Latest State of Activities / Spring 2012
Hello friends,
slowly but surely spring is starting here in the mountains, the elders bud, in the forest there are thousands of blooming anemones and primroses, the first violets bloom already and at last I can relish again wild salads. The wild cherry trees are just before flowering, they’ll soon sprinkle the hillsides with pink spots. But the forest in general is still bare and the high mountains in the distance still hold their thick winter snow cover. Like often here in March / April weather is quiet hot during the day while sun is shining, the moment the sun dissappears behind the mountains it gets immediately cool again – I had my first sunburn, no memory of the masses of snow in January / February. All and everything is bathed in spring feelings and my cat Tiger is already on women’s travel for days, after having impregnated intensively my other cat Lizzy. Once again I’ll hang my hammock in the trees and sleep again under the dazzling sky – oh wonderful life! I’ll be back outside cooking over the fire and resting in the evening cosily by the fire listening to the owls!
In the vegetable garden the first terraces are sown, but at time of the Ice Saints’s it will surely freeze again. 2 years ago we had as much snow, that even huge old trees broke like matches under the weight of snow, but they’ve provided me with firewood for the coming winters. The raspberries must be thinned and the preparation of seedlings for pumpkin, zucchini and cucumber needs to be done urgently and this year I definitely want to grow corn, potatoes and Jerusalem artichokes. Most of the vegetable terraces are still completely overgrown with wild blackberries – in May / June during the rainy season they’ll hopefully be overgrown with vegetables.
The old fieldstone house that will become the community building, has served me as my winter home and is just pretty provisionally set up. Because of woodworm infestation I had to knock out almost all the upper wood, but I manageged finally to dry the stone walls towards the mountain, having inside the house now cosily dryness. And urgently a new kitchen stove needs to be carried up up the mountain, because the old one is simply too rusted to be repaired. Heating in wintertime has been quiet funny because the first hour till the whole stove had become hot, he puffed like a locomotive out of every hole, forcing me to windows and doors.
My neighbor community is going to pull up my 65-pound solar battery with their horse, then I’ll fix 3 solar panels and so I can finally install a satellite dish for Telephone & Internet. That’s a big hit, I’m looking forward to just sitting cosily at home writing and no more needing a city to have acces to the internet. The most important works to do now are the vegetable garden, the compost toilet and the horizontal base for my hut, that means digging in the loam – and since my back is not that fit any more, some friends will help me. For my first hut I chose the quickest solution, I’ll just build a pointed pyramid in double construction of small trunks. And when the main work will be done and rest will come, I’ll create in peace and tranquility a roundhouse out of cob-mix with round windows (in my mind it’s already styled).
My high side valley branches off the main valley in the Ariège. All around there’s only high forest and occasional goat willow – at night you can see only the scattered lights of solar bulbs that shine through windows – you hear owls calling, barking dogs or sometimes drum sounds. On the other side of my little valley lives a small community that lives self-sufficient since decades without the use of machines – all year round for a few weeks or months volunteers from around the world join them for working-holidays and some of them stayed in the Ariège, cause you can fall in love very easily with these wild mountains and its inhabitants! In the main valley live alternatives and their meanwhile adult children – almost everyone grows his own vegetables, many also have their own cheese or honey. Nereby is a small mountain village with a few shops, including a bio-cooperative, where surrounding farmers also sell their yields. Here occur wonderful festivities, I’ve never experienced during my travels such a wonderful sense of community even with complete strangers. And nereby are small Towns with weekly markets and shopping.
So, now things are ready to take off: the basic work is done, now slowly more people can roll along, I’ll put into appropriate Internet forums a call for community members (see text below). I’m looking forward to your reactions ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥! According to my feeling this terrain easily can cope with five homes (5 singles, couples or small families), so that everybody has enough privacy. And around would be also enough ground for sale. On my first call a few years ago (before I found this place) the incoming responses mainly came from people searching an already existing Community – now pioneers are sought to establish – I’m so excited!!!!!
Just contact me, we can start immediately:
1. Anyone interesting to help for a while
2. Anyone who would love to enter the project – if we are sympathetic and have a similar spiritual attitude to the world and communities
3. Whoever likes to contribute good ideas, I’m looking forward to your comments!
The program for the new site also is completed during wintertime, now I just have to learn to deal with it; with my lack of technical understanding that will take a few weeks. But then I can easily maintain the site myself and can post easily new texts, photos, movies and whatever I want. It will be multilingual and anyone who likes to translate is always welcome! We are also looking for more experts who can talk profoundly from their experience of life-art, spirituality, nature, art, alternative medicine or “New Technology”. It will be an information pool for the “New World” with reports, expert information, news and offers that could make life more beautiful, joyful, fun-loving and affectionate for everyone on this earth . Who wants to be part of the virtual community is cordially invited to join!
So, that’s all for today, I’m looking forward to your ideas and your reactions! And please don’t be surprised if no immediate responses will come from me, cause right now I don’t have yet acces to the interent at home, for that I have to go down every few days to the Ziwilisation.
Bye bye and “pleins de bisous” from the wild mountains from Lucca!