Category Archives: Natural

Ja, Natuurlijk!

Monarch butterfly

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It took quite a bit of preparation and quite a bit of time, but we did it! We ‘hatched’ a couple of Monarch butterflies at home! Months ago we started by getting seeds for the correct plant that is used by the butterflies. It is the only plant they will lay their eggs on and the only plant the catterpillers will eat.

Slowly the plants grew and they even got some flowers. Then suddenly we hit the jackpot. 5 little catterpillers were walking around the leafs. After a couple of days only two remained, but these were growing fast. In about a week the catterpillers were very fat and started to create their cocoon.

Chimbroek, Espinita and two shrimp

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Alan takes care of Chimbroek, a black and blue fish. Alex has Espinitas, a purple and blue fish and I got tho shrimp. We all got some pets. Alex and Alan’s fish need three grains of fish-food twice a day every other day. A good way to start developing a bit of responsibility.

Both fish have already been upgraded to version 2.0. The first versions were not a good buy and were floating up side down after two days already. They were changed without problem for better versions. Alex understood perfectly that the new Espinitas was a different fish. Alan had his doubts and noticed something had happened. He now keeps asking if his fish is dead again (even when its just sleeping) and he has figured out that sometimes dead fish revive with a bit more blueish color.

My shrimp are (for now) the easiest. I just put them in a big pot with a little plant and they do all the cleaning. I don’t think I even need to feed them.

Beer!

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Beer!Una cerveza por favor. This is a much heard phrase in Spain. It is the way to ask for a beer and it is one of the first sentences I mastered when studying Spanish.

But… I will not be needing this sentence anymore because we are going to try and make our own beer. We already have a big package of natural ingredients, two huge plastic buckets a a lot more stuff. I look forward to making a all natural beer.

We need to think about a good name for our beer. Does anyone have any ideas?

Plant-a-tree day

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Last weekend it was plant-a-tree day and of course we went out and planted some trees. The trees were planted near a forest close to Moya. Ana planted a Madroño, a typical tree from Madrid. I planted a Laurel and Alex also planted a Laurel. It was a nice event which included a picknick and a nice walk through nature. After planting the trees some heavy rains broke out, so the trees got a nice drink.
Plant-a-tree day!Plant-a-tree day!Plant-a-tree day!Plant-a-tree day!

Pineapple

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Tasty Canarian pineapple!I have heard at least a few times the story about planting the top of a pineapple, that supposedly should grow into a new pineapple. It sounds a bit strange to me, but there is only one way to find out for sure.I’m going to give it a try.

I’ll try the experiment with a tasty pineapple that originated from one of the Canarian Islands, so the climate should feel similar to the pineapple. Maybe it will work and I’ll be able to harvest some pineapple soon.

Coffee harvest

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Coffee harvert - one bean!It is not much, but still. The first year of owning a coffee plant resulted in exactly half a bean. De rest of the beans dried up, deteriorated beyond consumption or just disappeared.

Hopefully the next year will be better. Right now the coffee plant is without any leaves and it looks pretty bad. Hopefully the plant will survive its first year with me and will deliver a bigger harvest next year.

Coffee fail

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Dried out coffee!My coffee plant has had a rough time. First our balcony was being painted which required me to move the plant around quite a lot which resulted in a loss of about 90% of the little future coffee beans. Then I had to leave the plant all alone for almost a month while our son was being born. This resulted in the complete dehydration of the resulting beans.

I tried to plant the dehydrated beans, to try and get a few more plants, but sadly my wife threw away the pot and seedlings during a cleaning fit. I did manage to harvest some mini coffee beans from the plant, and planted these, but I’m not very positive about the future of these beans. Next year I’ll try again.

Home made cotton

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Cotton!It looks a bit strange, but it’s really cotton. It was amazingly interesting to see this cotton plant grow and to see how a cotton ball was created.

The cotton plants still have a few seeds that will probably form some more cotton balls. Afterwards I will have a few pieces of natural cotton. Just not enough to make something decorative and certainly not enough for a garment (maybe I can make a little toe warmer).

The process from flower to cotton went like this.
Cotton - Flower!Cotton - Flower!Cotton - Bulb!Cotton - Seeds!

Coffee update

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Coffee with green beans!The coffee bush is growing nicely. There were quite a lot of little white flowers and now the coffee beans are developing.

I expect I will have to be patient a few weeks more and then I can start picking some of the beans. I don´t expect a big harvest but maybe I’ll be lucky and get enough beans to make myself one small cup of coffee.

Of course I also plan to sow a number of the beans, so I can have even more beans in the future and will be able to enjoy my own coffee.