guatemalan biodiesel

I was studying Spanish in Guatemala when I noticed an article in a local magazine about a biodiesel startup. Although I had 1 day left in the country, I sent an email to the email address on the article. 24 hours later I was getting the full tour from the head of the organization, while he prepared his last 80-gallon batch of the week.
Alejandro Del Valle's plant produces 500 gallons of biodiesel per week, to service 12 vehicles from the municipal government of Antigua, Guatemala. His starting ingredient (waste vegetable oil) comes from Antigua and Guatemala City, primarily from restaurants that had previously been pouring their used oil into the street gutters. Valle uses a processor that was manufactured in Holland, which can fully react 80 gallons of biodiesel in about 45 minutes.

The most empowering thing that I learned was the following: this organization existed for 6 months before they began collecting oil, and 12 more months until they started processing it.
For us at the Glass Center, this is important. Since our biodiesel production is still not off the ground, we are inspired by this profound first step: start collecting oil.

It makes complete sense, since biodiesel comes after oil... but so far we have been so focused on the actual product (the biodiesel) that we've lost sight of the process that gets us there. Collect oil now, process it later.

I have digressed.

It was a tremendous privilege to meet Alejandro, and I hope to maintain a solid tie with his Guatemalan alternative energy organization.

puppies!

Sparky had 8 of them last week, and we're waiting 7 more weeks before trying to distribute the hybrid bundles of love into suitable homes... want one?

On a related note, Sparky will be spayed during late September, for the sake of sustainability.

Bear Tractor (chicken tractor)

Soon Reed will make a more thorough post about this, but I cannot resist sharing this picture of our finished product:
(A chicken tractor is basically a movable chicken pen, and we have built one that could probably house a family of bears.)

*UPDATE*

We've been using the chicken tractor for a couple of weeks now, and I made a short video of me and Aaron moving the chickens to a fresh spot. Here's the video:

A wonderful visit from our friend Cory

thanks to reed for the use of his camera, and to sarah for her camerawork
here is cory's myspace

Lots of squash, fire

Last week we grew over 150 pounds of squash, partially because we didn't realize how often peak squash needs to be harvested (about every other day; we were harvesting every 4 days). Most of the larger stuff doesn't sell as well in market, but we all still enjoy it (Reed: "it is immoral not to eat squash at every meal")


In other news, we had a fire at the farm. No major damage was done, except for the tractor/mower that started the fire.


Nick can probably tell the story better than I can, but basically he was mowing when the tractor caught on fire (perhaps because the grass was bunching up underneath the mower, but we still don't really know why). Nick ran and called 911, and a fire truck came pretty promptly.

We had to babysit the fire for another 12 hours or so, since it kept trying to resurrect itself from the coals. Probably about 1/4 acre burned, which has since been tilled in preparation for planting!

back at the farm

I'm back at the farm for the first time in 6 months, and it's crazy to see how much has changed. For example, look at this before&after of the blackberry field:
We've also had a few changes in our web presence. Michelle is still doing fantastic work on the website, and Reed & Kevin have been giving regular updates on the google group. If anyone wants to join the google group, send an email to community@glasscenter.org and we'll set you up.

New Season at Glass Farm

A lot is being done to prepare for the change in seasons. The Texas summer sun is too hot for many plants currently in the greenhouse, and we're working hard to transplant them outside. Crops are starting to fruit, and we have gotten tomatoes, radishes, and the biggest zucchinis I've ever seen. Collectively, we've learned a lot this spring, and we will be better prepared to come into the fall season, Texas' second growing season.

A lot of other things have changed at the Glass community. Hugh moved to our community in Tyler, so I've taken over the greenhouse. Jeff will stay on the farm every other week, the other week out of town. We have two new members, or maybe I should say returning members, Tyler and Laura. They have been on the farm before, and they are returning to spend a while at the Glass Center.

The situations with the farm animals has changed, too. The goats now live down the street at the quonset hut. We were given 4 more hens and a rooster. The chickens have gotten out of the pen and now live free-range around the coop. The good news is that we have a hen brooding 18 eggs (!) which will surely give us a few baby chicks. The bad news is that the chickens are in danger from predators when they are outside the pen, and the goats are running out of food. The solution is to have movable fencing systems that can be put over land that we need the chickens and goats to feed off of.

Things are starting to heat up, and jumping in the lake looks like a better idea every day. Hopefully Texas summer won't be any worse than Florida summer.