Author: Lou
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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Annual Report 2023
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Annual Report 2023
An end of year reflection and summary of all we did at Boodaville during 2023 - this is long and detailed, not an SEO optimised post!!!
15 December 2023
I always thought the apocalypse would be some dark windy wild storm, but actually it’s the calm warmth of a 20º December day, and we’re all like frogs dying slowly as the water heats up to boiling point without us noticing.
David Attenborough is giving it his all, with every last breath spent encouraging us to fall in love with nature before it is all gone, and Stewart Lee and Arwa Mahdawi are writing regular comment pieces to remind us that politics and equality are moving backwards.
Another incredibly useful source of information this year has been our BiorNE Telegram group which includes voices from an amazing range of academics, farmers, soil experts, psychologists, activists and more. I miss twitter a lot. My mind and body just couldn’t click on the X icon. Not once have I been back since the change.
In general my reading and learning this year has been limited by the full on family life with a two-year old and a ten year old, and the sheer AMOUNT of work I have had to do for the association. My intellectual challenges have included re-learning how to read music to teach Kira how to play the violin, and designing daily schedules where I avoid needing to be in two places at once as much as possible .
Relating to Boodaville: I am incredibly happy about a few big steps forward. We now have two employees on permanent contracts (Lou and Carlos), we planted 1300 trees in carefully selected micro-climates where they can grow unassisted, we ran the smoothest and most enjoyable Youth Exchange ever at Sanilles, some wonderful new collaborations have been started, and the financial situation of the organisation is ok.
On the other hand we are disappointed by being given an extra hurdle in the infinitely annoying path towards getting permissions for running economic activities in environmental education at the “Aula de Naturaleza” at Boodaville Finca. I have recently visited the mayor to let him know that we have all the teachers, farmers, regenerative designers, organisers, accountants, public funding, potential participants, consultants that we could possibly need and that the ONLY thing stopping us from running a successful non-profit business is them.
Here’s to 2024 with adventure, agroforestry and abundance!
Below is a detailed summary of the projects this year, and plans for next year
A – ESC VOLUNTEERING 2023/2024
B – SOLIDARITY PROJECTS
C – ERASMUS+ PROJECTS
D – ROVIRA REGENERATIVA
E – OTHER EDUCATION PROJECTS
F – ADMINISTRATION, ACCOUNTING, WEBSITE AND COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT
A – Esc volunteering 2023/2024
This year we had 6 funded volunteers, 2 of them left before the end of their contract and were replaced. So in Barcelona we thank Baloo for starting the year with us and have a huge thank you for Emma who has been with us all year, and thriving in the Poble Sec neighbourhood. She is staying on in 2024 as a (non-funded) volunteer mentor and is participating in a Solidarity project with us.
In Caseres we have a huge thank you to Sara and Klif, our dedicated volunteers who spent over 9 months at Boodaville, and we have also hosted Pauline, Gaius, Jakub and Oumy for shorter periods of time.
We were missing a site manager after Alex left us, and are extremely happy to have started a collaboration with Roser who has helped out with that role.
In 2024 we are excited to change the plan a little!!! We are slimming down and Lou is removing some projects to better concentrate on a manageable amount of work, (and to go exploring Europe with the children..).
In 2024 we are hosting 3 funded volunteers from Jan to July. Pauline in Boodaville Caseres will not be at Boodaville Finca, but will work with Roser at her family permaculture project.. beautifully named “Boodaville Kindergarten”. We also have Antonia and Frida joining us in Barcelona. They are being mentored by Emma, and hosted at the amazing social project “Can MasDeu”. This means Lou has a minimal role in managing volunteers, and means that we don’t need to find a site manager in Caseres (which has always proved complicated).
B – solidarity projects
The Red Tent project was approved in Spring and runs through until next year. Vianna is the coordinator and mentor for this project and you can see the beautiful activities they offer around menstruation, sexual health, pregnancy on their instagram.
We are also very happy to receive news this week that the Río Algars project has been funded. We have finally achieved our goal of finding a group of young people near Boodaville Caseres who want funding for an activity. Samai is leading the project to make a movie about a young person, disillusioned with the city, who finds a more beautiful path in the rural setting near the Río Algars. Samai is passionate about the ecological message he wants to transmit with the film and the project includes organising screenings in Barcelona as well as in the countryside – Proposed date for the screening : October 2024!
C – ERASMUS+ PROJECTS
The first half of 2023 we were very busy with several projects. First Active Permaculture Youth Exchange – cordinated by Lou, run by Mas Les Vinyes. Lilo and Marta were incredible in their roles to organise and support the young people, Sergi was an inspiring permaculture teacher and the youth leaders were brilliant. You can see the video published here.
