Bags of Dirt

Since my last post we have made progress in the preparation for the passion fruit planting. Lorenzo Garcia was hired to disc the soil and did the first pass on Tuesday. The soil is quite sandy so the breaking disc was able to get deep.  It is not the smoothest land so the first pass was a bit crude.  He returns on Saturday to make two more passes and we will assess whether we can start putting up the posts and wire.  We are still trying to source this stuff and our Ag consultant is working on finding the posts.

Six foot breaking disc going over the land

Last Saturday our consultant came by to check on our progress and to drop off passion fruit seeds, some small bags and a few sacs of topsoil. The task assigned to me was to build a 12 X 4 foot frame under a shady tree to house all of the seedlings for the few months they will be growing, until they are of a size that they can be transplanted.  So the last three days I have been filling little plastic bags with dirt and placing them in nice neat rows in the frame. Pasqual, the watchman on site offered to help me and saved me some time. By the end of Monday I had filled the frame halfway and on Tuesday I planted about 400 seeds.  Two seeds for each of the larger bags and one for the smaller. Tuesday I spent quite a bit of time with the tractor guy and only got about another 100 bags ready.  On Wednesday I finished filling the frame with bags of dirt (460 in all) and planted another 400 seeds and watered everything.  790 seeds planted.  Now they will have to be cared for by Pasqual until they are ready to plant.

460 bags of dirt and 800 seeds- how many glasses of passion fruit juice will that produce?

A crew of volunteers was on site today as well to start on the walls for the security and office house for the farm.  Four rows of cinder blocking and the rest will be made of wood with a tin roof.  Of course no power tools, and everything mixed by hand.  It reminds me of the way my grandfather talked about his life on the farm.  These men are all in good shape and were working hard in the sun. Impressive to watch.

Excellent work gentlemen

One younger guy was fooling around on a break and balanced a cinder block on a beer bottle he found. He came over to where I was filling the bags and said I needed to come and take a photo of his amazing feat!

Strange physics

There is a team of young people from Langley B.C. here until Sunday.  This ministry has a lot of construction projects on a list where many hands can tackle some of these things.  These highschoolers are working in the hot sun moving fill into a low lying area to get it ready for a playground and park, they are doing some kids programs in schools and sharing in churches.  They will go home very tired, but I think with a good perspective on life in this culture and what it means to serve others in this context.  I join them in the evenings for meals and they seem like a great bunch of teens.

Loaded in the truck and ready to go to work

Their last full day here is Saturday and they have a beach afternoon, and so I think I will join them.  Seems like I should go to the beach at least once while I'm here.  800,000 Canadians a year pay a lot of money to do just that...must be something to it!

I head for home a week tomorrow and I am wondering whether we will get any passion fruit plants in the ground before I go. Ryan is somewhat optimistic, but secretly I am thinking the post setting will be hard on an ex civil servant who has spent the last few years behind a desk.  May be a photo op with me holding a post hole digger like the politicians do when they are trying to look civic minded around election time.

I will do one last wrap up from my time here next week.  P.S.I had to get a flat repaired on Monday and the hole was in the sidewall.  The fellow fixed it right away and it cost me $4.00.  I remarked to Ryan that it would be non repairable at home and the tire shop would sell me at least two new tires. We think things are soooo much better in Canada!

Rick