with kindness and listened, like the wonderful parents they are, but were likely rolling their eyes in the background, and not much changed.  A few years latter though, when I was able to show them how excited I was to manage a farm in Costa Rica, bake my own bread, and build my own furniture.  I began to see them make real changes.  As soon as my ideas came from a place of positive examples versus negative critiques the transition began for them. Their garden as expanded, they save and share more and more seeds every year, and the kitchen has a few more jars of ferments upon my home arrival.

This instilled in me that even though I was ready to change, the world around me operated at a different pace. So the question became: how do I navigate the series of compromises needed to encourage change?  The original three ethics of permaculture speak to this in varying ways, but they don’t provide a road map as clearly as an ethic of transition. For me it is a road map of humility, recognizing that we are all coming from different places and we can’t begin to guess the context of others’ lives.

The Ranch is one of the leading natural building centers in the Americas.  Yet, we still use concrete in our foundations and metal on our roofs.  We don’t love the environmental impact of either of these materials, but we have done the due diligence to know that they make the most sense in our current context.  These are compromises we must make in order to protect our infrastructure investments from rain, earthquakes, termites, and the tropical climate.  This infrastructure allows us to operate as a world-class education center, without it our livelihood and mission fails.  It is a compromise we must make.

The Transition Ethic makes it clear that these compromises are ok and often necessary.  The key take away that I share with our students is that we can never compromise our ethics but we can make ethical compromises.

Most of us use fossil fuels, don’t eat only local organic food, and participate in a globalized economy.  We may wish this wasn’t true, but this is the world we live in; and it requires an art of compromise.  So how do we make choices and design our lives for the current world and the one we are creating and visioning for the future?

Permaculture design is one tool at our disposal to navigate these waters (primarily through good design of our lives, homes, and land) and with a Transition Ethic in place it becomes an even more robust tool.

Learn more

We have a number of life changing workshops yearly.

We rely on all of the amazing ambassadors to our project to spread the word; if you know of anyone who needs a get-life-into-gear experience, send them to one of our classes!

Abrazos,

The Ranch Crew

Tips for Working with Tropical Soils

Tips for Working with Tropical Soils

Lydia is one of our 2016 Apprentices in Sustainable Living. She has studied Horticulture and has a Bachelor of Environments (Landscape Architecture) from the University of Melbourne in Australia. She is super keen on plants and the fundamental relationship between plants and soil. Healthy soil is the key to healthy plants. This post is about soil in the tropics, including some of the challenges that exist and how these challenges are managed at Rancho Mastatal.  

Sacha Inchi before a heavy mulch application.

Soil, the ever fascinating topic to any garden guru or green thumb. Here at the Ranch it's all about topsoil, which is basically non-existent. The little soil that is present has a high clay content making it particularly susceptible to compaction. It is also highly acidic. The combination of the two means that without any additives it would be challenging to grow anything at all. So we've devised a number of methods to build up the topsoil, break up the clay and raise the pH throughout our orchard and garden spaces. These methods can be used anywhere in the world to improve your soil.

The same plants as above after a healthy mulch cover.

First and foremost, topsoil! How do we do it? The majority of nutrients in the jungle ecosystem are stored in plants. When nutrients become available plants are quick to soak them up because there is stiff competition when living in such close proximity to your neighbors. This means that plant biomass is an incredibly rich and abundant source of nutrients. Plant biomass refers to all plant material, living and dead including leaves, trunks and branches. The main way we utilize this biomass is what Scott refers to as "doughnut" mulching, basically forming circular doughnuts of plant material around the base of our fruit and nut trees. This mimics nature by following the 'top-down' approach that allows microorganisms to move the material down. It is important to note that mulch should never touch the trunk of your trees because this will cause rot. A 5 inch radius between trunk and mulch is a good aim.

Another method used in zone 1 to improve soil quality is to bury pieces of wood under the soil in our garden beds. The wood acts like a sponge, retaining water throughout the dry season and, reducing compactness in the wet season by aerating the soil. It also provides habitat for microorganisms, crucial for plant health and growth.  Our garden beds are mulched regularly with dead leaves collected from the forest floor to retain moisture in the soil, reduce weed growth and add nutrients.  This is known as Hugulkulture.

Now, onto soil pH, the next big topic around soil in the tropics. There are 6 cooking methods used at the Ranch, 3 of which rely on wood, the rocket stove, the biochar stove and the pizza oven (read here for more about our alternative cook stoves). With 3 meals per day, 6 days a week being pumped out of our kitchen, you can imagine how much charcoal and ash we produce. Instead of simply disposing of this alkaline-rich bi-product we add it to our soil. 

Charcoal is a carbon-rich soil additive, that adds alkalinity to the soil, raising the pH. It has a high surface area on a microscopic level which means it is capable of storing water and nutrients in the soil, making it a valuable additive in both the dry season when water is required and the wet season when nutrients are required. The addition of charcoal also aerates the soil and breaks up the clay. It is essential to note that when adding charcoal to soil it must be soaked in a nitrogen solution first, such as compost/ worm tea. This will ensure it doesn't lock up precious nutrients from the soil. Ash is similar to charcoal but much finer. It also adds alkalinity to the soil, raising the pH. Limestone is another soil additive used to raise the pH and up the alkalinity. We spread lime around the base of our fruit and nut trees, vines and shrubs. 

Lime applied to a raised garden bed.

Nitrogen is one of the most important soil nutrients and in order to produce good crops, nitrogen is essential. What better way to introduce nitrogen into the soil than with nitrogen fixing plants. These plants produce "cake & cookies" i.e. sugars in the soil that attract nitrogen fixing bacteria. These bacteria are capable of using these sugars to convert nitrogen gas in the soil into a plant soluble form, accessible to the surrounding plants. Believe it or not, plants control this process depending on how much nitrogen they feel they need.T he more sugars the plants produce, the more sugars the bacteria consume, converting this sugar into nitrogen for the plants. It's an incredible natural process! The nitrogen fixers most extensively used here are Acacia mangium, Shizolobium paryhybum, and Madero Negro, all of which are trees. We also use peanut grass, a spreading ground cover. Most plants in the Leguminosae family can be used as nitrogen fixing plants. 

Making Biochar with a TLUD System.

Potting soil is another essential part of our plant operation here. The recipes used for potting soil change depending on what's available and required. One of the recipes we use is 2 parts forest soil plus 2 parts worm farm compost plus 1 part sifted builders sand. We collect the forest soil from the forest floor where a build up of plant material is prevalent e.g. a puddle, low point or valley. This is where nutrients gather because soil and small plant material is deposited (read here how we cultivate mountain microorganisms). The worm farm compost is a bi-product from our bio-digester system. This waste treatment system converts cow manure into methane gas, while leaving the fibrous material behind for the worm farm. The key to a great potting soil is to balance soil pH and ensue there is a rich source of matured compost where microorganisms thrive. 

So there you have it, the challenges and of course the fun of soil in the tropics! Creating and enhancing topsoil, balancing soil pH, in this case raising it, balancing the clay content of your soil and making nutrient rich potting soil. I hope you can take some of these tips away and enrich your soil wherever you are. Here's to happy soil and abundant plants.

Lydia Blocksidge

NEWS AND NOTES

We have a number of life changing workshops coming up.

• Permaculture Design Certification

• The Art and Practice of Live Culture Fermentation-

• Wilderness First Responder

We rely on all of the amazing ambassadors to our project to spread the word; if you know of anyone who needs a get-life-into-gear experience, send them to one of our classes!

Abrazos,

The Ranch Crew

How We Bee

How We Bee

We took a handsaw and a chisel to the football field the other day. Not the most common tools for that space, but exactly what we needed for the beekeeping job. Nestled up in the bamboo of the field shed,a low hum of busy bodies was stirring our curiosity: little bees. They have been living in that hive for quite some time, but on that day, the bees were on their way to a new home. I looked onward smugly as Esteban sawed out a piece of the public structure, because nobody in the back country of Costa Rica is going to stop you for something like that. Does it make us vandals? We jokingly called Esteban Winnie, for the Pooh Bear style honey thievery that we were getting into.

Names can be misleading, as nothing is set in stone. Names are just our mind's attempt to label things in order to make sense of our environments, which often appear to be in complete chaos. We must define these things. Take the bees for example. There are two types of bees in the world: bees that sting, and bees that don't sting. The Meliponi genus of bees, which we were investigating at the field, has been named the "stingless bee" (or "abeja sin aguijon" in "espanol"), insinuating that this characteristic sets the bee apart from other bees. Most bee species, however, have not evolved stingers, the way many colony dwelling bees have. There are hundreds of species of bees worldwide pollinating the majority of plants, but they go unnoticed because nobody learned to fear them. The honeybee, for example, is renown in part for its sting, but also for producing a rich, syrupy delicacy coveted by numerous creatures of the global biome. "Honeybee"-- why, that name insinuates that this bee is somehow special from other bees. This is where words have fallen short, because again, honeybees are not the only bees to produce honey. Meliponi bees have been producing honey for millenia, and though their presence globally is about fifty times greater than that of honeybees, honeybees have gotten about fifty times as much research and attention as Meliponi. It is only recently that more attention is being granted to these ecological keystones.

Meliponi bees hold a large presence in Costa Rica. Every now and again on the Ranch landscape, a little pipette appears. This is the entrance to a Meliponi hive made from wax and propolis. Meliponi live in cavities, such as hollowed tree trunks, but they're also keen to bamboo cells and manmade walls. We find them in our bamboo framed structures, like the Hooch and the garage, and in the wall of Jeannie's bunkhouse, but they very often go unnoticed. They are masters of flying under the radar. Mariolita, or Tetragonisca angustula , is the bee at the football field, and one of the smallest of stingless bees at 3- 4mm long. They are generalist pollinators, meaning they can pollinate a wide variety of plants. The bees are an asset of multifaceted benefits. They build orchard productivity, provide an indicator to ecological health, produce medicinal honey, and strengthen our awareness of our relationship to the environment.

