Well, even in though we're coming into autumn, the heat of the afternoons has still been as oppressive as August! Thankfully it does cool down a bit at night. And the mornings offer some relief as well to lend us some time to get a decent amount of work done.
After the stone sub-floor was finished, we got the floor boards for the second level into ruin#1. The plan is, to make the floor of the bottom level an earthen floor. It has a similar shine as tile but is much warmer to the touch. We're excited to start experimenting with it; however, we're saving the bulk of any indoor work for when rain comes.
It's amazing how the granite room holds the coolness in the afternoons. Even during the heat of the day it is one of the only spots (besides submersing into the river) to get some relief. Now that the bottom level room has essentially a ceiling in, it's much easier to visualize how the layout will be. We covered over the 2nd level floor with cardboard, then plastic, then more cardboard and some planks to keep in protected. In the next 6 weeks or so the 2nd floor walls will be repaired and we'll get a roof on.
Aside from the fabulous help from Pablo, we’ve had some more great work exchange help
— both return volunteers and new ones. One woman, Sorcha actually found us via this blog and Instagram and caught her interest. It was exciting for us to hear that people we don’t even know are inspired by our project. She came and helped us for a couple of weeks between her caravan travels around Europe. Adrianna, a volunteer we hosted back in the Spring returned for a couple of weeks. And we have another return volunteer coming in October. It’s really nice that they are happy to return and also to hear their input and feedback regarding how the place looks.
We’ve also hosted Zetty the architect from Czech Republic and Lewis the cabinet maker from UK just joined us this week. As well as our friends James, Annie, and Gustavo who detoured on their travels around Europe to come up for a couple days to check out Cara Creek. James had come this time last year and was very blown away at how different it looks. Another friend of mine Mellanie came as far as Porto and it was so nice to acquaint her with Porto, Port Tonics, and experience the picturesque city with her.
If you or anyone you know would be interested in living rustic and being fed at Cara Creek Eco Lodge in exchange for 20-25 hours/week of natural building, gardening, clearing, etc find more information here on our workaway page and contact me with any questions!
Other exciting things….
The pool is coming along beautifully. We went to the quarry and picked out an amarelo/yellow granite as the infinity edge, which will look gorgeous under the water. The stairs going into the swimming part are nice and wide to sit on, and the planting side of the pool is coming along lovely too.
Talking garden design, we're finally reaching a stage where locations of garden areas don't change every other time we discuss it, which is so nice! We've worked out a perfect area for a bit of a sensory walk just past the pool which will have fragrant flowers, edible berries, and end at a bit of a pond and loop back around and look over our vegetable garden. I’m really looking forward to getting planting once some rain comes! We've gotten some great advice from many friends who already have lovely gardens, including Elseviera who offered us a gorgeous garden fresh lunch when we went to check out her garden😋!
Lastly, my yoga sessions are going really well as people get into an autumn routine. I’ve reached my one year of teaching and upon reflection I am a lot more confident and comfortable teaching than I was this time last year… Even my sessions that I try my best to speak Portuguese the whole class😁.
It’s been magical to host classes on the gorgeous yoga deck we have all summer. I’m looking forward to moving all the classes throughout the year down to Cara Creek as we build more indoor space.
Stay tuned for more updates on our rustic life and work in beautiful Central Portugal. Click to follow us on Facebook and find us on Instagram @caracreekecolodge.... Thanks for following along!
Amazing amount of work!
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