Last night my wife @ecoinstante took me to a farm near by Libano to show me some of the wonderful trees she has planted with her team. We had a really nice time, and I took a number of photographs. I am working very hard to get back into the habit of taking photographs of each neat and new thing everyday, so that when interesting things happen I can write posts about them.
Carrying my Wife
For some reason, when we took this picture, it turned out funny. Why is my wife floating? Good thing I have a tight grip on her, or she might have floated away!
We are in the midst of a serious coffee production field, one of those fields that only grow coffee. I have always been happy that we let go of the dream of 'more coffee' long ago. @ecoinstante now works with interested coffee farmers in incorporating diverse species of native trees on the borders between cultivars and between farm lots. Several are attempting to get a certain 'RainForest' seal by having more than 12 species of trees with their coffee. @ecoinstante works with 53 native tree species in her nurseries at this very moment.
Here she is with a large Erythrina Edulis sprout with less than one year since it was a seed. As you can see, there is some insect damage, this tree is beloved of a number of insects but also cows, horses and sheep. In another year it will have a woody trunk as high as we or those animals can reach, and should be past the main points of danger.
This species is roundly understood to be a very powerful and potentious one for agroforestry cultivation and ecological services, as even wikipedia seems to understand:
We also found some other biodiversity as we were reviewing some of the other trees, still during the day. We were talking with the farmer about how lizards, amphibians and insects can signal a healthy ecosystem. In many farm fields, the level of poisons applied damages the 'circle of life', and they are ominously without birds, without lizards, and sometimes even without any interesting insect besides flies and mosquitoes.
More and more people are understanding this, and its great to see farmers get excited about seeing a gecko or even a praying mantis:
I try and hang around my wife as much as possible, it sounds weird, but she has been very busy working, with a schedule and lots of responsibility. She has inherited all of her supervisors responsibilities and continues to soldier on.
This past weekend we went to the farmers market, and she brought 8 different species of native trees in a basket to see who could name the different local tree species. Many people could name one or two, but most were able to connect names that they had not heard for a long time with trees that they can see in unmanaged nature.
Lots of local people enjoyed the activity, and I snapped this picture:
This week I am working on a rockier project, I hope to have some more pictures for you all later this week, but take a look at this selfie that I took in front of a big, new pile of rocks.
These rocks are really heavy, and I hope they will be useful to us in our road and on our farm. More to come on this project.
Its time now to face the day, and all its responsibilities. I hope to post frequently with updates.