Fruits of the Cerrado

First an update on the house - we're adding a porch around three sides of the house, plus a water tower that will double as a shower room. We don't have running water yet but hope to set up a gravity-delivered system drawing from the stream that comes down from the spring above my son's house. Photos will follow when we start working on that project, hopefully next week.

The tiles should be in place by now and the porch floors - glazed cement - will be set by next Tuesday or Wednesday. Notice in the photo below how green the vegetation is becoming now that the rainy season has really arrived. Soon Guy will have to be cutting the grass with his scythe.

The rains also bring in the fruit and one of the first to arrive is the wild cashew fruit of the cerrado. My daughter, Sofia, collected a bag-full yesterday morning - here she is removing the pulpy fruit from the shell that holds the cashew nut, one nut per fruit.

Sofia and Guy made hand-churned cashew fruit ice-cream for Victor's birthday.

One of the goals of our new life project is to find ways to use the products of the cerrado that grow around us. For local people to stay on the land they need to be able to meet their economic needs as well as finding activities that are satisfying and pleasurable. You could argue that as retirees with a small but steady income (our SS checks) we have the privilege of enjoying the activities of collecting fruits of the cerrado and making ice-cream, jam, and other products, while such activities would be very labor intensive if they were intended to support one's family. Very true - but we see examples around the world of cooperatives developed by local people to ensure the economic viability of this kind of project. Hopefully we'll show many other products as we explore them in the next few months and over the years.