Coming up to the holidays. Still going strong!

Greetings Bona Fide friends and supporters,

Busy Busy daze here on the farm as the gardens are growing, mulch is flowing, seeds are sowing. NOTE: Huge Huge ups and thanks to Baker Creek Seeds in the US of A for their generous donation of over $650.00 in seeds to our community garden project in conjunction with Dig!, the BF community center and BF's own test gardens on site at the farm. Congrats go out to Norbert and Nevis for their hard work up in Leon training a local Leones about OG gardening as well as setting up for its second season an amazing urban garden that supports local food production for the Bigfoot Hostel.

Rains are still falling sporadically and the dry wet season has been somewhat salvaged by late season rains (and our Sorghum crop too).

This coming week is the last full workweek for BF staff from Balgue as well as our international volunteer and intern staff.

Let's keep the good vibes going for 1-2 more soakings before we set in for the DRY period.

Please be well,

Chris Shanks

Co-director Project Bona Fide

WHATS UP!! the dry season. Goodness por todos los lados

Greetings Bona Fide Friends and Supporters,

Well folks, I have been lax and I deserve at least mild castigation for being derelict in my blog updates. I hope we have not suffered too great of waning interest and I hope to win back our followers with more regular updates from now on. I am surprised by the number of folks looking in on the BF blog and I am grateful for it.

OK with that on the table let's get after it.

The month of November is always busy at Bona Fide, garden preparations, summer mulching preparations, irrigation system repair and upkeep plus planning for the upcoming permaculture course, working with new interns and gearing up for the busiest time for volunteer help. This past November and going right into the beginning of December have been no different, if anything perhaps more busy as BF forays into the support of a Commuity Garden at the BF community center, pending school groups, our biggest organic grain harvest to date plus what to do with so many papayas, bananas, starfruit and passionfruit. Eating them helps.

On top of all of this I find myself neck deep in for profit design projects. These projects not only help this almost 8 year and running volunteer pay the bill but also are opening doors for markets for organic produce and meats as well as regional connections that promote wellness, community building and right livelihood.

I find myself between the BF farm and two large design projects and little time to slow down yet the excitement of all the work we are all doing and how so much is coming together on the farm is fantastic. BF is close to developing some processing facilities for fruits (canning and ferments) as well as exploring some new building techniques to develop infrastructure as well as futher developing our local and regional community ties. Good time to be in Nicalandia with so many good folk.

A big shout out to Roundover Rachel, Cat, Steve, and Eva for ninja intern skillz and what they bring to our work. Same for our wonderful and warm local staff as well as to Michael Judd and family, (now in Nicaragua!!).

Pictures and more textual goodness to come next week.

Best to all,


Chris Shanks
Project co-Director
Site Manager

Community planting for Watershed Protection

Greetings Bona Fide friends and supporters,

This week's update features Bona Fide's leadership role and collaboration with the water committee of our local community, Balgue.

Project Bona Fide has been working with and alongside our local water committee concerning the reforestation of one of our important micro watersheds around our community.

In collaboration with community members including committee chairman, Luis Damian BF planted over 100 native fruit, nut, and hardwood trees (grown in our nursery) to provide erosion control, shade, wildlife forage, and protection for the vital spring 50 yards below that provides water for over 1500 community members. We did this in accordance with Nicaragua law, the environmental ministry, MARENA allows for plantings to protect watersheds for 50 yards in all directions from the source.

The trees were also fenced with chicken wire in order to protect them from roaming domestic grazing animals. The trees will be cared for in the dry season by BF and its volunteers.

Thanks to all especially BF volunteers and the Balgue water committee for their efforts.

Best to all,

Chris Shanks
Co-director Project Bona Fide

Healing Hands, Travel, RAIN!!!!!

Greetings Project Bona Fide friends and supporters,

I would like to almost entirely devote this week's entry to four exceptional women.

Our BF friends and neighbors, Dee and Kim

Our friends from town, Lydia and Sineada

It all started like this: Kim and Dee were housesitting for our dear Neighbors, Ben and Sarah Slow whilst they were welcoming their newborn daughter into this world. Dee and Kim were caring for the home and sharing animal care duties and other chores with Lydia and Sineada who work at Ben and Sarah's farm. All 4 women became close. Both Kim and Dee are certified and trained massage therapists. They wanted to leave something lasting and generative to the community they grew to love. Massage is what they chose to give. Over more than a month in many long and grueling sessions they taught traditional Indian Head Massage to Lydia and Sineada and worked with them to ground the program in the Community Center in town, structuring the econimic system to benefit the masseuse, the Center, and to support the ongoing work of the masseuses and their needs for materials. WELL DONE!!!

