Day 7 Last Day at Rancho Margot! (Sofi)

-


Today we started out the day with a refreshing yoga class. We practiced connecting with ourselves and our breathing with help of calming nature sounds. This was very relaxing and helped wake the students up and bring them into the day with a calm attitude, and good intentions. After yoga, we had a breakfast of fresh fruit and eggs produced here on the ranch. The food was delicious, and we were all very satisfied and were ready to begin our day.

Our first-class of the day was a class on microorganisms. In this class, we learned about why microorganisms are important to the farm's work. One of Rancho Margot's main missions is to practice organic farming with no chemicals on the farm. Due to this, they must be careful about how they uphold cleanliness without the use of pesticides and chemicals. To do this, Rancho Margot has found a sustainable and environmentally friendly way to clean equipment such as the septic tank, by using microorganisms. To understand this concept, our teacher showed us a hands-on way to help build a solid environment for microorganisms to live in, so that they can reproduce and thrive when they are needed to clean the ranch. All the students participated in creating this habitat by starting off with the first and main “ingredient”, the microorganisms. These organisms were found living on dead leaves and tree branches under logs and rotten leaves. We collected the leaves and then ripped them into very small pieces. After this step we added sawdust, this is a natural component that the microorganisms will build off and creates a safe environment for them to thrive in. The next ingredient was yeast, this will serve to be the microorganism's food source for the next 40 days until they will be ready to use. Lastly, they added a molasses and water mix as an alternative source of food, and a glue-like substance to hold the created environment together. All the students helped to mix everything together, and then pack it so that it will be ready for use in 40 days.

After our class, students enjoyed some free time before lunch in which they played cards and visited with each other. For lunch, we enjoyed very good pasta, with multiple salad options, all grown on the farm. After lunch, some students participated in a horseback tour, in which they went to a viewpoint at the top of a hill, which had a gorgeous view of the Arenal lake and volcano. Afterward, the students crossed a river, on horseback, and then returned to Rancho Margot. This was an amazing experience that created many memories. While some students were participating were riding horses, a few students stayed back to help out in the gardens at Rancho Margot. Students were working on weeding, removing dead leaves and plants, and then transporting the leaves to the compost. Once finished with this they helped collect chicken eggs, 103 eggs in total, cleaned them and took them to the kitchen to be used in tomorrow’s breakfast.

Once everyone had returned from the afternoon activities the students participated in a soccer game and then had some time in the pool. At dinner, we celebrated Gabe’s birthday, with cake and meringues. After dinner we had a community meeting in the pool, the students swam for a while, and everyone packed in preparation for our next destination. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 8 - Arrival at Plaza Hermosa! (Juan)

-
 Today started out early in the morning, letting out the morning sleepiness with a bit of yoga practice. After that was done, students finished any last-minute packing preparations and ate breakfast (eggs and pancakes; delicious as usual). When our guide Bryan finished loading our suitcases on top of the bus, we began the process of getting ourselves situated for the long ride ahead. We had just been briefed earlier about the itinerary, which involved us piling ourselves and all our things into the bus and traveling for around 5 hours to our beach AirBNB. During the trip, we took two stops. The first was in the small, picturesque town of La Fortuna, which had bordered Ranch Margot for the entirety of our stay. In our short stay, we disembarked the bus after around 45 minute of driving, and were given around half and hour to do some small souvenir shopping, an activity that had been absent for most of the trip. There were a couple things of note that I observed, including painted wo...
Read more

Costa Rica Day 6 - Yoga And Gardening

-
         We woke up this morning to some relief, as our 7 am yoga class was moved back to the 4pm slot. As for us, that meant that we got to sleep in for an extra hour and wake up at 7:30 instead. We had breakfast at 8, which consisted of the usual rice and beans, eggs, pancakes, French toast, and orange juice.   After our meal, we had an energy production workshop with Melanie. She took us all around the farm (Spanish Lesson: La Finca) and showed us how they create their renewable energy. They do this through hydroelectric energy production via their generators that they have next to the river and through pipes that they run from other water sources. We learned the importance of placement, and how one hydroelectric generator can produce many times the energy of another solely as a result of the angle of the water coming through. We also saw that even though they have a commitment to clean energy, they also want to ensure safety of all guests, so they d...
Read more