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.

Délice May Tree/plant list.

Cory's focused on getting trees and plants established as fast as possible at Délice because the rainy season is now.

Because the Wesleyan land is not fenced in and is being grazed by the local people's cattle, he is focusing at this time on the neighbor's property.

This will provide seed and cuttings [propagation material] for our location as well as for nursery stock  when we are ready for them, hopefully within the next year.

List of plants and trees already planted on Together We Can property. Also checking samples of over 20 kinds of old garden seeds, 2014/2015 for germination. Some sprouted before we left.

Plants brought to Délice and planted in May:
apple seedlings
abrico (mamey)
asparagus
avocado seedlings and ‘Donni’
bamboo- running makinoi and 4 types of clumping bamboo
banana: Apple, Ceylon/Mysore, FHIA-1,2?,3, 17?, 25, dwf. cavendish, cardaba, kru, raja puri, dwf. red, resistant poban, misi luki, kandarian.
barbados cherry
blackberry jam fruit
black sapote
breadfruit
canistel/eggfruit - jaun d’ouef
carambola/starfruit
chadek
chayote - militon



Cory is  in the middle of this picture,  planting. 

coffee
goji berry
jaboticaba ‘red'
jack fruit - fwi jak/jaka
java plum or rumberry
jelly palm
lacmelia
loquat
lychee ‘Hak ip'
macadamia
malay apple - pom dlo/pom malazi
mandarin - Jacmel? seedling
mango: choc annon, lancetilla, florigon, malika, nam dok mai, rosalie
miracle fruit
mulberry
peach palm
pepino dulce
pineapple
rambutan
sapodilla - sapoti
spanish lime - kenip
starfruit/caimite
Uvalia (two types, like a sour guava that makes excellent juice)
velvet apple - pom vlou

• Incan root crops: ulluco, oca, yacon, mashua 
  
  Other forages or greens:
  chaya
  edible hibiscus
  elephant grass
  forage peanut

garlic
potatoes
various ornamentals

A day off campus.

Wednesday we picked up Jean Pierre near the front gate and headed toward Cap Haitian at 7:30.

First stop the OMS seminary to deliver and talk plants.

A few years ago some of the OMS missionaries visited Fauche for a garden tour. Cory spent a few hours yesterday talking with Phil, looking at the campus plants and giving some advice.

Anna enjoyed spending time with a friend while I tagged along with the guys increasing my plant knowledge.

New homes found for mangos, egg fruit, peach palms, bananas, chaya, katuk, false roselle, lemon grass, star fruit, peanut butter fruit, miracle fruit and bamboo.

Shared some Konsey books too.

Jean Pierre had already continued on to town for his erends.


We drove through Cap Haitian to the hotel/restaurant. We enjoyed spending some time with a family here for their adoption socialization visit.

While they started the paperwork for their daughter just after we did, their official referral took almost a year longer than ours.

Anna and their children enjoyed the pool after lunch while we talked.

Praying for the remaining steps to occur much faster, for both our families.

Stopped a few times on the way home for a bit of shopping and made it back before dark.

Anna missed volleyball practice but found out the time for the next practice.

Only nine days remain before the trip to Port-au-Prince for the national finals.

2nd tree planting at Helping Haitian Angels

Local 'fil rouj' mango. Big pit and lots of string fiber.

Cory, Gener and Yvon took another truckload of fruit trees on Thursday to Helping Haitian Angels orphanage.

Total trees planted is about 100. Mostly mango, eggfruit, avocado and jackfruit.

Mango is a great tree, especially for dry areas of the tropics.

Besides producing loads of nutritious, delicious fruits, it uses very little water, gives heavy shade, and the wood is good for lumber and charcoal.

Mango diversity is amazing, from just like canned apricot to crunchy or spicey and flavors like honey, pineapple, coconut and more.

Kids love them and some people live on them while they are plentiful.

Eggfruit

In many parts of Haiti, including around the orphanage, most of the mangoes have large pits and/or much stringy fiber. They are only good for eating fresh, not for preserving or slicing for a fruit salad.

The varieties we are planting are some of the best from Florida and Haiti.

Eggfruit is also drought resistant, tastes like very sweet sweet potato and squash, gets its name from its resemblance to hard boiled egg yolk.

It is very good eaten fresh, makes an excellent smoothie, and can be made into pie that is just like pumpkin pie.

Florigon, Nam Dok Mai and Irwin (or VanDyke) Mangos

Weekend Report.

Birthday Picture.

Wednesday's trip to the market went well. The trees and plants sold well...for about $15 American. The real befit of the trip can be measured in the education that occurred while the workers answered questions about the plants and trees.

Gener in the orange shirt holding a tree.
Evon stands just to the left facing left. 

Campus hosted a Compassion group last night. The normal Friday night video on campus did not happen due to electrical problems and an electrical storm.

School went well this week with lots of learning. In less than two weeks we will be joining the Lutheran team in Cap Haitian for a second time and enjoy Fall break by helping out for a week of medical work.

Ag. book translating and editing continues. Please continue to pray for this important project!