In other news:

RAIN RAIN RAIN. Por fin (finally) our rain dancing has paid off with more than a week of consistent moisture our last year's plantings are being finished and our annual crops are being well refreshed.

I am ON THE ROAD traveling in the mid-west of the US of A visiting agro-foretry sites, farmers, and friends, out to learn and absorb. Many thanks to all who have provided a place to stay, a cold beer, a good bit of conversation, speaking engagements or otherwise.

Pictures to come after the trip.

Best to all and thanks for your support,

Chris Shanks

Dry season in the Wet Season. Keep on trucking!

Greetings Bona Fide friends and supporters,

The dry season in the middle of what is supposed to be the wettest part of the rainy season continues. We received rain on Saturday and a heavy set of rains on Sunday of this past week, it felt like the entire island of Ometepe breathed a collective sigh of relief as the rains deeply refreshed important crops of rice and people's second crop or 'postrera' of beans and corn. Famine is being combated already in Guatemala and food shortages based on this surely global weirding influenced weather are already being predicted both nationally and by the United Nations via a visit here by a food security expert just 14 days ago (see Nica Times for the article).

On the positive side the drought resistant system that we have innovated at BF in the annual field trials area seem to be resisting the drought quite well, were are probably losing more corn crop to slippert fingers than drought stress, though comparison with last year's harvest will only paint the full picture. It is extremely interesting to note the contrast of this year wih last years as last year it was so wet that some bean crops rotted or were damaged by rot and now they are threatedned or have been damaged by drought. SO it goes.

As for pictures: Please enjoy a shameless shot of some hermoso maiz that Norbert and Nevis have been harvesting as well as pipian which is the white squash below, kind of like a white variety of summer squash. The bundles of drying plants in neat rows are sesame plants, harvested and drying on the concepcion side of the island ready for transport to Leon to be dehulled and then exported abroad. It is a shame we do not even have the means to process sesame on island, soley an export crop, could be a future food/calories producer for sure though if we had the simple durable machinery... Last foto, corn and rice, grown together on a somewhat steep hillside that is left in partial timber and is grazed in rotation when cropping is not present, nice local and simple and effective agro-silvo-pastoral system. Cool.

Thanks for your support,

Chris Shanks

Harvest begins...

Greetings Bona Fide friends and supporters,

Hello everyone. Well now its dry. No dry time when the usual patterns predicted and now it is dry. The coast and here in Granada from where I am updating have been unseasonably dry, Ometepe much better but this last week gave us sunny weather great for certain kinds of work but hard on planters and farmers. Good weather to dry beans though which brings me to the first foto, the START of our red bean harvest at BF. OG red beans. Whoo hoo!!

As I continue you those of you who have had the distinct pleasure of meeting our kitchen manager, Clemencia will recognize her in the foto that speaks to a big BF theme, abundance. All of the pictured food is BF grown, you will notice multiple varieties of squash and cucumber. So far so good, not buying much more than salt for the kitchen now, BF coffee, BF rice, BFcorn and VEggies. NICE work to everyone who has nade and is making this possible. One wil also notice the foto of younf cron as the elote ready, young corn that can be eateb con and all in soups or stews. Yummy or picadillo. Yum.

Lotus, oh yeah, that is the flower and plant featured in the last two fotos. No wonder it is the enduring symbol for the buddha.

Well folks, I gotta run. See ya on the isla!!!

Best to all,

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

New growth and agroforest management

Greetings Bona Fide friends and supporters,

These last 3 weeks have been busy friends, a lot of traveling for BF and for one's living, keeping the balance. The 'veranito' or mini summer has ended and now its dry. Ironic that when it was supposed to be dry it was not not and now in the supposed wet times sunny with wind, nice weather though for working and the trees are loving it. Anticipating dry weather, our Escuela de Campo students left their intercropped annual grain fields with a 'living mulch' layer between the corn and rice so our sensitive crops are still faring well, cucurbits like pumpkin, cucumber, and squash are begining to produce and the corn field is tasseling, we are just readying for the first red bean harvests, should be some pics next week!!

This week's update is all about GROWTH, now that we are about 1/2 of the way thru the wet season new plantings and older ones are all sprouting. The top two bamboo fotos feature healthy and vigourous shoots rocketing upwards on Bambusa stenostachya and what I believe may be B.tuldoides, we call it Hondureño as that is where I collected it from years ago. The beautiful red new leaves in the singular foto below is the first new growth on the cacao we planted, its looking very healthy and HAPPY!!





