Greetings all,

New work moves forward at 'el centro' 'casa amarilla' or as we know it, Casa Mano Amiga. A group of 3 architecture students and one visiting individual from the UK have been investing their time, heart and hard earned fundraised funds to move the community commercial kitchen forward. Kudos to these four! Labor on the site is a great amalgamation of local volunteers, the Brits, and a core group of three masons from Project Bona's Fide's training programs.

Meanwhile the rain continues, one can see Osa reclining in the water, kids playing in the water, actually playing in the stream that normally is 8" deep is now close to 4 feet deep, rains continue as well, we just got hit with a tropical storm last week, Bona Fide lost some trees, no damage to structures either gracias a dios.

This coming week we expect piglets and start moving forward with integrating animals into our systems.

Thanks to all,

Chris Shanks

Another gap in the posts. Alright, here we go!!!

Well friends and supporters of project Bona Fide,

I wish to say I am a slacker, but for those of you who know me that is just not true, busy as a bee is the truth here at Bona Fide, also with formerly broken computers and broken cameras, neither the tropics or myself is easy on either btw do not ever go swimming in the Rio San Juan with your digital camera (well I fell in stuck in the mud and toppled over to be precise)

Lots to say not sure where to begin, has been 2 full months since my last post, in the first two above slides you can see photos of our Beloved Kris Falls AKA hombre pequeno AKA Tiny Many (not small TINY!!) doing his simultaneous translating gig, these shots were taken at Rancho Mastatal, an education and learning center focused on community work, permaculture, natural building and food preparation. In July shorter after my last post I had the opportunity to teach a 15 day Permaculture Design course to 19 individuals from 7 countries. Spanish and English were the lingua francas of the day and students worked hard on redesigning two overgrown non functioning valleys full of old orchard trees into climate adaptive multifunctional agro-forest systems integrated into a permaculture landscape. Just after the course students and I traveled around CR sourcing seeds for Rancho Mastatal and Bona Fide. We visited CATIE, Finca La Loma Botanical garden in Puerto Viejo and various outdoor markets for seed and plant stock. Dancedown in Puerto Viejo was also an excellent way to ease out of 15 hr. days. Rancho MAstatal and Project Bona Fide will be joining forces by creating a joint apprenticeship program, information and skills share as well as introduce a yearly PDC out at the Ranch taught by yours truly and ranch staff and of course Kris Fallas.

Following a return to Bona Fide in early August I came back to what were experiencing in CR as well. Almost record level rains, lake level is as high now sept 21st as it was in late October of 2008, that was a record year, we are already seeing the town River in Balgüe go from 10 feet wide to over 60 feet. The upriver bypass to cross the Balgüe stream has already been cut, the ferry dock is under water so is the ferry ticket office. Wow. Let us not even get started about the road, well OK here we go. Positive: adoquin paved road is on its way, supposedly to Balgüe, certainly to Santa Cruz at least, they have already reached almost to Santo Domingo, they are working 7 days per week since April. So far so good. Neg: as for the rest of the road to our town is pretty much the worst I have seen it. No upkeep done for almost 2 years. Rains that flooded the town's catholic church and moved 50 kilogram/hundred pound plus boulders meters/feet down the road, in many places exposed on the road to seasonal quebradas all material is gone, just rocks remain, A joy to ride on a motorcycle, worse in a truck. ;)

On the upside heavy rains are helping along heavy rice and corn crops, beans are suffering from dampness though and our sorghum actually started to sprout on the seed head ha! We have had good harvests in the annual fields and we are overall pleased with this year's annual food production efforts. On that note we have to date planted over 100 coffee, 100 cacao, 500 nitrogen fixing trees, 300 hundred fruit trees, over two acres of pigeon pea and hundreds of nut trees, bamboos, scores of coconuts, hundreds of thatch palms and a partridge in a pear tree :)

This year we opened up some formerly monocropped land that grew over with cover cropping vines and scrub trees, the land is now in pigeon pea legume cover crops, with many fruit trees planted underneath to be shielded by the pigeon pea in their first year to reduce or eliminate irrigation needs. On the same note a large native fruit and nut tree planting was carried out to connect two zone five forest areas and form a more cohesive and coherent wildlife corridor.