We opened the hive at the field using a handsaw and a chisel, and we were no longer vandals or robbers, we were ecologic explorers, because the contents of such a hive are so rarely seen by human eyes. The intelligence of the bees to produce such sound and creative architecture in darkness is a wonder. Tiers of brood chambers, honey pots, pollen chambers, and a network of highways ramping within alluded to the bees' high degree of evolution. They are eusocial, meaning they cooperate impeccably, as each hive is viewed as a single organism. Such an organism falls under the natural laws of reproduction, which is just what we came out that day to do.

Call us ecological explorers, but I'd say we were just being resourceful. We took the nursery of the hive, the place most likely to contain the queen, and placed it in a bee box, along with some honeypots for food. We closed the box back up, sealed until the day when we access the hive again without the need for handsaws or chisels. We harvested a little bit of honey, but left most of it for the bees. Then, we took the bees and their box back to our newly renovated bee barn. They promptly began building a new pipette for their hive, an indication that the queen was leading the bees in their business as usual.

The bee box is currently surrounded by dozens, if not 100's, of flowering plants. From herbaceous ground covers and ornamentals, to the bananas, fruit trees, and forests, the abundance of resources for bees is obvious. Within a few hours, new honey pots had already appeared inside the box. Bees are industrious little creatures, and their presence works with mutual benefit to the health of our orchard spaces. Many flowering trees produce more flowers when there is a greater chance of pollination. More flowers means more fruits, and more fruits means we can maintain a sovereign food system. More fruit means our kitchen is stocked with pejibayes, coconuts, water apples, and biribas, and so many more fruits whose pollination I have yet to witness.

Call us resourceful, but I'd say we're just propagating life. This summer, the Ranch is approaching bee propagation from a new angle. We are building boxes from wood or bamboo that can serve as bee hives. When a bit of wax and propolis from an old hive are speared around the box, new queen bees are enticed to start building their colonies inside. The bee barn is decked out with one new bee hive, soon to be many more, if the queen capturing season is successful. The next few months classify the beginning of swarming season, so lone queens will be on the search for cavities. The queens will go on to produce workers, and the workers will pollinate trees, and the trees will produce fruits, and the nectar and pollen will produce more bees, and the fruits will be laden with seeds to grow more trees. And while all of this is happening, we humans will look onward with fascination, here and there harvesting fruits and honey, all the while taking notes on what it means to be a part of such an effective, cooperative community.

Call us vandals, call us robbers. Call us ecological explorers, or life propagators, or just curious creatures. I think we are just working harmoniously with the systems of our planet, and through our work, becoming more aware of how we impact the living environment. 

Dorothy Farrell

News and Notes

We have a number of amazing workshops coming up.

• Permaculture Design Certification--April 17th to May 1st

• The Art and Practice of Live Culture Fermentation--May 10th to 13th

• Wilderness First Responder--June 8th to 17th

• Sustainable Homestead Design--June 22nd to 26th

 We rely on all of the amazing ambassadors of our project to spread the word; if you know of anyone who needs a life changing experience, send them to one of our classes!

Abrazos,

The Ranch Crew

Re-plastering: What will be unveiled?

Re-plastering: What will be unveiled?

On the building list, one of our goals is to correctly re-plaster old structures to enhance their look and highlight our unique architecture. Over the last couple years we have slowly been giving our old structures new face lifts. Using lime plaster techniques that we have been learning, practicing and perfecting, we have transformed various run down plasters into beautiful canvases of art.

This process of remodeling never fails to reveal a variety of problems and headaches. We have learned that you never know what will be exposed once you start to take apart a wall for re-plastering and patching. So, as we have been going back to old structures to prepare for a face-lift we have encountered many different troubles due to past techniques.

In order to apply a new lime plaster you must remove all material from the wall that seems loose or may not allow the lime to adhere well. This is done by chiseling off old plaster materials, which can lead to more of the wall falling apart than planned. Once you’ve taken off the old materials you must go back and fill in the gaps created in this process; which can be a lot of gaps! The quality of the original wall is a big determining factor in how quickly (or not so quickly) this whole process will take. Therefore determining the amount of time a project will take is extremely difficult; you can make an estimated guess, but depending on what you uncover the estimate can change drastically. As in any remodeling job you just never know.

You can tell the difference between the walls that were built patiently with skill to those hurried by the physical amount of material falling off. There are a variety of reasons why there is so much variation in the quality of our walls, but we believe it is mostly due to the transient workforce that was utilised to build many of these structures. High school groups, short term volunteers, and so forth have built much of our campus. Lessons learned during one construction project were not always carried over to the next due to this lack of consistency. It resulted in a huge variety of quality and decisions were made that in reflection were not the best.

During our long evolution we have tried many different earth building methods, mixtures, materials, and tricks with varied success. For example, our previous wattle and daub methods used little bamboo wattle support meaning that the earth mixture didn’t have enough support and the walls ended up being a little wobbly. Now we have moved to weaving many bamboo strips between the uprights, spacing them about one half inch apart rather than a few inches. Our earth mixture has changed through the years as well, experimenting with the ratios of clay to sand, the additions of manure, different straws, and other materials that we were told would make the mix better. We went through a phase of adding manure to our earth mixes and applying a “poo schmer” as a plaster. Looking back the additions of manure possibly led to a weaker final mix and the schmer although an effective plaster was not ultimately what we wanted aesthetically. It has since proven difficult to remove in order to apply a finish that we actually want. We didn’t realize the importance of compressing the edges of your walls, which have resulted in cracks around the edges of our wattle and daub panels; or the importance of bridging between two different materials (eg. wood to be covered by earth).

Over the years there have been many different techniques used and we believe for the moment that we have developed the mixes, techniques, and materials that get the job done efficiently and create great looking walls and structures. Among other plastering projects the main one for this year is to re-plaster the Casucha inside and out, using a method called “poor man's” tadelakt on the inside and a sponge floated exterior. Stay tuned for pictures of the finish!

Ali O​  

Business Guilds and Micro-Enterprise Niches

Business Guilds and Micro-Enterprise Niches

No one who works at the Ranch expects this to be a lucrative career--that's not why we get up in the morning. But we do recognize the need to earn a living that provides basic resources. . As a small business that routinely puts people and planet above profits, providing for all our team members financially has been a challenge. So we've looked toward permaculture design to inspire us, turn problems into opportunities, , and use nature as our model to find creative financial solutions.

Guilds and Niches

The permaculture concepts of guilds and niches inspired us to create a set of business guilds and niche micro-enterprises. Last year we implemented organizational (invisible) structures that allow and support each Core Team member to pursue their own micro-enterprise. Each of these enterprises is a small business which is independent of the Ranch but still greatly interconnected. This is what Toby Hemenway, in his new book The Permaculture City, refers to as a Business Guild. He defines these “as a set of independent enterprises that are tied together by connections among some of their needs and yields.”

This is a strategy mimicking the plant polyculture guilds we employ in the garden. An intentional grouping of plants can support one another to create better growing conditions or cycling surplus/waste products amongst each other. These enterprises complement and support each other and the existing umbrella organization of the Ranch in this same pattern.

The overall hope is that each micro-enterprise can bring in additional income for Core Team members, while still supporting activities at the Ranch . For instance, if I attract a client (a pollinator) for our design consulting work and they are happy with the outcome (yield), it is highly likely they will visit the Ranch as a guest (positive feedback loop), and perhaps send an employee to get trained in our Permaculture Design Course (yield). All the while I gain more experience as a permaculture designer, and can be a better instructor for our students and apprentices (multiple functions). Everyone wins (supported by multiple elements).

Each of these enterprises fills a niche or opportunity that the larger Ranch organization is unable to take advantage of. In this way, each business shapes the economic micro-climate of the others by attracting more potential clients or customers. In addition, they all share resources, such as our brand and website, store space, farming and workshop tools, and vehicles. These businesses do not compete with each other, but complement and enhance the entire guild by filling different niches.

Current micro-enterprises include:

• Forest Fusion Herbal Products

• Rancho Mastatal Design/Build Collective

• Wood Art, Jewelry, and Cutting Boards

• Perennial Tree Crops Nursery

Design Consulting

The Rancho Mastatal Design/Build Collective (RMDBC) is a landscape design and natural building consultation service founded by Rachel Jackson, Nic Donati, and myself in 2014. Since then we've slowly been accepting clients and projects around Costa Rica and the globe.

As our website states:  We specialize in helping clients find the balance between meeting the needs of the land and accomplishing their own goals. From a quick consultation about edible plants for your home garden, to full scale site analysis and master planning for your property, RMDBC can help you create a productive and beautiful landscape.

Last year we worked in Costa Rica, Panama, and Fiji, providing advice and plans on reforestation efforts, timber plantations, cacao agroforestry, crops for production, and homestead design. We are beginning to accept a limited number of clients for 2016 and are excited about the conversations that are happening already.

We genuinely believe that our work can move projects months if not years ahead by filtering out unnecessary steps and focusing on the strongest leverage points. We treat our services as a farm input that demands a return on investment, and expect that our advice will save our clients money in the medium and long run. In particular we love talking through landscapes and possibilities with clients, and using our experience as a sieve to arrive at that perfect plan between our subjective goals and the objective lay of the land.

RMDBC consultation work helps further the overall mission of the Ranch as an educational facility by broadening our experience and reach. It also supports and is supported by the other Ranch micro-businesses: at the Ranch clients can see and purchase clear examples of high quality products like medicinal salves, spices, teas, coffee, and hand crafted wood products that are all made from plants grown locally or from out own agroforestry systems. This demonstrates the full circle of our work, from design and implementation to final product.