The last two fotos of pruned (pollarded) trees with our volunteer coordinator, Martha Fuchs in it for scale and her nice smile and the pile of pruned woody biomass show the abundant harvest we reaped from maintaining an area of planned living fence for animal/tree systems planted called the 'pig system', this site had tree planted around it over 3/4 of an acre 4 years ago and now with our first pollard we have reaped dozens of cubis meters of woody biomass. Happy bread/pizza oven for all the sustainably grown carbon neutral firewood we have produced. One has to wish others would see how easy it is to grow wood here and how you do not need to cut or gather it from the forest. Oh well, with time the paradigm will shift 'si diosa quiere.'


Thanks everyone for reading.

Best to all,

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

The rain keeps going, the crops growing, seeds flowing!!

Greetings Bona Fide friends and supporters,

These past few weeks have been busy and the weather has been excellent, wet enough for the crops but sunny enough to work, we have been planting some but as we are in the midst of what we call the 'mini summer' from the middle of July to the middle of August we have been taking it slow. Fortunately the rains have been better than average during this normally dry perios and as one can see in the left hand foto our rotating annual system of the traditional local crops: corn, beans, squash, and rice are THRIVING!!. Thanks to the hard work of Nevis, Aleida, Roger, and Norbert. We are already havesting pumpkins and our beans are looking good, corn is coming up and folks have now moved to the interplant stage where we are experimenting with species of intercrop legumes (hyacinth bean, black eyed peas, red beans, mung beans, and Mucuna). So far so good. As for the othert two fotos I am featuring a shot of an immature fruit from the Mangosteen tree, why you may ask?? Well because each time I come to Costa Rica to collect seeds for our nursery and Agro-biodiversity program the little feller is almost never ripe. Pretty though. Mangosteen is known as the 'queen of fruits' and is extremely popular in SE Asia, if you are from Canada and reading this sometimes you can find it in the large Chinatown areas of major Canadian cities. Go for it!! The last foto is of course a gratuitous shot of our cute doggies frolicking on the coolth of the day before it all heats up. This coming week we are looking forward to beginnig to resume plantings with layout for some native tree plantings as well as welcome some new volunteers.

Thanks evryone for your readership and suppport,

Chris Shanks

Café, fare thee well to Cat, (until you come back).

Greetings Bona Fide friends and supporters,




This past week was in great part about coffee. One of the world's most coveted resources, still picked by hand world round, fuels economies of developing nations and satisfies the caffeine cravings of the Western world. Coffea arabica, or café in Spanish is an important crop in Nicaragua, especially in the north where it is a cornerstone of the economy, Ometepe though is no slouch, producing its fair share, many tonnes which are organic. Bona Fide has some few dozens of producing plants, this year as part of our understorey planting strategy we have put in close to 150 plants of both Coffea arabica and Coffea robusta. We plan on another 50-100 more in the coming weeks. We hope to produce enough to meet our consumption needs as well as our anticipated comsumption growth plus sell some value added BF coffee to help support our work here in the community. The lovely foto of a sea of red and yellow flags shows the tight plantings and shady area that is needed for a shade grown coffee environment, you do not need a lot of space for many coffee plants. The wonderfully shaped cone like flower bud with the 'lily' pads in the background is Nelumbo nucifera or Sacred Water Lotus, a key image in the Buddhist faith, also medicinal and edible, actually every part can be eaten. The root especially is favoured in many styles of Asian cooking. This blossom is our first and will produce a lot of seeds to continue our research into this promising crop for both food, medicine and the ornamental trade here in Nicaragua. The stone spiral you spy in the following foto shows the finishing touches going in on my new shower, sure to be an outdoor experience bar none. Kudos to David, Norman, Vienel and Martin for their attention to detail and craftmanship. This kind of stonework is a skill we are building to take advantage of the profusion of stone all obver the island to stimulate jobs and local economy here on island thru the development of skills and private business with social conscience.

The final image is a gratuitous foto of my darling baby girl, Osa. Gets cuter everyday.

Last but not least one bit. Farewell (for now) to Cat McGill, our dynamic garden co-manager and baker w/o peer. Cat will be back in 5-6 weeks after a tour of the US, weddings and visits. Buen Viaje!!

