Aardbol + Arbol = Ardbol

As we were getting used to the idea of going to Spain, our normal life was going on. Maaike had the opportunity to create a food forest in a land owned by the ProRail company. As a rail company they have a lot of land and a portion of it is not in use. During this project she connected local inhabitants to food forest builders.

At the end of 2020 Maaike asked me to join her on working on our plans for the food forest in Spain. She was learning Spanish and helping realizing the food forest project within her company, while I was focused on my programming work. I replied that because of our kids we could not go to Spain until 2025, at that time five years away. If I would start now it would go too fast, I'm not good at going slow. But she was right that working together was nicer. So we did.

Screenshot of first website made by Maaike

So I too started to read more on food forests and joined online groups, like climate cleanup. Although Maaike progressed fast with her Spanish, in order to talk to (local) governments and other organizations we needed a Spanish speaking person in our team. We already had decided that we would not go for a small house with some trees around it, as some early pension plan, but a real project to show how farming can be done in a sustainable way.

Hence we needed help. I looked around and met Liselotte, we had a first meeting on 14th march 2021. Again a big stepping stone in our journey. This could very well be the start of our endeavor. First we needed a name. We wanted to help the earth with trees, I noticed that 'aardbol' (Earth, or world globe, in Dutch) and 'arbol' (tree in Spanish) were almost the same, so combining them was easy: Ardbol. some days later we registered the domain names and Ardbol was official.

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The first week of work

After the transaction we had time to think about what we could do in the village, as now we are the owners. The next option for us to go to Spain was in the autumn holidays. Earlier on we tried to combine it with Spanish classes for the kids, but we couldn’t arrange extra free time from school, so we had to stick to the one week of school vacation. We thought about starting at one of the houses which is in the relative good condition, like getting a door, so we could close it and store stuff there. But we had no electricity or tools as we had no space to keep stuff safe. So we were kind of stuck in a chicken and egg problem. To get out of this we set up a plan to get a container which we could lock. But that would not be there for this vacation. Then Maaike’s parents asked: “Would it be of any use if we were there with some tools to clear away the burrs, bushes and so on?” Of course that would be great! We were happy that they were enthusiastic and by itself there was a plan to do ...

Todo

We are looking forward to our next vacation in August. We have a substantial list of things we can do and are now busy preparing everything for it. We have made a list of all the things we need to prepare based on this list of things we want to do: WC/shower hut - an outdoor space made of clay and stone as a toilet and shower Creating paths - many walking paths are difficult to traverse and need to be cleared Building a clay wall - to practice, we want to build a clay wall Building a stone wall - to practice, we want to build a stone wall Making stairs - there needs to be a staircase to get from the container to the romantic forest Planting trees - there are 120 Paulownia trees that need to be planted Connecting solar panels - we want to have 10 solar panels on the container and another 8 by our house Building a room - in the main house and our house, we can build a room Making an outdoor kitchen - along the container, an outdoor kitchen needs to be made Clearing stones ...

Never alone in an abandoned village

One might expect that being in an abandoned village will be lonely. But a part from Carlos and all the people who we knew were going to visit us, everyday there were people visiting the village. let's start with the people we knew were going to visit us in order of appearance. Mirthe, Rick and Vos who came visiting with their camper to find out if they want to live in Bárcena and to help us some days. They are now in the process of preparing to move to Bárcena so it seems that the answer is yes! Maaike's Brother Teun, his wife Marieke and daughter Sarah , who were there for 2 weeks and took a lot of trips with the kids and cooked for us almost every day! But most important: they really liked being there, so hopefully they will come often when we live there. As an ultra runner Teun explored the area by running and cycling. For example he explored routes to Lences and found three different ones. Tibor's daughter Fiona , who helped a lot with ...

ardbol

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