Agricultural Update.

While we hear that the first part of August no rain fell here, it rained a couple times since we arrived home including 2 inches the first night.

The Dragon fruit plants almost doubled in size since we left. Now Cory needs to find locations for the new varieties that he bought.

He may bring some plants to share with the folks on LaGonave next week.

The banana bunches are all staying on campus now that the word is out that there may be security cameras taking pictures.

While we've had a trail camera for a while generally it only takes pictures of folks walking through the garden and a few times at night the pictures were not clear enough or at a good angle to identify a thief.

Tasted our first 'Super Thai' jackfruit this week but unfortunately the guys did not watch it carefully and by the time Cory checked it was past the peak of ripeness. It was crisp despite starting to ferment so the texture is better than the mushy varieties.

Cory is working on getting peach palm seeds from CATIE's extensive collection of varieties in Costa Rica. The fruit are not sweet like a peach but are more like a small buttered potato and eaten after boiling in salted water.

[As for our adoption paperwork we should of filed here looks like we need to wait until the first part of October to see if they will send the paperwork from Texas to Haiti.]

Memorial Day weekend.

A fresh, cool start to the Memorial Day weekend this morning as 3 of us enjoyed sending off Dan, Joy and Holly early. So back to 'normal' life now.

Pastor Dan and Joy serve as our area directors, field mission directors, teammates and friends!
Holly assists them.

They arrived on Wednesday in time for lunch and in time to visit a few minutes with a small group of visitors who came for a very short visit to campus.

We enjoyed meeting one of the new MAF pilots and a USA business man and welcoming GP team members Pastor Greg [first time visit to Fauche] and Pastor Carl.

National superentent of the Wesleyan church, Pastor Deucet even spent a couple of minutes playing a bit of volleyball with Anna before they started back to the airport for their return flight.

[Report from Port-au-Prince is that the older volleyball teams from Fauche are doing well!]

On Thursday we talked a lot and fit in a long garden walk in the afternoon.

Friday some of the district pastor's attended English class with Joy and held meetings.

Yesterday afternoon Cory loaded their truck with plants and trees for their place by the sea.

We celebrated USA Memorial Day before the weekend with limited school on Thursday and Friday. Will pick things back up on Monday while celebrating our 18th wedding anniversary!

Recent rains greened up our area and we celebrate with the dry areas of Haiti also enjoying some needed rains but saddened to hear reports of flooding damage in other areas.


After a month without French lessons we restarted this week-reviewing the books of the Bible while adding new vocabulary lists of grocery story, weather, animals, and transportation.

Our teacher also restarted the last bit of editing needed for the health book revision and Cory started to proof it too!

Timber bamboo growing nicely and look who found an underwater home in one of them! If you look hard you can just make out the frog-he's facing toward the right.

Mid-April Today

April's half way point is today. So far this year's schedule remains nicely spaced and not to busy. Just busy enough for us to remain productive without being overloaded without margin.


Cory worked on firming up plans for the trip to LaGonave tomorrow. He plans to leave early with Scott and Genner in order to drop off plants in St. Marc with our friends, Chris and Leslie at Clean Water For Haiti Clean water for Haiti. Friends for a few years by E-mails/ Facebook now to met in real life.

We pray the trees will do well and think they will because:
1. goat free property 2. people who like tropical fruits and trees 3. water to irrigate!

In addition by spreading out some of the rarer fruit trees we reduce the chances of them all being injured in a storm or local insect invasion or being stolen. The more folks who benefit the better!

Then the guys will drop off the truck and 500 books heading to LaGonave at the Irvines and head to catch the ferry. The books will head over when a Wesleyan boat trip occurs. They plan to head back on Thursday.

Anna, Eli and I completed a good school day. Two lessons of French missed so we continue to study on our own. Well Anna and Eli work on Rosette Stone but these days I find I need my translation skills to work on the Konsey book revisions and additions.

Scott's fitting in well as Anna noted today: He likes plants [Cory], medicine [Kris], animals [Anna] and lego's [Eli].

Stopped down at clinic this morning to ask the students to take a look at the book and give me suggestions for additions. I think there were over 20 students, nursing and lab technicians for the four patients!

Mme Fanny's son remains in prison while most of the other people returned to their homes. Mme Rosemary didn't know the details of why but had to do with money.

Cory learned that some of the homes that received damage during last week's protests are owned by people that were not involved in any way.

UN helicopter flew over head today but the road remained open and Port Margot's schools re-opened.

We pray that the protests will not return. Over the next few weeks Cory has trips out to do and some visitors plan to come to visit.

Welcome Spring.

Actually we do not notice much difference here in 'Spring', other than warmer days.

Loaded and ready to go.

But I change our small flags that hang in the living room and school room to reflect the seasonal change in the North.

After a weekend of rainy weather Cory's eager to be planting and outside working in the dirt but needs to find time to work on accounting and taxes!

Yesterday he headed out after watering some nursery plants and trees.

Looks like they could use some edible landscaping. 

The truck already loaded the night before headed East to deliver some fruit trees to a local orphanage.

