Remembering Rosa, a dear friend of Boodaville and founder of BioCaseres
Last week dear Rosa passed away. Rosa has been a key person for the Boodaville project for many years. She ran Biocaseres with her family. They grow many crops, all organic. They are also active in eco tourism with their amazing treasure the olive oil museum as well as educational walks in the area.
We got in touch with Rosa in 2018, when she offered Maja organic potatoes. Maja jumped in joy when she found out that someone was offering organic fruit, vegetables and eggs and very quickly became a dedicated customer. That’s how a relationship of mutual exchange of all you can imagine started benefitting both Boodaville and BioCaseres. Food, houses, medicinal plants, labor, knowledge…
When I first found out that Rosa was sick, I was shocked. Do you know there’s a list with people that are not allowed to die because they are too awesome to lose? Rosa was definitely on that list.
One winter I went to say goodbye before leaving Boodaville for winter. Rosa was in such a bad state and I cried driving out of Caseres, convinced that after winter she’d be gone.
But not Rosa. She was a rarely tough lady. I found her the next spring in front of her sewing machine, making beautiful things and she showed me the medicinal flowers she’d been harvesting. She was skinny and not well but back to her chatty self. She told me she had suffered a lot but felt better now. All good, winter is over.
Until this winter, when her sparking soul wasn’t enough anymore to keep her body going. She will be remembered with a smile and dearly missed.
I'm taking this year before university to try things out. Still searching and on my way to learning more and more about myself and the world around me. Sending out lots of love!
Living Permaculture volunteer Eirini shares her experience volunteering in Boodaville during the winter of 2021.
My participation in the ESC project “Living Permaculture” is absolutely a life experience for me. Even though I volunteered in Boodaville only for two months, it was enough to receive a new perspective of how I see nature and how the humans can interact with the earth in a positive and creative way.
During the project I had the chance to use my knowledge as a Biologist in a practical way, but also to learn new things about the world of permaculture. Moreover, only by living so close to nature I found out something new every day about the earth and myself. Apart from that, living in such a small village during the winter is a unique experience that made me realize how distracting is the life in big cities and how significant is for me to live in a place where I can observe the season changes. Gradually the colors of the forest were changing and as the sky was getting greyer, our land was getting greener thanks to the seed bombs we offered to her.
One of the greatest things I learnt being a volunteer in Boodaville is the importance of communication and expression of our feelings. Living with three more women, two cats and a dog, and sharing with them a common goal, the improvement and maintenance of Boodaville land, made it clear that we need to communicate deeply with each other and find ways to avoid conflicts. I am so grateful I can take with me home these gained skills and use them to improve my relationships with my friends and family. By the end of my volunteering, I was surprised to find out that I can now express myself so easily even using words that are not on my mother language!
Overall, this project meant a lot to me. The whole experience of living in the nature and exchanging knowledge with these wonderful people that we share similar ideas and perspectives of the world really inspired me and made me feel grateful and connected to my mind and body. The feeling of being part of a community where everyone can contribute with their own personal skills and wisdom, and where solidarity is a protagonist, filled me with hope and made be believe more in myself and humanity. Moreover, after the project I am way more motivated to pursue my dreams of a sustainable way of living and to start my own projects.
Lou - I started on the Boodaville path when I bought the land in Matarranya in 2008 and have dedicated an incredible amount of time, and not very many euros, to building up the project over the years.
Living Permaculture volunteer Irene shares her experience volunteering in Boodaville during the summer of 2021.
Arrival
Motivation: A change of scene, to grow as a person and learn from myself and the environment, to help the environment by contributing knowledge and to improve as much as possible and above all learn from experience.
Expectations: To enjoy nature, learn about Permaculture and other forms of sustainable farming.
Fears: Some situations which may be out of my control
My Experience in Boodaville
Hi, I’m from a place in La Mancha whose name I don’t want to remember; I came here by chance, I did not have in mind to volunteer. Although I have always been interested in social, community projects, self-management, sustainable living, environmentalism and others, I had never had the opportunity. And this opportunity appeared at a decisive moment for me, giving me the opportunity to develop both individually and collectively, to learn from myself and from others, putting into practice my already acquired knowledge and learning from others on many levels. Not only in the areas most directly linked to my volunteer project, such as Permaculture, crop association, soil regeneration, but also in a more personal area such as coexistence and communication. I have met wonderful people the months I have been here.
