Eco Living Yucatán

Runs on Fat

2011-10-02T16:02:00.000-07:00

It is curious that with the advent of the automobile and the airplane, the bicycle is still with us. Perhaps people like the world they can see from a bike, or the air they breathe when they're out on a bike. Or they like the bicycle's simplicity and the precision with which it is made. Or because they like the feeling of being able to hurtle through air one minute, and saunter through a park the next, without leaving behind clouds of choking exhaust, without leaving behind so much as a footstep. Gurdon S. Leete

Finally the book for traveling adventures who want to see more than just trinket shops and crowded tourist traps has arrived.

Just launched — our new book, Yucatán’s Magic – Mérida Side Trips: Treasures of Mayab

–Built one stone at a time like the Mayan pyramids–

Over a quarter of a century of inspired exploration and recording of our travels in captioned photo stories has led my wife and me to compile an impressive collection of outings that are the foundation for this book, built one story at a time.

We present the best of the best after over twenty-five years; places, excursions, and outings. Each place we have visited we liked for different reasons; tranquility, history, view of village life, and connect with the Maya past and present, change of scenery and a look at a uniquely distinctive region.

Available at amazon.com for Kindle and in paperback.

To download an EPUB e-book edition, click here.

ECO TIENDA & CAFÉ YA’AXTAL

2010-10-10T18:17:00.000-07:00

ECO TIENDA & CAFÉ YA’AXTAL is a newly opened ecological everything store on Prolongación de Montejo (Calle 30, No. 9) between 23 and 25 in Col. Buena Vista on the west side across from Blockbusters. This is also a coffee shop with hot and cold food plus snacks.

Featuring ecologically friendly organic foods, cleaners, coffees, vegetable seeds, snacks and even locally produced compost. They are bicycle friendly.

Clean, neat, nice, new and friendly…check them out!

www.yaaxtal.com

Tel. 999-926-4989

Hours: Monday - Friday: 9am to 3pm and 5pm to 8pm

Saturday open 9am to 3 pm

Celebration of the Jaguar - Mérida, Yucatán

2009-11-07T15:30:00.000-08:00

In Celebration of the Jaguar; The following lively painted statues are now adorning the main boulevard, Paseo de Montejo of Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico in conjunction with the 9th World Wilderness Congress.

For information about Wild9, check out their webpage: Click here for Wild9.

DRAG AND DROP COMPOSTING:

2009-09-17T19:07:00.000-07:00

Simple, quick, effective and low cost.
Here you see one of our three compost bins that we recently moved to begin a new cycle. Adjacent is the previous location and one of seven bags of compost generated.
Here another compost bin is beginning to fill as green material begins its transition.
Resting but working this full compost bin is soon adorned by jungle vines that actually help hold in moisture, an essential part of the process. If the contents are continually moist the break down of organic material is greatly accelerated. Add water as often as needed to keep the material moist but not soggy (like a wrung-out sponge). Don’t pack materials too tight as air is essential.

The compost is ready to use when you can no longer recognize the original ingredients.

To harvest:
Pry off the compost basket ring and place it in your next location. Remove all of the material that isn’t fully composted and place it in the new location to begin the cycle again. We like to bag and dry some of the composted material for later use and the rest is put directly on the plants that need it most.
A note; to discourage rodents we never place kitchen scraps containing animal grease, bones or flesh…this is kept in the freezer until garbage pick up day.
We do however dispose of almost all paper and light cardboard that we have torn in to strips or small pieces.
Only small green branches break down well. Sticks make a tangled mess and should be avoided.

We can expect a yield of six to eight bushels of compost in about three months.

Materials and dimensions: Each compost ring is 1.1 meters, 44 inches in diameter and .85 meters, 34 inches tall. (The materials available may dictate your ultimate size.)
The top and bottom stiffener rings are of ¼ inch mild steel rod. The mesh is what ever is available. We used ¾ inch galvanized chicken wire.
For the vertical stiffeners, we used ½ inch PVC plastic pipe. Again sticks or whatever you can get will work. We tied the compost bin together with soft 16 gauge wire. Use whatever you can recycle…string or whatever to tie it together. The rewards of this economical environmentally friendly approach to recycling will soon be apparent when you see first hand the end result…a happy garden that benefited from drag and drop composting.

A website with more advice on composting: Compost Made Easy

More tips from Compost Made Easy:

Good Compost Ingredients:
Leaves and other dead plant material
Fruit and vegetable trimmings
Herbicide-free grass clippings
Manure from horses, cattle, goats, poultry and rabbits
Paper or cardboard, torn into strips or hand-sized pieces
Do NOT Add:
Meat scraps
Very fatty, sugary or salty foods
Chips or sawdust from treated wood
Clippings from herbicide-treated lawns
Manure from omnivorous animals (dogs, cats, humans, etc.)

For more on Eco Living Yucatan, click here for our web page.

Ecological Concept House

2009-09-10T18:51:00.000-07:00

Our ecological concept house didn't just fall out of the sky!
For more details and more information check out our new webpage: http://www.bicycleyucatan.com/ecologyconcepthouse.html

Ecology Friendly

2009-08-29T19:41:00.000-07:00

First the contrast;
Some people are color blind, no amount of explaining will ever get them to see red.

Still others are garbage blind and likewise no amount of explaining will ever get them to see trash.

The ecologically blind are a hopeless lot that are entirely incapable of living in harmony with nature. These are the PPP or ecology enemies that pave it, pollute it and poison it.
The PPP are often times found to be smokers that drive black gas guzzlers.

As George Bernard Shaw so aptly put it; “an art gallery is a dull place for a blind man.”
Being ecology friendly is not for everybody, but for those that embrace this kind of unpolluted untainted world the reward is incalculable.