The guys traveled along with him and after finding good locations for the various trees around a new home they spent some time planting them before heading home.

Not sure of all the plants they brought but know they had banana plants, mulberry, chaya and more but my plant guy is not here to list them so..

Cory enjoy's sharing his trees and plants especially to goat-free locations.

Today their task required a much lighter touch as they transplanted very small Artemisia plants into separate sections.

Cory after starting Jenner and Evon on this project remembered a consultation request to check out Brother Benjamin's cabbage croup so they jumped in the truck to find out what's going on at his place.

Eli, Anna and I continue to work on our school year, week 15. 

Today we started late as usual on Wednesdays because of my chatting on-line with my folks.

Not even 5 minutes into the start of school we received the shocking news from Cory that the pastors would be meeting this afternoon in the House of Hope.

The same House of Hope we planned to clean next week, combining post- and pre- team cleaning into one event!

So rapidly we gathered cleaning supplies and went down for a quick organization, dusting, sweeping and bathroom cleaning.

Sad how fast good time management mutated to look into procrastination!

But we did a good job and still managed to fit in some quality school work before lunch.

School difficulty pushed up a bit this week and next by the sounds of our neighborhood children enjoying pre-Easter vacation!

No hot water. No clothes dryer. But how many people can enjoy orchids right next to their clothes line?

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Cory's Les Cayes Trip

Cory's trip to Southern Haiti last week delivered plants to a new sustainable agricultural project at an orphanage project.

He brought starfruit/carambola, jackfruit, peach palm, breadfruit, sapodilla, egg fruit, biriba, acai, cupuasu, malabar chestnut, peanut butter fruit, everbearing mulberry, lemon drop mangosteen, malay apple, Vitex donnia, miracle fruit,  chaya, katuk, some ornamentals and 3 species of bamboo.

He also visited ORE an environmental group and picked up 2 new timber bamboo varieties and some seed corn.

The huge varieties that impressed him the most he ordered 3 types.

The bunch by the truck you only see the lower 1/3 of the bamboo.

One project uses converted grain bins for housing, surprisingly with the ventilation and double walls it is cool and the round shape will prevent hurricane winds damage as well as earthquake damage.

The guys returned from the project with a 'gift'. A pair of rabbits will start Fauche's rabbit project- 

Technically they belong to Gener but so far Anna's taking care of them hoping to work a deal so that she can keep the male most of the time. 

On the way home they visited the botanical gardens in Cayes. Goals to preserve native plants, distribute food plans and in time medicinal plants.

Unfortunately the medical part of the gardens were closed at the time of their early morning visit. 

Dreaming of land and oil palms.

In two weeks we will celebrate 5 years of living here in Fauche. Cory started planting trees and plants as soon as he considered our moving here, months before we actually moved North.

Now in almost every available spot with soil and good light a tree is growing. All except some locations too close to the school or church where group activities need open space.

So now where to plant. My very generous husband continues to give away trees throughout Haiti.

The bare hillside to the North of our house looks like an ideal place for him to plant. He would like to get permission from an owner to plant a demonstration garden and trees up on this hillside currently used for pasture.

It would be high enough for folks to notice from the road and see what a difference planting trees can make rather than root crops that lead to soil erosion or overgrazed pasture, both of which lead to severe soil erosion with our 100+ inches of rain each year.

He would be able to keep an eye on the field from our house. And it would not be a far hike to visit and work in the field.

To start would probably be high quality cut-and-carry pasture plants like elephant grass, mulberry and tree marigold.

Fruit, bamboo and lumber trees can also be planted for longer term production. It seems like sugar cane would produce in sunny locations and would hold the soil.


 Oil palm would be a great crop to conserve hillsides if the local people can be convinced of the health benefits of red palm oil (very high levels of carotene and vitamin E).

 The palms are very well adapted to the local climate and yield comparable to plantation trees but many of the palms are being cut down because people think it will cause "cholesterol".

In the past all the local people knew how to process palm oil but harvesting old tall trees is dangerous since they climb the tree to harvest.

 So the practice is dying out in our area and the red palm oil sells cheaper than imported cooking oil, including imported palm oil that has been industrially clarified by destroying most of the vitamins.

Part of encouraging oil palm gardening would be getting proper harvest saws attached to poles to allow harvest from the ground.

Please join us in praying for this potential project.

Love A Child Visit Pictures

Another week and month draw to a close. Cory's trip went well. The paperwork completed but did not received both stickers. Judain, who works in Port will try to pick up the sticker in August for us.

Cory and Genier potted up the chaya, katuk, mulberry, figs, and mombin at Love A Child and filled a good part of their shade house.

Cory was impressed at the small family gardens by the homes.

Now that he knows more at some point he will make a second trip with the trees and plants he feels will do well at their location.

Although dryer than us, more like LaGonave, being located next to a large fresh water lake means that irrigation is possible.

School went well this week for the most part.

 The hot days added to the end of school, past push take an extra effort.

Guest houses cleaned and linens washed.

This week the kid's and I finished reading Rudyard Kipling's 1897 book Captains Courageous.

We noticed that on some DVD's from some other missionaries that a TV movie by the same name so we waited to watch it until after we finished the book.