Right Livelihood

Our hope in creating these invisible structures and enterprises, is that all our Core Team members are able to complement and enhance their earnings from the main Rancho Mastatal business. This diversity of economic opportunities is a safety net for our livelihoods. While hardly unique to permaculture, all of the concepts we are exploring fit eloquently with the principals of permaculture: “diversity is dynamic stability;” “support important functions with many elements;” and “creative problem solving” can all be applied to both tangible and intangible challenges. Taking these principals out of the physical realm and into the social and economic domains will be one of the great opportunities for our team as we seek to strengthen our financial livelihoods in the years ahead.

We continue to put permaculture into practice at Rancho Mastatal and if you'd like to learn more about how we do so, consider joining us for our upcoming Permaculture Design Certification course this April 17th, 2016!

Scott Gallant

Reflections on 15 years of Rancho Mastatal: Third Trimester Newsletter 2015

On November 1, the Ranch celebrated it's 15th birthday.  In Costa Rica, and in many parts of Latin America, a girl's “quinceañera” marks her passage to womanhood.  In similar ways, our 15th birthday feels like a transition to the next important stage of our existence.  As for many humans, our first decade and a half was characterized by a lot of experimentation and a sometimes reckless navigation of our environment.  We fortunately had people in our community acting as parents and guiding us to decisions that did not lead to our extermination.  Now that we have survived this first stage of life, our “crystal anniversary” marks the next phase of our development and one that we hope will be characterized by compassion, intelligence, leadership, determination, empathy, strength, honesty and confidence.  Our organizational structure continues to streghthen as our teaching methodologies become more effective and consistent.  We are learning how to take better care of our ourselves and everyone that we work with while implementing systems that provide for us in ways that also care for the earth.  We are taking confident and measured steps to better share with others what we have learned while working to develop systems that will provide financially for the members of our community.  It can all be a delicate balance at times and our talented team gets better each day at moving forward in a way that we hope is fairer and more effective for all involved.  We're currently studying the advantages of a goverance structure called Sociocracy or Dynamic Goverance and an associated decision-making stategy called “consent”.  We've also been learning about a process named Non-Violent Communication (NVC).  We're excited about the possibilities that these new ideas will provide us  in the future and would encourage anyone interested in the type of lifestyle that we have chosen to check them out in more depth.  

With this year coming to a close, we're gearing up for another busy season in Mastatal.  Our calendar and priorities are mostly set with Greenwood College School out of Toronto kicking off the new season once again in early January.  Our year-long apprenticeship starts closely on the heels of this high school visit with Aerie returning at the end of the month to run their annual Wilderness Medicine Semester.  We'll be busy and engaged with educational programs, work in the orchards and building projects and look forward to our best year yet.  I'd like to thank our stateside family and friends for making our visit so special again this year.  Without this downtime each fall, it's hard to imagine keeping our energy intact for our work in the rainforest.  We look forward to everyone's continued support and wish you all a wonderful holiday season and new year.    

This month's update includes:

Program News: Winterline
Building: Natural Building Update for 2016
Farm: Main House/Zone 1 Redesign: Looking at the Spaces Between
Food: Fruit and Vegetable Storage Tips
Community: Folk Music and Resiliency
Apprentice/Guest Contribution: Zen and the Art of Bio-D Maintenance
Kitchen:  Cheesy Buttermilk Biscuits
Inspirational Impressions: Compassion

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Program News

Winterline

Learning and teaching hard skills, such as sharpening a machete, are increasingly important part of our educational programming.  Winterline, an organization with whom we worked together for the first time in November, shares our goal in helping to enpower future generations to deal with the challenges of our times.  The group of 16 gap year students engaged in a host of activities while at the Ranch with their two focuses being permaculture design and natural building.  Ranch instructors NIC DONATI and SCOTT GALLANT led up the instruction for this group.  Following is a wonderful article written by one of the Winterline students about her experience at the Ranch.

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Rancho Mastatal took me by sweet surprise. When we arrived, I can’t remember what I thought. All I knew was we’d be learning about soil and shit like that. I left high expectations behind and prepared myself for another week in the jungle.

Scott, an Ohio native with hair that made me ache for highlights (once a fake blonde always a fake blonde), was the first staff member we met. He introduced us to Jeanne’s Bunk House where we’d be sleeping for the next eleven days and laid out an orientation of sorts. I remember him saying he hoped Rancho Mastatal would be our favorite partner of Winterline, and that, if we let it, it could change our lives. I can remember feeling sort of bad for him for a second. Thinking, hmm. Ya, no.

Good to know my assumptions were not only unjustified but completely off. I’m a lot more interested in soil than I expected. Permaculture to be more specific.  And, though I don’t expect to change my livelihood overnight, there’s a lot I learned here that I will take back home with me. The big picture being: caring about our earth matters. And if you allow yourself to sit back and watch people like Scott, Nic, Doro, Jacob (the list goes on) do what they do, you gain a new perspective and appreciation for the sustainability of this planet we share. And how little changes and little impacts truly matter.

Yeah, so I walk away with permaculture. But, I walk with more than that. In one week, the Rancho gave us a home. I read through three books (a love I lost along the way through life in academia, ironically) and wrote a poem that didn’t end in a massive scribble-y blob. I woke up early to milk the goats, not because I had to, but because I actually felt at peace with Fern and Agnus. I felt the difference in energy from getting a full eight hours – if not more – of sleep each night. I ate really good, really healthy food straight from the earth. I fell asleep in hammocks and walked through waterfalls and rivers. I even started to appreciate my bare and dirty feet, and I really hate my feet.  I haven’t had make up on in weeks. Mountains of bug bites cover my arms and legs. My hair is always in a bun because I have no idea what else to do with it. But, I feel like myself. An unfamiliar version of myself, but myself nonetheless.

And I like to think I walk away with a friend. Someone who, a year younger than I am, seems wise beyond her years. Someone who brought a lot of experience and value to our conversations, but would genuinely listen as well. A kind of reciprocity you don’t find often. We swapped stories about the music we listen to, talked about group dynamics and living in small communities, and best of all, I thought, we talked about finding the sweet spot. And if she ever reads this she’ll know exactly what I mean. Thanks Jessy.

Nic said that if I applied for an apprenticeship at Rancho Mastatal I would be accepted; he wants me to come back. And that, as Junot Diaz puts it, made the blood do jumping jacks in my head. Because I really fell in love with this place. I would love to come back. I thought, well, what if I do? What if I spend another year outside of the U.S.? That would be incredible, right?

Then I think about my favorite café (yes this is my thought process).  I have a lot of favorite cafes. I think about how I always feel a ping of curiosity when I see a “We’re Hiring” sign in the window. I should work here, I say. Why wouldn’t I want to work at my favorite café?

Because it would absolutely ruin every single reason it was your favorite café in the first place.

And part of me feels the same way about Rancho. Right now, it’s perfect just the way I see it. And maybe that’s enough. Chances are I’ll think about it. But, I’ve got a long way to go. My hope is, when I get home in May, I have a million strings pulling me in a million different directions. And, as stressful as that will be, I can choose my fate. I will have options. And that’s the best kind of confusion I could ask for.

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Building

Natural Building Update for 2016

2016 marks an exciting year for Rancho Mastatal in the natural building realm.  We hope to run our first ever extended Natural Building Certificate when we will be building a structure in between Jeanne’s Bunkhouse and the classroom.  The idea of this new structure is to provide alternative guest accommodations that are more on the conventional style, to allow smaller groups to be housed in this structure (there will be potential room for 12 students), or to be used for teacher accommodations nearer the bigger group in Jeannie’s.  This additional structure will give us a bit more flexibility with housing.  Currently at the Ranch we  have 4 core team members in additional to Timo, Robin and Sole.  This has lead to many of the smaller structures being almost permanently occupied. This has meant that despite the vast infrastructure that the Ranch has developed over the last 15 years, in the high season, we still never seem to have enough beds!  

With the evolution of the apprenticeship, which is now lasting one year, it is also means that the Hankey is coming under pressure to comfortably house all of the apprentices.  Whilst originally the open and spacious Hankey was perfect for people staying less than a few months, it has now gone under several renovations to make it more appealing for people to stay for the longer-term.  As we strive for more stability in both the apprenticeship crew and the core team it has become evident that people need a bit more of their own space and privacy.  After all, in the high season, we frequently have 40 or more people at the Ranch.

As we try to predict the housing needs of the future, we also have to try to meet the needs of the present!  As Sole has gotten older, it has also become increasingly necessary for her to have her own space.  As a result, after a few years hiatus, we will be hosting a Timber Frame course in January 2017.  The course will build a frame that will adjoin the Choza, providing Sole with her own, overdue bedroom.  It will be great to have Lizabeth and Skip back down at the Ranch as it has been too long since since we were able to host them and the TF course!

This year the core team spent a significant amount of time developing our mission, vision, goals and objectives.  We identified over 15 building projects that we all wanted to happen and spent time trying to prioritize these buildings for the next few years.  It became apparent that with our current capacity (money, labor, skills etc.) we were not really able to finish more than two buildings a year.  As a result, some buildings have had to be shelved for at least a few years.

It doesn’t seem that long ago that we talked about how we believed that the Ranch's infrastructure was almost complete and that we could finally slow down on the building front.  In a way that is true.  The infrastructure that the Ranch has is fantastic and has been developed over such a long time but perhaps there is something inside that always wants more.  Perhaps it is one of my greatest flaws or perhaps one of my greatest assets that I continually want to improve things.  Yes, it worked having just one kitchen to do everything but it is going to be better with two! Yes, teachers can stay in the Hooch when their students are in Jeanne's, but it may be better for them to be closer by!  Sure, the Hankey worked fine with no visual barriers, but it is more comfortable with dividing walls!  

As we move forward with the development of the Ranch's infrastructure we have to continually ask, “How does this all fit within our definition of sustainability?”  It is definitely not sustainable to keep expanding.  Part of the reason that our species is in such a pickle is because of that attitude, continued expansion when our resources are finite.  It is something we think about all the time and we try to weigh the positives with the negatives.  We also try to build as sustainably as possible but it is still something that we must continue to think about.