Lou coordinated, organised and facilitated the Healthy People, Healthy Planet youth exchange at Sanillés in June. We had an amazing team with Aline and Sam as co-facilitators, and great meals from Frank and Laia in the kitchen. Here is a little clip (and the final video is on my job list for the rest of this week!)
In Portugal we partnered on two projects with PND, a youth worker training and then the exchange RegenerAction. Oumy – who participated in the exchange – is now a volunteer with us! Julia from Mas Baget, who took the role of youth leader, is now more closely connected with Boodaville which we love!
Boodaville also ran the Sprout and Spread Art in Nature Youth Worker Training. This project was coordinated by Carlos and organised by Elena.
D – rovira regenerativa
We are very pleased with many things that moved forward with this agroforestry, education and ecosocial transition project during 2023. We completed tasks from the strategic plan such as digging ponds, extending the Thyme Terrace, doing a huge tree-planting at Manuel’s land, and we’ve been sharing the wine we made with friends. We connected with the neighbours in the Vall Rovira and other local projects. We are under pressure now to clean and prune the 2 hectares of vineyards, and then to find a way to purchase this land in late 2024. We feel very supported in this project by Angela, Jack and Jacqueline, Sam and Nick. You can read more detail in the Boodaville Caseres document and can see pictures and videos on the Rovira Regenerativa Instagram
Oferta de trabajo Buscamos a alguien para realizar tareas agriculturales del 22 de enero hasta 14 de marzo 2024. Información detallada aquí
E – other education projects
In July Boodaville collaborated with a project in Caseres and offered two permaculture sessions to teenagers from Catalunya participating in a summer camp.
Lou was active in promoting Doughnut Economics. As part of the Spark funded project several workshops were run at community centres, festivals and in secondary schools. In February a funding bid was presented by Anna and Silvia to “Bring the Douhgnut to Poble Sec” but there was tough competition, so although we did an AMAZING job for an application created in 4 days!!!! We didn’t score enough points to get funding. In October we presented Doughnut Economics and participated in the Fira Enredem Poble Sec
Boodaville offered a practical Biochar workshop in February with Nick, and the two tree-planting events included practical and theoretical education in agroforestry.
Boodaville organised the BiorNE permaculture conference in Fuenstespalda in collaboration with Juan Pedro Terramans. It was a great success, with over 50 people attending workshops.
Lou gave a Permaculture workshop at the Hort Font Trobada before summer.
F – administration, accounting, website and community management
We are working with accountants Toni and Bea at Gracer Cooperative and are pleased with the way the bookkeeping, tax obligations and employee issues are being run. Lou manages all the project budgets, the bank account, the cash flow and the overall net balance of the Association and is working to optimise the methods for this in 2024.
Boodaville is comfortable now employing people temporarily, emitting invoices, charging for educational activities. (We just need permission to DO the activities at Boodaville from the local council!)
By the end of this week Lou will finish the budget for 2024 and organise how to receive all the money the association “owes” from previous years. We will then start functioning from a “clean slate”. With no agreements hanging over from previous years, and everyone getting paid what they are due year on year.
The website may or may not still have big issues. Did you get to this link ok? Or did you get a weird message saying you’ve been infected with a virus? The truth is we still have a job list from 2020 that we haven’t finished about how we want the website to function better. We are going to investigate a grant for digital support to hopefully get a professional employee who is our web manager.
Community Management has moved forward well this year with Emma writing beautiful content and regularly posting on Instagram / Facebook. Emma also sent out several newsletters and wrote and published blog posts – including all the “history of Boodaville” posts brought across from the old website.
Lou
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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On Fridays I write (OFIW)
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On Fridays I write (OFIW)
Back after a break, Lou shares thoughts from the week and updates on tree-planting, Boodaville, and the future. I love that - updates on the future.
Where do you start writing when you have the freedom to write about anything at all?
That’s too difficult for me to answer. There are so many things that happen in one day, let alone the one hundred days that have passed since I last wrote a Friday post. Plus the writing process is supposed to be meditative, not a mentally exhausting bringing together of all the places my energy could go.
This season I feel there’s more of a distinction between my personal life and Boodaville. Of course they are still very closely connected, but now I have big things in my life that are not Boodaville – like going on adventures for four months with the kids, planning how and where to live when Kira finishes primary school. So maybe this platform is not the place for writing about that – although it all plays in very closely with the “Permaculture Design” of my own life.
