November 7 to 13, 2005
This week we did quite a bit of work in the greenhouse, as we sowed seeds (Algarrobo, Bototo, Barbasco and Pela Caballo), did maintenance to the greenhouse structure and outdoor seed beds, finished transplanting the Cascol saplings, moved over a compost pile for storage, and fixed up the other side of the compost hole to start using next time. Instead of having both compost mounds on one side, we will try to have one mound on each side of the little wooden dividing fence to utilize the space. We also hulled some more Algarrobo seeds this week.
We watered all the usual sites, Cherry Tree and Dairy Farm twice. The cows were still in Endara, so I went over to talk to the owner again, and he promised to take care of it this week.
They are building a drainage ditch at Jorge Lomas Casas, and do not plan to do any further construction into our site. We only lost some trees at the very bottom. There is also a new road cleared directly from that site to the Fernando site, which makes access by foot a lot easier, especially since we had to lug water from below last time, as Don Carlos was out of water at the top of the Fernando site. He plans to get more brought up by donkey load. He also invited us to lunch this week, which we took him up on.
We maintained and watered El Bosque. Here are photos of Megan watering and observing Bahia and Rio Chone from the ridge above El Bosque en Medio de las Ruinas.
Megan came with me to look at potential sites in El Toro, and we dropped off a convenio (contract) for the Espinoza brothers to look over (the first site we decided on), since the land there is apparently shared between them. They say the area would have to be fenced.
I didn’t see any hillsides to plant in Pedro Otero’s land—the deforested areas were mostly flat areas, and everything would need to be fenced there because of roaming cattle. There was an area on a low slope above the right hand side of the road (across from the passion fruit orchard going up into Pedro’s property) with frutillo trees that was sparsely forested and could stand more trees. Both sites have no water and pay to fill their cisterns. I would like to talk to Flor-Maria about planting on the slopes closer to the entrance of El Toro. So far we have the two sites you and I identified last time, and the test patch area, which is on the flat land just above the second potential site.
The weather is already beginning to change—more humidity, light drizzle and warmer ocean temperatures.
Stefanie from Germany arrives this weekend.
Heather
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