Hello friends! Happy weekend to you.

The past two weeks have been a little different for me. The regular pace and rhythm of life at the Choza has been broken up by two trips to Ciudad Colon to visit the University for Peace. This week I attended their Internship Fair to talk about our Fellowship program with the students. It was really exciting to get to hear from the students what ideas have captured them and what fields they are pursuing. The mission of UPeace is to “provide humanity with an international institution of higher education for peace with the aim of promoting among all human beings the spirit of understanding, tolerance and peaceful coexistence, to stimulate cooperation among peoples and to help lessen obstacles and threats to world peace and progress”. Hm. Inspiring. I spoke with one student who is from eastern Congo. She was so passionate and told me, “I am really very interested in peace education. I believe that peace really can come through education for our children!” Right on, Marthe!

I am heading back to La Choza today, and I’m not sure what the weekend will hold. Definitely some long walks, reading, and studying. We’ll see what else transpires In the meantime, I wanted to share the coffee post I’ve been working on. It’s been a whole month since we harvested the berries, and I’ve finally made it (almost) all the way through the process. I definitely have a new appreciation of the work that goes into each cup! So, without further ado…

How to Make Café: from berries to beans

First, go on a really long hike with some really wonderful people, and learn how to pick coffee from trees taller than your house. The berries fall into a sack, held by your friends like a hammock underneath the branches.

Take your berries home, and soak them in water for days. Some people don’t soak their berries at all, and that works too. If you’re lucky enough to harvest solely red berries, you probably don’t need to soak them. We harvested an especially tough-skinned variety, so soaking was helpful. Your coffee may soak anywhere from 3 days to a week. I soaked mine for 5 days, and could have soaked them longer. Change the water every other day or so, and keep an eye on  your berries so they don’t spoil.

When you think it’s time (go with your gut), lay your coffee out in the sun on a large sack or a sheet. Every morning, put it in a place that gets a lot of intense sun during the day, and every night bring the sack inside. Repeat this for as long as you need to. The goal is to have the skin of your berries “bien seca”, which means really, really dry. You should be able to peel them fairly easily by hand at this point. My berries sat out for almost a week and a half!

The next step is removing the skin from your berries. Coffee has three layers–an outer skin, an inner skin, and the coffee bean. Here’s what the berries look like after drying:

Here they are with the first layer removed:

And here’s the beans:

The typical process of removing the skin requires something called a pilón which looks like a giant mortar and pestle. You crush the berries in the pilón until the outer layers fall off, and separate the basura from the beans much like wheat is separated from chaff. Since I had such a small harvest, I crushed the berries by hand with a large rolling pin. It worked, but next time I’ll be using a pilón :)

After this step, your beans are ready to roast. I haven’t had a chance to do it yet, but trust me, it’s coming. Most folks around here do it over a wood stove, and the coffee takes on a smokey flavor. It’s lovely. However, you can still do it on a gas stove. Place the beans in a heavy pot and roast over low heat, stirring frequently. I’ll be sure to post some pictures of the roasting process when I get there.

And that’s it! I’m pretty excited to try the coffee these beans make–I hear it’s extra strong. I may wait until I can get a handful of people to try it with me. That’s an experience that needs to happen with friends

Until next week!

-Mariah

Last week I had the fantastic opportunity to visit VerdEnergia, an organic farm a few towns away. In 2009, we began to partner with them on a region wide Jatropha biofuel project. I went to learn what I could about Jatropha and the biofuel process since we have a ton of it around here and I knew nothing about it. They have a lovely group of people working tirelessly at reforestation in their community. I learned a lot over the course of the weekend, and I’d like to share some of what I learned here. We already have some of this information on our Jatropha page, too, so be sure to check it out!

Jatropha is a pretty incredible little plant. It produces a fruit that can be pressed for its oil, and used as fuel. We won’t be able to harvest for another few years, but while we wait the plants are working for us in the meantime. Here are some of the benefits we’re already reaping:

•  It is a nitrogen fixing plant, which means it is a plant that makes nitrogen available for other plants. Nitrogen is necessary for plants to grow; when it’s not there, plants can’t grow. Jatropha is also a deep rooting plant, which means it is able to draw nutrients from deeper soil layers, and it aids in preventing (or stopping) erosion. These two factors are absolutely essential in this region because the soil is so poor and erosion is so widespread.