Boodaville isn’t just me any more either. There are currently two contracted employees (me and Carlos) who take regular money from the EU funded non-formal education projects we coordinate and facilitate. We have some amazing and close collaborators who are working with us now or starting in Jan 2024: Elena is writing EU projects, Jessica is planning a move back to live at Boodaville Finca with her partner Stefan and will be working on financial planning and creating a right livelihood there, Emma in Barcelona will be helping as a mentor on Boodaville Barcelona and particpating in some 2024 projects after the end of her volunteering, and Roser is a mentor and collaborator in the Boodaville Caseres projet – now with a Kindergarten!
We hope to get a grant to employ an IT person, which is desperately needed because the website has some massive errors. In fact congratulations on arriving to this page and not ending up in some weird flashing advert.
It’s exciting the number of strategic decisions that get made every week about planning projects for the future. Well I’m hoping that will slow down now!! I think we made them all.
changes for 2024
One big change is that we will not really have long-term volunteers next year. There will be some “Boodaville volunteer” projects, but most of the tasks they do will be either online/admin tasks in Barcelona, working with neighbourhood projects in Poble Sec, or working at the new site with Roser. Read more here if you want to know about that!
So what will we be doing at Boodaville Finca without long-term volunteers?
Anna’s big idea (to be tweaked and improved with Jessica) is that Boodaville Finca will be open for visitors and volunteers from the first Friday of each month, for 11 days. We will have the activity permit, and we will run workshops, exchanges, group volunteering and guided tours. Then the rest of the month the site is closed to visitors so Jessica and Stefan can live in peace and quiet.
I’ve been looking back through the annual reports from 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and we got LOADS done those years. I think a model where we have planning time quietly with no one around, and then big collaborative short-term work weeks, will help us move forward with site development. Plus the educational activities will reach a much larger public, for example a group of twenty, five times a year, instead of a group o 6 all year round. In theory we should be able to combine the long-term volunteers with the events, but the week to week mentoring and admin for the ESC projects is very time-consuming.
So will you have enough funding for the flat in Caseres and other expenses?
What a good question to bring me back down to Earth. We are looking for Boodaville collaborators or a family from Barcelona, who want to rent a permanent room in Caseres village. The rest of the rent will be covered by the ESC project and visitors. We haven’t found anyone who wants to rent the room yet – It’s about 200-250 euros a month including bills, depending on how many people share the room.
And the other expenses: Anna and Jessica will look for more paid work / extra funding with the time freed up by not doing ESC.
Once the paid activities get going we actually hope to increase the overall income – I’ll leave it to the financial planning department for now. Maybe we make a business plan and get a loan to cover some costs during the first year. Our first ever loan. We could be like all the other businesses and households and run on debt. (That’s not really the plan. I love our low-budget, build up slowly, don’t pay into the debt based economy approach. Many projects are funded by capital built up from working in non-ethical jobs or inheritance, or are run on debt. We had none of these things, it was just a long, slow, slog)*
And what else is going on with the organisation you run Lou?
Well I’m glad you asked. Just this week we had the deadline for sending off a bunch of Erasmus plus projects, and then I had a breathing space to create an overview of Autumn 2023, so here it is. Please see our Opportunities page for links to go with projects you find interesting:
- BioRNE – 27, 28 , 29 Octoer we are co-hosting a Permaculture Weekend in Fuentespalda!
- Tree-planting : We will plant 1500 trees and bushes 18-21 Nov 2023 from Life TERRA. This fits in the broader “Rovira Regenerativa” project and yes – we do need help!
- Volunteering 2024 : the call for the 3 volunteers from Jan – July 2024 is open.
- Volunteering 2023 : We have a team of 5 on site for a busy autumn, and of course there’s loads of admin to do for this project.
- Accounting : We have a very positive relationship with our new bookkeeper Toni. He’s my favourite of everyone so far and as long as I do accounting every Monday things are organised and people get paid.
- Accreditation : We are applying for an accreditation for Erasmus+. If this is approved we will get funding for the next 6 years confirmed by the end of the year.
- Sanilles 2024 : We sent an application for a Youth Exchange in June in the Pyrenees. Funding still to be approved.
- Rió Algars 2024 : we sent an application for a Solidarity Project – a youth project in/near Caseres. Funding still to be approved
- Paid work : Romania project, Rió Algars project, and Anna needs to find more. There will be news on this soon, related to Rovira Regenerativa. (Heads up : I will be asking for 12€)
- Project Admin 2023 : Ah, those pesky final reports
- Boodaville Finca stuff : Making the finca plan work and getting on with site improvements and implementing the permaculture site design.
- Rovira Regenerativa Coordination : I suppose we should add this to the list. It ties in with paid work, and will hopefully come back to life. The LIFE funding deadline is next week, anyone? (That’s an in-joke!)
