Busy week.

Monday and Tuesday we spent working on packing up some items we wanted to bring up to Délice including plants.

Anna and I spent part of Tuesday morning working out our schedual for her junior year of highschool.

Forage peanut and elephant grass

We know with the trips back and forth from Delice that we will need to be very organized.

In addition Anna plans to combine two literatures: American and British so that next year she can enjoy a new Sonlight high school literature class-world literature.

Wednesday we traveled back up to Délice.

 I think we ended up taking seven hours and seven stops:

gas/bathroom, shopping, snack, look at a used guitar for Anna, drop off plants/trees for a friend, buying mangos, and to drop off some items at Ortlip center.

Thursday and Friday mornings Anna and I did school and I also helped the neighbor's daughters with their school work. Learning and taking notes about living up here...

     Red dirt and light paint, clothes, towels...not a great combination.

     Floors will also be a dark brown or red...

Layering of clothes is important. Clouds come and go. Hot, warm, cool..all in mintues.

Cuttings rooting under plastic

The dead end road after the fort, construction ended with the quake.

We celebrate with Eli both finishing up his first week of internship/work and doing well in his studies this term!

Love hearing how well he is doing from our folks and him.

Very proud of our oldest.


Cory's Report: Sorry the photos won't go where I want, I give up.

Planting is going very well. The climate and soil here appears excellent for farming.

Makes sense since the French chose this place for a coffee plantation and there are many other ruins in the area.

It looks like geologicaly we are on what was once a coral reef.

There are fossil shells and coral in some of the rock.

Some areas have limestone but other areas is a mix of soil and rock that are probably ancient weathered reef.

Temperatures are usually cool, in the 60's and 70's but yesterday was almost hot, probably mid 80's.

Macadamia tree in bean field

The past few days were low humidity but nights often have fog or clouds and we can also be in the clouds during the day so humidity really varies compared to Fauche.

Most of the soil looks like clay but it is generally light and well draining (good texture) and it holds water well (amazed at how much water a pot of dirt can hold) so most of it may actually be loam soil.

This is a very good thing except that it erodes easily after tilling for gardens.

 I hope we can get perennial crops and trees going in the area before most of the remaining soil is gone.

The first trip we planted a sampling of most of the fruits and nuts that we have at Fauche, and a few dozen canistel/eggfruit.

The Baptist Mission provided a few dozen loquats that a security guard yanked out of the ground from under trees where they had grown on their own from fallen fruit.

Loquat tree

 The loquats were pruned and planted under the local wild bushes to provide shade while they get established.

Checking all the trees this week I didn't find any that died, and even all the loquats were doing fine.

Macadamia trees have stiff leaves and they are already growing new leaves well despite extra windy weather that is stunting the local bean crop.

This trip most of the plants I brought are forage peanut and elephant grass cuttings, running bamboo, chayote, a few pineapple plants, and one each of several types of grafted mango.

Cuttings of fruits, macadamia and flower plants are now rooting under plastic and seeds are planted for the start of our Delice nursery.

It is fun and good getting experience with the climate here and getting "seed" plants started as a source for the nursery and for planting the Wesleyan land next rainy season.

Rain isn't reliable after October so we need to get our cisterns built soon so there is enough water for mixing cement and for the winter dry season.

Rains usually start in March.