Cory's trip north.

I don't reccomend this "garage"

The trip to Port Margot to get plants went well overall.

The first stage was going to Port au Prince to a mechanic to try to get a front wheel shake fixed that has been a problem even after all the wheels were rotated and later balanced last winter.

A long term mission employee set up an appointment with a mechanic for about 7am. We were on the road at 4:00am and arrived at 7:20.

Bananas Cory introduced damaged by wind but producing well

The mechanic shop turned out to be the open air parking lot at the small airline part of the airport, where we used to go for MAF flights to LaGonave.

 The mechanic was confident that the steering rods were too loose so those and a steering shock absorber were beat on with a big hammer to dissassemble them and sent with the employee to be replaced.

He returned about 12:30 with rod ends “rebuilt" and a new shock. Assembly wasn’t done until 1pm so it was a later start for Port Margot than we wanted.

Cacao die-back but recovering

The shake wasn’t improved so I set up a mechanic we know at Port Margot to look at the truck the next day.

We were limited to under about 45mph on the trip to avoid shaking and arrived at 9pm after traveling through rain in the northern mountains which also slowed the travel.

Kids' Club and literacy class are still going well.

We took a morning look around campus and a visit to the 3 other gardens.

Great tasting starfruit

The drought wasn’t as bad as I expected but there was significant damage to the cacao, breadfruit and some other local trees.

 The avocados and even some of the mango fruit were smaller than normal.

Bananas and cacao were making good recoveries due to recent rains.

Several of the peach palm planted in ‘15 were producing in the small garden.

Dry part of garden

Also a seedling star fruit we planted is probably the best I have ever tried.

In the afternoon we selected trees from the nursery for Delice, the village, Extollo, and a university near the Dominican Republic.

The mechanic came and checked out the steering and wheels, found one of the links hadn’t been tightened enough and lock pins missing so those things were corrected.

Some of the harvest: jack fruit, velvet apple, mango, egg fruit, star fruit

The shake at higher speeds was gone, just some very slight vibration but it may be from slightly loose universal joints in the steering shaft.

At least we could go about 55mph the next day with a smooth ride.

We left Port Margot at about 4:15 and at 10 met a couple from the University to give them their trees for the agriculture program.

 We bought some supplies at market and headed up the mountain at noon.

We arrived at Delice at about 2:30 and just had the truck unloaded and the trees in the nursery before rain started.

Selected trees

Glad to have left early and a dry drive up the mountain.

 There were some gullies and other bad spots in the road that would not have been fun in the rain.

Kris: Fritz and I did fine while Cory was gone focusing on school and Konsey editing.

One storm had me mopping up but thankfully not buckets and I could keep up with the three locations.

We were thankful he got back as fast as he did! Thank you for the prayers.

Eli's adjusting to his new job and Anna's preparing to return to Calvin for her second year.

Garden Update by Cory

We hiked to the new gardens Thursday this week.

We need rain, things are still green but even some established trees are wilted.

Gardeners in the floodplain are busy preparing gardens and planting peanuts.

The share cropper has part of our big garden freshly planted to rice.

Note the erosion control berms made of the old weeds.

I have expressed concern to him about topsoil erosion and the berms are the usual local practice although of limited effect on soil loss from our heavy downpours, about 150 inches of rain in a normal year.

It is good having someone working the garden for free to help keep livestock out but he isn't there all the time.

A neighbor reported that he tied up a big cow that was in the garden and said we should come more often.

Damage was minor with nibbles here and there and only one palm mowed off.

I sprayed most of the trees/palms on the underside of young leaves and at the base with deer/rabbit repellent, will see if it keeps livestock and rhino beetles from eating the trees.

Peach palms on campus are blooming again as harvest starts.

One tree that had a small bunch of small fruit last year has four good size bunches now and several flower buds.

 The fruit are much bigger than they look on the tree.

The flavor is good.



Fruit harvested on campus this week:
front - 3 banana varieties (Gros Michael, Ceylon/little Cory, and a FHIA hybrid), breadnut, hot bird peppers, miracle fruit and two barbados cherries/acerola, wild passionfruit.

2nd row - bilimbi (sour fruit) peach palm, sapodilla, breadfruit slice.

3rd row - starfruit/carambola,

4th row - Blanc' mango, atemoya, cacao, avocado, biriba, 'Baptiste' mango.


5th row - squash, black sapote, coconut.

Not included but also producing: guava, African oil palm, regular passionfruit. There would probably still be a few pineapple but the last few disappeared before full size.

Cory Update on Breadfruit trees

Nov. 16 2011 blog on breadfruits can be found here.

Remember the carry-on full of 144 small breadfruit trees that we carried into Haiti that August?

Here are a couple photos from a tree on a church property near Cap Haitian.

 There would be even more fruit but they are being picked early.

The pastor who had his first tree stolen from his yard and planted somewhere else is now at this  church so we are happy that he has a productive tree where he works.

The nursery will likely be out of these trees soon but it looks like the new white plastic shade house is working.

 Now to make a bigger batch of cuttings.