This volunteering has been different than I expected, but that does not make it less enriching, on the contrary, it was full of new nuances that make it unique.
It has given me the opportunity to share with people with ideas similar to mine and a great desire to do things that are unique.
I haven’t had time to get bored, between the expected and the unexpected.
Unlike perhaps other volunteers, due to the circumstances, here we have had the opportunity to experience real self-management and see how, little by little, with the collaboration of all, it advances. And as with good energy and desire everything is possible.
Boodaville is sprouting from her seed right now, being reborn again. And it makes me happy to be a part of that.
Lou - I started on the Boodaville path when I bought the land in Matarranya in 2008 and have dedicated an incredible amount of time, and not very many euros, to building up the project over the years.
Many thanks to our amazing volunteer Javier Regidor who took our design for Agroforestry in a vineyard to the BiorNE permaculture conference. Read the comments and feedback we received!
(These comments come from the consultation at the BioNE conference on 5th Sept 2021, and a consultation with the owner of the land on 18th August 2021)
Lou - I started on the Boodaville path when I bought the land in Matarranya in 2008 and have dedicated an incredible amount of time, and not very many euros, to building up the project over the years.
In June 2021 Boodaville organized an Erasmus+ Youth Worker Training at Sanillés, in the Spanish Pyrenees. The "Living the Questions" training was about permaculture and "Designing Regenerative Cultures" including practical work and all sorts of non-formal education techniques.
Boodaville organised this Youth Worker Training at the beautiful Sanilles Eco- Resort in the Spanish Pyrenees the 20th – 30th June 2021. With participation from over 16 different countries Anna Louise from Boodaville and Aline from La Casa Integral facilitated sessions on Permaculture and Regenerative Cultures (drawing heavily on the texts “Designing Regenerative Cultures” by Daniel Wahl and “People and Permaculture” by Looby McNamara). Many thanks to everyone involved!! It was a beautiful week, and thanks to @morja_zala and Aline among others for the wonderful photos!
A summary from our participants…
“1 + 1 is more than two isn’t it? When we arrived at Sanilles 5 days ago as individuals we had not yet formed the connections that we now have. Through sharing circles, games, singing, eating together, social time and participating in diverse non-formal learning methods, we have steadily built our connections and become more aware of how we may collectively respond to the big questions of our time. In class we have explored permaculture principles and design techniques, and in parallel learnt how to apply these regenerative cultures in the foreseeable future by adapting, collaborating and using our ability to respond. Through both our new bonds and what we’ve learned about ecology, regenerative agriculture, education and economy for example, we have come to an awareness of the need for an attitude of gratitude for the earth and each other. It is a true gift to be united in such diversity, and to be able to put our stereotypes on the table in honesty and learn about the world from multiple perspectives. So by thinking critically, creatively and courageously we can use the knowledge and experiences we have gained to be the change we want to see in the world and inspire others. We face a future when nothing is predictable. Do you breathe air? Then you should care. Our regenerative future is emerging… what role will you play? Let’s step forward together in active hope, and keep going no matter what!”
Our classroom was full of resources about ecological design, systems thinking, regenerating economy, education and agriculture and how to care for ourselves and work joyfully with others.
But the best place for learning was outside in the stunning natural surroundings (the difference in temperature inside the building and outside in the sun was huge!!)
Wahi groups – each day a group participated in the daily tasks of fetching natural spring water, kitchen work and keeping the site tidy
Free time
Practical work – JADAM microorganism mix, preparing for on contour tree planting with organic matter and biochar. (Full details of design and methods used in a separate post coming soon!)
Intercultural evenings – a chance to share our stories and traditions
Down by the river connection to nature and deep ecology inspired by Joanna Macy
Reflecting on our learning journey, via the medium of drama, art and crazy quiz shows
Guest speaker – extra session with a local bamboo expert
Presentations of regenerative Economy, Education and Self-Care by the participants.
