Our Eco Bus Project and Travels

It has been since last October 2013 since we have lived on the bus and left our Midtown 34th Street project. We have been living and working in a house in the West side of the Buena Vista area of Miami. We converted the front lawn into an organic garden and yielded lots of fresh food, it seems to be our standard method of living now. The house was strange at first, the kids cried for their bed in the bus, but eventually we all settled in.

I was excited to start the garden and also to be doing it in the most urban area we have been. I organized for mulch to be dumped in the driveway of an abandoned house and encourage the neighbors to take as much as they wanted to, and they did. It would warm my heart to see an older couple on a Sunday morning collecting mulch together for her roses.

As usual I over did the tomatoes and everyone who walked passed when they were fruiting commented on how lovely and unique they were. I grew the usual heirlooms: green zebra, garden peach, black krim, black prince, beefsteak and a volunteer cherry tomato that came from our compost last year. They were all delicious, but of course we struggled with tomato horn worm and some snails in our greens. But it turned out there was enough to share.

We transplanted some banana plants and papayas, which are just now starting to flower and grow fruits. The backyard is so small due to 2 giant 40-50 year old mango trees and one avocado. Which makes it challenging to grow anything in the back area, but I set up a little nursery table for seedlings. In November we acquired some feral bees with the help of our friend Tom. Tom built us a top bar hive and I soon accompanied him in the dark of a cool Miami evening to remove feral bees from a backyard in North Miami. It was very exciting and I realized how much I love bees and beekeeping. However, as anything new, you learn from trial and error. One day we suspected that the bees might be cross combing and it was recommended to rotate one of the bars. So we did. The next day the bees had left. No note, not good bye, just gone. I was so devastated, I looked in every tree around the neighborhood, under sheds, bushes, anywhere I thought they might swarm to. But we never found them. They were really gone.

In the meantime, Nando and I continued to build our Colony1 project, brew kombucha, make kimchi, use our Waldorf curriculum with the kids and soldier on through the days. The house has provided a space for our family to grow, to sew, play, have birthdays and mourn the loss of our first dog Mona.
I believe that we might at this point have out grown this house and the lifestyle it dictates to us and we are ready to move on to something bigger. Another piece of land, where we can grow more food and expand our independence.