*For the purposes of radical transparency I should disclose that I have actually received inheritance money to the value of 30 000 euros over the 15 years of the project, which included buying the land outright. I also took a personal loan in 2015 for 6000 euros which was paid back within a year, and we also did the Boodaville Bonds scheme, also fully paid back now)
Lou
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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ESC volunteering 2024
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ESC volunteering 2024
Permaculture volunteering opportunities in 2024 with Boodaville - the call is open for European Solidarity Corps volunteers!
BOODAVILLE CASERES
(Scroll down to read about Boodaville Barcelona)
APPLY HERE!
WHO?
This is a placement for participants with a maximum age of 30 as it is funded by the European Solidarity Corps. We are looking for people who are highly motivated to learn and apply Permaculture, who are responsible and have an interest in nature and outdoor activities and education projects with young children. Applicants should have good communication skills and be ready to live in a small community. They should be prepared for quiet village life, and be ready to explore the area by bicycle.
We also invite participants with fewer opportunities.
WHERE?
For 24 hours a week volunteers will be at Boodaville Kindergarten, a developing family permaculture centre in the Matarranya region of Spain. Visitors learn about this permaculture education project applying, effective & sustainable design techniques in a place with challenging climate conditions.
Boodaville started in 2008 with the purchase of 1.5 hectares of olive terraces and pine forests in a stunning, tranquil location. Over the years, many people in an ever-growing international community have become involved and we’ve learned about, and applied, permaculture design during the development of the original site and the site of the new family project.
The long term goal is to create a working example of permaculture principles in action and create an eco-education centre with plenty of space for workshops and courses.
Volunteers will live in a fully-equipped caravan at the family project during the week, and have a room in rented accommodation in the small village of Caseres available for weekends and for 6 hours of online work related to the ESC program (youthpass diaries, writing up reports, organising and sharing dissemintion material).
Caseres is a rural village about 3 km from the demonstration site of Boodaville, and 6km from the family permaculture site. It is a small village of about 300 people located next to the Algars River where you can bathe.
See more about Caseres here : http://www.caseres.altanet.org/
WHAT?
The volunteer will have the role of assisting the Boodaville Kindergarten during the school time (from 9.00 to 15.00), and occasionally he/she will have the option to work in the permaculture project belonging to the school families, or the Boodaville Finca, nr Caseres – In which the main activities are Regenerative Agriculture and taking care of 4Ha of olives, almond trees and a vegetable garden. The permaculture and educational practice, meetings and other activities take place during 30 hours per week.
There are three main activities within the volunteer project:
1) Training in natural environment education, creating and developing activities focused on nature pedagogy and outdoor education.
2) Learn practical permaculture skills, communication, group cohesion, sharing ideas, facilitation and developing self-confidence.
3) Reflection work, write blog posts, post photos.
WHY?
This European Solidarity Corps program is an opportunity to make something for you and for the world. All basic living expenses are covered as well as the expenses to travel to Caseres, and you receive monthly pocket money.
You will be living and learning ethical design, as well as experiencing life in a rural Spanish village. There are all sorts of possible day to day activities, please read the infopack for more information and if you are eligible you can start the application process by filling in this form.
APPLY HERE!
WHEN?
From the 10/01/2024 to the 10/07/2024
———————————————————————————————————————————-
BOODAVILLE BARCELONA
WHO?
This is a placement for participants with a maximum age of 30 as it is funded by the European Solidarity Corps. We are looking for people who want to support our management of European Projects, who have a passion for social media, and are highly motivated to learn and apply Urban Permaculture. The ideal candidate is responsible and has an interest in ecosocial transition. Applicants should have good communication skills in Spanish as there will be networking and social media tasks. They should be prepared to come to the Poble Sec neighbourhood to work at least three days a week.
WHERE?
Volunteers will live in, or close to, Barcelona and will work in the Poble Sec neighbourhood to create regenerative projects. They will work in a variety of locations including co-working spaces, the offices of collaborating organisations, urban gardens and outdoor public spaces.
WHAT?
Volunteers will work on three two main tasks 1) Support with online work – mainly Instagram/Website/Project Management 2) Working in the neighbourhood implementing ecosocial design in the Poble Sec neighbourhood.
The volunteers will help Boodaville Association grow by engaging young people and sharing opportunities, both online, and in person in the neighbourhood.
Volunteers can choose independent work, or take part collaborating with exisiting groups. There are also opportunities to be involved with permaculure networks across the city and at a regional, national and international level.
Volunteers will work closely with Anna Louise Gurney the coordinator and Emma Riboli the mentor for this project.
WHY?
This European Solidarity Corps project is an opportunity to engage in promoting ecosocial design with long-term effects in a city neighbourhood. All basic living expenses are covered as well as the expenses to travel to Barcelona, and you receive monthly pocket money.