By Nic Donati

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Farm

Main House/Zone 1 Redesign: Looking at the Spaces Between

Over the years at the Ranch we have designed and built a diverse and amazing array of structures. From the bamboo treehouse-like Hooch to the timber-frame elegance of the Honey Hut, the Ranch has beautiful, creative and useful buildings. While much of our energy goes into our structures, we’ve learned that how a building interacts with and connects to surrounding spaces can be just as important. Inspired by the addition of the Ceiba Lounge, a hybrid processing kitchen and social space located off of the Main House, Laura and I decided to take a closer look at the Main House area and see how we can improve connectivity in an area that is both the physical and social heart of Rancho Mastatal.  

The Design Process

We began the process in 2014 by taking a deep look around. What are the activities that happen here? Who uses the space? What works and what doesn’t? We interviewed fellow Ranchers about their use of the site and made a detailed base map of the site that allowed us to see physical relationships between different areas. As the center point and most used space at the Ranch, this complex area needs to serve many roles. We identified our goals for the space looking both at the uses of the Main House area but also the qualities we want it to project.  It should be welcoming, beautiful, functional and organized.  A thorough site assessment and analysis helped us see the challenges on the site and what changes are possible. Next came the fun part---creating design concepts. Laura and I brainstormed and sketched, coming up with multiple options for redesigning the space, which we presented to the core team. After discussion and revision we were ready to start implementing our working design.  

Implementation (Let the digging begin!!!)

So what did we come up with? The new design addresses many of the challenges of the space. Our trusty dry season apprentice crew of Shea, Mariah, Matt, Addie, Jesse and many friends spent weeks shoveling and picking to transform the ranch entranceway, build new planting beds, create raised access paths and dig detention basins and swales. As anyone who has ever emptied the kitchen compost bucket or brought firewood from the garage to the rocket stoves has experienced, Zone 1 lacked dry and direct paths. With the new kitchen slated to bring more activity to the area it was imperative that we make better paths that work in all weather. 

Some of the Ranch’s challenges are due to the rainforest climate and steep topography. Rancho Mastatal receives 4-6 meters of rain a year (that’s apx. 13-19 ft)! We want to slow and sink as much water into the ground on-site and safely direct the extra water into areas where it can’t cause erosion, a huge concern with the steep slope directly behind the Main House and Ceiba Lounge. Two new detention basins will help absorb rainfall as well as provide a breeding habitat for some of Mastatal’s many frogs.

Looking Forward

2016 will continue to bring changes to the Main House and Zone 1 Area. We’ll be tackling the back pathway, the composting structure, rebuilding the remaining vegetable beds and most excitingly, finishing construction on the processing kitchen!   

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Food

Fruit and Vegetable Storage Tips

This article was originally published by Permaculture Magazine here.

Learn how how careful picking, packing and storage can increase the life of your harvest and how each fruit and veg has its ideal storage environment.

I’m not going to lie, post-harvest handling of fruits and vegetables is a rabbit hole that will take you to strange and fascinating places. What happens to plants after they’re picked is not as simple as it appears on the surface. Leaves turn toward the sunlight, sugars transmogrify into new shapes, cells grab at moisture and gases. And all these changes affect harvested plants before we eat them – for better or worse. A basic understanding of the forces at play will help you to maximize the abundance of your harvest in any climate or season.

There’s something alive in my fridge!

Everything lives and dies a little differently. Animals have fixed life spans, which end at a finite point in time. Some microbes, like bacteria, have no programmed death and under the right conditions can divide indefinitely – essentially living forever. Plants, including fruits and vegetables, lie somewhere in between on the scale of life and death. Plants die slowly, over time, through a process called senescence.1

When you eat produce picked fresh from the farm, it is still very much alive. Its cells are actively metabolizing and respiring. Once a fruit or vegetable has been picked, however, it loses its source of nutrients, and its cells slowly begin to die and degrade. As the cells senesce (die slowly) it loses its vibrant appearance and eventually begins to spoil.

You can prolong the life and vibrancy of your living produce by handling and storing them in conditions that slow senescence.

Understanding Post-Harvest Life
All living things, including plants, have a direct and dynamic relationship with the non-living world around them. They take in gases, water, and nutrients and transform them into energy for growth. Although vegetables may appear to move and grow slowly and once picked look completely inert, they are wildly interactive with the world around them.

Respiration and Water Loss
Fruits and vegetables use oxygen to help create the energy they need to build and maintain their cellular structure, develop flavor, and grow and ripen. This is respiration. Once a fruit or vegetable has been picked, its source of nutrients are gone, but its cells continue to respire. Therefore, faster respiration rates in fruits and vegetables result in quicker degradation of the plant, loss of food nutritional value, overall weight loss, poorer flavour, reduced quality, and faster senescence.

Some fruits and vegetables naturally have a lower respiration level than others. Potatoes, apples, and squash are actually reproductive bodies that are well equipped to last for long periods of time under cool conditions – they have very slow respiration rates. Other types of plants, like leaves of lettuce and broccoli florets, have very high respiration rates and must be eaten quickly, no matter how they are stored. (Although proper storage will maximize their lifespan.)

High levels of respiration also contribute to water loss, which is what causes fruits and vegetables to reduce in weight, wilt, shrivel, and lose their crispness.

Temperature
The simplest way of reducing respiration and water loss is by cooling. You can increase the storage life of many fruits and vegetables by cooling them quickly in a refrigerator but not all. Some fruits and vegetables, especially those that have evolved from tropical climates, are cold sensitive. This means they will actually develop irregular ripening and decay faster under refrigeration than at room temperature. Tomatoes, eggplant, and cucumbers are common examples of chilling-sensitive vegetables. 

Ethylene Production and Ripening
Another factor that affects post-harvest lifespan is the production of and exposure to ethylene gas. Ethylene is a plant growth regulator that is produced naturally by many fruits. For some fruits, ethylene production is essential for ripening. For others, exposure to ethylene causes a dramatic increase in respiration, leading to faster senescence. Therefore, fruits and vegetables that produce ethylene should never be stored with those that are sensitive to it.

Food Spoilage
Spoilage is caused by two things, often at the same time: physical degradation and microbial transformation. Physical degradation occurs as harvested plants senesce naturally or are damaged. These types of changes are seen as the browning of an apple slice or darkening of a bruised leafy green.

Microbial transformation happens when microbes present on the fruit or vegetable transform its nutrients into energy. As they grow, you may see masses of them and their byproducts in the form of hairy mold or slimy sludge. When harvested items are physically damaged by bruising, crushing, cuts, or excessive moisture, they are particularly susceptible to microbial transformation. Spoilage on one piece of produce quickly affects more. Always eat damaged fruits or vegetables right away before they spoil further. 

Soil Quality
Soil quality and mineral composition also greatly affect storage life. Decreased mineral content and excessive applications of nitrogen on large scale commercial farms can produce big vegetables, but generally decreases storability and post-harvest quality. Large commercial operations also often rely on chemicals, waxes, dyes, and synthetic growth regulators to ‘maximize’ fruit and vegetable shelf life. Unfortunately these practices also often minimize the nutritional and health value of these foods. If you don’t grow your own, buying fresh produce from farmers who nurture their soil will always be a the best option.

Five Fruit and Vegetable Storage Tips
You can easily extend the life of your fruits and vegetables by taking some very simple measures to keep them fresh and vibrant.  

1. Always eat produce with the shortest natural storage life first.

2. Store produce quickly and at the right temperature.

3. Keep ethylene producers away from ethylene sensitive produce.

4. Eat physically damaged fruits and vegetables right away before they spoil. 

5. Grow your own or purchase from small farmers with high quality soil.  

By Laura Killingbeck

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Community

Folk Music and Resiliency

Music is a big part of life here at Rancho Mastatal. Oftentimes it's one of us apprentices playing classic R&B as we clean the kitchen after breakfast. Other times it's Kattia, our Costa Rican head chef, blasting Latin pop as she cooks up a delicious dinner. Mexican rancheros sound from another local employee – Alex's – pocket, revealing his whereabouts as he works on repairs around the Ranch. And sometimes, when work slows down for a few minutes, or in the evening after a long day and a glass of hooch, we break out the guitars and the songbooks and sit around and make our own music. And of all the music that's a part of life at the Ranch, that's the music that i've found to be most important. 

In fact, I've found that my interaction with music at Rancho Mastatal has functioned much the same way as my interaction with food. Much of the food we consume here is purchased from local farmers. Other fruits and vegetables that aren't grown in our immediate surroundings we buy from the Central Valley of Costa Rica. Some luxuries like spices or the occasional bag of flour are imported from other countries, and we buy them at the supermarket. And some of our food we work hard to produce here on the Ranch, and oftentimes that's the food that's most satisfying. 

Being discerning about all of the food we eat and where it comes from, whether we grow it ourselves or purchase it, has been a revealing experience for me. I've begun to evaluate the impact of the choices I make in the foods I eat in a way that I didn't do before. I've begun to understand food less as a commodity and more as a product of hard work on healthy land. Food that we grow and cook together is not only delicious, but it fills our days with purpose and our lives with joy, and it becomes central to the culture of the Ranch. 

Mulching and weeding in our orchards, harvesting fruit, processing our greens and starches, brining vegetables to make pickles, and using bacterial cultures to make natural sodas have contributed to a paradigm shift for me in how I think about the food I eat. Previously food, in my view, was something grown far away, then packaged and sold by corporations in big chain stores in a process that I knew little about and didn't care to understand better. I only knew that this packaged food was tasty and easy to get, and that there was a seemingly never-ending supply of it. Similarly, we increasingly experience music as something created far away, then packaged and sold by corporations in the same big chain stores that sell our food. Often, like with food, we experience music strictly as consumers, knowing little of the art of making and playing music and lacking the abilities required to be able to sing together. Music corporations inundate our lives with an endless barrage of neatly packaged products, hoping we'll buy what they're selling, become quickly dissatisfied, and then buy more, never pausing to think about alternatives to this pattern of consumption. Because of my experience of being an apprentice at the Ranch, I have come to appreciate food as a cultural artifact, a gift of the land, and a result of good work, not a commodity. Similarly, the times I've shared with my fellow apprentices, with Ranch team members, and with visitors who have spent time with us making music together has led me to a greater appreciation for the value of taking an active role in creating our own entertainment.

