August 8-14, 2005
The Planet Drum House is not the same anymore. The summer chapter of girls has closed and we are in transition to a mixed bag of fall volunteers. Right now there is only one volunteer, David, who arrived Thursday, and the next volunteers will be arriving about the end of August. Jaime (“Flaco”) and Thea (Peace Corps) each helped out one day this week as we were low on volunteers.
There was a bit of drama with the Cherry Tree site. We arrived to water one morning, only to find it partially burnt! Most of the trees had been spared but some were charred. I talked to the caretaker about this, and found out that the property had changed owners from Janel Acosta to Miguel Vera. The new owner plans to make it into a sporting complex and wanted the hillsides cleared of “monte” (weeds) just so that it looks “clean”. I asked the caretaker to please not burn anymore until I was able to speak to the new owner. I got his phone number and called various times with no success. So we went back to the property to see if we could meet up with him (and also to give the stressed out trees extra water). We found that they had burned more, despite my plea to the caretaker, and the phone messages I left for the owner. I would say we lost about a quarter of the trees. I was able to talk to the new owner that morning however, who had no idea about the revegetation project. Now that he knows, he said he will cease the burning, and he actually wants to show us one of his other properties as a potential planting site.
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