Starfruit abounds, ackee just began, guavas are dropping, rollinias and guanabana and caimito are flowering, canistels are swelling on the trees as are all manners of citrus..same to be said for Jackfruit, gardens resting at the BF cocina, pumping down the hill at my Casita...

Peppers Peppers Peppers, that shot of myself and my 9 varieties of hot peppers is just part of the story, processing continues with hot peppers dried, in oil, and in vinegar.

ANIMALS ANIMALS ANIMALS!!! End of 2010 and all of 2011 is the epoch of integrated animal systems at BF. Pigs coming, rabbits, chickens, guinea fowl, and DUCKS. )

As per remaining fotos:
Orange fruits: Wild Jocote, native genetics that produces our cultivated Jocote. Tasty!!

Church shot: Ernesto Cardenal's peasant church on Solentiname island Mancarron, where campesino led masses helped inspire art, revolution, and change. Grafitti courtesy of corrupt government that is no better than who they replaced decades ago. Oh well. Punks.

Thanks all for your love, presence and support,

Chris Shanks
Co-Director Project Bona Fide

Been too long>>>>

Greetings Bona Fide friends and supporters,

Been too long you all!! I know everyone is trepidatiously awaiting a laundry list of excuses. Only one though. After almost 5 years of bulletproof service and hard work my apple G4 died an honorable death. Cause of death:broken motherboard. Gracias a dios though a skilled Nicaraguan computer tech was able to convert the hard disk into an external hard drive. The computer's data was backed up by the best and most recent copy is in the USA.

Well and oh well to that. Bona Fide has been a right busy busy place in the last 60 days. Please allow me to elaborate:

Renovation and expansion of Bona Fide educational and dormitory facilities:

Hilton rebuilt with new posts and foundation work, new roof and floor in process, will house 2-3 people year round. Oven structure built from Bona Fide wood and bamboo, tarp roof, will be used to generate microbusiness with oven, demonstrate oven's utility, entertain and inspire visiting groups, diversify and support food processing year round on site.

Creation and execution of processing aspect of Bona Fide's work in post harvest handling:

BF purchased large pots, 250 jars, utensils, and spices to begin making jams and chutneys. 2010 has seen 150 jars filled with jams and chutneys and 2011 is projected for 800-1000 as well as marketed label and website for BF economic on farm independence.

Tree planting:

Reclaimed 2 acres of secondary growth BF land, all ecologicaly important trees left on said 2 acres, rest planted in conjunction with fromer cover crop, velvet bean with pigeon pea as quick overstory crop to shade emerging trial orchards of: rambutaan, pulasaa, and pili nut. All 3 south east asian nuts (1) and fruits (2) are experimental for the region and have food security and economic promise for Ometepe. Further more hundreds of native fruit trees, thousands of native legumes were also planted as part of our guilding and forestry initiatives on the land. 700 grafted fruit trees as well as the BF nursery are also now available to the community as well as technical advice for their use as of July 5th 2010.

Service learning groups:

Univeristy of Vermont, UC boulder (Colorado) McMaster (Canada), Frederick High school and Al-Campo international have all passed through and participated in planting, community service, and other support.

Layout of new experimental species and plant combination trials at BF land:

New plant species interactions, new species especially legume trees intermixed into the annual grain polycultures and new management and pruning techniques are being trialed this year.

Expansion of Bona Fide's land use on the farm for new crops experiments:

Pruning, planting, and harvesting for a BF future :)

Thanks to the generous donation from WHY and the Hard Rock cafe Bona Fide has cranked up a number of notches our facilities to host overnight guests, students, volunteers and interns. Interns and volunteers alongside our paid local staff are an extremely important part of our work. Through a well thought out division of labour much of our tree planting, new crops systems layouts, and all our food processing is done by volunteers. This division allows our local crew to maintain existing systems during the lush growing season as well as the dry season.

BF looks forward to the last half of the wet season (so far so MUCH rain !!) for planting understory and root crops and receiving new volunteers and programs as we move into the 'fall.'

Thanks to everyone for their ongoing support and confidence,

Chris Shanks

Co-director and Farm Manager

Rain Rain Rain. Yipee!!. Get your green on Nicaragua!

