Rain Rain Rain. Yipee!!. Get your green on Nicaragua!

Greetings Bona Fide friends and supporters,

After a fairly mild dry season and the poor showing of the 2009 wet season we are happy to announce the beginning of the wet season for 2010. After the last two weeks of brutal humidity in late April we welcomed 3 solid rains from April 30-May 2nd. It is nothing short of amazing to see the changes that rain water brings to the landscape. I cannot say it enough. One can water a plant well week in and week out with only marginal results, then an inch of rain falls and it goes crazy. There is powerful alchemy in the nature of rainwater. Please check out the final foto of this 5 foto spread to see the gorgeous sprouts of native grass coming up under a large guanacaste tree, a native legume of truly epic proportions. With the beginning of the rains we have been busy busy at BF beyond preparing the site for the rains and our irrigation and normal farm work. The first rains for us signal the time for pruning all of the coppiced and pollarded nitrogen fixing trees to stack and pile firewood for late 2010 and 2011 as well as gather dry wood from the previous year to have loads of dry fuelwood stored for the long rainy season. This year we undertook a significant coppicing and pruning of legume trees in our mango orchard as well as down by the silvo pastoral pig system and rambutan trials area.

DOWN WITH BAMBOO:

Finca Bona Fide is quietly logging some nice structures featuring a heavy emphasis on bamboo, Chris’ kitchen, the community oven tarped building as well as the Tom built ‘Casa de Amor’ as well a various and sundry beds and an excellent chicken house. We here at the farm are really excited about working with our own homegrown bamboo, learning its uses and flexibility and working with local builders to diseminnate it use further.

In the upcoming weeks planting will begin at a large scale, we have gotten 24 Jocote (Spondias purpurea) in the ground and we are clearing and preparing for pigeon pea plantings as well as other cover and or nurse crops.

Please do your rain dances!!

Best to all,

Chris Shanks
Co-Director Project Bona Fide
Farm Manager





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