Banana leaf cup

Banana Leaf cups at yoga room- disposable, sustainable, greeeeeeeen!

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At Bali Silent Retreat we care very much about these issues of health, wholeness, environment, aesthetics (ugly plastic bottles), and also, is it really necessary? –Come on!!

We meditate and thoughtfully (as in ‘full of thought’) consider solutions in order to walk the talk. So we brainstormed over drinking fountains for the longest time, but alas, we have limited electricity (We’re Off the Grid – really off the grid – only 15KW of juice come in each day from our main solar panel source).

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Growing bamboo

Building a simple shack with bamboo

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Click on this photo to see the video.

Click on this photo to see the video.

This isn’t an article but it’s a fun little video about building with bamboo. We needed a covered shed to keep the bibbitts (vegie babies) at Bali Silent Retreat. Our bamboo has not been treated, but just cut fresh from our jungle (with hacking knife, called a gergaji). Read more

Bamboo 4 dodi

Sustainable Bamboo Time

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They’re starting to build with Bamboo again. Edy has built a fence and the crew is discussing making a new roof for the ‘gudang tanki’  from bamboo (storage building for water water tanks). Click this photo and you’ll see a step by step video of our process, building a small bamboo shack built to keep the bibbitts (vegie babies) at Bali Silent Retreat. Our bamboo has not been treated, but just cut fresh from our jungle (with hacking knife, called a gergaji).

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Oil from the kitchen grease trap is off to the little piggies in the village

We know where every bit & bite of our garbage goes. Do you?

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Do you know what happens to your garbage? We know what happens to every bit and bite, scrap and strip of ours!

Besides being off the grid (solar electricity) and growing 2 hectare of organic fruits and veggies, Bali Silent Retreat makes garbage a daily conversation, right down to “Ibu just said, ‘ no salary today until all the rubbish is picked up in the parkir. Let’s get going. Can we train Buster to fetch rubbish? Ha, ha!” Buster is the big yellow Lab who mostly sleeps on the veranda at the little security joglo. So there we go picking up little bits of plastic candy wrappers from the village kids, an abandon rubber sandal, some wood scraps, a bit of iron, a cardboard box, and half a roof tile.

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Orchid

The Love Affair of the Red Tiger Worms and the Orchids

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It’s all about the orchid leaves loving the worm jus (Balinese spelling, aka worm urine).

Growing (or enhancing) both orchids and worms can be a bit of a challenge. The orchids jump right into bloom-a-new-flower-mode, when the leaves are sprayed with the ‘worm jus’, aka, golden nectar for orchids. The dormant orchids almost perk up with the sound of the spray – I think they know a worm vitamin shower is imminent. As for the worms . . . easy, easy, easy to enhance procreation, (they’re hermaphrodites*), or endanger, to due exposure to heat, light, insects, or starvation – they eat a lot! I’ve been told the red tiger worms will thrive in a grease pit, so we’ve thrown some into the gray water tank at Bali Silent Retreat to see if they’ll dine on a little excess oil. Read more