September 12-18, 2005
We’ve begun watering the greenhouse three times a week, and have already seen improvements, especially with the samangos, perhaps because they are not native to the dry tropical forest, and do better in transition zones (according to Dario of Rio Muchacho). We prepared more seed beds and sowed seca (soaked for different lengths of time as an experiment), barbasco and guachapeli seeds. I don’t expect the guachapeli to come up as they are old, but we’ll see. All the seed beds have been sown now, but some more may become available from seeds that do not germinate. We fixed up some cedro and guayacan seedlings in their baggies and repaired the compost fence on the side where the soccer ball hits. The trees planted on the hillside were watered. We also continued the seed hulling this week (seca and algarrobo).
We watered Endara, Cherry Tree and Dairy Farm, the latter two twice as we had enough time to do it, and of all the sites, they could use it the most.
In El Bosque, a few more watering pipes were put in, trees watered, trash picked up and the #4 sign (ceibo inmaduro) put back up in its place.
We watered both Jorge Lomas sites and took a hike up the path behind Las Casas that goes off to the left on the hill top as we did not know what was there. We followed it as far as the summit – quite a good view. It continued along the ridge but we came back down.
We were interviewed for both the radio and newspaper (El Diario) together regarding the Green City Accords signed by Bahia’s mayor. We also obtained the survey map for the new property acquired by Planet Drum for the purpose of building a bioregional institute.
The volunteers also had time to work on their own special projects – David created a new spreadsheet for keeping track of tree survival rates in all the various stages of their growth, Briana hemmed up the curtains in the front bedroom, and Stephanie began making new signs for the greenhouse trees. We are also bringing home dirt from around the field at the Universidad Catolica for making a garden downstairs in the patio area.
Talk to you soon!
Heather
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