Fence con't

The fence is just gorgeous. Seeing the way the light changes during the hours of the day is inspiring. It creates its own shade but let's the breeze through. My beans have all sprouted successfully and are about 3" after a week. I built 2' beds with river rocks and the topsoil from the fence digging all around the perimeter (well i'm halfway through...) for the beans, other vines: squash, watermelon,

chayote, chilies hot and sweet and various local flowers. Of course Shiva's favorite place to sleep! The greenhouse is amazing for germination and sprouting- we had a slight ventilation problem, although the mesh does breathe- it's not enough so we opened up another door on the opposite side for cross-ventilation. Hopefully the breeze will keep the flow and we won't need to install fans. Our Paiu plant had a small fungus infection but we moved it outside near the coffee and it's doing great.

We are waiting for our reclaimed felled teak, eucalyptus and ceder to come in December before we can start the cabin. It's being certified reclaimed so the paper work is taking some time. It's a really good thing however, the gov. makes sure all wood cutting is legit and no wood is cut from the many reserves and forests. It's tempting for the indigenous people to sell their trees but this keeps black-

market wood sales in check and promotes recovery of fallen trees. They literally pull over all trucks carrying wood, a small victory for the pathetic panamanian government. We had another lead on some felled pine from our friend Jose, so Limon is taking a trip down to the Frontera to settle up- it looks like we can just pay to load the wood and transport it back to the land (roughly $300-400 for 3,000+').

Usually wood goes for between $1-2 per foot so a real steal!

We saw a nice wood cabin nearby that used the rounded outer edges of the trees which is a large part of what we'll be getting, it's beautifully rustic. We figure we can build the first 2-3' of the foundation and walls with all the river rocks we have and minimal cement- we've seen quite a few examples around we like. And the roof is going to be a living sod roof with self-irrigation and water-catching. We're going to install a small solar shower and a compost toilet off of the back of the cabin, both of which we have already practiced (a couple prototypes...) and are comfortable constructing.

It's so funny when you walk up to the land now it looks like an old Spanish fort, with the huge Panamanian flag dead center on a 25' bamboo pole and the impenetrable bamboo circa. It's quite formidable and impressive.