Costa COllecting, new OVEN and more!!!

Greetings Bona Fide friends and supporters,

I salute you all from the good old US of A, here in the great Garden State of New Jersey. Spring has sprung here and tree are budding out, willows have leaves, and flowers are beginning to abound and are in full bloom in NYC and other heat island affected sites in this zone. I just saw my twin nephews a few days ago, it certainly put me in a daze. Children surely are one of the best reasons to plant trees and cultivate abundance.

Well now for some reporting on BF doings, of which there are many. BF agro-forestry research and trials efforts were bolstered in this past week with my quick trip to Costa Rica to find the elusive pili nut (Canarium ovatum and communis) These species are only found in one botanical garden in all of Nicaragua and Costa Rica to the best of my knowledge and basing my calculations of ripeness and seed availability from the January CR trip I was correct and my travels yielded close to 60 viable seeds. This high fat and protein nut was once tested side by side by USDA with the Macadamia nut for commercial suitability. Guess who won? This nut though is grown and sold on a commercial scale in South East Asia. We have high hopes here for its success on a home/community scale at the very least. Orchard trials should begin in July-August of 2009.

Well wind farms. Cool. Local wind farms, even cooler. Amayo SA wind project, a collaborative project between US and Canadian investors along with Nicaraguan backers, stalled for over 2 years by antiquated MARENA regulations, but persistence pays off, a over 40 mega watt project that will provide thousands of homes with green juice as well as:

Located in one of the best wind resources in the North American continent.
Amayo will reduce 120,000 tonnes of carbon emissions each year.
Arctas secured $72 million in project finance debt from regional development bank.
Erection complete and will be fully commissioned by March 2009.
When commissioned, plant will be nearly twice as large as next largest wind project in Central America or the Caribbean.
With 2.1MW per unit turbines, Amayo has only MW-class turbines currently installed in region.

Cool. Beautiful. Independence rides the wind. Word. Palabra.

The new BF oven has been fired and it is SUPER!!!. Thanks to Darif, Kim, Dee, Martha, David, Ryan and everyone else for their efforts. Special big thanks to David Ortiz and Martha, our tireless insulating cob layer cobbers!!!

Well a few other references, the rack of greenish red fruit is a full mature rack of pejibaje fruit (Bactris gasipaes) a prominent species fo interest for BF for trials, BF has already fruited this species and is making selections, this is an off season rack that was purchased at a market in CR for a song, halved and had its seed removed, this will provide valuable genetics for future projects.

The killer orange flower is Brownea macrophylla from the legume family, a beautiful flower found on our more serious collecting mission. Enjoy.

Last but not least. I am not sure who this guy is. Definitely a hippie!!!

Well its me, circa 4 years ago, collecting durian in flavour anticipation in Vancouver, Canada.

Durian is being trialed on the farm for the future alongside greywater trials. If you do not know why do some homework on durian you all.

Thanks for everyone’s attention.

Best,

Chris Shanks

Co Director, Project Bona Fide

Las Cuchillas clothing and BASEBALL GEAR intercambio!!

Greetings Bona Fide friends and supporters,

Chris here reporting from the isla in the midst of the ‘Dry’ season. It rained last night, now when I say this I do not mean a few drops or a tease, I mean a true 25 minute plus rain with 1″ of soil penetration, in my 7 years here this has been the weirdest and most extaño dry season or verano EVER, and seems to me quite strange for the elders i have spoke to as well about this, the lake is finally down enough for fishing and local fisherfolk are out once again plying their trade.

Well, here is to Sam, Ryan, Darif and Sally from BF and the whole West Van crew from West Vancouver Canada that brought baseball equipment and clothing to the isla. The BF crew hauled the lot of that gear up to Las Cuchillas, a small cloud forest community of 300 hardy folks living 300 plus meters up on the volcano w/o electricity. There was a baseball gear and clothing exchange and BF received eggs, coconuts, cut pictures from kids as well as some songs, poems and BIG THANKS. Anf BIG THANKS TO ALL who participated.

As for this weeks shameless fruit shot, we have what I believe to be Annona reticulata or custard apple or anon as it is know here, a tasty relative of the sugar apple and soursop or guanabana as it is known here.

As for the other shots we a a new post sleeve/post base interface shot as a advance in Bona Fide appropriate technology, essentially what we have is a moat that keeps termites from crawling up the post, this allows us to use ast growing termite susceptible soft woods for building instead of slow growing hardwoods, ongoing testing is a must as is a small drip system that will fill each moat all at once. We gotta a new oven, thanks to David Ortiz our master builder plus Tom Watts Nielsen, Darif, and many others who contributed in brick carrying and mud mixing, THANKS!!!!! The new oven should do 4-5 pizzas at once and up to 15 loaves of bread. Bona Fide!!! Well the last shot is a shameless promo of my new house going up, I wanted to share the afternoon light on my porch as we get ready to put tile on the roof, thanks to my builders: David, Norman, Loco, Vienel, and everyone else helping me make my home here.

Best to all,

Chris Shanks
Co-Director, Project Bona Fide
Chris@projectbonafide.com

Painted playground, post madness, OAKS!

Greetings Bona Fide friends and supporters,

Chris here saying a big ‘Hello’ to all. The last week or so since my previous posting has been full of a lot of good work and a lot of comings and goings. The farm has been very full with a lot of eager and helpful volunteers and we are happy to have them.

In the series of fotos featured this week we share (finally sorry all) a bunch of images of the ‘West Vancouver High school’ or West Van as they are known that has come to visit and support community projects in Balgüe for five years. In the last two years these intrepid students and their group leader, Greg Cormier have been very supportive in the development of the the community center the Bona Fide has in our local town. This year the group focused on helping us to begin our Pueboltel homestay program, raised money to build a VERY STURDY fence around the community center to discourage livestock from destroying all plants planted as well as support our Cafe Infantil and of course paint our new playground all sorts of cool colors with lots of local kids helping a long the way. Local kids and West Van students found out quickly how sticky oil based enamel really is. Nice handprints everyone!! As for the following fotos apart from our super cute kidz painting montage we have a pink flower and fuzzy looking fruit that is of all things, PEACH, yes real peach ‘Prunus persica’ I saw it at about 5500′ (1600 meters) in Miraflor reserve in the cloud forests of Northern Nicaragua, ditto for the oaks leaves shown (1 of 4-5 species, true Quercus) And of course the mango featured is a early bearing variety that BF has identified as a under utilized local species with a lot of promise. Plant it up!!
Next week we will despedir some long time staff and show some PIZZA fotos of our new oven.