River bank erosion control

During the last very strong rainy season lots of damage was done on our premise at Jiwa Damai.  The heavy rainfalls caused lots of erosion, especially at the banks of the small river which is flowing through the permaculture gardens. We had to take care of this erosion and stabilize the river banks. To reduce the powerful impact of the torrentious rains on our lands, we reinforced the borders of the river with sand bags.

Wira, Maha, Suecha and one of our volunteers, Fred from Canada, are doing this extremely demanding heavy work of shoveling the river sand into bags and placing it on the banks. Eventually there will be four layers of sand bags on top of each other.

erosion (1)

erosion

erosion (2)

Roof cleaning the Balinese way

It is rainy season on Bali. Heavy rains and storms are quite common during this time of the year. One side effect of the rain, in combination with the hot and humid temperature is the fast growth of algae, weeds and fungus. The roof of our green house was completely covered with algae. No sunlight would come through the roof anymore, …which the plants down beneath did not like of course.

Something had to be done. Ketut was very creative in developing a tool, a special brush, with which he could clean the roof.

And see what kind of cool construction Ketut made: A bamboo stick, with hair from a coconut shell attached to it as well as a water hose.

Roof cleaning

This construction worked quite efficiently and not before long, the sunlight would shine through the roof again !

Ketut cleaning roof

Roof cleaning2