You will be living and learning ethical design, as well as experiencing life in an urban neighbourhood. There are all sorts of possible day to day activities, please read the infopack for more information and if you are eligible you can start the application process by filling in the google form.
WHEN?
From the 10/07/2024 to the 10/06/2024
Interviews for shortlisted applicants will be held via zoom with Anna Louise, project coordinator
1) Training in natural environment education, creating and developing activities
focused on nature pedagogy and outdoor education.
Lou
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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Data: Food forest study and soil analysis
Results of our Food Forest Productivity Study and the anaylsis of the microbiology of the soil by Sam Miller
Sara passed me the results from measuring circumference and height of our Food Forest trees.
Overall 49 of the 68 trees included in the study are still alive. But we have to recognise that 20 of these haven’t got through their first year yet.
When trees reach full size it will be important to switch to measuring productivity of fruit, rather than height. Only one tree we planted is productive, and we didn’t collect data on the original 3 olive trees and 4 almond trees – we probably should!
A conclusion is that we should focus on enriching the guilds that are still alive rather than adding new ones, and we can see how things improve when the wind break grows. At the moment.. it’s alive but not growing very much.
SOIL ANALYSIS
Our wonderful friend and recently qualified soil microbiolgy expert Sam Miller took a sample from the Food Forest and a sample from the Thyme Terrace project. (Search either of those terms on the blog page to find out more)
For the analysis 25 fields of view are considered from a one drop dilution under a microscope slide. At 400X there are over 2000 possible fields of view available to look at, so it is inevitable that it is not 100% accurate without taking hours and hours of work per sample.
For the Nematode analysis, the whole slide is scanned at 100X magnification so I took the opportunity to document some of the organisms that I saw during this part of the analysis. The magnification of the photos should be indicated in the title of each one. Click on the images to get the full sized view and the title.
In summary: Both places have bacteria and nematodes, but the food forest has no fungi and the thyme terrace has some.
This is what I expected as the Food Forest is an attempt to recuperate highly ploughed dead soil, but the Thyme Terrace is a place that has been left alone for over thirty years and has undergone natural succession and regeneration, and has many more bushes and trees.
You can see the spreadsheets for these studies if you want to go deep here and you’ll find some photos and the latest map in there too!
Lou
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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Update from Rovira Regenerativa (3)
Updates from Rovira Regenerativa, our valley scale regenerative agroforestry / community ecosocial transition / education project! Energy and guidance from Permaculture Design.
Monday 5th June Anna Louise had a meeting with our Vall Rovira neighbours Ana and Milu, and Manolo and Ilu. The five of us talked about our passion for regenerative agriculture, and how we can promote it and work together in the valley. Everyone was happy with the idea of forming an Association of neighbours, which is something we can do when we have more capacity. We’d like to be a reference point for anyone buying land in the valley.
The idea of hosting youth groups, camping or in dorm style rooms in the valley for overnight stays is not something we have a legal situation for at the moment, but if the local council are open to the idea of allowing it at the local Casa Rural, they are open to the idea of hosting groups.
We are hoping to organise a Permaculture course in November in collaboration with our neighbours and we would like to offer the practical work during the course at Ana and Milu’s farm. We can host 14 people with accomodation and full board in the local Casa Rural and more people can join the course without accommodation. We need to set a date and plan the budget, price and promotional material for this.
Manolo suggested that the different types of farms and fields in the valley could provide a rich space for educational activities. We need an inspired regenerative thinking farmer to take on the day to day grind of agricultural work.
Towards the end of June, the three volunteers held a “soap exchange” at the local village market in Caseres. Less people than usual attended the market because the fruit and veg stall that usually turns up was not there. However, despite the reduced number of passersby, the event was still quite successful as several people requested our soap in exchange for buckets full of their compost. Not only this, but they offered to keep doing this for the foreseeable future, i.e. to put their organic waste aside for us. A few days later, a bag of compost appeared in front of the garage door with a sign on it which read, “Para compost”; we have yet to identify the mysterious benefactor. For the three volunteers, the whole experience left them feeling that they were starting to be embraced by the village and become part of the community.
Another development was Marc’s father showing Sara where he piles up the grass on his fields. A few weeks earlier, Sara had gone with the other volunteers to collect it and now they have all the ingredients (and in the right amounts) to start a compost pile! Sara really enjoyed the exchange, which allowed her to chat with some of the local people, get to know them better and give them the chance to get to know the volunteers better too. Fostering synergies!
Meanwhile, Klif has been helping Ana the neighbour with finishing the roof of her house; previously Ana had been dragging tiles back and forth all on her own, but now she has the help of three generous neighbours. She has also expressed an interest in providing the now idle part of her olive farms as a place where Rovira could hold workaways or carry out permaculture experiments!