Celebration – evening music, laughter and appreciation cards on the last night
Lou - I started on the Boodaville path when I bought the land in Matarranya in 2008 and have dedicated an incredible amount of time, and not very many euros, to building up the project over the years.
Jessica posts about life at Boodaville and what makes her heart sing, including fermenting; kombucha, sourdough and lactobacteria.
Let’s talk about things that make my heart sing at Boodaville. For example fermenting. I love fermenting stuff.
A volunteer from Cyprus, Olivia, came in May this year to Boodaville and introduced us to sourdough. She taught us how to create our own “sourdough baby” as we call it (during the season our baby literally grew up and we called it “masa madre”) and make the most delicious pita bread. Olivia moved on to pursue her sourdough career and we bake sourdough pita’s regularly. Sourdough is incredibly simple and tasty. Every day we feed our masa madre and “harvest” some already fermented sourdough to kick start today’s bread. If we want to pause it for a few days we put our sourdough baby in the fridge, if we want to pause it for a few weeks we put her in the freezer. As simple as that.
Kombucha is fermented tea, also introduced by Olivia. We have one big jar of kombucha and since that one is going really well and tastes great we split it up in several smaller jars and have experiments. All volunteers on site have at least one little jar to do weird experiments with. At the moment we have kombucha in an airtight container, apple-kombucha and tea-free kombucha. We taste and compare. Fail and try again. It’s fun. It’s also interesting to see how kombucha responds to outdoor temperatures. In summertime it fermented super fast. Winter has arrived and the kombucha is very very slooooowww…
Least favourite under the Boodavillians but the most fascinating to me are the lactobacteria. Lactobacteria are airborne, present everywhere and all they need is a nice home (which I created in a jar with starchy water and no lid) and it grows in a beautiful sour smelling substance. It is very effective to speed up the composting process, for example if our -usually odourless- compost toilet goes smelly. It produces a lot of gas during that process and when we once added lactobacteria to closed buckets of humanure permaculture teacher, Marc, almost freaked out. The pressure in the buckets could build up and the lid would explode off-sending our poo flying. That’s called learning from experience, isn’t it?
During a permaculture conference I learned how to multiply microorganisms for the compost toilet so that one is definitely on my to do list. And I’m still looking for a neighbour with some goats so I can start making cheese… hmmm… I love fermenting stuff.
I'm taking this year before university to try things out. Still searching and on my way to learning more and more about myself and the world around me. Sending out lots of love!
Lou, founder of Boodaville has a rant about Brexit then writes about real issues like effective microorganisms, Jadam, windowsill gardening and urban permaculture.
I was wondering what to write today, and had BBC 6Music on while I took some photos of our little gardens here in the flat in Barcelona.
And now I have to start with a rant after hearing the pro-Brexit narrative “Britain is way ahead of Europe with vaccines” so some of you might get to go to Cyprus on 17th May. I am so sick of the bias news everywhere.. we know Brexit isn’t that great, we know the EU messed up sourcing vaccines, stop this constant media influence to try and make things fit the story the government want you to believe in.
The reality in Spain, for which I am truly grateful, is that we have been living a fairly normal life. We’re restricted to our own districts except for work; but with schools, most shops, circuses, museums open since June (except for a few weeks in November where they closed everything except schools). It is true that we may not be allowed to travel for Easter, and like everyone, we desperately miss easy to access concerts (here you can go with limited capacity and advance booking) and festivals, and mountains.
But the UK have totally messed up and it is desperately difficult for people to be locked down so severely for so long. The craziest thing to have happened since the war probably, and massively worthy of sensible analysis and news reports.
Anyway that’s all politics. People are amazing, resilient and resourceful, we will find our way and keep looking after each other.
I’ll end on a joke: On the way home from our weekend of planting and grafting at Boodaville I commented that one great thing about the restrictions is that there hasn’t been any traffic at all for 6 months, and Fraser said “There you are then, more positives from Coronavirus than there are from Brexit”
Now I’ve spent nearly 300 words on COVID and Brexit, I should, by my own guidelines, spend 600 talking about Ecosocial Design and addressing issues related to climate breakdown and ecological collapse which, although more long-term, are undisputedly more important.
