Liveloula

Great news for all those missing our blog this last year and a half. It's that time again in deep winter, that time we are locked in the house, snowed in with nothing to do but look outside in awe for the mountains' winter dress, keep the stove going and the wood pile flowing. Time to make plans for the new year, enjoy the memories of last year and focus some energy on writing a new chapter in the book of blog.

We had an 80cm snow drop that has blanketed the land for the last 17 days now, bringing the promise of sufficient water next summer. For you romantics, yes that means we are totally snowed in. There's no service cleaning our 1,5km dirt road. We've plowed through a couple of times on foot to meet the neighbors. Great cardio, gets the circulation going!

In the gardens, the cabbages, Brussels sprouts, leeks and rocket salad are tucked away carefully under a layer of pure white. No immediate problem for them, nor for us thanks to the pantry and storage containers filled with fresh eggs, home made salted bacon, an assortment of fresh cheeses made by our friends, garlic, onions, carrots, potatoes, pumpkins, beet roots, fresh and dried beans, all sorts of pickles and salsas, tomato sauce, chutneys, dried fruit, walnuts, olives and capers. How would you call the pizza with all those ingredients?

Keeping the stove going in the kitchen also means a lot of hot water for showers because the stove also heats up water. No other month this year will we enjoy more hot showers!

Picture this, Chenny, her tummy full, feeling cozy and rosy, freshly showered, sitting feet up against the warm stove, a notebook on her lap. After immersing ones self fully in winter mode, being somewhat more lazy, watching films and series, finally an undeniable urge arises to do something useful... Could that be some lingering Calvinist indoctrination...?
I was even cleaning our kitchen windows this morning. Weird huh?

Winter being the time for reflection and planning, there are so many streams of thought. This time tough we wish to focus mainly on abundance rather than worry about scarcity.
In the case of this marriage between our lives and the project, that means not thinking too much about our last savings we feel we need to inject in the project over the next years, but to focus on the abundance we are floating on, abundance born out of the projects successes.

Apart from all the material abundance mentioned above, the water, the wood, the food and all the comfort it brings, like warmth, strength and health, we also identify a growing abundance in knowledge and experience and the endless wealth of beauty and peacefulness surrounding us.

Acknowledging and highlighting all these gifts we plan to put Liveloula on the map hoping to be a beacon of positivity and light for those looking.
First of all we aim to keep updating this blog, to dust off our Facebook page and to set up a new website.
We feel there is still a growing interest for natural living, natural building, natural gardening.
People are curious about medicinal, therapeutic, and edible wild plants, home made medicine and cosmetics.

Hopefully this year, we can announce some fun and interesting events for anyone to come and participate in. To enable us to host groups of people to attend these events, to come and enjoy the project and it's environment, to come play and learn, we are planning a big move this year. Our huge van, our first house and home as we arrived here 6 years ago will be put back on it's wheels and will be hauled to a new spot. On it's current location, we plan to build the most wonderful, cozy, natural and durable, covered outdoor living quarters.
The plan is made. Scouting for hands, feet and more has begun. Consider this your invitation and call for action!
Completing this new “hangout”, Liveloula will once more have a beautiful space to host visitors and volunteers and to keep growing into homestead, coaching and learning place, haven of peace to take refuge, and find simplicity, good company, great healthy food and who knows, a welcoming home?