Book Recommendations: The Titles I Read this Fall

Book Recommendations: The Titles I Read this Fall

Last year I wrote a short article about the books that I read while visiting my family last fall in the United States.  I received a handful of positive responses after we posted it to the Ranch’s blog and as a result I thought that I’d go ahead and repeat the exercise this year.  The books are in the order that I read them.  I would recommend and learned something important from all of them.  A few of them impacted me profoundly.  I will try to incorporate the lessons that I learned in many of these books into my personal and work life.  

Building an Adobe Shower with Tadelakt Plaster

Building an Adobe Shower with Tadelakt Plaster

We recently completed our adobe shower and thought we would share with everybody how and in what order it was executed.  The building blocks of the design were Adobes that we made with our 2018 apprentices and student groups that visited us through the year

How to Make a Simple Hooch

How to Make a Simple Hooch

Hooch is a homemade alcoholic beverage and in this blog I’m going to explain how to make it.

For thousands of years humans have been fermenting for recreational, spiritual and medicinal uses. Fermentation allowed humans to store and use ingredients they’d harvested later in the year. Although hooch is an alcoholic beverage, it can also be brewed for medicinal purposes.

Gardening and Permaculture practices at the Ranch

Gardening and Permaculture practices at the Ranch

Here at the Ranch the year long apprentices have various roles and functions that support the Ranch community. By taking on responsibilities and managing certain areas we the chance to learn and experience those areas on a deeper level . Part of the educational model created by the ranch team is a monthly rotation of these so called life skills. Each apprentice transitions their life skill to the next apprentice, passing on all of the relevant information to their colleague in order to complete the various tasks associated with each life skill.

Vegetables & Greens that Thrive in the Tropical Rainy Season

Vegetables & Greens that Thrive in the Tropical Rainy Season

When the rainy season arrived, it started with a sense of relief - dry season went on longer than expected and our trees and plants were scorching in the heat. For myself the cooler air was welcome comfort, and the rains a reminder of home and getting cozy. Mornings were beautiful with the sight of the sun rising through the dewy mist.

When The Ants Go Marching

When The Ants Go Marching

Even before the start of my apprenticeship at the ranch, I would not have described myself as a particularly squeamish person. I like to think that I reacted to incidents involving large numbers of insects (infestations) with an appropriate amount of squeam. However, on more than one occasion, I was nudged outside of my comfort zone within the first few days of my time at the Ranch. Over the past few weeks, my relationship to these small jungle friends has changed once again.

Design Ideas for a Sustainable Home in the Tropics

Design Ideas for a Sustainable Home in the Tropics

At Rancho Mastatal we have been building sustainable homes from natural materials in the tropics for over 15 years. In this time we have tried many different styles, building materials, and designs. We would like to share with you our opinion for the best natural and sustainable home design for the tropics.

Goodbye: Change is our only Constant

Goodbye: Change is our only Constant

Scott Gallant and Laura Killingbeck joined the Ranch team as interns in January of 2010.  The following year they joined the Ranch team as co-directors. From then until the present they have been instrumental in developing numerous critical systems and practices that have greatly contributed to the Ranch’s success.  Their work in the areas of agroforestry, education, finance, human resources, marketing and food systems helped to revolutionize the Ranch in countless ways. 

Salak Pollination

Salak Pollination

As apprentices at Rancho Mastatal, we take on a Plant Skill, where we each are responsible for a plant variety in our agroforestry system. When we began as apprentices many of us wanted to avoid the Salak palm, as it has splinter inducing spikes throughout the stem and leaves. Following my intention to dive into challenges this year, I decided to take being caretaker of the prickliest palm on the Ranch.

From Tree to Bar: How to Process Raw Cacao

From Tree to Bar: How to Process Raw Cacao

Living in the tropics I found myself surrounded by cocoa trees, which was something you’d dream about as a kid. “Chocolate trees” But like so many things we’re used to consuming we don’t have the knowledge of how to process a raw material into something we can use, within the society we live convenience has removed us from the source. A simple act of making something gives us a connection to our environment.

Dairy Diaries: How I Make Dairy Kefir

Dairy Diaries: How I Make Dairy Kefir

 My name is Ryan and I'm part of the apprentice team at Rancho Mastatal for 2019. I've been navigating my lactose-intolerance since I was a child and gluten-intolerance since I identified it approximately five years ago. In this and the following installments of Dairy Diaries. I'll be exploring dairy kefir, in my personal effort to find ways to make dairy products I enjoy healthier, more digestible and more delicious.

Choosing Consciously for Healthier Families and a Safer Home

Choosing Consciously for Healthier Families and a Safer Home

Many of us grow up thinking of home as our safest place. As consumers, we have been led to believe that by the time products make it to the market, they have been thoroughly tested and proven safe. We pick up packaging and read labels before buying, just to know what is in the products. But, what does a label really tell us? What are these manufactured products made with? Where and how was it cultivated, processed, packages and shipped?

How Can We Make a Change in the World

How Can We Make a Change in the World

Everything seems to have been created by a higher intelligence that has designed this universe in mysterious ways for us to live off. We live in a perfect symbiosis with nature. Everything seems to have a purpose which co-exists with all that is around us yet we don’t have an explanation to all this perfection.

Using Mountain Microorganism to Create Organic Fertilizer

Using Mountain Microorganism to Create Organic Fertilizer

The need to cultivate a “living soil” that is full of microbes is something I hear frequently in the organic farming and permaculture world. As an apprentice at Rancho Mastatal this year, I have the unique opportunity to look further into the universe of these small and unseen allies. A way into this world was through the Ranch’s process of making organic fertilizer, one that harvests and inoculates the soil with Mountain Microorganisms (MM). This is similar to compost tea, where we create a fermented fertilizer with microorganisms such as manure.

The Biodigester

The Biodigester

It's 5.30 am in the dewy morning rainforest of Mastatal – the cacophony of squawks and birdsong remind us that the winged beings have begun their daily business of foraging for themselves and their young, the toads have tucked themselves into the nook of a tree or within a pile of leaves to avoid the relentless heat of the new day, and one by one the guests at Rancho Mastatal stretch and yawn their way out of their abodes and ease their way towards their first cup of coffee.

How to Make a Simple Woven Basket

How to Make a Simple Woven Basket

One of my favorite hobbies is working with natural fibers. Soon after arriving here at the ranch as a new apprentice, I was eager to experiment with weaving a simple basket. The Ranch has an existing collection of beautiful baskets, which play an important role in storing food, while maintaining necessary airflow in this hot, humid climate.

Lighthearted Advice for New Apprentices

Lighthearted Advice for New Apprentices

Arriving in the jungle was quite a shock, especially when they called the time of year of our arrival the “dry season”. Moisture seemed to pervade every orifice. Sometimes that was a good thing, but mostly I’d argue that it was not. Still, the vegetation thrived, as did the bacterial and yeast colonies that fill every niche of life in this ecosytem. As apprentices we learn how to wield these little microscopic buggers for our own benefit in a process colloquially known as “fermentation”.