Old wood

Thinking positively, I decided to build the support tower for the 2,000 liters water box, plus a third porch for setting up the old casa de farinha (manioc mill) that has been on the ground for the last two years. In pricing lumber, I discovered that I could afford very little of it. Prices have gone up so much for lumber, few people can afford it for anything. In the end, I finally decided to use what I had left over from other projects in the past. Ney, the carpenter, is a genius at making use of anything like that. In less than three days he built the basics of the porch and the support structure for the water box! The four esteios (support columns for the porch) are jarana (Holopyxidium jarans), which were cut from forest areas for planting soybeans several years ago. As you can see by the attached image, the outer surfaces are damaged from years on the ground, but the heart wood is solid enough to hold up an elephant. The log underneath is a different story. It's Brazil nut (Bertholetia excelsa), which doesn't hold up for very long, if left to the elements. What interesting is that both Brazil nut and jarana are from the same family, which is Lecythidaceae.