After a meeting with Ana which involved some brainstorming about the future of Rovira, someone suggested getting in touch with the founders of the Transition Network to see if we could maybe create a transition hub somewhere in the local area. Transition is a movement that has been growing since 2005. Community-led Transition groups are working for a low-carbon, socially just future with resilient communities, more active participation in society, and caring culture focused on supporting each other. For more information, go to: https://transitionnetwork.org
Lou
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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Update from Rovira Regenerativa (2)…
Updates from Rovira Regenerativa, our valley scale regenerative agroforestry / community ecosocial transition / education project! Energy and guidance from Permaculture Design.
New team member, James, visited for a week, staying at the house in Caseres. He met Alex and Sara, who gave him a tour of Boodaville and the surrounding valley. Although James was working online in the mornings (giving private English lessons), he helped out with a few gardening tasks in the afternoons. These included:
– Digging a trench next to the tree saplings alongside the (dried up) river and adding a mix of biochar* and compost tea. ** Given the months long drought, the ground was absolutely parched, but as luck would have it, it rained virtually every day after their labours. This should help incorporate the organic matter into the soil and aid its transportation through to the trees’ roots.
– Cutting back some of the dried up wild fennel stalks, for future use as mulch.
– Collected hay and manure from the donkey and horse living in the valley. Alex pointed out that we’ll have to check that neither animal has been treated with particular medication, e.g. antibiotics, which means their faeces could have a deleterious effect on the soil.
Alex and Sara continued the Regenerative Agriculture course at Gandesa. Both feel that the course remains fun and informative, if a little overwhelming at times. Sara was interested to learn that land which has been farmed conventionally for many years requires a transition period before it can be farmed in a fully regenerative way, e.g. soils which have been consistently tilled should not be suddenly subject to a no-dig method. Instead, they should be gradually tilled less often and to a lesser depth over a period of about five years. In this way, the incorporation of organic matter and deep rooted green manures can better improve the soil’s structure, drainage and biodiversity.
Finally, Sara removed one of the mould plates from the two quadrants in the edible forest. The rice contained within the mould had turned a few different colours, predominantly grey, but some grains were orange and green. A wider range of multiple colours would have indicated a more fertile and biodiverse soil, so there’s clearly work to do. Meanwhile, the other plate had mysteriously disappeared! Initially bamboozled as to what could have happened to it, Alex suggested that a search of the site might be in order. Sure enough, the plate turned up about fifty metres away, perched on a wall next to the path running down the valley. The mosquito net in which the mould had been wrapped was also nearby, ripped to shreds, and the plate contained a little remaining rice, but the mould was gone – presumably snaffled up by a local fox or wild boar. Something to bear in mind when releasing the chickens from their pen, or leaving the door open to the house!
* Compost tea is a liquid produced by extracting beneficial microorganisms —bacteria, fungi, protozoa, nematodes, and micro arthropods—from compost using a brewing process. A true compost tea contains all of the organisms that were present in the compost before brewing. The brewed water extract should also have soluble nutrients from the compost. Compost tea is a good overall plant health booster (a little like vitamins for people), and healthy plants are better able to resist pests and diseases.
** Biochar is biomass (wood, leaves, straw, or other biosolids) heated at high temperatures without oxygen. This process, known as pyrolysis, concentrates carbon in a form that is very resistant to biological decomposition. When applied to soil and other products, a large fraction of its carbon content is sequestered for 100+ years.
Lou
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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Update from Rovira Regenerativa…
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Update from Rovira Regenerativa…
Updates from Rovira Regenerativa, our valley scale regenerative agroforestry / community ecosocial transition / education project! Energy and guidance from Permaculture Design.
New team member, James, has agreed to make these weekly reports happen. James has been living in Spain for the last five years, mainly teaching English, but also growing vegetables (using Permaculture principles, obvs) in Albacete and getting involved in the city’s environmental activism with the local branch of Extinction Rebellion. He’s worked in various jobs, including as a journalist and translator, and before moving to Spain he worked as an RHS-qualified gardener in his home town of Bristol.
The team drank a bottle of our Rovira Regenerativa wine and agree with Mike, it is highly drinkable. The plan is to think about labelling it and gifting it to the local community.
Anna met the donkey living in the valley and wonders if its owners can help us clear the fennel and add poop (sorry, manure) to the vineyard. Manures contribute to the fertility of the soil by adding organic matter and nutrients, such as nitrogen, that are utilised by bacteria, fungi and other organisms in the soil. Higher organisms then feed on the fungi and bacteria in a chain of life that comprises the soil food web.
