Dearest Hive Friends!

Our first days back on our new land (after a break back in Guardia to prepare for Vinalia and to pack more of our stuff for bringing here) have again been full to the brim with sensation, energy, inspiration, and now some actual activity in the ‘garden’. Our 11,000 m2 are becoming ever so slightly more familiar to us with every step we take, and we’re beginning to tune into particular places that want our loving attention.

We are still in the observation stage, the immersion and absorbtion time where we don’t even think about moving earth, planting seeds or controlling water. We just watch everything, walk around it, feel it and allow our holistic sensory wisdom to guide action. Planning will happen more organically, as we are called to it, but until then, clearing some tangled bushes and trees, and tidying up paths and tracks is a good place to release some of our former-life tension – and to just get to know the whole zone more intimately.

our hedge - BEFORE - looking down it (to the right)

Letting the trees and soil know that we are here to support them and to enhance their wellbeing, is important to us. We speak openly to them, with clear intention and with innocence. If we have to cut plants away, we thank them for their service, and release them with gratitude. Everything that is cut away is kept on the land, and not burned or destroyed; all will compost down and return important texture, humidity and nutriment to the soil. It will also provide good habitat for smaller and even less-visible life forms, as it breaks down. This is part of our reciprocal service to the biodiversity.

our hedge - AFTER - looking up it (to the left)

Serving trees is vital: these will be our food, our fuel, our warmth, even our home and furniture, in the future; they all deserve the utmost respect and thanks. We deposit our compost (and ‘night soils’) under our best trees, and think about how to thin out woodlands to allow some bigger trees to develop more vitality. We discuss removing dead trees, and leaving them in certain places, to provide mushroom habitat.

We got our first rain – whilst we actually were not here, unfortunately! - and the ground feels very different. Though the local shop folk said that it had rained poco, our side of the mountain appeared much more damp. This is likely due to it being northeast facing, and having mature woodland shade around most of it. Some of the very dried out mosses have refluffed, and there is a lot of damp beneath the surface leaf litter. This is greatly blessed for us to see, as our initial arrival was in the furnace-like scorching heat period, and it was slightly hard to hear Great Spirit asking us to trust and just take the land, without running water.

The amount of negative energy and kneejerk responses that come from one announcing that a place does not have running - or as most folks are accustomed, ‘city’ – water, as extraordinary. It illustrates our collective fears of living close to the elements, and not being dependent on the state. But the reality of living with ‘less’ water is greatly honing of energy and intelligence.

Firstly, there is no such thing as water scarcity - water ‘not being available to us’ is a construct dependent on ignorance and brainwashing: water is all around us at all times, and only requires our awareness and our right action to channel it into an appropriate vessel for our use. Though water divining and water harvesting are not widely embodied skills, they are relatively easily re-learned. And we should all be aware of some basics of how to move, catch and store water, if we are going to flourish in the future.

This is what I love about coming to this land most: how it wakes us up and keeps us focussed on the Real Priorities; air, water, food, rest, ablutions, focus – leading to right action. Nothing else needs our attention, and nothing else is more important than these things. And what little we do have, we use very care-fully and respect-fully; it is gifted to us by an intelligent universe, for us to use for what we need, not to be splashed willy-nilly, or pooped into, or for us to poison with chemicals: the waters are absolutely sacred, and we should treat them as such. Showering in a few litres of water, rather than soaping up for half an hour in 80 litres, is a great joy and hugely satisfying, under the warm sun that I’ve been working in for some hours – it does not compare to showering in city water that smells of chlorine or the like...

Until the local fountain is ‘undiverted’ again, and we redig the well and/ or a new well, and get underground anaerobic tanks in place, and gutters on the ‘house’, and swale like crazy up and down the sloping hills of our land, we are very blessed to have a car which can drive us with our tanks and bottles to a place where we can fill them. And we just found this insanely large bucket in a cobwebbed corner of one of the stables below the diposito - it most certainly could function in addition to our solar shower, as a bath of sorts… or at least could catch some rain from a dripping corner of the building, next time it pours…

Plus the neighbour, a cute but grumpy (until he gets to know us, I’m sure!) anziano told us to use his water hose if we need to: his gate is not locked – and we gift his cats and chickens our scraps here and there, in return. We fill the solar shower from it, and leave it to heat in the sun.

So we’re feasting on brambles and plums, looking at what greens are shooting up since the rainfall, and are excited-as-can-be about our ripening figs, hazelnuts, olives and walnuts. The latter in particular is promising to be a bountiful harvest, and I am dreaming of the nut butter that I’ll be making! We may have to borrow some electricity from somewhere, to be able to work my Norwalk food factory, but maybe later this year we’ll be able to mash them up beautifully – add a pinch of salt and a spoon of raw olive oil to, to make the most divine of walnut butters….. Mmmmmmmm.

We also laid the beginnings of a hedge yesterday: cutting almost-through some small trees, and laying them down sort of woven into each other. They were already fairly well positioned for a long hedge along our big track that leads into one corner of the property. It now will have a better view from it, and will allow the bigger trees on the upper side of the track to sit nicely across the thoroughfare in a kind of green and light-dappled natural tunnel. Yum! I am still sensing into where our nature sanctuary building will grow up, and it feels like this big path might lead to it… Very exciting to be slowly-slowly moving towards organically building a living space!

In the meantime, it is almost lunch o’clock, and there’s a lovely pasta with gifted zucchini, potato and olives in it, which might be even nicer with added tuna or the like… I’m off to heat that up for @vincentnijman and myself, as we get ready for siesta.

Much love to you all, in all you homesteading endeavours!

www.claregaiasophia.com