 Wendell Berry, in his article “The Pleasures of Eating,” writes, “Patrons of the entertainment industry … entertain themselves less and less and have become more and more passively dependent on commercial suppliers.” This is certainly true also of patrons of the food industry, who have tended more and more to be mere consumers – passive, uncritical, and dependent. Indeed, this sort of consumption may be said to be one of the chief goals of industrial production.” I don't believe that sitting in circles, playing acoustic guitars and singing Woody Guthrie is suddenly going to make the problems of the world go away. However, I do believe that one of U.S. society's greatest problems is the way that we've come to understand ourselves as consumers in an industrial economy. We've been conditioned to forget the fact that, as human beings, we are capable of creating our own beautiful works of art, from chocolate cake and sauerkraut to the washtub bass and the twelve-bar blues. Freeing ourselves from capitalist society's consumptive patterns is one important step in creating resilient local communities. And just like building a raised garden bed or keeping a small flock of hens, getting together with friends and neighbors to learn the art of making music together is one way to continue that journey.
 
Mark Heisey

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Apprentice/Guest Contribution

Zen and the Art of Bio-D Maintenance

Most people who have stayed at the Ranch have experienced the awesome power of the biodigestor (aka bio-d). For those who have not, here is just a brief low down. The bio-d is a dynamic living system that both cures manure and provides methane gas to our kitchen. Manure feeds our orchards, methane feeds our stove, and so as in the circle of life, the bio-d feeds us. In this dance of reciprocity, it is necessary then to feed the bio-d. When I arrived at the Ranch, I didn't anticipate the feeling of ecstasy associated with learning from your mistakes and thus needing to go shoulder deep into diluted cow poo. Welcome to my morning ritual: Zen and the art of bio-d maintenance.
During the first few days of my two week long shift, I had difficulty processing what exactly maintenance meant. How quickly could this be achieved? Morning time is precious and peaceful; why suffer longer in the ambiance of poo? It is a lesson at the Ranch that at some point every apprentice must learn.

The bio-d was handed off to me in smooth condition. Each morning, I would shovel out a sac's worth of freshly cured manure from the vermicompost pit. This sac would eventually make it to our tree crops. Next to the pit, there are four barrels in a line connected by PVC pipes. These series of barrels help divert the methane from the solid matter. The first two barrels are primarily where the solid matter accumulates to be collected from the surface. I scoop this solid poo into the empty space in the vermicompost, and in three weeks or so it will be ready for the orchard.

Having lost solids, the four barrels are in need of food. On higher ground, the feeder barrel rests. It contains a greenish brown, goopy medley.  I like to call it poop soup. It is one and a half sacs of raw manure and 30 gallons of water. A PVC pipe connects the feeder barrel to the four digesting barrels below, and a valve at the top of the pipe controls the flow of poop soup. It takes tact: open the valve too little and any little chunk of poo might clog the flow, or open the valve too wide and the barrels below will overflow.  Open the valve, let the poo flow down, it's that easy! If it works, hooray! But more often for me at first, it did not. And so I would keep the valve open, and I would use the golf balls strung across a line of string to floss between the PVC pipe of two barrels prone to the most amount of clogs, and I would prod and swish a stick between all the other pipes, and I would close the valve and reopen the valve, and I would pray to the bio-d gods that please please please would this living thing please unclog? If not, I may be so honored as to crawl into the feeder barrel half full of poop soup and unclog at ground zero, the mouth of the PVC pipe. So for the first few days, my morning ritual was less maintenance, more clog fixture, and less zen.

That's all fine and wonderful, though, because I would wait for the feeder barrel to empty and eventually it did. If by this time I am not smeared in poo, then by the next step, I will be. The sacs of poo are oh so heavy to lift. A more appropriate word than lift may be manhandle. Yes, you will probably use your whole body to lift the bag, and yes, the poo essence will ooze out through the pores of the sac and onto your clothes. Thankfully I wore my Taylor Swift t-shirt every morning, and in time her promotional portrait for Fearless, the album, became more and more convincing. I would feed the barrel, add water, and finally, no poop soup is complete without a good mixing.

Zen is all in the process of presence. If one is impatient, the soup will be chunky, and chunky soup cannot flow. If one practices the meditation of zen, however, the soup will be as smooth as the Rio Negro. It took time to learn the practice and importance of maintenance because poking, prodding, and unclogging seemed so utterly important. As it turns out, when the system is well maintained, and one takes their time to stir, the poo can flow, and the maintainer can have peace. Feeding the bio-d is not merely the act of providing sustenance as much as summoning ones grace. It as simple as breathing, smiling, and stirring.

Every night before dinner, the Ranch traditionally has circle time. It is a moment to slow down and be grateful, and perhaps vocalize a thought to all others present. There was a group of students a few months ago in which a teenage boy spoke up. As an unmentioned yet important detail, anybody can feed the bio-d because it also serves as a human septic tank. The toilet is both an offering for the bio-d and a front row seat to Costa Rica's tropical rainforest. The boy said he had a moment at the bio-d that day of pure self-awareness: by feeding the bio-d, he was feeding the forest, and all of the beautiful things which it manifests.

The bio-d is just one step, albeit a smelly one, in the circle of life. Like any system, it must be fed and cared for. As accustomed we are to fixing this and that, there is a certain zen in taking a step back and living in the meditation of maintenance. When I learned the deep enjoyment of stirring poop soup to the smooth consistency that it deserved, no matter how much time it took, my whole morning improved. Like spending time to slow roast a good meal, or waiting for a food forest to come to fruition, or waiting for the world to change: it takes patience. Fortunately, it is both love and hunger that make the best sauce.

Buen provecho!

---

Kitchen

Cheesy Buttermilk Biscuits

We just recently started making these stateside as a little quick, easy treat and boy are they good!!  Especially hot, right out of the oven.  Eat plain as a treat, on the side of a hearty winter stew, or with eggs for brunch.  Enjoy and Buen Provecho!

Cheesy Buttermilk Biscuits

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 teaspoons garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper, optional (but highly recommended!)
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
1 1/2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese (I used cheddar and asiago)

For the topping
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley leaves
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat; set aside.

In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, galic powder, salt and cayenne pepper.

In another bowl, whisk together buttermilk and butter.  Pour mixture over dry ingredients and stir using a rubber spatula just until moist.  Genlty fold in cheese.

Using a 1/4 cup measuring cup, scoop the batter evenly onto the prepared baking sheet.  Place into oven and bake for 10-12 minutes, or until golden brown. 

For the topping, whisk together butter, parsley and garlic powder in a small bowl.  Working one at a time, brush the tops of the biscuits with the butter mixture.

Serve immediately.

---

Inspirational Impressions

Compassion

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle.” 

--- Plato

Abrazos,

The Ranch Crew

Newsletter: Second Trimester 2015

By moving to a trimester format for our newsletter, we're able to take advantage of a faster Internet connection while visiting family and friends in the States to get 2 of our 3 newsletters prepared and sent to everyone.   We expect this to reduce a bit of stress while saving time and increasing the quality of this publication.  The entire core team currently finds themselves away from the Ranch working in temperate climates and reconnecting with family and friends.  SCOTT and NIC will be the first to return to Mastatal in early November to run a large group focused on skills building with a new project called Winterline .  This will be our first time working with this organization and we're hoping to develop a long-term relationship as our objectives align quite well.  ROBIN, SOLE and I are presently in upstate NY and look forward to connecting with numerous people in our NE network over the next few months.  This is an important time for us to catch up on administrative work, spend time with family, and recharge our mental and physical batteries as we plan for another busy year in Costa Rica.  Our most recent season was on many fronts our most successful to date.  We made some extraordinary improvements to our organizational structure that helped us to achieve a level of economic stability that we haven't experienced to date.  Both our built and planted infrastructures continue to get stronger as our ability to make solid and effective decisions improves.  We've also been well-served by a more acute willingness to let go of projects that have not been working for us and/or meeting our expectations.  This has freed up time and energy to put into the systems that hold the most promise as many of them mature and start paying dividends.  Next season will mark the first year that all of our apprentices are committed to our full-year program.  We have essentially phased out our volunteer and internship programs in lieu of a more stable and in-depth educational offering.  We've been encouraged and a bit surprised by the numbers of people worldwide that are looking for this type of long-term, hands-on, sustainability-oriented training designed to prepare participants for the challenges that they'll confront in the future.  As a general rule, we are working to increase the length and depth of many of our educational programs.  You can learn more about these efforts below in a great article written by SCOTT.  We have hopes that our programs will one day be anchored by a semester long accredited course that we've been developing over the past year and are currently shopping around to various institutions that might be interested in championing such an endeavor.  Please let us know if you know of anyone in or outside of academia that might be interested in speaking with us about our semester offering.  We have also recently added a 4-month opportunity for natural building enthusiasts.  NIC, the Ranch's head of construction, will be working closely with individuals interested in learning how to build a structure from foundation upwards.  The Natural Building Certificate (NBC) starts in August, 2016.  In stateside news, we continue to explore opportunities with our “Open to Possibilities” group as we think about how we can increase our positive impact in the country where we were born and raised through a food-based initiative in the Northeast.  On a more personal note, Robin, Sole and I will have some big decisions to make in the coming years as Sole's educational needs evolve.  She thoroughly enjoyed her first year in the elementary school in Mastatal though the timing of Costa Rica's school year may necessitate some changes in how and when we travel.  We're also in the midst of taking the first concrete steps in designing and developing a new website.  A former Ranch student, JON-PAUL D'AVERSA, is holding our hand as we begin to take the long overdue plunge into this enormous endeavor.  We still have a few gaps in our 2016 calendar that we're looking to fill before our return to Mastatal in December.  If you know any educators that take students or groups abroad or would like to explore this type of opportunity, please put them in touch with us!  Enjoy this edition and keep us abreast of your goings on when you get the chance.  Feel the Bern baby. 