What a disappointment! Major changes altered the story significantly.

So we advise you to read the book.

We feel the same way about Dickens' Oliver-book is better and tells a whole side story not in the movie.

What do you pack?

Cory left yesterday for a couple day trip consisting mainly of visiting Love A Child ministry to share plants/trees/knowledge, getting the yearly paperwork on the truck done, and a bit of shopping.

Things he 'packed' to bring along:

 

• 5 gallon bucket of ripening star fruits
• cuttings of chaya and katuk plants
• lots of plants and trees [not sure of the list but the back of the truck was full]
• Creole health books
• a few prayer cards and business cards
• a cooler for the shopping trip
• camera and batteries
• a small bag with clothes, toothbrush and personal items

They made the trip yesterday with the only 'bump' missing some sticker on the truck that the police at a check point said he needed. After some talking-pointing out he was going to renew the next day they finally let them go. 

Today Cory and Gener will travel to Port to met Judain and work on the paperwork [praying they get it today]. After the time in Port will return to Love A Child for the night and hopefully head home tomorrow. 

Bedonia's surgery went OK but she's experiencing a lot of post-op pain. Please pray for her healing as well as for the anxiety levels of her mom and family. Pray for those around them as they host them, provide encouragement and support. 

Let us know if you did not receive an E-mail update from us this week and would like to be added to our list. 

ABC's of this week: Advice about plants, Blood pressures and Cargo run

Seems like a long week as we draw near the end of it.

After Monday's storm things settled down to a more normal routine. We managed to fit in almost a full week of school between blood pressure checks and some extra cleaning duties.

Yesterday Cory spent the day traveling to Cap Haitian to shop for supplies, pick up cargo at the airport and go to the bank.

 We received a couple boxes from the folks and a Sonlight school box!

 I also received my Christmas present from last year-a Jesse tree that I'm very please with and excited that it finally made it to me.

This week we identified 58 ladies with normal blood pressures, 24 pre, 27 stage 1, 9 stage 2, 3 stage 3 and one dear lady with a systolic of 230 putting her in the 4th class.

We asked her to walk down to clinic, get treated, lay down until a nurse checked her blood pressure again and only if it improved was she to return to her room.

Anna walked down in the late afternoon to ask about her only to find that neither the nurses or doctor knew of the patient. Well I guess we did what we could.

Some of these ladies are already taking medications so may be actually in a higher stage.

A few did not bring their medications or haven't been taking them so we encouraged them to remain on daily treatment to avoid tissue damage and risks.

For the ladies like the me we arranged with the leadership that if someone's pressure were dangerously high that the medications would be paid for if needed.

 Will do more checks tonight and tomorrow if any further checks are needed.


This afternoon the attention remained on Cory after the morning's meetings as he briefly shared about plants and trees preceding giving each church a group of plants.

 These will need to be shared among the church families as smaller plants are produced.

 Every women could take a branch of chaya and katuk.

Two more days and conference season will be complete for the Fauche campus for 2012. The young people will travel to Southern Haiti in August for their conference.

Next week Cory plans to travel to Port for paperwork and to share plants and advice with an orphanage near the boarder of the Dominican Republic. 

Storm Damage Welcomes Women

As the women arrive to the Fauche campus late this afternoon and tomorrow morning they will witness the disruptive force of a short but violent winded thunderstorm that hit campus at 4 p.m.

A couple large, close rumbles of thunder told us to unplug all the electronic equipment as French class drew to a close but suddenly the wind picked up-blowing down many large mango limbs, palm fronds, tree tops and our living room window screen which blew into the living room where it startled the whole family and our French teacher!

Window on the left of the door. 

Before Cory replaced the screen he did wash it-a plus.

The house needs sweeping as the dirt and dust from the screens blows into the house with big winds.

The  cooler weather is nice as well, but we did lose some small trees.

This banana plant may be able to grow back.


But Cory's graphed egg fruit tree with small green fruits for the very first time broke off near ground level so it is unlikely it will survive.

Cory has a couple more of these trees on campus but not close enough to the house to assure that we will see any ripe fruits.

Small egg fruits that will sadly never ripen.

 Thankfully none of the large mango branches hit any of the buildings.

Thankful our solar panels did not get hit by any flying debris.

Thankful the weaver birds moved before their nests all fell with the palm fronds.

Picking up fire wood. 

Reports are that the local voodoo temple, tin roof with tarp sides blew off the top of a nearby hill down into the ravine.

No buildings on campus appear to have been damaged.

The twigs, small branches and mangos have already been picked up and bought into homes.

Just missed the car port. 

I hear the ax ringing as Antoine works on the large mango branch on the football field.

At least 15 large palm fonds fell and will also be picked up and brought to the garden to be put around the bases of trees. 

 Thankful that Cory's white shade house either blew away or got squashed by the huge mango branch. All baby trees inside are safe.

Moringa ready to give to the ladies. 

Men's Conference members receive trees and plants.

Banana plant bulbs.

Anna with chaya & moringa handouts / starts. 

Sunday: Installation of new leaders.