Casa Robino

Urban Farming is on the rise in many places where we lost farming a long time ago... Reminds me also of what I learned here in Lyon (!) that 80% of the people in Estonia either grows their own potatoes or gets them through a personal home-grower.

Finally we started our own composting! I remember people trying it out before but the idea of composting was never tackled very soundly. This past week though, Rachel has been using her hands to repot plants and herbs and with redesigning the balcony, as well as creating a workable compost-system. Do you see the little table at the back of the photo, made from scrap-wood? Voilà. Under it you find a plastic container where now the compost goes.

Hi Casa Robino,

I just wanted to post a quick note having just stumbled onto this website (and then onto your various related blogs and profiles on other sites), that you have set my heart aflutter just because of your existence! I'm moving to Amsterdam in the new year and I'm super interested *while trying to maintain optimism* about communities based on trust and reciprocity. Obviously not having seen anything in action yet, at least in theory, this all seems pretty rad (in both senses of the word.)

One of the great things that I learned about farming/ gardening before I actually started doing it was: "just try". And if things don't work out like you envisioned, you know what to do different next time... So far we had no problems, the ruccola was growing nicely, and so are the snap peas, green beans and the about 10 different herbs that we are growing. With the help of Derick, who build boxes for on top of the roof and dumpster dived glasses, we even have several greenhouses.

And here came the mistake.

We have two pigeons that have build a nest in the tree right in front of the house. The egg is white. We are also getting forward with the gardening. On the rooftop we have rucola and other types of crispy lettuce and on the balcony beans and lots of herbs. And wow, isn't it growing fast!

"I never see hitchhikers", I was told today by one of my five drivers while going back and forth to and from Den Haag. As a response I gave a summary of five people that I know, who are also hitching somewhere in Europe today, and added a short story about night-hitching, and how one can do large-distance hitchhiking.

Somehow many conversation here in Casa Robino lead to local currencies and food cooperatives. So when we were discussing [http://cashwiki.org/en/Madison_Hours local money] and food coops in Madison, [http://casarobino.org/users/louisa-magrics Louisa] (18 yr old, Australia) asked: "what is a food cooperative?".

Dear Casa Robino.
May the wind be beneath your wings - all the wings you can make out of old bike rims and haywire.

If you would like to build a Wind Turbine, this is a fabulous hitch-out spot to start from: http://www.instructables.com/id/Wind_Power/

Some of us went to see a presentation on permaculture yesterday, which was organised by the SWOMP-people. We had a good time hearing about the 12 principles of permaculture - and after a video sharing ideas and inspiration with some of the people around.

City in England growing their own veggies, spotted on casa field trip in snow to nearby ex-squat cafe.