This month's update includes:

Program News: Hospitality or Hospital? 
Building: Lime
Farm: Patterns for Experiential Learning
Food: What Next?
Community: Life as an Ex-Pat
Apprentice/Guest Contribution: 2015 Caretaking Apprentices
Kitchen: Tomato And Pecorino Tarte Tatin
Inspirational Impressions: Wendell

Program News

Hospitality or Hospital? 
An important yet often understressed aspect of Rancho Mastatal is hospitality. People from all over the world come to stay in one of our many beautiful structures and enjoy our surroundings. We host several workshops from Natural Building to Wilderness First Responder (you can see more of the classes offered at our websitehere) that attract an eclectic, caring, open-minded clientele.  Almost all of our visitors are extremely curious about our system designs as well as our (apprentice) role within the Ranch. I get to meet so many people, I’m loving it!

Due to the fact that we are in the business of hospitality, much of our apprenticeship is taking care of our guests in some way or another. We prepare the meals on the weekends, we answer many questions, we are guides to the waterfall or river, we prep for many of the workshops here, and we harvest much of the food eaten. In exchange we get new perspectives and good company.

Our guests so far have been such a pleasure. We have even had a couple of people help us by digging ditches, building cob walls, and dismantling garden beds.

The last group that we had here came for a workshop run by the company Aerie Backcountry Medicine whose headquarters are in Montana quite close to my home in the Swan Valley. They brought great energy, from youthful silliness to genuine thoughtfulness. The workshop was for their Wilderness EMT certification as well as a handful of other certificates from swift water rescue to national GPS navigation. 

During the last week that they were here, Aerie’s medical director, Dr. Greg Moore, and his wife Laurie joined the group. Dr. Moore teaches the students about various aspects of medicine beforethey set up a clinic in our community center and perform house visits in the nearby town of Zapaton. They treat the locals for free. The supplies come from donations.  Seeing this generosity given so freely to a community that I am growing to love warms my heart.

I asked Dr. Moore how it all started and he explained, “It was a process of evolution”, originally locals would hear about the doctor being in town and come to the Ranch for medical questions or help. He said, “We were treating people here on the front porch”. Then they came to the decision to do a free clinic in the community each year and have the Aerie students take vitals and do the initial intakes with the patients. That way they could teach as well as give back to the community.

I asked him how it made him feel, doing such a great thing for the community. He responded, “Its gratifying to give back to the community here. The people are so friendly and grateful. Its better than any other reward I can think of.”

I did not have time to interview the owner of the company Dave but I can say that from an outside perspective that his life and that of his family is interesting and I'm hoping that down the line I will have time to interview him.

The training that Aerie provides for First Responder and Wilderness EMTs is very much needed. Anytime someone in the community is hurt, the first call goes to the Ranch and the second to the paramedics (if needed) in the town of Puriscal (about 2 1/2 hours away by bus). Since I have been here we had someone break their ankle at the Ranch playing basket ball, a couple sprains/strains, an incident where a man had a car drop on top of him (he was working underneath it), a bicycle accident, and just a few days ago a local 11 year old boy stepped on a nail which went in very deep. In each instance the Ranch was called first for help. Last year there were two apprentice injuries - a broken leg and someone with a severed artery in their forearm. If it hadn't been for the training Aerie provided to the team at Rancho Mastatal the person who severed their artery might have been in much rougher shape today than he is.

The gravity of my situation as a caretaker here during the rainy season is becoming clear. This Ranch is a large part of this tiny community and provides first aid care, jobs to the locals, contributiions to the economy by hosting small to large groups of visitors, and lastly by buying as many local goods as possible. The fact that the other apprentices and I will be responsible for the running of such an important hub while the core group is gone is both terrifying and exciting.
Here's to good thoughts and energy for the rest of the year. May there be no more accidents or injuries.

By Mariah Albertus

Building

Lime
Lime has been used for centuries as a building material.  The Romans used lime as mortar in their stonework and they also used something called hydraulic lime which is harder and sets faster than normal lime. Hydraulic limes can set under water and have a higher compressive strength, however it is more complicated to manufacture. Lime is a great natural material to use as it is made from limestone which is one of the most abundant stones on our planet.  In Costa Rica there are several lime kilns that are relatively close to us from which we can source our lime.  Lime is considered a more environmentally friendly material than its successor Portland cement. 

Portland cement has pretty much replaced lime in a lot of modern applications both as a mortar and a render/plaster.   Lime is still the major ingredient in Portland cement along with some other ingredients, however whereas Lime has to be heated to around 800°C, Portland cement needs to be heated to around 1,300°C.

In order to process limestone into a usable material it has to undergo several stages.  This is generally referred to as the lime cycle.  Lime is heated to around 800°C in the lime kilns. During this process of "burning" the limestone (CaCO3) is converted into quicklime (CaO) and carbon dioxide (CO2). At this stage the quicklime is extremely volatile and has to be slaked (add excess water).  This converts it to calcium hydroxide (CaOH) which is now a workable material.  At this stage it can be applied to buildings in the form of a plaster. As the plaster sets on the wall it begins to carbonate and re-absorbs the carbon dioxide that was removed in the burning process as it slowly begins to convert back into CaCO3. 

At the Ranch we originally bought our lime from a kiln outside of San Jose.  At that time TIM and ROBIN bought the lime in its quicklime form and slaked it themselves.  This process is dangerous and creates a huge amount of heat as the quicklime reacts with the water. This year we were able to make our first big order of hydrated lime from another lime kiln in the south of the country.  As the lime had already been hydrated it was a bit more friendly to work with.  However, we still had to spend hours and hours sifting all the sacks to give us a really fine lime that we could then soak in our barrels.  With the help of some technology we blended the sifted hydrated lime into the barrel which created a really nice smooth lime putty.  We will now leave it to soak for at least six months before using it.

Traditionally in Europe lime was left to sit for a number of years with the workability of the material increasing with age.  To this day it is still common to be able to buy lime putty which has been aged, with the older putty commanding higher prices.  In the US Type S hydrated lime is sold and we are told by our colleagues up north that it is a fantastic product to work with and has excellent plasticity and workability after only 24 hours soaking. 

In 2016 we expect the lime revolution to continue with further re-plastering of old buildings and new additions being added all the time, high on the priority list will be the newly framed Foodsmithery and Scott and Lauras cabin!!
 

Farm

Patterns for Experiential Learning
How do we learn?  When we engage with new information, what enhances or inhibits our ability to move it from our short-term working memory to our long-term reference memory?  Each individual learns in different ways:  visual, auditory, tactile, etc, but at the heart of all these mechanisms lie a few shared roots.  The power to tap into these roots of learning is what makes it possible to turn information into true understanding and wisdom over time. 

We have all used a tool - a keyboard, chisel, knife, guitar - until it literally feels like an extension of our body.  The understanding of that usage is now built into our reference memory.  No one has to remind us how to play an F chord, nor do we have to consider where to place our fingers.  This is the sphere of learning we should strive for in our most crucial endeavors, such as growing our own food or constructing our homes. 

A Case Study: Rancho Mastatal Sustainability Education Center

It is with these constructs in mind that we reflect on and examine the role of learning within Rancho Mastatal Sustainability Education Center as a successful permaculture education model.  Located in rural Costa Rica, and operating since 2001, an overview of the project can be seen here.  

Fifteen years ago, Rancho Mastatal began building its infrastructure with the help of short-term volunteers and students who benefited from their experience in an exciting and dynamic community.  Today the Ranch's programming has successfully evolved to offer both long and short-term learning opportunities.  As this process unfolded, the core team at the Ranch began to pull apart the variations of short and long-term learning by examining the questions: How do we teach so students leave inspired?  And how do we teach so students deeply learn? 

This evolution and inquiry is not unique to the Ranch.  Many of our friends and colleagues with similar education programs have also transitioned or are in the process of transitioning from short-term to long-term or short-long combination models.  This progression is a natural evolution for educational programs that grow from the ground up; are small enough to adapt quickly; and have the resilience to adjust to the type of transformation that an adaptive model entails. Understanding what your educational program can provide as well as what it requires from participants is the fulcrum point for forward momentum. 

Short and Long Term Learning Opportunities 

Early in the project the Ranch was in need of unskilled labor for building initial infrastructure.  Mixing cob, hauling wood, and sanding furniture were common simple tasks. Much of the work was self-directed with guidance from outside course instructors.  Many of the tasks could be learned and mastered speedily. The Ranch benefited from this labor, and the volunteers benefited from the excitement and spark of being able to participate in something new.  It was a conducive surrounding for volunteers staying a minimum of three weeks.  

As the campus and systems grew and matured, it became unmistakable that the minimum stay needed to increase. With beautiful infrastructure and interwoven agriculture systems, Ranch instructors were able to engage participants with a much deeper understanding and skill base.  However, it also took more time to teach participants the context that would allow them to be good decision makers in their tasks.  A three-month internship was defined and the same process continued, until once again there was an acknowledgment that as the Ranch matured it took individuals longer and longer to become part of its ecosystem.  Today, in order to furnish our site's needs, our programs are highlighted by a year-long apprenticeship and a four-month Natural Building Certificate. 
 
