Innovative Student #2

One of my other students created his garden in what I thought was down by the river, instead it's down in the river!
Here is a picture of how the river usually looks this time of year...

And here is what I saw to my surprise!
LaNuNan's garden is where the red dot is above.
A closer view.
His contraption for getting water from the river.
Put here to let air out of the pipe so the water flows faster. (I think that's what he said...)
Me - a henna-ed huckleberry.
A view up to the farm from the garden/river.
The barely visible path out.
I'm just so proud of the good ideas the students are coming up with! I have another one to share in my next short blog post - and then I will finally have to update on my break!

Green, Green, Green!

About three months ago our garden at the farm was a giant, tangled mess of weeds and brush. Frankly, it was a little scary looking - anything could live in there! I kept away. Well, things have changed. Atiwat (the drum maker) took over our garden a couple months ago. Since that time, the garden has been transformed. I get out to the farm maybe once a week and every time I go the garden looks different.

We've already eaten some of the food from there. Atiwat asked me what food I am looking forward to having. Well, cucumbers, squash, pumpkin (hmmm, should I try a pie?) and corn! He plucked a cucumber for me so I don't have to wait on that one. It was tasty.

Following are pictures from the new garden. Notice the nice signs? Pretty cool, huh?

Roselle, Hot peppers, Chinese kale, Corn
Long beans
Pumpkin and Long beans
Rat-tailed radish and Sugar peas


And here are some shots of the produce coming in...

Tomato
Corn
Squash
Pumpkin

We are also starting to get fish from our fish pond...

Tilapia

And with all this talk and excitement about gardens, I have plans for one of my own in the overgrown area by the house. First, though, we've started with a compost. Pictures of progress on my garden will be forthcoming. I think I will wait until rainy season to plant, but I have some aesthetic improvements to make first!
Here are DaNi, Uaorawet, and Atiwat helping me, ie basically doing all the work - I should say I helped them!

Drum Beats

So last Monday one of my students brought over a little project he had been working on.... a set of drums! We knew he was trying because we got asked for random things like tins and duck tape, but I had no idea how cool they would be! I was especially impressed with the pedal. It works great - I think they sound similar to real drums. And I think the design is rather ingenious. I think we should just keep random junk around to encourage creativity! So here's the guy who not only made them, but can play them pretty well too. I'm going to try posting a video. The guys were about to practice a different song but ended up with an impromptu jam session because the drums add so much.

I tried to upload the video but it's not working - I'll tack it on later!