Preparing, Preparing, Preparing at the Heart of AN!
For the past few weeks, we’ve been in the midst of preparations, cleaning and reorganizing the Heart of AN, on level after level. Exquisite new energies are pouring in and we have the feeling that we have to recalibrate everything. What’s wonderful is that some special people are appearing to help us with all that we are doing. We have even found the perfect person, the very sweet Lorenza, to help us clean the house once a week.
There are several projects that have been calling for our attention.
German and his crew have been working on another job for the past few weeks and are expected to return here tomorrow. They will make the canal system for the irrigation water to flow through our land. German and one of his sons did return for one day early last week to put the rest of the tiles onto the top of our raised beds in the garden. They look gorgeous!
Meanwhile, Pedro’s son, Percy has painted our garden seats with two coats of base, followed by two coats of bright AN colors. They are vibrant and bring a lot of joy. We also had a very fun visit with Michael, a new friend of ours from Calca who gave us lots of brilliant gardening advice. He has kindly offered us space in his greenhouse to start our seeds which we will do in the next week or so! We are very grateful for his timely and much needed help.
One of our most urgent tasks has been to plant more grass for the alpacas. Since it’s the dry season, we don’t have an abundance of grass right now ~ at least not enough for the amount of grass that fifteen alpacas require. (They like to eat grass all day long!) So, for the past month or more, Pedro and Roberto have taken out the old grass in our vegetable garden area and the fairyland and replanted those areas with special rye grass that is healthy for alpacas to eat. The new grass near the garden will be ready for eating in a week or so.
Whenever I have a free moment, I’m still working on my new book. I really love doing this, but wish that I could spend more time on it.
This past week, we had a brilliant, two day visit with four amazing women from Austria. It was so deep, very true and fun! We love meeting new Family of AN! There are so many great photos of our time together that we will put them into our next Photo Journey in the middle of the week.
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- The Alpacas of AN are letting us come closer and closer. We’ve even petted a few!
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There are many steps between buying tiles and setting them onto the tops of the raised beds in the garden.
First, is the soaking of the tiles which slightly loosens the price tags; which we then pry off with our fingernails. Next, the sticky residue of the price tags has to be scrubbed off of each tile.
To complete our vegetable garden, we had to do this to over 700 new tiles!
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- Other tiles have to be cut apart and sorted into bins.
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- Finally, we were ready to create the tile design for the rest of the vegetable garden. We decided to make a green path in between the blue ones. The only problem was that they have just discontinued the bright green tiles. We bought every last one we could find in Cuzco, which was just enough!
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- The Full Moon on August 26 was a mysterious one.
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- German and his son arrived for one day to install our new tiles. German laid down a layer of cement, I put each tile into position and then they covered them with a thin layer of cement and cleaned them up. They look so beautiful!
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- Here are the new tiles in our vegetable garden! We love the vibrant green path in the midst of the blue.
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- There were many steps to completing our banca seats in the garden. Before they could be painted, Emanaku and Roberto had to cover each tile with masking tape.
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- Next, Percy expertly put two coats of white base on the seats.
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- The white seats looked a bit dull, but we knew that it was only temporary. Colors are coming!
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- The Ultra Lovable Alpacas of AN make their way back to Alpaca•Wasi in the late afternoon. We have to watch them carefully since some of them try to steal quick nibbles of our flowers as they pass by!
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- Our new friend Michael came over to see the Heart of AN and give us much welcomed garden advice. He has kindly offered to let us start our seeds in his greenhouse in Calca!
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- Now that the weather is getting warmer, Roberto created an extension to Alpaca•Wasi so the alpacas have an outside corral added to their house. They especially like to take dirt baths here!
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- Cachorro loves to do amusing antics around the alpacas, which they love.
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- Shii’pi is such a sweetheart! He even let me touch him.
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- Here is Shii’pi doing some amorous neck rubbing on little Chaska. She is in total bliss. The brown alpaca in the middle is Tui which is the Great Chakana of Orion in the language of Rapa Nui. He has huge, black eyes which remind me of Black Holes.
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- Pedro has been busy planting special rye grass for the alpacas in the fairy circle. He goes into a deep, almost meditative state when he sows seeds.
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Since it’s dry season and we have so many alpacas here, we are anxiously looking forward to our new grass in the Fairy Circle and next to the vegetable garden.
Photo by Karin.
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- Coming back from Cuzco, there were some interesting lights in the sky. The object with the turquoise spot seemed to emerge from the Sun.
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- Then the shape around it disappeared and only a turquoise light remained.
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- Our garden seats have been painted in the colors of AN! Now it’s time to carefully peel off the masking tape so the tiles can be revealed.
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- Our garden keeps getting better and better! Next, we will turn our attention to preparing the soil. We need to sift through the top layer of dirt, removing rocks and construction debris and then mix in some new black dirt. Then they will finally be ready for planting.
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- Here’s a closeup of one of our garden seats before Percy did the final touch ups. They bring much happiness to our garden!
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- Percy is a skillful artist and painter. Here, he is carefully touching up the magenta paint after the removal of the masking tape
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- One of our completed bancas. It it so nice to have a beautiful sitting place in our magical garden. And they will look even better when they are surrounded by plants.
