Wednesday, January 9, 2019

December 2018 - Cozy for Christmas


December was a fabulous and cozy month at Cara Creek Eco Lodge. Firstly, we moved into the downstairs of ruin #1 after living in our tent for just over a year. Regardless of how nice we kept our tent, it has been such a welcome change to move into 4 walls with the powerful wood burner stove. And now our tent is cleaned out and set up for visitors and work away volunteers to come😀.





Our miniature animal farm continues to go well. Our two Nigerian dwarf goat sisters have settled in great, and crack us up with their silly personalities every day. Our chickens began laying the tastiest eggs. Although it took longer than average for them to settle and begin laying, it was worth the wait for how good they are. 






We also got one of the miss piggies a boyfriend to breed, and ate the other miss piggy. The whole process of killing and butchering the pig went really smoothly, and the Pork was out of this world. We’re excited to continue expanding our farm raised meat and eggs, as well as growing more of our own veggies in the coming months too. It’s brilliant to truly know where some of our food is coming from and there’s a whole new appreciation for it as well.


Some new structures went up before Christmas, such as the roof structure over our outdoor shower, making showers in the rain a better possibility. And a wood shed has been built for our heaps and heaps of fire wood to keep dry.



We closed out the year spending Christmas with amazing friends, who welcomed us into their families and homes to celebrate with them. We enjoy the traditions here... especially the one of a lighting the village bonfire for the 12 days of Christmas from the 24th at 10pm until the 6th of January. Everyone gathers around the fire over the season with homemade cheeses, sausages, wines and more to share with who ever is around. It's really sweet. 





To celebrate New Year’s Day we planted new trees with our friend Gary, who came up for the pork party and then stayed on to look after the place and animals while we were in Scotland. It was wonderful to get his expert advice on giving our trees the best start. We planted many varieties of apple trees, pear trees, peach trees, and plum trees. It’ll be a few seasons before we get fruit, but it’s lovely to replace the invasive mimosa trees with a variety of different trees that will give back so much. Over the next month or so we’ll be planting dozens of a diverse selection of trees on site.



Just after ringing in the new year we headed off to Scotland to have our celebrations with Rafa, two of my great aunts who live in Scotland, Trina, and Matthew.




We’ve had a fabulous month of productivity at Cara Creek Eco Lodge, and a lovely couple weeks wrapping up 2018 and ringing in 2019. We feel refreshed, and have hit the ground running as we come into the new year. Good thing because it’s going to be a busy couple of months preparing for some great friends and family visiting in April 2019. Then we’ll be hosting (I’ll be co-teaching) a Yoga Teacher Training in July 2019, so stay tuned for more information on that coming in the next couple of weeks!


Keep following along on Instagram and on Facebook as things progress exponentially! Happy New Year to all! We wish you a healthy and prosperous one, and as always thanks for following along as our dream becomes a reality!