Hemp pizza is coming!

Practicing on kneading a kilo of pizza dough, using a gnammy mixture of just 7% hemp flour, beautifully raising after few hours. Good success indeed...

  

Hemp pizza!

Practicing on kneading a kilo of pizza dough, using a gnammy mixture of just 7% hemp flour, beautifully raising after few hours. Good success indeed... 

  

Amazingly amusing Thailand

On the window of the minivan that we took last week... amazing... amusing Thailand!

Ladies and gentlemen: mr Salame!

Super late shift working on the first experimental batch: ladies and gentlemen... here is mr Salame al cioccolato, mr ChocoSalame, a traditional sweet recipe from my hometown in Italy: I have turned it vegan and it's already pretty much raw food, besides just melting the chocolate. I made a whole page for it.

It's a real treat for chocolate lovers...

Memories of a rocket stove

 The "archaeological site" of last year's festival at the Moonvillage, in Pai, Thailand. These are the ruins of a couple of rocket stoves I made about 9 months ago...

How to make an alcohol stove from an aluminum can

Here is a link to a tutorial video on how to make yourself an alcohol stove from an aluminum can. Nice video and really smart design.

Bye bye Payaka

 Payaka urban development
In this day ends my job for the japanese hemp clothing firm Payaka.
Several obviously clear reasons do not allow any further collaboration and development.
All my personal projects here are stopping in this location but, with much gratitude to all those who are helping me in this moment, everything is already quickly reshaping in a renewed and much wider panorama of possibilities and international connections.

With the comfort of my dear family and full trust into the Divine Wholeness,
giving big thanks and respect to all the workers, all the collaborators, all the friends and all the customers of Payaka in Thailand and in Japan... now I am free to develop and grow on my own, putting myself at service of higher purposes.

OneLove

Seed savers online shop

This is too important not to share, bookmark and keep checking this link: it's the Seed savers exchange online shop. Check it out! 

Full moon and flying lanterns

Loykratom, the festival of the flying lanterns in Chiangmai. What a lovely celebration... Such a fun time for kids of all ages, amazing chance to reconnect deep within and give thanks for all that we have received!

Amazing vegan sushi

Here I would like to share one of the most amazing surprises of taste and texture: it's the magic raw food combination (besides the rice of course) to make vegan sushi. Either way, if you love wasabi or not... you are going to love this as soon as you give it a try...

 So easy to make too...

Raw vegan papaya mango cake

This time I felt like changing things around... changing the order of ingredients the result looks quite good already: this time it's fresh papaya and dried mango filling on a peanuts, flax, coconut crust... topped with softened raisin.

Another Ohme made sweet production!

Flat cake with ripe banana

The experiment playing with ripe bananas is so easy to make and tastes really good too. As a breakfast snack it's just perfect: super quick to mix it and in a couple of rounds in the toaster turns out crispy and still soft inside.

Playing with ripe bananas

Ripe bananas are just amazing! No need sugar at all... this is a new sweet experiment very much appreciated by all those who tried it!Another successfully inspired Ohme made production...

Amazing artwork

Amazing artwork by Paul Kuczynski. Check it out: 13 pieces at this link.

Raw vegan cake with dragon fruit

 

New raw vegan cake experiment Ohme made: this time I have using fresh dragon fruit and dried mangoes for the filling...

The kefir is alive!

Short clip of the kefir happily bubbling after the last refill. In this subtropical environment it's amazingly fast growing and "chewing" all the sugar and the fructose from the fruit. This batch has just a few hours but you can see the limes already floating halfway, which is a sign that the kefir is going to be soon ready. So nice...  

Holy coconut!

Have you ever realized the fact that a coconut is just... a seed?!? One single unit, one shell containing the gift of Life of a holy plant! Indeed it's such an amazing plant that it's unbelievable: after drinking the fresh coconut water and scraping its delicious white "meat"... the shell and the husk are just fabulous materials for handcrafts of all kinds. 

Raw vegan mango cake (tested!)

The Raw vegan mango cake turned out really well: both the filling and the crust have a good balance of taste and texture. Mango and peanuts combination is really good and also almonds and coconut. Really easy to make it too... so I guess it's going to be in the menu' from now on!  

Raw vegan mango cake

Today's Ohme made creation: no-sugar, (no-banana on request again) raw vegan mango cake. Just made it... experimenting with other dried fruit and different nuts: no cashew nuts this time.

Raw vegan papaya cake

Here is another Omhe made production, another cake... and it's gone already!

Again it's been a raw vegan cake and this time totally no-sugar and no-bananas as a special request. 

"Passive" vacuum cleaning

Here is a good one: what to do with used sticky tape, before throwing it away?  

  

Just one thing to do...

 Payaka urban development

The recycling facilities of Payaka are again operative: composting and recycling paper on a daily basis, showing people how to do it... by doing it together. The biggest success is to see local thai/hilltribe people getting into it! It's just the beginning...

Guitar bridge repairs

Along the path I have found several acoustic instruments that needed proper attention. Moisture and carelessness can make serious damage even to the best instruments. This is a quite cheap guitar but poor thing... it needs to be fixed!

The bridge it's coming off and actually all the top wood of the body is bending in a weird way: nothing I can do about that but maybe the bridge will last longer with some extra support and some wood glue.  

