Watering should commence when we have an entire week with no rain.

May 12, 2003

Things planned for this week include: several trips to Fanca to work on compost/worms, a meeting with Horatio from the Universidad to begin our planning, a meeting with the Maria Auxiliadora folks to discuss projects for June and July, maintenance at the greenhouse to get ready for new plants en masse, and a meeting at Jorge Lomas.

On watering, maintenance and new landholder arrangements: 
The largest area to water will be the Universidad. This will be carried out by a process that Horatio and I will plan. Luckily, after a very dry rainy season, we have had rain the past week and a half almost every night. I reviewed the re-veg procedures that we drew up in January and I understand that watering should commence when we have an entire week with no rain. I check the sites about once a week. We have had many survivors and some casualties. I don’t always know what gets the plants, but I am learning that sometimes it is insect pests, and other times bad soil, and other times animals. 

New landholder arrangements are going to be carried out by the new consortium I mentioned in my last e-mail. I am having dialog with two future site owners right now, the lands at El Toro and at JorgeLomas. Although these are not new contacts, they are both on board for next year. Pedro Otero fro El Toro and I are on good terms, and he seems happy and pleasant enough. Hopefully between now and December we can come to a concrete agreement! I hope to find the elusive owner of the dairy farm site as well. 

I’m looking forward to the new volunteers arriving. We will have some good projects lined up for them to work on.