Jadam
I am finally getting very very close to the end of the Regenerative Agriculture course from Planeses. The official end date was 6th January!!
While I have never been that excited about compost (I love the ideas from the Wheaton/ Klassen-Koop book that say “bury food” which is what we do at Boodaville!!), I am excited about what feeding your food forest can do. Natural fertilizers and effective microorganisms are an amazing input to boost the ecosystems you are regenerating. You do need a lot of barrels, and we still haven’t found out where to get “molasses” or “suero de leche” near Boodaville, but I think for the future of productive agriculture in the Vall Rovira, and based on the experience form Marc at Planeses, this could be a great project for 2021. In this short video I make some fairly unfounded conclusions about our observations in the food forest!
The system I was learning about is Jadam, I love the idea that you should mix into the fertilizer organic matter from the same plant that you are trying to grow. It makes sense thinking about natural systems! Preparing mixes of effective micro-organisms will be an amazing practical project for Sanilles on our “Regenerative Cultures” training in June!! A deadline to get the materials together, a budget, and a chance to actually learn this — by DOING!
Gardening in barcelona
I have finally made a pigeon proof garden with herbs and lettuces. The second windowsill is cherry tomatoes and strawberries, plus baby pigeons – can you see them in the picture? And we have rebranded the “shitty patio” and are now calling it the “shady garden”. Here I plant anything that will, or might, grow without any direct sunlight. (Basically anything that grows in the UK jaja) but very little food. The straw bale mushroom farm project didn’t get realised… this year.
The top flat on the new building next door has a HUGE terrace. I was thinking about lemons, and thought maybe we could offer the neighbours a lemon tree for the terrace in return for sharing the harvest.
This motivation to produce anything we can right here, comes very much from watching Kiss the Ground, and wanting to take any steps possible towards a diet that REGENERATES, imagine if we can improve ecosystems by eating!!
Has anyone got a lemon tree that needs a new home?
this weeks crazy ideas and new stuff
The best part about this feature is that I look back at previous posts and build and reflect on them. I changed my weekly organisation so Mondays is house and personal (mobile off!); Tuesdays is project management and accounting (Now until 8:30 pm thanks to our new babysitter and my Tuesday re-location to a coworking space!!!!); Wednesdays is Boodaville site and Rovira Regenerativa; Thursdays is Website and Poble Sec projects; Fridays I write and learn, and work on education projects. Perfect. Not too much is it?
Moving on from last week: We have potential volunteers (but you can still apply until tomorrow!), we haven’t moved forward with social media strategy, although have a new collaborator who wants to make documentary style videos for us! He may crush my budding youtuber career. (How sad for everyone)
I got all excited about offering a workshop on water at my kid’s school, Abel continues to be very excited by Biochar and we have a free workshop in Poble Sec on 21st March. I’m developing the office in Poble Sec idea, we could go all in and find premises that would be accommodation for 2 Barcelona based CES volunteers and a classroom and an office! Dream BIG!!
Then I realised that the process of identifying the needs for Boodaville, and Rovira Regenerativa gives very clear roles that need to be filled, so these dream volunteers would have plenty of work in return for getting their BCN living expenses paid. Let’s bring this down to concrete requests – do you know any premises for reasonable rent in Poble Sec? Do you know any hostal owners that are looking to diversify income streams? Also, we need an accountant (again).
Lou - I started on the Boodaville path when I bought the land in Matarranya in 2008 and have dedicated an incredible amount of time, and not very many euros, to building up the project over the years.
Lou, founder of Boodaville, starts the year with a few huge topics, as well as personal reflections on life in Barcelona in 2021 and links to help us with the question "how can we solve the current crises?"
Happy New Year! Reality means this post starts with some sad news, but the links and ideas are to shed light on where we are and what we can do. The world continues to be amazing in millions of ways.
Waves of Crises
So here we are in 2021, and according to Owen Jones, things in Wuhan are much better than 2020 – which is what we were all hoping for. Sadly in most of the world, and definitely USA and UK, Covid is still out of control, and that is just one of our current crises.