Internet continues to be spotty and slow hindering my ability to post and post pictures. This also means that one of the sticks needs to be shared-between all four of us.

School and office work share the highest priorities. Sadly we cannot figure out how to download our Kindle books with the new system.

[by clicking on a picture you can enlarge it. ]

This and that...

Middle of the week and middle of the month. 

We enjoyed celebrating Cory's birthday on Sunday which included watching a new video for us about Rich Mullins' life. Thankfully we finished right before we needed to unplug all electronics and turn off the power due to a very powerful thunderstorm.

A repeat thunderstorm occurred on Monday night again causing us to protect all electronics. Thankfully no lightning strikes in our area.

Monday we worked on finishing up the newsletters as well as starting our school week. Cory took the completed newsletters to Cap Haitian yesterday and did some shopping.

Now will try to get out the e-mail copies of the newsletter on our spotty and slow internet! Very thankful for our faithful support team. 

With Cory's birthday and Thanksgiving in Canada being completed the season of Christmas music starts in our home. This year with family coming for Christmas week we look forward to many fun family memories.

Yesterday marked our 9th month in IBESR. So if you think in terms of a 9 month pregnancy then we've waited that long for one of the children. Still praying we receive our referral soon so we can know more about our children and pray specifically. 

Cory took his guys and a truck load of trees to the Port Margot market today to increase awareness and education about some of the new trees. 

Work on the book continues...starting to check the fonts, numbering, contents and making sure everything made it in that we wanted included. Found a few missing items that we'll now translate and edit. Getting closer!

Conference, Chantal and Coconut

Sunny with no wind at the moment but that could change later with tropical storm Chantal in the area.

[Chatted with my parents for a while as the sun alternated with cloudy outer storm bands and now complete cloud cover but no wind or rain.]

District pastors arrived yesterday for the start of the district's summer conference.

 Thankful for every minute of sun we get today as conferences on campus tend to run our battery system down at night with the extra usage.

A month from now we should be in Florida preparing to fly to Michigan.

Still working on the health book and plant book.

Need to redo all the illustrations in the health book so looking for some Haitian artists to help.

Praying to get this done before we leave.

Long time blog readers may remember a few years ago when Cory moved this coconut tree from inside the new church foundations to our front yard.

Now he's looking forward to the first coconut and if you look closely there is a new bloom on the tree. [Above the coconut a couple feet and to the right a bit.]

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.

Mango Tree Trimming

Cory, Genner and Andy headed out early this morning to go to LaGonave.

They plan to spend 2 nights there discussing with college students from Canada, Haitian agriculture and giving some advice about the gardens at the new children's home, Okipe.

The campus looks a lot different now than 6 years ago before we moved and basically no space remains for fruit trees.

So Cory's starting to look at non-fruit trees, non-productive fruit trees or bad fruit producing trees with a gleam in his eye.

Friday some of the mango trees that rarely fruit received a pruning job to prepare them for grafting new varieties. No chainsaws so Genner used a machete very effectively.

Clean up will take a while as will the recovery of my flowers!

But I'm told they will look even better as they will now receive more sun.

Eli, Anna and I will work at school, the next family news letter and the Konsey books.

Pastor Carl arrives today for two days of pastor training.

Thankfully Eli and Anna did most of the guest house cleaning on Friday as Eli slept on his neck wrong Saturday night and it's now stiff.

 Anna lost some skin on the back of her heel when she hit it with the back of a door on Friday and it's now infected.

Looks cloudy out so maybe we will not need to water plants much while Cory's gone.

Rat dropped out of here surprising the guys.

Thanks for the prayers.

Tree hugger sigh....

OK I tried not to focus on the trees missing when we returned home. I told my self that at least I had not suffered hearing the ax blows anticipating the sad crash that comes following the murder death of a tree.

This weekend Cory informed me that a tree close needed to come down before it blew down on the house during a storm. This would not only protect the house but provide hours more of sunshine hitting the solar panels on the roof [which Cory just added to in order to provide additional electricity to the campus for pumping water and sharing with the school office].

So today while enduring the slow chops of an ax just outside the house, gloomily anticipating the crash and praying for safety I pondered the life application of cutting down trees.

Trees most of the time represent good. They clean the air, produce oxygen and shade, help prevent erosion, look beautiful, provide homes for birds and much more... but in this case I did understand that the tree represented a threat to the house and blocked the sunlight in a bad way.

This time of year one often looks both backward and forward in time. Reviewing the last year while planing and anticipating the next.

 Pondering needed changes that could improve my life and fitting in my goal to live more intentionally I identified a few good things that unfortunately by taking up time or energy end up blocking my time with the Son.

The Son, as a Christian provides the power that runs my life much the same as we need the sun to power up our batteries. Therefore anything, even the 'good' things in this life that block or prevent His light in my life need to go.

I'll not list the items in my life that fall in this category because they may not be acting as a shadow in your life. This is one of those highly personal categories that I think we each need to figure out personally. Stuck? Just as God's Son to shine some light on the subject and I know you will receive an answer.

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.