Ohme made kefir and raw vegan cake

As we all safely returned to our present family base in Payaka Chiangmai, a proper celebration was need so I have started again some healthy Ohme made productions: kefir (naturally carbonated drink) and raw vegan cakes... both of which turned out very well!!! The cakes are gone (last bites left at the moment) but many more are due to come and the kefir is going to be in production from now on, as we keep staying here. Come on and try some!
 Kefir: the jar at its first day...

Termite attack under the roof

 Payaka urban development

A few months have passed since we had our first termite attack but this time unfortunately they started making serious damage to the wooden supports of roof of the buildings. Here it's where the leak is really bad...

  

Cyclone mosquito trap

Cool... just when to the acupuncture clinic here in Chiangmai and look what I found: I had never seen this kind of mosquito traps before! I didn't have my camera on me but this link brings you directly to the website page of the thai manifacturer. Check out how it works in this video: mosquitoes are attracted by UV lights and then sucked in by a small fan so apparently you can "catch" them alive and then feed them to your lizards and bats...

Quick handcraft project: crochet and hand stitches

Here is a couple of night-time handcraft projects: a little crochet purse (guess I am going to used it for small tools) and a hand stitched patch on a vest that's probably it's becoming my working vest... check it out. It's going to be soon ready!

 

It's all reused material too...  

Plastic pollution in the Pacific

Besides the highest purpose of composting to create fertile soil and grow what we need, I really highly recommend everybody to start using fully biodegradable products; if we cannot, let's try to reuse the same item many times then recycle it wisely... and pray that it's not going to finish again like this... please watch and share!

You would have never thought at plastic pollution in these terms, until you watch this video: please watch it, it's awesome, share it widely and keep it in your heart... think about it next time you're dumping somewhere, some non-fully biodegradable products... and who knows who is going to take care of them?!?!?

Amazing mechanic machine

At some point, this summer in Japan we went to meet some friends and visit their seedling farm: with great amusement and surprise I spotted this incredible machine to process rice. It's still perfectly working and at the time of harvest it must be spectacular to see it do its job: get the husk out and sort the seeds by their size.

Follows a sequence of other detailed pictures.

Carbon negative food and body products

The wealth of wisdom of Asian traditions has brought on the market several products that without doubt are intrinsically carbon negative, utilizing highly selected charcoal powder to create healthy detoxifying food and body products, like this hemp charcoal salt mix, a charcoal powder tooth pasts and a charcoal soap... amazing selection isn't it?!?!

Wah-shoi! The Spirit of japanese matsuri

So while my luggage is already mostly prepared and the countdown has started before the next big leap along the Path, the time has come to consider the outcome of this summer in Japan. In terms of the human experience, it's been a great opportunity to meet again good old friends and family, making a lot of new amazing connections for the development of future projects. 

Enjoying japanese alternative festivals

The japanese summer festival season has just finished for this year! So much giving thanks for this amazing opportunity we were given to come again to Japan and meet this gorgeously thriving Tribe & extended family that is roaming around campsite, enjoying Music and Nature, sharing truly the best moments of Life, caring for each other and all that is left behind! Follows a list of links to the photo albums of each festival: enjoy!

Thank you all... bless you all!

See you next year... or possibly before ;)

Splitting wood by scissors

It's going to sound weird and not so relevant but if you need to "process" some biomass, chopping it down quickly and evenly to load a stove for cooking in an outdoor situation, every little improvement counts a lot, since usually there is really very few elements to play with: a pair of gardening scissors, some chunky pieces of wood and you...

So... what to do???
mmm... not like this!

Theater knots in a camp site

In some of the previous festival, we had to prop up a tent in a very bushy spot where hammering a pin down was really impossible: so, instead of chopping down the weeds I thought I could use them by keeping them alive. A bundle of weeds still attached to their roots has a lots of stregth, anyway just enough for that purpose. Super quick fix too.

In another spot I found a better option readily available: the best natural mantegno* ever. It made me giggle...




*mantegno (teatro all'italiana) : italian theater technical language, it's a strong wooden bar where to tie ropes.

From inspiration to reality

In these days we have started to prepare for the Hemp festival (Payaka Asa matsuri) beginning the construction of a very special stage ready for this event. Indeed the hexagonal inspiration of the last days came beautifully to reality, following up the amazing style and design that we had already started working with before.

This is the first half...

   

Then we kept going... adding another half (total 18 + 18 pieces) but it wasn't enough: more were wanted! So... more we made!
In the picture on the right you can get a bit of the detail of the construction of the corners: magic of the hexagon! With colors it started really getting alive... here is a sequence of the coloring.

Finishing the day... a new magic appeared, the magic of shadows over these freshly painted solids! Waw... amazing three dimensional design!

The next day the stage appears in all its beauty...

 I like this shot...

Done!

Electric power and hemp body

...excellent video on hemp!
at the beginning it presents also a revolutionary electric powered hemp car!!!
check it out and share it widely!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIT6sOnAje8

New elements for the next stoves

In these days I have finally spotted some raw materials to prepare other stoves. An efficient recycling system is the basic need for creative projects, especially for those committed to "be the change we want to see in this world". Indeed a good recycling center can be just like a gold mine of... cans! hahahahaha...

Some interesting square-type big cans as well as this super lucky piece of roof gutter with a hole for the pipe, perfect to cut out the cone of the Elsa... luckiest piece ever!

The square ones are going to be the next challenge for the Elsa design... stay tuned for the updates!