This cartoon of the waves of crisis was published over 6 months ago, and I’ve seen it in various presentations, and shared it myself before. I wonder if we would need to make the COVID one a bit bigger now…. We could also add a tiny little ripple at the front to represent “politics” and the Capitol Hill incident. On the grand scale of things I wouldn’t class someone who continues to act in the same way they did before as news. It’s attention seeking, again. And hopefully this won’t distract us from the real headline telling us that yesterday, in one day, over 4000 people died of COVID in the US.
Here’s a quote and a link about the climate change wave from this morning :
“Covid lockdowns around the world may have caused a slight dip in emissions, but the CO2 accumulating in the atmosphere is still going up fast. Unless the global economic recovery from the nightmares of 2020 is a green one, the future of many millions of people around the world looks black indeed.”
I’m a big fan of Degrowth, and alternative economics, so the “recession” wave I like to see as an opportunity. The perfect time to introduce a universal basic income for example. Kate Raworth is a great read to go further into that crisis.
The biodiversity collapse wave is part of what I often refer to as “ecological collapse”. I’ve been trying to influence groups in which I work to always say “Climate change and Ecological Collpase” rather than just “Climate change” to help make this one clear. A wonderful book, to grasp that idea deeply is “Climate, A New Story” by Charles Eisenstein.
I wish my view of the world wasn’t considered so “weird”. I look at products on sale, some of which i buy , and think “Why aren’t you using ethical design in what you do?”
Everyone in every sector should be considering these things.
Mercadona have reduced the size of their disposable plastic biscuit package, and increased the net weight of the product inside from 300 to 360g. It will sound great when they say “we have reduced our plastic by 30%”. But if that 30% was entirely unnecessary in the first place, is this enough?
For a lighter look at all these ideas. I highly recommend the podcast “Jon Richardson and the Futurenauts” It is absolutely brilliant: easy, funny and useful.
Life in Barcelona
Here in Barcelona we are still finishing the “fiestas”. The Kings came with their gifts for everyone two days ago. (Kira commented, “It’s good to ask the Kings for a much as possible because then we don’t spend our money and get poorer”. The values of the normal world are creeping in to her life even though Mummy always says that if we spend money on good things we get richer and create abundance! I speak truth to my child right? There’s enough content for an essay in here.. what lies do we let our children believe?)
The return to school, officially today, has been delayed until Monday. Unlike the absolute shambles in the UK (again), I think everyone will be going back, and staying there. I hold on to the thought that COVID numbers were going down for a while during last term.
We are currently confined to the district where we live – a sensible move as we wait to see where cases increase after our relative freedom over Christmas (we were allowed up to 10 people together, almost anywhere in Catalunya). We are still on a 10pm curfew, shops and restaurants have limited opening times. But I have to say that I fully understand the rules and apart from not travelling away from home our lives are.. well.. pretty normal. Some real positives to end this post:
Kira has learnt to ride her bike and loves it – so being confined in the city involves lots of enjoying Barcelona by bike which is GREAT!
I am reading Braiding Sweetgrass. A truly beautiful book to remind us to be present and in love with the amazing nature we have.
A friend from the UK messaged yesterday and said she was keeping her fingers crossed that we will all be able to attend a small festival together in August. and thinking about it… why not? Outdoor space, camping, and not that many people. Sounds like the perfect COVID friendly activity.. totally possible!
Lou - I started on the Boodaville path when I bought the land in Matarranya in 2008 and have dedicated an incredible amount of time, and not very many euros, to building up the project over the years.
The first edition of the Maranya Festival took place in May 2019 in Fuentespalda, Matarranya
Maranya Festival 2019!
Originally posted on Jun 13, 2019
After months of preparation and anticipation the Maranya festival finally took place! On may 24, 25 and 26th we experienced the Bioescuela, interesting workshops, rain, music and most of all had an amazing time! So for those who were there here are some photo’s and videos to relive, and for those who weren’t here are some photo’s to show you the fun side of permaculture!
A big thank you to all who made this Maranya Festival possible. Lets do it again next year!!
Lou - I started on the Boodaville path when I bought the land in Matarranya in 2008 and have dedicated an incredible amount of time, and not very many euros, to building up the project over the years.