Short-term learning opportunities can give participants an introduction to new ideas, the experience of a new place and people, and the igniting spark of inspiration.  Intensive short-term programs also deliver substantial information and valuable alliances and networks.  These are good things, necessary things, and form a foundation for expansion of permaculture as a global design system.  And as we move forward with this expansion, there is increasingly room for longer term learning opportunities which give participants the repetition and experience which foster continued deep learning. 

A one-week volunteer cannot translate the intricacies of the Ranch's current food system. From the design and layout of orchards to maintenance regimes to harvest and food processing schedules - these are complex systems. They require time to engage with and understand.  Yet they all began with humble foundations built in large part by short-term volunteers over many years.  This process of transition and the ability to adapt to changing needs as your program grows (and offer new and different opportunities that your program can successfully deliver) is becoming an essential part of permaculture education programs worldwide.  

A Pattern Language for Experiential Learning 

While much of this has been a natural progression over a decade and a half of growth, some of this change was also due to the inherent limitations of a two-week natural building or permaculture design course.  This style of course provides tremendous value through inspiration, information, and introduction to a new topic, but then often ends there, without support for continuing practice.  After years of development, the core team at the Ranch found ourselves with an opportunity to give learners an additional focus on practice and understanding of systems building from “foundation to roofing” through experiential practice.  We found that practice was the crucial catalyst that transformed our participants' inspiration, idealism, and new skills, into reality. 

The Ranch greatly values and adheres to the principles of experiential learning. Reading or learning about how to do something is a useful tool, but unless you practice what you have learned, it remains a tool unused. Our pattern language for experiential learning is based on the concepts below.  

1. Build solid foundations. Complex systems are built upon solid foundations of simple, humble, tasks -- you have to learn to sharpen your chisel before you can build a timber framed house.  After time you may be surprised when you step away from your “simple” tasks and find you have already built something complex.

2. Recognize learning patterns. Our program is designed to follow a sequential learning pattern of 1) learning; 2) practicing; 3) teaching; and 4) managing. Each stage of this pattern will challenge and enforce the depth of your skill set. Be prepared to transition your skills into new settings and levels of understanding.

3. Own your skills. Learn something deeply enough to take it with you when you go, not just use while you are here.  Ask yourself frequently, what skills do I own now? What skills do I want to own by the time I leave?

4. Value direct engagement. The Ranch's experiential education programs are based on direct engagement with the physical world. We believe you can't truly learn how to plant a tree without actually planting it. Remember that the skills you develop will be embedded in direct engagement with the Ranch's functioning systems.

5. Find the teachable moments. Learning is everywhere, and it's often most effective in the field. Your instructors will pass on new skills and information at times when they are not officially “teaching”. Take time each day to reflect on moments when you learned something new.

6. Learn to fail better. Not everything will go right the first time, or the second. Challenge yourself to recognize failures as opportunities to learn. As you practice new skills, practice them well - don't repeat patterns that don't give you the result you want. 

7. Create solutions. In the face of any challenge, you have the power to create solutions. Community living and experiential education are sculpted by individuals' and groups' ability to see themselves as solution builders.      

8. Be a part of the whole. The Ranch facilities were built by a network of thousands of people who contributed a part of their lives to build something greater than themselves. As an apprentice you become a part of this larger network. What will you leave behind? How will you utilize this network as you move forward? 

By focusing on the above in our programs, we invite students to engage and learn deeply. 

From Foundation to Roof - Next Steps 

The word “apprenticeship” connotes a graduation to a next level such as a journeyman. The end of our year-long apprenticeship and four month Natural Building Certificate is merely the beginning of a participant's journey.  They have transplanted vast amounts of information from their working memory to their reference memory, forming the cornerstones of knowledge and understanding.  The next step after this is crucial in shaping this opportunity into a career or livelihood. 

The Ranch's long-term goal is to render these next steps through our design/build consulting business.  Our team offers permaculture design services for clients, such as developing conceptual site plans or providing advice for construction techniques in the humid tropics.  We often do not have the capacity to direct the implementation of this work.  Our vision is to connect our apprentices with these projects and bring them on board to manage the implementation. This would result in real-world, real-time experience, challenges, and compensation.  It would cement the deep learning built upon the groundwork of our programs.  Undoubtedly, we are a number of years away from the finalization of this integration, but with the goal in mind and the pattern language of learning in place, this can become reality. 

This type of learning and real world experience is required in the permaculture sphere.  We must become more than course junkies, forum readers, and facebook friends. We can take these patterns of experiential learning and apply them across disciplines to encourage a profound learning that will transform inspiration and idealism into reality on both a small and large scale. 

We need permaculture education programs that engage learners from all perspectives - both short and long-term, and in as many different ways as possible.  

Food

What Next?
One of the most frequent questions apprentices and course participants ask as they near the end of their stay at the Ranch is “What next?”.  After spending an entire year―or even just a few days―learning new skills in food preservation, recipe creation, brewing, fermenting, spice and oil preparation, butchering, cheese and yogurt making,  local flour production, medicine making, and much more, what do you do with your new skills? 

The answer:  anything you can imagine.  Once you learn a skill and practice it, you own it.  It’s your skill to have for the rest of your life--yours to keep, to travel with, to share.  The best part about it is that no matter how much you use that skill, practice it, share it, and transform it, it will only increase in value.  What a good investment!

In this world of Google and YouTube, we have access to exponentially more information than we can use in a lifetime.  There is a lot we can learn from reading and accessing two dimensional resources.  But it’s not enough to just read and watch.  We have to do these skills to bring them to life, to understand them and own them.  It is the experience of learning through practice and application that gives the Ranch’s apprentices and course participants true ownership of the skills they learn.  

The skills learned at the ranch are yours to have and keep, but just like any investment you need to manage them in order to realize the potential of their return.  The following are a few tips about simple ways you can continue to increase the value of the new skills you now own, and help answer the question, “What next?”.

1.  Keep practicing.  
Knowing about food skills without practicing them won’t do you jack squat when you’re hungry.  It will be different practicing your food skills in a new place.  You may have to adapt or source new local ingredients.  You may need to scour thrift stores or make your own special or simple tools.  In the world of fermentation, you will need to rely on your experience to assess temperature differences and how they affect flavor and preservation.  But practice, you can!  Practice is the crucial catalyst that transforms inspiration and idealism into reality.  

2.  Connect with others.  
One of the best parts of staying at the Ranch is connecting with a wide network of people who are engaged in transforming the world in positive ways.  These are people who work or live at the ranch, who teach courses, who came for a class, a visit or an apprenticeship.  Each individual brings their own amazing network of people who are building solutions for the challenges we face.  You can keep connected in the two dimensional world with the Ranch’s facebook page , or in three dimensions by reuniting with other Ranchers and their networks.  Over the past several years, a great place to reconnect has been at Round the Bend Farm: A Center for Restorative Community in Massachusetts, where former Ranch interns DESA and GEOFF work their magic.  Round the Bend has attracted cameos from dozens of Ranch Alumni over the years, and has traditionally been the meeting spot for all those heading to the annual Connecting For Change Conference each October.  

3.  Learn more.  
Your skills are a foundation for more learning.  Continue to build by reading, watching, and participating in new classes and workshops.  Learn from neighbors, professionals, and friends.  

4.  Teach your friends, including your mom.  
Your friends, including your mom, will probably be extremely curious about what you were doing in Costa Rica!  Showing and sharing your new skills will not only help them understand more about your experience, but there are added benefits!  Last year I taught my mom how to make wild fruit meads, and this year I came home to a selection of mom-made aged meads crafted with wild raspberries and local herbs.  (See photo!)

5. Create something new!
Maybe it’s a new recipe.  A tool.  A farm.  A livelihood.  A book.  A social movement.  A puppet show.  I don’t know, only you can know what it is you will do with the skills you own.  There is no limit to the possibilities for what you can create.   

By Laura Killingbeck

Community

Life as an Ex-Pat
Robin and I have lived in Costa Rica as ex-pats for the last 14 years.  We also lived and traveled in South America for 3 years in the 90s, mostly in Uruguay where we met and worked as Peace Corps Volunteers.  We've spent about 70% of our post-university lives in Latin America.  When I looked at that number a while back, I must admit that it caught me a bit offguard as I couldn't pinpoint ever saying to myself, “to hell with life in the States, I'm going to live elsewhere”.  Our move from Seattle to Central America (a multiple week trek through the Western States, Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua in our two Toyotas) all those years ago may have been as much a function of our more spontaneous side winning out in that “moment” as a conscientious need to engage with this world in a meaningful way that would meet our personal and professional goals at the time and in a way that would be within our budget to execute.  Regardless of the specifics as to the why or how we set out for a new life outside of our country of birth, since then, the days, months and years have rolled on by.  Since Halloween day in 2001, our adopted home has been a small, rural community on the edge of the jungle in Central America.  Our living situation in Mastatal has resulted in countless challenges, innumerous inspirations, and a boatload of experiences that have helped to make us into the people that we are today.  In many ways, it's been a whirlwind, though in every possible way, I feel more awake, healthy and prepared than before embarking on our eventful, international adventure.  Over the past decade and a half we've started a fulfilling and demanding sustainability based business; brought into this world and raised a beautiful little girl; expanded our network of family, supporters and friends tenfold; learned an astounding array of hard and soft skills; and grown as a couple, professionals and family in unimaginable ways.  Through all of this, what sticks out the most for me at times, is the level of dedication and energy that we've needed to invest as members of our community to feel fully integrated.  Moving to a country where the language, culture and climate are so different to what we experienced up until the move has tested us in a variety of ways both expected and unexpected.  Given our relative priveleged situation as visitors from a wealthier nation, I am ever mindful of our impact on our adopted community.  Every decision that we make necessitates a process that involves making determinations about how we might affect others in our town.  This might not seem out of the ordinary to many, but as North Americans living abroad, each of our actions have been magnified by the reality that we're operating daily on somebody else's turf that we share no prior history with.  Even though I participate in local sports; manage a high-profile business that employs a number of locals; willingly engage in the not always pretty everyday political and social life of a tiny, rural community; and provide a plethora of services for the community, the work to fully assimilate is far from complete.  There's some metaphorical bridge that I've only been able to partially cross since our move to Costa Rica.  At times I feel as if I'm nearing the other side and at other times like I'm just taking my first steps across.  Nevertheless, since the birth of Sole 7 years ago, my journey to cross the bridge has taken on a new feel.  Babies and kids have a way of breaking down barriers and building bridges that adults don't.  Her arrival has been a blessing in so many ways, but her ability to help create a larger sense of home for me in Mastatal has been especially welcomed and embraced.  With Sole, Mastatal has become more than just the community that Robin and I decided to call home; it is her home.    

