Bigclaw delivers wood

These steel claws have seen some tons of wood in their time. The machine was welded back into workable structure whereever one can imagine a new weld. It was huffing and puffing, heaving and creaking up the hill and finally delivering on our place. The wood is cut off result of a wood processing unit close to us. It costs a fraction of the price of dried wood. With it we can build animal lodgings, fences etc. There will be a lot of woodwork to be done this and following years. Chicken, garden tools, compost need housing. To name a few applications. We have bought old woodworking tools. Ancient I must say. They are probably 100 or 200 years old. Handmade and kept in perfect condition. I am exercising with them. I want to learn the ancient european woodworking techniques in this time of transformation. Back to more down to earth techniques. More about that later. We are still working with a lot of present age machines. Using fuel, breaking down. Making us dependent on delivery of repair and fuel delivery.

Fleur Jelena Portia's birthday

The lovable little being has been with us now for one year. Two children we adore. We learn a lot from them. Like looking, listening and working with their ever variable moods. Nol is changing teeth. He lost one of them in the garden. He thought it was a piece of stone in the bread he was eating. The cake was the first one made in the wood oven. It had risen according to plan and was soft and tasty. Weldone Barbara.

Picking up building materials

Roto bales. Bought last year. They were stored at the farm where we bought them. Per piece they will be transformed into smaller regular bales. While we were helping the driver to move the bales to more favourable position, we awakened a porcupine. She was still rolled up in winter position. Spring had not penetrated under the bales yet. While it has already been warm since february. Insulation is exactly why we are applying them.
By the way, the porcupine I lifted with both my hands out of it's winter berth. Under protest of the guys. You cannot lift this animal bla bla. I put it in a safe place under a tree. So it could gently come to out of his winter conciousness. It got out remarably fast and sauntered of in search of new lodgings.
The farm at wich we bought the balas is owned and run by a three generation family. They have about 80 hectares and 60 cows. Every time we came we would sample their domacia products. Home made. Every family has preferences and style. Things are recognisable same product but definitely different in taste. That goes for the rakia too.... :)

Crazy colors in Bosnia

Blue and something. Also nice design..... Note balconies, don't walk off please.

United colors of blues

We went to the market in Velika Kladusa, just around the corner in Bosnia. There are minarets, kebabs, clothes, tools, cars, turkish coffees and also jeans.

The ongoing work of nature

The work of nature is ongoing till the day of today. If I look at our daughter in this picture I think nature must still be meaning well.
We were at an antique and fruit market near the square Brittanica in Zagreb. When she passes everybody wants to hold her. She was very tickled by the banana. She ate half of it and as you can see, it gave her a special gleam in the eyes.

Ishi the last Yahi. The man in this picture is demonstrating how stone age man makes fish prongs. He walked into a village in the area of Sacramanto, California in 1911. He had just left his whole world behind. At the moment he was found, he was in between two worlds, in nothing.
He had lived on the run for 40 years. On the run for an encroaching civilisation we are assuming is normal. The professor who took care of him described him as a man that exercised the filosophy of patience. Without a trace of selfpity or bitterness poluting the purity of the rest of his existence.
We knew many things. Many of them wrong things. He knew nature, always truthfull. He had characteristics that always are valable. He had a good heart; He had courage and selfposession and although all had been taken from him in his heart was no bitterness. His soul was that of a child while his mind was as wise as that of a philosofer.
Looking at what we are doing in Croatia and our work in nature; What style of living has been handed down through the ages? How is the impact of this style in every context of our life? Isn't it time every country in the world had an area where a totally new eko friendly village could be built? Where everything done & built has it's direct connection with nature and only natural materials? Thinking and operating cradle to cradle?
And look at the expression on the face of Ishi. Busy in the here and now with something holding his whole concentration. In all humility this is one of the examples we want to follow. In learning from nature and living in nature. And the mindfulness of which Ishi was an example. Probably without knowing, or did he not?