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