Art, permaculture and good things coming

Hello out there!
"Ubud is a magical place", many people say it - and whether it's because some major streams of energy are crossing here or if it's some kind of placebo effect - I don't care, but my time here just flies by so fast, it's not funny.
It's a healthy mix of working and doing fun stuff (which is sometimes just the same), so I start with showing you the water bio filter system we built for one of Chakras customers

The water from the rice paddies comes in, sits in the first tank so heavy particles can sink down and make a sediment layer. There are also waterplants in this tank that filter it with their roots (they weren't in there yet when the photo was taken).
Then the water goes through the pipes into the big tank filled with gravel. In the pipes is something that we call "black cocnut hair', because it looks like balck hair and comes from the coconut palm. I don't know the English word for it and the Bahasa word I forgot :D
But it filters and filters very well, too.
Same as the gravel in which lemongrass, heliconia and bananas grow.
In the last tank the water is collected until someone needs it to take a shower or flush the toilet or whatever...


We painted some more chairs in 9warung! Beautifying something practical that will be used daily, seen and sit on by all the people coming to eat Thony's food...
So happy, could do that all life long. I forget time and even hunger... :D

Check out Ethel's art! Inspired by the movie Ashes and Snow
It's amaaazing...

It might not be very hard for you to guess who painted this chair...
I like Frangipanis.

Sunday treat for the whole family including volunteers: dipping into a friend's pool with the most awesome view...

Mama, Babba, wouldn't that be a place for you guys to retire? ;)

Hati Hati, careful, cuteness overload, We got little ducklings!
52 of them, on this photos just a day old, will roam free in the rice fields very soon, where they will be pest control, fertilizer, and aeration at the same time, AND they'll do the weeding too! Hardworking little dorks!
And all this is chemical free, as green as it gets and involving a minimum of work.

Chakra herding his ducklings

We were building a so-called "pig tractor" as well - a square bamboo fence structure for two small native pigs, 3x2 metres. Put the pigs in there and they will happily plough the ground for you. Fertilizing and compost-eating inclusive. When they are done with this patch of ground, you just lift the whole structure and carry it 3 metres further down the field, so the pigs can care for this too. No pertol eating and oil reeking tractor needed, and for sure no digging and sweating with spade and pick.

Later on Chakra, Kadek and his volunteers will also build a structure for chickens, covering the same surface, so that when the pigs are done and moved on from one 3x2 metre patch, the chickens can take over it and fertilize and scratch and scrabble the soil until it's nice and level.


And me? And now?
I can't believe it but it is totally true: my three weeks here are over. I'm sad and I don't want to leave. It's incredible that this was only three weeks - it felt a lot longer.
I will miss all the people, especially my favourite Swiss!

But in a good week I already have my plane back to Australia to start my second year working holiday, which will start absolutely bombastic with a Nahko&Medicine for the People concert in Byron Bay with dear Dom.
So tomorrow I'm moving on. The plan is called "Scooter tour to Amed to go snorkeling"! which sounds adventurous and promising, also because: I will not be going alone!
Picking up that same dear Dom at the airport tomorrow :)