• Part of the process of creating a truly organic, sustainable farm includes intermediate steps. You can’t jump to reforestation over night. Think about what a forest really looks like—the high canopy filters light down to medium height trees, which in turn filter light down to shrubs and small plants. Very little light and in reality, very little rain actually reach the forest floor. However, the floor remains perpetually moist. It takes a lot of time to get to this point when so many of your trees have been leveled. The sun ends up baking the ground, and plants are unable to grow on their own in the intense heat.  So, with reforestation as our end goal, we’re taking those small, caring steps that are necessary for rebuilding the forest and in the meantime, we can let the process work for us by mix cropping with Jatropha. Jatropha can and will grow big and tall and create that first layer of canopy, faster than most other trees will. Right now while it’s growing, and sun and rain still reach the ground, we plant yucca, lemon grass, sweet potatoes, and other food crops around and among the plants. As we water and fertilize these plants, by default we water and fertilize the Jatropha and vice versa. Everyone benefits!

• You can plant with seeds or by cuttings from another plant. This gives farmers options. Buy seeds or borrow cuttings from your neighbor!

• We’re planting mostly on hillsides, but we plant in swales on a contour. This alleviates erosion (along with those really deep roots).

• Jatropha is extremely hardy. Both of our farms have seen that it takes a lot to kill these plants, even at their smallest stages. If your crop seems to struggle in the beginning years, you can give it time and continue to care for it, or find new ways to care for it, but you won’t likely lose the plant. That’s a nice guarantee to have once you invest in the project.

When I first arrived, Josh, the head guy at Verde, mentioned something that gave me a better frame for the context in which to consider the project. He said they are not trying to replace petroleum with Jatropha biofuel. That would go against their main goal (reforestation), because you would need to level acre after acre of land to produce the amount of oil we demand in the world today. He said, “Jatropha is a step.” It just happens to produce a usable biofuel, that can support the uses of individual farms in this region, as well as all the uses listed above. By Josh’s calculations, if you plant a hectare of Jatropha, you will plant about 900 trees. If that hectare produces at a minimum rate, you will end up with about 400 gallons of biofuel a year, every year for the next 45 years.

If you do a quick Google search on Jatropha, you’ll find that oil companies have given up on Jatropha production for a number of reasons. It takes too much water, it produces too marginal of a crop, etc. etc. But these cases are in the commercial production of Jatropha, where tens of thousands of acres have been leveled to plant solely Jatropha. This is not the model we are following here, nor is it the model Verde is promoting.We are participating with over 35 farms in this region, who all have the same desire to bring life back to these hills.

The numbers were enough for me—more than enough oil to sustain this farm for 45 years from one planting of Jatropha is astounding. We’re continuing to care for our plants here, and may plant more in a few months. The soil needs a lot of help, so the process is slow going, but the day we get to harvest the fruit will be a pretty big day around here! I’m looking forward to it.

 

This week has been a quiet one. As we gear up for busier months ahead, I am relishing the days I have like these to think and to wonder, to dream and to work in this beautiful place.

My work on the farm this week was “painting trees”. Solin showed me how to mix up a solution of (what I believe is) chalk and ash, add water, and paint it on the trunks of our citrus trees. There is a fungus that likes to grow there, and the mixture kills the fungus without damaging the trees. Definitely a win-win situation.

It has taken me some time to orient myself to this farm. We’re farming on hillsides here, and I am only familiar with the flat, flat plains of Texas and New Mexico. Understanding the layout and becoming familiar with the idea of each hectare has taken me a little while, but that’s not a bad thing. I am finding that being “out” on the farm feels like I am in another world. The view changes. I can see more. I can see farther. I am removed from the distraction of books and a computer and house projects and I am out in it, soaking up this wide wonderful world. The best part is finding myself out there when the light changes around 5 or 5:30pm…the sky turns a rosy pink, and distant hillsides are lit up by the sun. It’s beautiful.

As it turns out, we have quite a few citrus trees! So, naturally, I was excited to have this task set before me that required relatively little physical exertion, and just let me be outside for long periods of time. I read a friend’s blog at the beginning of the week, and the subject of her blog ended up being the central theme of my thoughts as I worked. I thought I’d share them this week.