Productive Day

Trees to trade

Cory headed to Cap Haitian about 8 o'clock. With a long line already at the bank in Limbee he did not stop but continued on his trip.


 He picked up the new truck plates and put them on the truck. [While he remembered the wrench he didn't remember to bring the screws along.]

At the Madelyn school he connected with the school cooks and talked to them about preparing moringa and chaya.

He left them a bunch of chaya cuttings.


Ultimately the goal is for enough of both to be grown so that they can regularly be added to the school lunches replacing expensive imported vitamin pills.

Following this visit Cory headed to the airport to connect with the guys coming in with a new type for him [Pua'a] breadfruit trees from the Breadfruit Institute.

He received 10 trees in exchange for his larger Ma'afala trees which were ready to plant.

A bit of shopping and a stop at the bank before heading home.

At home we worked on school work. My students did not need me much today so I busied myself with office work: getting needed phone numbers for shipping the Konsey II books, working on scholarship applications with Eli, getting needed information for starting to schedual our USA trip, and more.

I also added a new blog about our adoption. Link above under Grafting Treasures.

Looking back and forward..

A week containing lots of looking back and remembering.

Nice looking cow but......

September 11: My maternal Grandfather's birthday [he would have been 99], the 8th anniversary of his heavenly home going, the memories of 9-11 and the biggest one for Cory, Eli and I was moving to LaGonave 16 years ago. Anna celebrated with us even though it was before her time.

September 13: Remembering my maternal Grandmother's heavenly home going two years ago.

Tomorrow September 15th: My Dad's birthday as well as my folks anniversary!

she likes to eat and damage bread fruit trees. 

Reviewing lessons learned with Dr. Bob and Marcia about missions, living in Haiti, life. We continue to enjoy their visit while they work on their Creole.

They tried boiled and salted oil palm fruits, bread nuts and avocado smoothies this week.

If all goes according to plan 'A' the mission driver will arrive from Port-au-Prince on Friday so that they can get an early start on the road, Saturday morning.

The above cow damaged about 8 of the small breadfruit trees in the garden that Cory uses for cuttings for the nursery, snapping one off totally!

Her owner after much talk about the 'accident' (and multiple past livestock offenses, this time it appears someone chased the very tame cow to force it through the garden fencerow) did send money to pay for the broken tree as Cory requested.

Excited to learn about 4 adoption referrals that occurred last week while we continue to pray for movement for the families in the different stages of the process.

Visited the Nazareth Wesleyan Church this morning with our guests.

After service one of the leaders came to talk to me about a young girl.

The church took up a special offering to get her  some medical testing which occurred last week.

She's 12 years old and has a heart condition as they preformed an ECHO cardiogram.

Still waiting for the test results and to learn about treatment options.

Please pray..not sure how to spell it but her name sounds like Edling.

 This week: school, working on the book, Cory to Cap Haitian on Tuesday for cargo and shopping, he will bring Dr. Bob and Marcia to Milo to visit the Citidel and palace while he shops and pick them up later.

Garden update

We are enjoying more variety of harvests as new fruits come into production.

Bushels of star fruits are almost ready to share with the summer conferences.

 This Ma'afala breadfruit tree came from the Breadfruit Institute almost 3 years ago, Aug. '11 as a 2 or 3 inch tall plant.

First harvest June '14. A few other people we shared trees with have also reported fruit set.

 Starfruit and a small Ma'afala breadfruit

 Guajilote, year old tree fruiting in a gallon pot. Looking forward to trying this.

 Bamboo sprouts.

Jackfruit. Supposed to be 'Super Thai' but can't tell the difference from our 'Black Gold' so not sure of the variety.

They are productive now for small 5 year old trees. Sweet aromatic fruit.

Looking forward to first pitaya/dragon fruit harvest now that one of the self fertile varieties has a flower bud.

Vanilla pods

The best for last... Due to a drier than usual year we enjoyed a great mango season April through June. Mangos rotted on the ground even along the main road just miles from Cap Haitian and the main road less than a mile from Port Margot. 

Many people nearly live on mangos while they are in season. Cory tried to limit them to about half of daily diet. 

The campus mango production ended abruptly in July, except for a few of the new varieties that are just coming into production.

 The photo is Okrung, Van Dyke, and probably Florigon, photo taken today. We also enjoyed Valencia Pride, Fairchild, and Choc Annon, along with all the Fransic and Fil blank we could eat, from huge campus trees.

Peanut butter fruit and second visit to Second Mile

A thunderstorm last night added 1 1/2" to our summer rainfall totals and so far the area is wet.

Heat and moisture agrees with many plants on campus.

This week we all tried "peanut butter fruit" and at least 3 of us adamantly believe that the name should be changed as it sets your brain and tastes buds up for total disappointment.

 The pasty texture may be a bit like peanut butter but to us taste nothing like peanuts, more of a unique sweet, tangy taste.

Sunday we enjoyed watching Gener's two youngest boys get dedicated in church on Haitian father's day.

A funny moment when Gener went to return to his seat which he had taken with the men's Sunday school class earlier the Pastor briskly told him to sit with his wife and sons.

