Rancho Margot: Diploma Project Nov 2013 | Página 12

Sometimes the volunteers who worked in the farm themselves came and explained how these processes worked. I
wasn’t able to comprehend these information but assured me I will understand these processes after spending some
time at the ranch. They told me they were really happy to have me there which made me feel like I was at home.
Kelly, another volunteer working in the gardens introduced herself to me when Taylor and I were stopping at the gardens. I finally got to understand how the compost ovens in the ranch worked.
I had read up a lot about the hot showers that are made from cow manure but I never really understood where exactly the heat came from. Taylor told me that it was the activity of the bacteria inside the compost that made it so hot.
After the ranch tour I started putting down everything that I could recollect from the tour into a powerpoint presentation. Travis came by and told me that there was a student group coming in the afternoon so it would be interesting for
me to join them and ask questions which I wanted to ask. It was a high school student group. One of the researches I
knew I was going to do in the ranch was an ethnographic research about the people in the ranch. I was interested in
knowing what people felt about the ranch, about farming, about cow manure etc. This particular student group that I
was with on my first day weren’t as interested in the activities of the ranch as the volunteers. But they were cooperative.
Kelly and another volunteer named William were leading the workshop. Kelly showed us the soil they have freshly taken
out from the compost and were planning to add to the soil. She explained its nutritional value and explained how
they recycle the elements that gets sucked out from the soil by plants by adding dead plants and weeds pulled out
from the garden. She also told us that the soil used in this region is very acidic. In order to neutraliz HH??[^B?YY?[?][H[??][?Z^Y]\?\?H?[?Y??H^HYH??[[??H?\?[??H??[???HH?\?[???\??X?[??]?Y[???X?\??]???[??[?][K?\??][H[??\??????L???