Alex and Sara both started the Regenerative Agriculture course at Gandesa. Although there is no one from Caseres or Gandesa on the course, they will try and network with as many participants as possible to encourage their involvement with Rovira. Alex said the course is a good mix of theory and practice, and the guy running it is very engaging and enthusiastic.
Last Friday Alex and Sara went to visit two neighbours who are doing permaculture in their finca, and are interested in the idea of lending a piece of their land to the Rovira Regenerativa project for regenerative agricultural practices. As Sara said, “It’s interesting to connect with them to understand the synergies that might arise.”
In terms of the social and economic aspects of the project, Sara is organising an info-point event to update the inhabitants of Caseres of what the volunteers are doing in the Boodaville Permaculture demonstration site. “We’d love to invite the people from Caseres to visit Boodaville… to open a dialogue between the community and the association,” added Sara. To create a motive for coming, they are going to give out ecological soaps, which they made in Boodaville, in exchange for organic waste for the compost pile. “Since the compost pile needs to be minimum one meter tall… we need a big amount of organic waste to start it,” explained Sara.
In terms of the ecological aspect of the project, the volunteers are designing a way for the newly planted trees to grow in an enriched soil. This will be done through adding biochar plus compost tea in the vicinity of the trees in the agroforestry system at the bottom of the valley. This is to both regenerate the soil and to foster the well-being of the trees, to support them in this delicate moment when they are establishing their root system. “We are thinking which seeds might enrich the syntropic experiment 1,” says Sara, who has started carrying out the annual biodiversity inventory of the food forest, collecting data and creating a protocol that can become useful for future experiments.
Lou
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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Recruiting volunteers, mentoring, thriving on interconnections (OFIW)
This week Lou shares insights on managing the volunteer and Erasmus+ projects, reflections on key permaculture concepts: connections, edges and synergy as a guide, and updates from Rovira Regenerativa.
I really needed a long walk in the park today. When you have so many things going on you have to learn to just stop regularly, breathe and know that you won’t be able to solve everything, or even mentally mind map the different categories of things you have to do, let alone the different tasks for each one. Included in this list are “needs of child 1” and “needs of child 2” as well as work, personal life and more. For some weird reason, based on my mother hearing an interview on Radio 4, I have in my possession, and have read, Sophie Ellis Bextor’s autobiography. I am in no way recommending this book, but I loved the paragraph when she’s talking about her many children, and how each one is like an entire planet with it’s own system of functioning, and fluctuating needs for nourishment and care.
The point is that you have to just stop for a while. Today part of my stopping was next to a pond full of croaking, mating frogs. It was fascinating and I learnt so much. The males blow their cheeks out into bubbles and stay still shouting and shouting, they are green. The skin stretches out thinner than a balloon to make the bubbles. Then the females approach them and sometimes they chase each other a bit. I didn’t see any actual mating. The females also croak, are browner in colour, and don’t do bubble blowing.
Recruiting
My actual list of homework (preparing a report to move the activity permissions forward, finishing the lesson plans for the Doughnut Economics workshops) has not been completed this week. Again.
But it has been a good week for planning the restructuring of the Boodaville Caseres team. We’ve offered places to two people who’ll start in June (when it is confirmed we’ll present them!) and the question of how we manage the site for the rest of the year has been approached and discussed.
All this was several hours spent on communication, and my challenge as always is to keep everyone informed correctly, give them space for questions and opinions, speak clearly in the right tone of voice, and still pick up Joanna on time from nursery. I think I did ok! Let’s see how things come together. Keeping everything in balance between talking and coming to a clear plan is where a lot of my energy goes. The thinking in between the messaging and calls is fueled by my second breakfast everyday.
Interconnection
Things only make sense to me when they are connected. I think this is where ten years of permaculture design thinking takes you. I can look at what is happening right now with Boodaville, and everywhere I see integration of ideas, synergies and shared edges, it works. I am now actively focusing on promoting only activities that have a long edge with the permaculture designs in place (think “overlap” but more like two bubbles joining together)
Most importantly, as once put beautifully by my long-term Boodaville associate Carlos “The objectives that the volunteers and participants have, must be aligned with the objectives of the project”. This is brilliantly demonstrated by Sara who has put together a year plan for her education at Boodaville Caseres which is entirely based on the “Objectives 2023” document. The synergy is electrifying. And so is Sara’s dedication to the project: she touched the electric fence not once, but twice, to definitely check it was working.
Rovira regenerativa this week
My energy high this week was during a meeting with Ana Ventura from SoftFocus in Portugal abut the possible LIFE project (Valley Life? good title? I kind of like it) The notes are in this weeks image – a wonderful consolidation of ideas and plans, narrowing down to the key elements of what we’re looking for funding for, and a clear idea from Ana about what they can offer in a partnership.