He grabbed his Bible and sheepishly returned to the front of the women's area.

Yesterday we worked hard on school work as well as finishing up our summer newsletters and June thank you notes. 


Thankfully we mostly finished before needing to unplug and turn off the inverter for the storm.

Today the kids and I continued with our school work while Cory and the guys headed with a truckload of plants back to Second Mile Haiti.

They enjoyed talking about the fruit trees and plants while placing them around the Second Mile property. 


They have good dirt, water and good gardeners so we expect the trees and plants will do well, providing not only nutritious fruits for the mothers and children at Second Mile but for the local families as well.



Since there is only one large tree on the campus there is plenty of room to plant.


The trees we planted included peach palm, acai palm, star fruit, jackfruit, breadfruit, everbearing bush mulberry,  barbados cherry, cupuasu (chocolate relative) large lime, lemon drop mangosteen, miracle fruit, bananas, ticazo vine and two types of bamboo. Also left chaya cuttings (vegetable bush), aloe barbadensis and artemisia (malaria medicine).

They shared fresh brown eggs from their chickens and a few pounds of their black eye pea harvest with us as a token of gratitude.

Always glad to share knowledge, trees and plants to those helping others.

On the way home the guys saw akee fruit and a different kind of breadfruit trees.

A slow, rainy day.

One of those days that just begs to be spent curled up with a good book!

While we enjoy sharing our lives with visitors [like the previous 4 Saturdays] we can also enjoy a family day with few responsibilities.

After a dry and busy week today dawned cloudy with occasional sprinkles. House cleaned, school work done, correspondence mostly caught up equals a day to read, enjoy family down time and fun.

Fun for Cory does include a trip up the mountain to deliver a truckload of plants. Tomorrow's sermon at a mountain church will be about trees but due to our church's harvest feasible we felt we needed to attend here.

So yesterday Cory and Gener loaded up 60 banana plants, about as many breadfruits and artemisia, a few bamboo, mulberry, chaya and other assorted plants for this morning'
s delivery.

While Cory does not often multitask he plans to listen to a book on adoption on the way via our Kindle.

Our modem obviously works this morning but did not most of yesterday. This week we focused on adoption research/paperwork/homework, school and normal life.

The Fauche volleyball teams play today near the border of Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

Nightly this week evangelic meetings occurred at the church. We attended one night especially enjoying the singing but found the speaker a bit hard to follow. Interesting after all these years how one person's way of speaking can still make it very difficult to interpret.

Tomorrow we will join the church and many visitors for the special service and offering, which will go toward the church rebuilding.

Road Open-thank you for the prayers.

The end of the week flew by-sorry for not updating sooner.

Thank you for the prayers.

By Wednesday the road toward Cap remained open although anyone who traveled to Port Margot for market day got turned back by the Haitian police.

Cory and Scott went to market today and reported [Cory didn't have our camera along] that the police station did mostly burn down along with an old pick-up truck. While the front of the station was brick the back burnt down. They did not see one policeman in Port Margot this morning.

We hear that the police were to release all the folks they locked up following the protests.

No word yet from Mme. Fanny about her son. As of Friday she still was not feeling well.

Cory did pick up Scott on Wed. and with his interests in plants and medicine we've enjoyed talking with him. He plans to go with Cory next week to visit LaGonave.

Eli and Anna worked very hard on school work this week and we're very close to the 50% mark of our school year.

Cory's guys moved breadfruit trees from pots to large plastic sacks getting ready for distribution.

The baby Artemisia plants continue to grow in their trays. 

Stamped 33 new books [mostly bought by Cory on Wed. while in Cap] for the Book Herder project.

Continue to work on translation of additional topics for the Konsey book, the 1st aid handout as well as getting an E-mail update ready to go and some thank you letters for next week's mail.

6 Days Pre-Warsaw Team

Looks like today will be a sunny day. Heard that a small earthquake frightened the people who felt it last night in Port-au-Prince but thankfully no damage. 

Last weekend we enjoyed family time while thinking ahead to this week in which the big goal consists of preparing for the Warsaw/ Michigan team who plan to arrive next Monday. 

Cory found some good paint in Cap Haitian so one of their projects will be painting school rooms.

By request they will also be holding some fun Bible classes with the children. 

This will be a new project never before attempted by any of our teams and we look forward to seeing how it all works. 

I also hope we can make some return home visits for updates on the families that Warsaw church partners in prayer. 

We started week 12 of our school year yesterday, which continues to go well. 

Our French teacher stayed after class for 40 minutes to go over more than 30 pages of editing. 

He's helping us clarify the Konsey health book before we publish again. 

We exchange copies so I can work on making the changes on the computer while he continues to identify problem words and areas.

 After a slow start we passed the 1/2 way point this week.

Cory's guys continue to work on the yard, fixing weak areas in the fence and yesterday potting up lots of breadfruit cuttings.

Rooted ones on right, new on left.

A bucket of cuttings waited overnight for them to prepare additional pots. 

While not dry yet a light rain would be nice for  newly transplanted trees and plants.