Breaking Ground

Past the halfway point, we’re now beginning to see the physical manifestation of weeks and weeks of planning. We have almost all the equipment purchased now and by the end of next week we plan to have the first leg of pumping from the pond to the first tank complete and ready for testing. Completing this first leg alone will allow us to see how our equipment and system design function in reality and hopefully help identify any mistakes so we don’t carry them on into the rest of the legs.

We’ve come to some laborious decisions surrounding material selection…high density polyethylene or PVC? Run two water lines for less friction in the system overall, or one line and less material? What wood protectant is more environmentally safe and which works better, linseed oil or polyurethane? From the outset it has been our plan to use the most environmentally safe, most “sustainable” materials. But what does that mean exactly, and have we succeeded? Sometimes it’s hard to know. In the sustainability game we often find ourselves in a position where we feel we need to make tradeoffs, where we feel forced to choose the lesser of two evils. Karl-Henrik often refers to this as the “plague or cholera” scenario. Obviously we don’t want either. So we can’t let ourselves be forced into that situation, otherwise nothing will ever change.

Ideally, we would like to understand the full life cycle of all materials we use: the ingredients in their production and where they came from, how much energy went into production, how long they will last, whether they are designed for repair and or disassembly, whether they are reusable, recyclable or biodegradable. Finding this kind of information on materials and processes can be difficult and extremely time consuming, especially in a foreign country in a second language. For a bunch of idealists like us, it’s hard not to feel like you’ve given up too easy. I think the important point is just to understand what compromises we are making but not be paralysed by fear, and do our best to minimize any current contributions to violating the four system conditions for sustainability. What is crucial though is the second part…creating long term plans to eliminate any of our continuing contributions to violations of the system conditions in the future. We’re a bit different than say a business because this is a one shot deal for us. The future for us will be recommendations.

Here’s a pictorial round-up of the action…






Last Friday we broke ground and cemented in the
pole to support our first set of panels.






All the trenches for the water pipe runs and electrical conduit have been dug thanks to our buddy Angel and his backhoe.







We also saw the completion of a new 210,00L reservoir at the highest altitude of the property line, high above the farm.








Lawrence designed, and with a little help from Patricia and the local carpenter Don Jose, built a dock that will mount the submersible pump in the pond.