The rocket stove was built in July 2018. Experienced rocket stove builder Jordi taught us how to create an efficient heater out of very simple and locally sourced materials. All we used was an old metal drum, metal L shaped pipe, bricks, tiles, soil, sand and straw.
The rocket stove has 2 major parts. The fire is fueled in the L-shape, the hot air goes up and then it’s sucked down on the sides of the L-shape and into the second part of the rocket stove. The horizontal part of the chimney doubles as a heated bench ( permaculture thinking; stacking functions!). Because the whole structure consists of a lot of mass, once it’s hot, it will stay warm for a long time slowly releasing the heat.
That’s as far as the theory goes. Reality kicked in when we lit the rocket stove for the first time… After building the stove in July, we first lit it in October. It was about 30°C outside so it was easy to collect some dry branches and off we went. Result; smoke coming out everywhere. The whole structure had developed small cracks as the organic “cement” made out of sand, soil and straw had dried up and started cracking. Now the stove was venting inside the house. It was horrible. So time to get a bucket with water and some clay and a brush to patch up all the cracks and holes. This gave the rough looking structure a smoother look. The next time we lit it the smoke wasn’t as bad and we could fix the cracks as the fire was going. That was an easy fix.
Time passed by and when hurricane Leslie came we knew for sure autumn had arrived. So I decided to light the rocketstove to warm us up and dry our clothes. Lighting it is not an easy job since the L-shape is only 22 cm in diameter so I had to use very small branches to make sure enough oxygen was available for a good combustion. I also noticed that the opening of the L-shape was too low to the ground to sit comfortably in front of it. I almost have to lay on the ground (this reminds me of roman style eating where rich people laid down while eating…) to feed the small branches into the opening. Note to self; if I happen to build another rocket stove, it needs to have an opening on eye level. But I soon learned that wasn’t the only problem…
Some days the smoke comes back into the house, even accompanied with flames. The rocket is supposed to rocket upwards, not straight into the house! Soon I realised this was caused by two problems. The first problem is the existing chimney built on the roof of the house. A short (2 meter) chimney sitting on top of a flat roof deep in a valley doesn’t catch much wind. There is some draft around the chimney needed to create an underpressure inside the chimney to direct the smoke in the right direction. So one day we had someone on the roof to wave a towel around next to the chimney to create some airflow. This was surprisingly effective! This poor person standing in the roof had to stay there doing the “wellness centre towel wave” until the hot air made it through the horizontal part of the chimney into the vertical part, where the rising hot air would find it’s way out. Not to self; the shorter the vertical part inside the house, the sooner the stove has the rules of physics working with it. If the inside tubing was shorter than the approximately 7 meters of vertical chimney we have so the whole system would heat up faster.
So a lack of breeze in combination with a short chimney on a flat roof down in a valley is not ideal. But the opposite, strong winds, caused problems too…
One very windy day I tried to light the rocket stove but the wind created so much draft inside the system that the starting fire would go out immediately. It took me a lot of effort to get enough heat in there (between wind gusts) to get the rocket stove going. But as soon as I was going it went off… like a rocket. The roaring sound was immense and perfectly synchronised with the wind gusts outside. But sometimes the wind would change and instead of creating an underpressure in the chimney, it would blow down in the chimney full force and I had the flames with the force of the rocket INSIDE the house. Luckily this nasty habit stopped as soon as the whole heating system was hot. But until then, note to self; make sure to have a good fitting door to close quickly if needed. Luckily, the curved removable door we have proved to be very effective.
A few weeks later :
Today, after all the troubleshooting I’m sitting on a heated bench huddled under a warm blanket. Since we light it every day it is very easy to start. I assume that is because it’s not fully cooled down from the previous fire. It only consumes small branches and produces more heat than I could ever imagine coming out of such a small amount of fuel. And the structure stays hot all night long. As soon as I get a house that needs a stove, it definitely is going to be a rocket stove. Now I understand the rocket stove I hardly have trouble with it. The only downside is that it does require tending to produce a great amount of heat… I love fire and making fire and fuel efficiency and environmental benefits make me feel good too.
Lou - I started on the Boodaville path when I bought the land in Matarranya in 2008 and have dedicated an incredible amount of time, and not very many euros, to building up the project over the years.
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