Thanks Bona Fide friends and supports,

-Chris Shanks

Cocoa or Cacao or cacahuatl

Greetings Bona Fide friends and supporters,

Cacao or Cocoa, one of the most desired and traded substances in the world, always a shortage, always desire for more. Theobromine is the name of that game( it is the drug part of chocolate that brings us joy), Theo (god) broma (food) Theobroma, the latin genus of the chocolate tree means literally food of the gods. I think most of us can agree it was aptly named. The adjacent foto is NOT a BF image, not yet at least. As our close blog readers may already know BF has fruited cacao and the region we are in has a histroy of its use historically and up to the present. It was used as money here, the cacao bean, which is where chocolate comes from(beans inside of colored pods). The image I am using speaks again to two major major BF themes: diversity and abundance. BF sowed all the seeds we produced form our small cacao crop, we also planted 150 more trees from other sources to total close to 200 cacao trees planted. The quantity of these tasty and useful trees represents a major milestone: UNDERSTORY. BF's determined and agressive agro-reforestation program has hit the milestone of having canopy, vertical architectural space that allows for the utilization of understorey trees to be cultivated below the shade of the trees, above. Cacao is one such crop, so is coffee, there are many others like patchouli, vanilla, ginger, turmeric, taro, thai ginger, araza, kandis, to name a few. This last week was our first significant understorey planting. Thank you to Hector, Martha, Cat, Mark, Kirstie and Marcia for your planting skillz, thanks to the BF personnel for prepping the site!!

In this last week BF also had significant help from volunteers both international and abroad concerning upkeep at the community center, work done on the gardens and nursery and of course ongoing house construction by a crack team of ninjas for Chris' house (seperate but worth mentioning as it directly relates to my general health and happiness).

Thanks to all.

Thank you to all BF supporters for all your help and advice and presence over all these years.

Best,

Chris Shanks

Mangoes and Planting vetiver. Los Viejos (Baile)!!

Greetings Bona Fide friends and supporters,

Been a while since I have had a chance to post, pido mil disculpas por eso, planting season is FULL ON and this means Chris is a super extra busy man, laying out agro-forests, landscapes and gardens at BF and all over Nicaragua for my business here. Well here we go. The first foto is one of a bunch of teens dressed as old men and women (it is all guys), It is ' La baile del Viejo y La Vieja' which consists of a lot of rump shaking and old man cane shaking to modern music, it is a hoot to watch and many folks gather for this display, we were lucky enough to catch a few dances (see Osa as she looks on, she is the pupppy) when we were setting up for the 3rd annual Tree exchange in town. The 'open field' foto is a before foto of our 1.5 acres of annual demonstration cultivation planted on contour, with water rentention measures such as stones and vetiver on contour as well as cover cropping, mulching, NO BURN, and crop rotation. This is a model system co-developed and peopled by our Escuela de Campo members. This year Nevis is in charge of this field and Aleida the new field system on the 'other land' as we call it. Happy smiling people foto with my ugly mug included features a portion of BF staff taking home fruit trees from the BF nursery and beyond as part of their 'perks package' as BF employees, employees have first pick from the nursery of plants for thie home gardens and land.





'The smiling kids and teenagers foto' that also features Katie and Paco shows the folks who drove up to the finca in order to help us bring trees down to town for the 3rd annual tree exchange. We do this exchange each year after the rains have fallen as an extension to the seed exchanges we have in May. This year was really cool as folks I first exchanged trees with are coming back to me and telling me how healthy and fruitful the grafted citrus and avocadoes are that they asked for 3 years ago, fruit treee success takes years as does the feedback, know it is coming, now they tell their friends, soon hopefully we will be working with A LOT MORE trees to SHARE!!!!

The last two fotos feature a recurring BF theme, ABUNDANCE. Our food safe is featured with a cornucopia of BF fruits, local fruits and very little else. SWEET.

The shameless mango pile foto speaks for itself. Do not worry, there is tons more out there. Literally, actually TONNES!!!!!

AWESOME,

Bring on the abundance and we will find a way to put it away for a rainy day and share our success with our friends here for a more diverse and fruitful approach to food security for our region and BEYOND!!!!