She quoted from Wendel Berry’s book, The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendel Berry. Unfortunately, I don’t have the book, but these excerpts were good enough on their own. Here’s the first one:

 “Odd as I am sure it will appear to some, I can think of no better form of personal involvement in the cure of the environment than that of gardening. A person who is growing a garden, if he is growing it organically, is improving a piece of the world…he is also enlarging, for himself, the meaning of food and the pleasure of eating. The food he grows will be fresher, more nutritious, less contaminated by poisons and preservatives and dyes than what he can buy at a store. He is reducing the trash problem; a garden is not a disposable container, and it will digest and reuse its own wastes. If he enjoys working in his garden, then he is less dependent on an automobile or a merchant for his pleasure. He is involving himself directly in the work of feeding people”.

I am a food person. I love to eat, I love to cook, and most of all, I love to gather people around a table and feed them. The philosophy he describes here is something rooted deep in me. In the States I try to “involve myself in the work of feeding people” as often as I possibly can. This has meant going to farmer’s markets, buying a CSA share, cooking, sharing food, and hosting dinners. Here the work is taking on a new meaning. Pulling roots out of the ground, watering tomatoes, drying coffee beans, and painting trees—I am that much closer to the food, and that much more grateful. And while there aren’t too many people at my dinner table these days, I can look for ways to share our bounty with neighbors and friends…and seek to learn as much from them, their recipes, and their philosophies of food and eating as I can.

I thought about this as I painted, hopefully “improving a piece of the world”, making life a little easier for those trees. That’s the idea behind the work we’re doing on the farm, developing and improving the impoverished soil, returning to it the vitality it once had…it seems like a small step sometimes, but it’s a step regardless.

Here’s the next quote:  “We do not understand the earth in terms either of what it offers us or of what it requires of us, and I think it is the rule that people inevitably destroy what they do not understand…The principle of ecology, if we will take it to heart, should keep us aware that our lives depend upon other lives and upon processes and energies in an interlocking system that, though we can destroy it, we can neither fully understand nor fully control. And our great dangerousness is that, locked in our selfish and myopic economies, we have been willing to change or destroy far beyond our power to understand. We are not humble enough or reverent enough”.

Hmm. “Our lives depend on other lives’, in a system that we can destroy and may never fully understand. The earth is a wild place, and I think I forget that sometimes when I’m in civilization. I forget how much I am dependent on for survival, and just how much I am provided with every day. So often here I am reintroduced to things in their most natural state—cacao beans, coffee berries, random medicinal plants I never knew existed—and I am reminded of how incredible the planet is, and how important it is for me to take that seriously.

I think I will leave it at that for this week. There is a lot more wrapped up in those quotes, but I’d write for pages if I continued. I hope it’s as inspiring to you as it has been for me Until next week, friends!

-Mariah

Buenos Dias!

It’s Monday morning, and I am resurfacing after a fantastic weekend. On Friday I was preparing for guests to come spend the weekend here, but Saturday morning plans changed and my guests couldn’t make it. But just as quickly, new opportunities sprang up, and this weekend ended up being just what I needed. I am beyond thankful. I’ll explain more later, but it involves a long hike and hidden coffee bean trees…

I wanted to take some time to share a few projects Solin and I are working on at the Choza; day to day things that all add up to the big idea of what we’re doing here. Sometimes projects work out just like you planned, but sometimes they don’t. I am finding that my “to do” lists are generally too long, and that it’s good to relax and let some of that go. That way, when someone stops by to chat, or a project goes slower than you planned, you can still rest in the confidence that you put in a good day’s work. There is always something to be learned in the process, no matter how things go. So, with that said, here’s a little glimpse into our lives right now:

Solin’s soil

Solin is doing an incredible job on this farm. He calls it “strong, slow work”, and I can’t think of a better way to describe it. I have so much to learn from him! The other day, we were walking around and he stopped to check on some soil he’s been working on. A long time ago, this land was cleared for cattle grazing, and the soil has suffered tremendously. We are working on restoring it’s vitality in a number of ways, and this is a good example. On a the hill that slopes down from the house, he’s built a bamboo fence. Behind it, he layered plant matter like fallen leaves and trees, and scattered purchased microorganisms in the pile. Now, after some time, the little guys have done their work we have this incredibly rich soil! It will continue to rest for a while longer, but it’s gorgeous.

Painting

We have lots of windows here. Every day I open the whole house up and it’s glorious. One of my projects was to paint the windows that haven’t been painted yet because it’s beautiful and it helps the wood last longer. I am not much of an artist, but I love to create and I love design. I decided to do a chevron design on the windows, and really enjoyed painting in the evenings last week. I am mostly pleased with how it turned out. It feels like it’s missing a little something still, so I’ll keep adding to it, but it’s a good start.

