Day 53 Tree planting.

As the clouds grow so do our hopes for rain.

Last week over 100 trees were planted on the property after the rains the weeks before.

Now going on our second week without rain Cory is holding off again to plant more trees, as yesterday it took 4 guys all day to water trees.

This almost emptied the small amount of rain-water that had collected in the bottom of the new pond.

The tree planting process...

Two or three of the guys walk around an area, finding a spot that looks good they start to dig with a shovel and pick.

Once they have a good hole dug they walk about 10 or 15 feet away and start again.

Sometimes they find too much rock underneath a bit of dirt and then they move on to a new location.

With the bushes and grass growing up it is hard to see many of the holes unless you are very close and can see the pile of dirt.

First a bit of fertilizer is put in the bottom of the hole.

The dirt mixed up.

 A tree selected for the hole and then carefully dirt is placed around the roots, gently in an attempt not to disturb the dirt around the roots.

Sometimes a pot from the nursery contains 4-5 trees and they need to be carefully separated to be planted individually in their own holes.

Once the dirt has been returned around the tree a second planting occurred.

An second scoop of fertilizer was placed in a line near the edge of the planting hole and mixed into the dirt.

Then 2-3 squash seeds were planted, covered up, and the dirt gently pushed down by a foot.

A small died stick marked the locations that had squash seeds.

Some trees being more sensitive or having had more roots cut off to remove them from the nursery or the pot may have received water right away.

 In addition the sod from the hole or rocks that came from the hole were placed on the down hill side to help hold the soil in place when the rains do start.

Because Fritz and I completed our third grade work on Thursday morning we helped plant on Thursday afternoon, Friday morning and afternoon.

A variety of trees were planted including: egg fruit, mulberry, apple, cherimoya [custard apple], black sapote, velvet apple, grapefruit, jackfruit, mango, sapodilla, rumberry, pawlonia (lumber tree), loquats, peach palm, asai palm, guava, and macadamia.

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.

Haiti Visit by Cory and Church Visit Schedule.

We share about the work in Haiti:
March 24, 11am service, Central Wesleyan, Jackson Michigan
March 31,  9:30 am service Living Hope Community, Richland MI
March 31, 6:30pm service, Diamond Springs Wesleyan

The trip to Haiti went well. The country has been mostly calm the past few weeks but there are reports of potential serious trouble at the end of March. 

Broccoli and other vegetables

The politics are complicated and partly international so it is hard to predict.

Just before going to the airport on our return we had a good meeting with 3 of the top leaders of the Haitian Wesleyan Church: Pastor Denor, Pastor Doucet, and Pastor Clother. 

They advised that due to the potential problems, we wait until April 8 to decide when the Wesleyan missionaries should return. They think if Haiti is calm until then, it is likely to stay calm.

Planting the dormant apples

The time at Delice was encouraging. The nursery and small garden (irrigated due to dry season) are growing well. It was good to see many types trees and vegetables growing at a good speed. 

The cool weather slows the growth of most plants but the good side is that weeds also grow much slower than they do down in the hot areas.

The workers never had broccoli and were impressed with how “sweet” the raw stem part was. One, impressed with the diversity, kept asking if this or that tree would produce anything.

Macadamia tree 

We planted the 33 grafted apple trees, each a different variety shown to do well in the tropics. 

With all these we should have late storage apples available until the early varieties start to ripen. 

Some may even produce more than one crop per year. Varieties planted include Fuji, Gala, Granny Smith, Arkansas Black, Coconut Crunch, Cinnamon Spice… 

The photos are from this week.

Too much erosion from years of growing corn and beans in Delice area!

Spineless Peach Palm and Black Sapote I gave a few years ago at Clean Water for Haiti, in a dry area near the sea.

Moringa products for sale at Port au Prince Airport.

Fauche Fruit Update by Cory

Dried up cacao tree, September

When we returned to Haiti last September we flew into Cap Haitian and spent a day at Fauche.  I also made a trip the last week of January but we didn't blog about those visits.

North Haiti had the worst drought last summer that the people there can remember.

Some of the spring crops like peanut were lost and gardens lay fallow until fall.

 Normally winter is very rainy but this year the drought continues, with no rain for the past 6 weeks or more.

Cacao starting to produce again, January

Cacao was the most popular tree to plant in north central Haiti for the past few years, with some nurseries being helped by a USAID program.

 World chocolate prices are good and it is profitable to grow but unfortunately it is one of the most drought sensitive trees.

Most of the cacao trees near the mission are making a good recovery and starting to produce again.

 Some died and most had large branch dieback.

Peach palm planted in '15

The peach palms are doing well.

Production was less due to the drought but a few of the trees from Costa Rica are starting to produce.

I still think they are one of the best trees to plant for quantity and quality of food produced while protecting the environment.

The fruit is rich in calories, vitamins, high quality protein and oil.

Haitians like the flavor, which is a mix of the popular flavors of sweet potato, squash and corn.

Filling, nutritious, good flavor fruit, the floating oil is from the fruit

February 2015

Same garden January 2019. The owner of this rented garden was allowed to farm it normally the first 3 years, then he left it fallow to graze during the drought, the forage peanut we planted next to many

of the palms grew into excellent pasture.

I did NOT challenge to hug the spiny peach palm. I expect the spineless type to be more popular than the spiny.

First fruit (not full grown) from seed brought from Costa Rica in '14

Rambutan seedling, also from Costa Rica

Trees and from Fauche to Delice

Please pray for Gener (below) and his family. His wife and newborn premature daughter have been in the hospital for several days.

