Things are beginning to move as we head into summer. Once again we must go through our reforestation efforts and clean around each tree and open the paths, and today I checked in on Jose doing this work and was very pleased with what I found. I snapped a couple of photos.
Because Jose helped plant the trees, he knows right where to look, and he has also gotten really good over the last several years at identifying which are the lovely volunteer plants that we like to leave behind as well. Many of the pioneering native species we have identified over the the previous years do best when seeded naturally and left in place. Much of this seeding is due to the action of birds, and if they are seeding it, it means they are eating it.
In this area we have several rows of reforestation on contour, buffered by rows of native pioneers and some grasses we chop continuously.
And we leave plenty of the native trees and bushes in between the reforestation to make sure that we are giving ample erosion control and protection to the tiny trees, this has been our strategy and it is working quite well. We think the birds seem to like it too.
Even as we do this we are opening up these paths and contours to parts of the farm which would otherwise be difficult to travel to. These trees will help sustain the landscape even while we make paths across it, and as more trees produce more shade, the grasses and low brush that we chop at so much will become minimized, as light competition moves upwards vertically.
The Chachafruto trees Erythrina edulis look really healthy with tons of huge leaves. We have planted several of them, shown in the above two pictures, and even some cousins, like the Erythrina poeppigiana shown here.
There are a lot of different native species we are learning about and using in implementations, I need to finalize some documentation for my permaculture diploma presentation, which I plan to publish on peakd with the new Collection Feature. Read more about that tool here.
>This foot shot will have to count for my selfie for today, for even though I have more pictures than usual, I don't have a single selfie today!
But you may remember from my last update that there was work being done to modify our cart, well look what I found today:
We're going to have to get a video of this thing in motion this week, there is a lot of space for future improvements, maybe even a motor, transmission.... brakes! But no matter what happens, we are rolling it down the road this week.
The bed is slightly bent so that the weight will naturally shift to the center, and will sit over the back axle.
There is still a few hinges and screws to install, but hopefully this will enable us to move weight up and down our rural path more easily. There is some idea to be able to attack it to a harness pulled by a mule. Time will tell, as I plan to push up 40 or 50 pounds back to up to the farm after we make the run down the mountain.
Up and Down are very different services, so we will have to see how it performs in each. Until next time!