Flower beds

The flower beds were one of the first projects I started when I got here. I figured it would take me two days at the most, and then I could cross it off my list. Instead, it has been one of those “be patient and wait” kind of things, and a good reminder that I have a lot to learn about this place. I certainly do not know how to landscape in the tropics yet. So, these past weeks I’ve been gathering ideas from neighbors’ farms, watching the beds to see how much sun they get, experimenting with different plants in the beds, and keeping an eye out for new plants that might work well. I think it’s going to turn out really lovely in the end.

Coffee

Yesterday I had the tremendous opportunity to hike down to some special coffee plants. There is a man in Zapaton, the town just up the road a few miles, whose name is Gerrardo and his is one of the remaining indigenous families in the area. He loves to share what he knows—it is really astounding stuff. A volunteer from the States lives with him, and they were taking a few other friends from a nearby farm, so I joined them.

We hiked for several hours through farms and pasture and dense rainforest, while Gerrardo pointed out edible and medicinal plants everywhere. Suddenly, we were standing in the middle of a thick patch of these coffee bean trees. Most cultivated coffee plants aren’t very big, but this variety grows high up on 20-foot, tall, skinny trees. It’s a variety that no one grows for commercial use, and I don’t believe anyone tends to these plants. They seemed to grow up out of nowhere, a treasure hidden in the forest. One has to bend the trees over to pick the berries off, which is difficult work in such a dense area. We picked for several hours, and it was a blast.

We split up our harvest, and I made it home last night with a few pounds of berries. I am so excited to add this little project to my list this week—drying, roasting, and grinding my own coffee! From mountain coffee plants!

This week I will be working on a few things. First, I will be focusing my Spanish study. It’s been a part of my daily routine for the last month, as I’m talking with people everyday, and I have come a long way already. But to continue to improve, more concentrated study is a must.  Second, I will be working to create some art for the bedrooms using some scrap wood and extra paint we’ve got lying around. I think they’ll end up being little painted scenes, and will hopefully brighten things up.

Aside from those big projects, I’ll be doing lots of the little things that make up life here—work on the farm, getting to know neighbors, cooking, reading, and more. It’s a pretty sweet time, and I’m growing to enjoy it more every day.

Until next week!

-Mariah

I missed the weekly blog post this week because of several things, but I wanted to write something short this evening to fill the space until next week.

The big news is that we had visitors! Hurray!! Dr. David Hansen and Matthew Byrnes from New Mexico State University were in Costa Rica visiting CATIE, a school in Turrialba, and were kind to make a trip out to visit us. It was short—just an afternoon and an evening—but it was so good to have them here. We walked the farm, talked with Solin, ate a lovely dinner with food from the farm, and I got to pester them with lots of questions.

The best part was getting to talk with people who bring fresh eyes to the project, to hear their initial thoughts, considerations, and ideas. Although I’m still pretty new at all this, my eyes aren’t as fresh as they were; I’ve gotten down into the daily routine of the place. As I walked with the two of them, they were able to show me things I hadn’t seen yet—like ripe green beans, 15 steps from my front door! They’ve been ready for a while now; I just hadn’t looked for them yet. I was busy eating the lettuces planted around them. I can’t tell you how much I love fresh green beans! They were also able to pose questions or offer a solution to a problem in a way I hadn’t thought of yet, and I was continually reminded at how good it is to ask for help, to involve others, and to see things from another point of view.

And so, armed with some new ideas and fresh enthusiasm, I’m ready to face this week. As I continue to pursue a rhythm for my time here, I have been thinking about patience and waiting. Or rather, I’ve had to be patient and wait. Apparently, that’s something I need to work on, as I found myself frustrated more often than I would like last week. I want to be in the middle of things, knee deep in creating something wonderful and outstanding. I want to be a part of this community, I want the tomatoes to be ripe, I want my Spanish to be better, I want to have created something lasting for this place. But you only get to those places by starting at the beginning, and taking things one step at a time. So I’m trying to catch myself before I get too frustrated, and to remember that I’ve got time. I’ve just got to put one foot in front of the other.

Something that’s helping with that is writing everything down, seeing the bigger picture, and mapping out a tentative plan for the next months. Ideas, projects, goals. Tentative, because I know it will change, but I think that will be a good sign. Readjustment is a good thing.

So, as I take little steps every day, in lots of things, I’ll know I’m moving forward, and I can be patient and wait for things to unfold.