Given Costa Rica's long, sometimes complicated history living amongst US born expats, I wonder how being a transplant here might differ than in other parts of the world.  It's a question that leads me to sometimes strange and uncomfortable thoughts and has me occassionally questioning where I physically belong in this world.  These thoughts increasingly rise to the surface while we're enjoying family, friends and temperate forests up north and making decisions on how best to educate our dual citizen, bilingual daughter, and how to invest our time and energy during these more tranquil months stateside.  The reality of having two lives, in two different countries, is a true privelege that has allowed us to gain a unique perspective on this world and how it works.  That said, with age and parenthood, arise questions of stability, family connections, long-term health and education, and legacy.  

Each year the Ranch becomes a more stable, resilient entity that we hope will continue to positively impact our small community for decades to come.  Simultaneously, it increasingly becomes the manifestation of the type of community that we dream can exist elsewhere in this world.  With the new organizational structures that we're putting into place, I'm hopeful that our project's evolution can create a positive, lasting impact while demonstrating that this type of business and its associated community are relevant and possible in today's world.  With Sole reaching middle school age in 5 years, we'll have an enormous decision to make by 2020.  The middle school in Mastatal, in its current state, is not the ideal learning environment for our daughter though sending her to school outside of town elsewhere in-country seems unimaginable to us right now.  Homeschooling and middle school in the States are both on the table, and Sole will of course have more to say about this decision as she gets older, wiser and bolder.  Our current reality has her splitting time between Mastatal's elementary school and a wonderful homeschool program that Robin's developed and teaches during our stays in the States.  How it unfolds moving forward with governmental institutions having more of a say each year how we educate our daughter is a bit of an unknown.  It becomes a lot to think about but we're confident that with an improving life and business structure and a little faith that it will all work itself out over time.

Life as an expat has been a blessing on countless levels and our connection to Mastatal will undoubtedly continue to be the centerpiece of our world for years to come.  Nevertheless, the specifics on how our expat lives unfold is still a bit difficult for us to predict.  In the interim, we'll continue enjoying the benefits of life in Central America and enjoy our lovely visits each year to reconnect with family and friends in the Northeast.  Thanks to all of you for taking part in this sometimes wild ride.      

Apprentice/Guest Contribution

2015 Caretaking Apprentices
Meet our spectacular grop of 2015 Caretaking Apprentices. 

Name: Dorothy Farrell (Doro!)
Where Ya From: Brooklyn NY
Strongest Area Of Interest At The Ranch: Agroforestry, Landscaping, Botany
Any Secret Skills: Handstands, Free Styling
3 Essentials To Bring To The Jungle: Hammock, Nug Net P-Style
Hobbies: Writing, Painting, Hiking
A Title For Your Dream Job:Garden Architect
Favorite Spanish Word: Guacala!- Disgusting!

Name: Mark Ferguson Heisey
Where Ya From: Lancaster, Pennsylvania
Strongest Area Of Interest At The Ranch: Making great soap.
Any Secret Skills: French Braids.
3 Essentials To Bring To The Jungle: Hat, Boots, 2 of everything (because 1 is always wet)
Hobbies: Playing folk music, watching good movies, reading good books
A Title For Your Dream Job: Golden Age Pirate Captain
Favorite Spanish Word: Aguantar

Name: Jamie Neal-Action Jackson
Where Ya From: Massachusetts and Vermont
Strongest Area Of Interest At The Ranch: The BioD and methane cooker, lovin’ those closed loop systems! I also enjoy lifting heavy things and running art class for the local kids at the library every Thursday. 
Secret Skills: Eating copious amounts of meat, writing and performing spoken word poetry
3 Essentials To Bring To The Jungle: My P-Style (Thanks Laura K!), Notebooks, High Socks
Hobbies: Sailing, Reading, Learning Spanish, Gardening, Causing Mischief
A Title For Your Dream Job: Ship Builder of and First Mate on a Golden Age Pirate Ship
Favorite Spanish Word: Picante- Spicy

Name: Jake Evans
Where Ya From: UK
Strongest Area Of Interest At The Ranch: Agroforestry, Natural Building
Any Secret Skills: Tying Knots
3 Essentials To Bring To The Jungle: Machete, Long Socks, Buena Onda
Hobbies: Yoga, Rock Climbing, Permaculture, Surfing
A Title For Your Dream Job: Head Agroforester
Favorite Spanish Word: Dale- OK

Name: Carolina Santillan
Where Ya From: El Bolson, Argentina
Strongest Area Of Interest At The Ranch: Food, Natural Building, Speaking English
Any Secret Skills: Dancing, Making Bracelets
3 Essentials To Bring To The Jungle: Hat, Boots, Mate’ To Drink
Hobbies: Dance, Listen To Music, Sew, Biking
A Title For Your Dream Job: That’s the situation, I have no idea!
Favorite Spanish Word: Tengo Fiaca- I’m lazy

Name: Jacob Porter
Where Ya From: Bolivia
Strongest Area Of Interest At The Ranch: Fermentation, and BioD
Any Secret Skills: Reading Fairy Tales Aloud
3 Essentials To Bring To The Jungle: Hammock, Reading Material, Mogi-Net
Hobbies: Reading/learning, walking or biking as a method of exploring wherever I am living.
A Title For Your Dream Job: Loafer
Favorite Spanish Word: lluvia- rain

Name: Willy Rees
Where Ya From: Pilot Mountain, NC
Strongest Area Of Interest At The Ranch: Natural Building, Woodworking
Any Secret Skills: I can see into the future.
3 Essentials To Bring To The Jungle: Stamina, Patience, Gold Bond
Hobbies: Arts & Crafts, Music, Reading, Hiking
A Title For Your Dream Job: Craftsman
Favorite Spanish Word: Despiche- clusterfu*k

Kitchen

Tomato And Pecorino Tarte Tatin 
This delectable recipe comes from a fabulous book Forgotten Skills of Cooking by Dariana Allen.  Upon coming back to the Northeast we have been swimming in red, ripe, delicious tomatoes.  I came across this recipe and had to give it a go.  Sole and I made it together and it is simple yet great.  It got a double thumbs up from everyone at the table.  I served it with a wilted spinach salad, yummmmm...

Tomato And Pecorino Tarte Tatin with Savory Shortcrust Pastry (recipe for pastry follows below)

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. ripe tomatoes, salted and sliced (these are to be arranged in a circle)
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 12 oz. onion, chopped
• red chile
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 2 lb. very ripe tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped (I didn't peel mine and it was fine, this is for the filling)
• salt, freshly ground black pepper, and a little sugar (or honey)
• 8 fresh basil leaves, torn
• 1/2 cup (or more!) pecorino cheese, grated
• 9 in. ceramic pie pan
• parchment paper and a little melted butter

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

First, make the pastry.
 
Basic Shortcrust Pastry (Savory)
The aim is to make a crisp, crumbly, but not brittle pastry.  Makes enough pastry to line a 9in tart pan.

•     1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
•     6 tablespoons cold butter
•     pinch of salt
•     beaten egg or water (to bind)

 
Sift the flour and salt ino a large bowl.  Cut the butter into cubes, toss into the flour, and then rub in with your fingertips (Sole loved doing this).  Keep everything as cool as possible; if the fat is allowed to melt, the finished pastry may be tough.  When the mixture looks like coarse bread crumbs, stop.

Beat the egg and add some cold water.  Using a fork to stir, add just enough liquid to bring the pastry together, then discard the fork and collect it into a ball with your hands, this way you can judge more accurately if you need a few more drops of liquid.  Although rather damp pastry is easier to handle and roll out, the resulting crust can be tough and may well shrink out of shape as the water evaporates in the oven.  The drier and more difficult-to-handle pastry will give a crisper, shorter crust.

Flatten it into a round, wrap in plastic wrap, and leave to rest in the fridge for at least 15 minutes.  This will make the pastry much less elastic and easier to roll.
 
Peel, seed, and slice the 1lb of tomatoes.  Sprinkle with salt and leave to drain in a nylon sieve for 10-15 minutes.
Now back to the filling..

Melt the butter in a wide saute pan, add the onion, chile and garlic.  Cook until soft and just beginning to caramelize.  Add the chopped tomatoes and season well with salt, freshly ground pepper, and a little sugar (or honey).  Simmer until reduced to a thickish paste.  Add the torn basil leaves.  Taste and correct the seasoning.

Line the base of a ceramic quiche or pie pan with a circle of parchment paper.  Brush generously with melted butter.  Arrange the drained tomato slices in an overlapping pattern in concentric circles over the base of the pan.  Spread the cooked filling evenly over the tomato slices.  Scatter with the pecorino cheese.  Top with a circle of savory shortcrust pastry.

Bake in the oven (on a cookie sheet to catch drippings) until the pastry is golden brown and cooked through.  Remove and leave to cool a little before inverting the pie onto a plate and removing the pie pan and the parchment paper.  Serve warm or at room temperature with a good green salad.
 
Buen Provecho!
 

Inspirational Impressions

Wendell
“We have lived our lives by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. We have been wrong. We must change our lives so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption, that what is good for the world will be good for us. And that requires that we make the effort to know the world and learn what is good for it.” 

― Wendell Berry 
 

Abrazos,

The Ranch Crew