Be well all and thank you for your support,

CHRIS SHANKS

Trees

Greetings Bona Fide friends and supporters,

Anyone ever wonder what a half a million seedlings looks like? Well wonder no more as those rows of green in the two garden looking fotos are actually seedlings. A nursery owned by 3 brothers and their father, they collectively produce close to one million trees per year. Yee Haw!! This year BF bought some cocoa/cacao trees as well as a few hardwoods and other goodies for a coppice firewood system we are trialing with $$ from the UVM CUPs grant.
The theme of this last week has been trees and plants, personally I have purchased about 13,000 for BF, the community, and private clients for Living Systems Solutions, my for profit socially responsible business. It has been one heck of a week!! What I do not have a foto of, though what I would like to share is a tale of two ovens. One in the community, one at BF, each baked 50 loaves of bread to make 700 sandwiches for 'Dia de Los Niños' Children's day last Saturday. Totoco eco-lodge donated the wholesome flour and BF donated sustainably produced fuelwood, our oven and the sweat and tears (from smoke) of our volunteer staff, thanks Cat, Martha, Clemencia, Charlie, Kirstie and anyone I forgot, (sorry).

Good work all around. Wish we has more nurseries like that and more crazed tree planting ninjas.

Best to all,

Chris Shanks
Co-Director, Project Bona Fide

New Tools, Fences, Fruits and goodness

Greetings Bona Fide friends and supporters,

I am updating you all from the city of Granada, in the midst of the national hipica, a horse/cow boy culture centered gathering that consists of beautiful horses with usually drunk riders prancing about in the street much to the adulation and joy of the rest of us. Hipicas are held all around the country and many are still extremely traditional and a true cultural experience. This one seems to be more like a beer commercial, but I digress.
The first foto featured is one that celebrates a 20 month process of building a home here amongst the place and people I came here 7 plus years ago to serve. Everything in the house has been done by hand and it has been a joy to work with the 3-5 men who have helped as well as dozens of others who have contributed in many other ways. It is going to be one heck of a house warming in August when we are done.
The gratuitous shot of new growth on an avocado celebrates the coming of the rains and honors the goodness of all things that grow green.
The two fotos below feature a new species of Theobroma that I found yesterday buying plants for BF and the community among others. It is related to cacao for sure, what it is exactly I am not sure. There are 5 species of Theobroma recognized in Nicaragua. Two of them I know well, the other three this one initially does not seem to be. Apart from this in the region I was in the fruit is well known, especially by the older generation. What I do know is I am am planting a lot of it in the nursery. This may be a rare sub-species or undescribed botanical gem. Quien Sabe?





For those of you who know our kitchen manager, Clemencia, well your lucky as she is one of our most valued staff members and friends. Clemencia is featured with scores and scores of suriname cherry/pitange/Eugenia uniflora. This fruiting shrub bears 2x yearly and this year we have scores of bushes fruiting, THOUSANDS of fruit, our biggest harvest EVER!!!

The group foto featured here shows our UVM agroforestry course with volunteers and local staff showing off our much valued and appreciated donation of a top of the line Japanese pole pruner with a 20' extension, Felco loppers of two sizes for tree pruning, plus loads of replacement blades. This donation was made possible by Michael John Sullivan and his family. THANK YOU ALL VERY MUCH.

Last but not least. HUGE THANKS to Charlie and Vienel, a team of one US citizen and one local stone worker, working 5 days a week to finish the community fence for the BF community Center. Thanks you two. Big thanks to Charlie for spending a month of his university vacation wrestling concrete posts and big stones. Vienel you rock, congrats on your leadership on this project.

Thanks to all you all out there in the big WORLD,

Chris Shanks
Co-director Project Bona Fide

Education and RAIN at BF

Greetings Bona Fide friends and supporters,

This last week and half saw a visit from ten students from the University of Vermont who completed a 3 credit course on agroforestry at BF. Instructors Chris Shanks and Mike Blazewicz were on hand to utilize the living classroom that Finca Bona Fide has become. We were fortunate to have the rains fall during the course and we were able to do some plantings as well as see cover crops we planted spring up. The processes observed between dry and wet season was informative for the students as was the different ages and concentrations of different trials systems on the farm. BF was happy to work with local restaurants and local lodging options to spread out the funds we brought to the island and we enjoyed the hospitality of Doña Coco and Doña Inez in their tropical homegarden systems. Bona Fide is excited to work with the University of Vermont further and to offer up more courses to expand our educational offerings as part of the vision for our work.

The beginning of the wet season has been early this year, it actually began to green up in mid April which is abnormal to say the least. Rain for the last week has been key to putting all winter wet season plans into action. Seeds are sprouting everywhere and volunteers are busy rescuing seedlings and getting them potted up for plantings. We have already planted pejibaye or peach palm to replace those damaged or killed by rats in the dry season, one of our main cover crops, pigeon pea has been sowed in the dry times and now it has already sprouted, literally many thousands of pigeon pea are growing all around the farm, at this time of the year, the growth is fast and daily. Amazing to see.


Best to all,

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