The next steps are clear, but will they happen? We need to translate the meeting notes into a more coherent document about what we want to do, match that with the suggestions from Kathy Franco, and then get back to Kathy and push for another meeting with a potential coordinating partner. Who is we?
Another idea is to change the main blog page and list “current activities of Rovira Regenerativa” because we area already doing so much of this work that inspires us!
And my latest action, which is a real shot in the dark, is that I emailed James who found our blog and expressed interest, and gave him the task of writing a weekly update just on this project. Something to keep us all connected.. and connection is the key!
BOODAVILLE CASERES
We are still interested to receive applications from potential volunteers and get to know people who want to join us.
This week the team have been over to Cova Fullola to help finish the amazing kitchen – a straw bail build with artistic clay reboco.
boodaville barcelona
People are signing up for the Doughnut Economics workshop! and Emma and myself continue to make new eco-friends and harvest from the garden.
It rained so let’s see if the marigold seeds we spread guerilla gardening style in the neighbourhood will sprout.
YOUTH EXCHANGES AND FUNDING RESULTS
- Active Permaculture youth exchange at Mas Les Vinyes starts on Monday!!! I will be there next weekend.
- We are looking for participants in “Healthy Planet, Healthy People youth exchange with Aline from La Casa Integral. It has been approved so if you are under 30 and resident in Spain send your applications in.
- Sprout and Seed Youth Worker Training – coordinated by Irene and the Zaragoza team has been approved.
- Red Tent Solidarity project has also been approved! Coordinated by Vianna, this is being run by a group of young women in Barcelona. One of the participants is an ex-student from when I taught Business Studies at a secondary school here. Love that random connection. Not feeling old at all.
Lou
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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Buds, upcoming birthdays, urban permaculture (OFIW)
This week Lou writes about new buds at Boodaville Caseres, reflections at the birthday time of year and updates on urban permaculture workshops and activities.
That was a little bit like an epidural.
I just transferred photos from my ex-phone to the computer for this blog post. The cable connection only works in exactly the right position with the perfect amount of pressure applied.
I had to hold completely still, with tension in my body, sweating with the knowledge that if I moved at all things could go wrong. It was a very long “about 1 minute” and ultimately successful! Unlike the actual epidural which gave me no pain relief at all.*
Birthdays
I’m going to be 46. This feels pretty old, my body feels clunkier (more yoga required), I’m feeling ready, and rather excited about moving past the childbearing phase of my life, and I’m doing a lot better than this time last year.
What got me most this morning though, was how the years are passing. Time is not linear and on a different day last year feels like yesterday, or an age ago, but there are only so many years in a lifetime. Are there enough? What makes them joyful?
I want to make a video, and tell a celebratory story. It won’t happen today but I hope it happens soon.
The song “Come Together” from Screamadelica played on the radio this morning and it brought me a beautiful feeling, dwelling on the connections in my life between this music and wonderful friendships and turning points.
It brought me a powerful vision that being alive is connecting with all that is living; the beauty and awe that we can find in the natural world.
I hold knowledge and wisdom and I understand that this passion for life, and the quest to find all there still is to enjoy, will lead me effortlessly to a place where my life is in service to all life, and that what I do, makes the world more alive.
So first step is to make a home-video to explain why I think Primal Scream should let us use their music to tell a story of connection, and convey this message to a lot of people. Second step is to make the video that conveys the visions and feelings above.
Primal Scream is exactly how I describe the sounds going on after the epidural didn’t work.
BUDS
We have successful tree cuttings for the first time ever at the Boodaville Finca (Caseres). See photos below! This is a wonderful step forward for us and comes from the love and passion of Sara, and planting further down the valley on the more humid terrain ceded to us by Manuel. The cuttings in the ground received no irrigation and it hasn’t rained more than “4 gotas” since we had 100mm in 24 hours on 12th Nov 2022.
urban permaculture and workshops
I posted on facebook about all our ecological activities in the city this week, and Emma shared a post from the workshop in the community garden last week. There’s a lot of spring time energy, and some lovely people sharing energy and ideas.
– the passer-by who has an abundance of kitchen made compost to share with us
– two people who joined our activities and want to come back and get more involved
– Emma went with espigaladors (there’s a post coming about that) and met someone who is also in the community garden and wants to connect with us
upcoming opportunities
Please keep checking this post – boodaville.org/opportunities-2023/ – we are updating every week!
(*”walking” epidural)
Lou
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.
All Posts »
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Copyright 2024 © All rights Reserved. Boodaville