Acai, a unique flavored fruit good for juice and ice cream, popular in Brazil.

 Peach palm, acai and cupuassu flavors bring back memories of my time in Brazil. (I think Santarem had a better market for jungle fruits than Manaus and Belem)

 I can't taste the acai in some of the products like acai chocolates sold in the USA.


Champedak, related to jack fruit, has very smelly peel (bad), but pulp has sweet fruity flavor, I think the seeds are the best part at least from the tree we have.

If boiled they are like boiled cashew nuts, which are popular in sauces/stews in Haiti.

Cupuasu [brown and fuzzy] in background, is an excellent fruit for juice and jelly, related to chocolate but it takes longer to start producing.

The fruit on the jar is custard apple. (January photo)

Quick Trip North

After painting the water cistern last week we loaded up and drove north.

We experienced our first ever ice delay in Haiti.

An ice truck blew out a tire, tipped over, and mostly blocked the highway.

Not sure if they were selling the ice or just giving it away.

We enjoyed a few days of friends and family time and then headed to Fauche.

Sunday we worshiped with our Fauche church family and Cory visited Kid's Club in the afternoon.

We enjoyed connecting with our friends again; Anna enjoyed playing some volleyball!

Monday he, the guys, and Anna visited the gardens over the river and in the afternoon we went as a family to visit some folks in Ti Bouk.

We enjoyed some peach palms, breadnuts, peach palm heart, mango, dragon fruit, some enjoyed papaya....coconut candy, good Haitian bread.

Tuesday Cory checked out the gardens on campus while I packed and cleaned.

Cows damaged 8 or 9 peach palms in the rental garden but mostly the garden's look good.

2 bunches of fruit, at least 8 still on the tree (below, before harvest)

Most of the peach palms in the rental garden are too tall now for livestock to damage. They grow back but it wastes time and production.

We brough some of the peach palm fruit back to Délice to share with the people here.

Wednesday we headed back, about 9 hours with a few stops, back up the mountain to Délice.

Thursday we checked on the house site and driveway work.




Anna did a bit of school but picked up a cold on the trip so lots of resting as well.

Cory plans to head to Port-au-Prince on Monday for a major shopping day for building supplies and food.

We will try to get back into a school routine.

During the trip we stopped at the Ortlip Center for a break and saw Berman, who is promoting and selling our Konsey books.

He has sold over 600 and requested 5,000 of the Konsey II books when they arrive.

 He does radio talks with material from the books and visits many churches to share what he has learned.

We are very thankfull for his help and pray for some good promoters for the books that go to Port au Prince later this month.

Donations to cover the cost for Konsey books that are given to pastors, teachers, medical workers and families in churches.  Tap for link.

Week back at Fauche!

Costa Rica peach palm from seed collected spring of '14

On June 2 we headed back home only to leave again on the 3rd to visit some friends and have family time. From the top of the mountain to the bottom...I shed 3 layers of long sleeve t-shirts/hoodie.

Fachue is hot and steamy! Summer weather is upon us as we pray for a calm hurricane season of June through November.

On the way back home on Sunday afternoon we picked up a friend of Anna's who's spending the week with us.  The girls shadowed Dr. Winik the dentist on Monday [Anna found out that she doesn't do well with teeth pulling] and a Haitian doctor on a few cases.

Cory has been busy with the yard, and getting ready to install a fence to protect the garden side of the mission campus. While we were gone the district made good progress on a security wall on the street side of campus.

More peach palm and other fruit trees

I've mostly worked on office and paperwork but did take some time to pull weeds in the nursery. Today I started working on physical therapy advice to translate into Creole and add to the Konsey book.

A wall or fence is needed to improve security enough so that night watchmen can be hired to help the clinic watchman.

Today Cory walked to the gardens beyond the river.

Peanut plants baking in the sun

Sadly the peanut crop in the sandy river bed is drying up (those that didn't get washed away earlier), and most of the area gardens are starting to suffer from a few weeks without rain after a very wet spring. July and August are usually the driest months here.

Peach palms are growing but turn yellow in the strong summer sun.  Those in partial shade from bigger trees are still green but even the ones in good, moist soil look yellow this time of year. Once they get big they turn dark green.

The Fauche mangos are between crops but we are enjoying velvet apples from a tree Cory planted. They aren't very sweet or flavorful but the tree is productive and the fruit is unique and plesant to eat. The texture seems somewhere between very ripe apple and baked potato.

Velvet apple

Tomorrow Cory needs to go to Limbe and will get more planting material for Delice.

Garden & Peach Palm Update-Cory

Gardens are growing well with plenty of rain and sunny days.  About 14" of rain in the past two weeks.

 Recent peach palm harvest, 24 pound bunch of fruit. This tree, planted in 2010, had about 120 pounds of fruit during the past 12 months. The fruit is oily so an orange, vitamin-rich layer of oil floats after boiling but the fruit is still starchy and dry, good in soup or with mayonnaise.

Costa Rica, April 2014 at CATIE

 Planting the garden rented from a family in our church, February 2015. About 525 total planted on mission campus, the rental garden and two purchased gardens.

Same garden this week. Peach palms from Costa Rica. The garden has been regularly planted to mostly corn and beans, also some sugar cane and bananas, so it is regularly weeded by the owner. Looks like some of the palms could start fruiting in about a year.