Greetings Bona Fide friends and supporters,

After a fairly mild dry season and the poor showing of the 2009 wet season we are happy to announce the beginning of the wet season for 2010. After the last two weeks of brutal humidity in late April we welcomed 3 solid rains from April 30-May 2nd. It is nothing short of amazing to see the changes that rain water brings to the landscape. I cannot say it enough. One can water a plant well week in and week out with only marginal results, then an inch of rain falls and it goes crazy. There is powerful alchemy in the nature of rainwater. Please check out the final foto of this 5 foto spread to see the gorgeous sprouts of native grass coming up under a large guanacaste tree, a native legume of truly epic proportions. With the beginning of the rains we have been busy busy at BF beyond preparing the site for the rains and our irrigation and normal farm work. The first rains for us signal the time for pruning all of the coppiced and pollarded nitrogen fixing trees to stack and pile firewood for late 2010 and 2011 as well as gather dry wood from the previous year to have loads of dry fuelwood stored for the long rainy season. This year we undertook a significant coppicing and pruning of legume trees in our mango orchard as well as down by the silvo pastoral pig system and rambutan trials area.

DOWN WITH BAMBOO:

Finca Bona Fide is quietly logging some nice structures featuring a heavy emphasis on bamboo, Chris' kitchen, the community oven tarped building as well as the Tom built 'Casa de Amor' as well a various and sundry beds and an excellent chicken house. We here at the farm are really excited about working with our own homegrown bamboo, learning its uses and flexibility and working with local builders to diseminnate it use further.

In the upcoming weeks planting will begin at a large scale, we have gotten 24 Jocote (Spondias purpurea) in the ground and we are clearing and preparing for pigeon pea plantings as well as other cover and or nurse crops.

Please do your rain dances!!

Best to all,

Chris Shanks
Co-Director Project Bona Fide
Farm Manager

Rains are a coming!

The end of April brings the much awaited rains. It has already rained twice here, about 3 weeks early this year though we are still awaiting the BIG downpour that ushers in the wet season. We have had a few overcast days of late and the weather has been fine. Each night brings a show of thunder and lightening with the onset of the nightly fireflies as well. This dry season has been fairly mellow, we have had some plant loss but not much and that which we have lost is attributed to inferior fitness and genetics for the site so the weeding out process AKA die off is actually welcomed. The oncoming wet season brings the promise of piglets in our new pig corral which is featured in the first 2 photos on this blog update. The corral has a wallow that will drain via a 3" pipe to a large banana circle where subsurface piggie wallow water will feed bananas year round. We will also have the option of using the manures for our annual field crops as well.

A New Guinea hen house is also on the ready and we just need to track some of these elusive West African birds down. They are superior to chickens as they are better pest and tick eaters and they do little scratching and are much more garden friendly.
The final foto commemorates our 5th annual seed exchange overseen by: Nevis, Maria, Norbert and their students from Vermont, Kate and Walker.

Thanks to all of you for your hard work. Each year more and more great information, food, and plant material is shared.

Best to all and thank you Bona Fide friends and supporters,

Chris Shanks
PBF co-Director
FBF Farm Manager

Bona Fide in Haiti and the dry season continues on.

Greetings BF friends and supporters,

I have just returned from Haiti after 9 days just outside of the coastal city of Leogane. I brought thousands upon thousands of seeds collected from our local community in Nicaragua as well as seed produced on site at FBF. My trip brought me through Panama where customs was hapy to support trees and seeds for Haiti and waive me through customs with a smile and wishinng me luck in Haiti. Haiti was amazing in hope and devastation. I was deeply impresses by the strength and beauty of the people and the hope infused in that place.

Our team of 2 Americans and one Frenchman plus over a dozen small children helping filled over 1500 bags and seeded them in the nursery we built up. Local seed sources we located and seeds were collected for: cover cropping, fruit tree seedlings, and erosion control. Base mapping and master planning was done and big plans are developing.

Many thanks to the Haitian people for their welcoming smiles, to all volunteers for being in Haiti and for supporting her.

As for Project Bona Fide:

The dry season continues we are thankful for our volunteers and apprentices and interns for supporting the farm whilst I have been away. It seems though the rains will come early this year and BF is gearing up for college groups (3) in May as well as planting season.

Thank you for your support.

Best,

Chris Shanks

Solar Library in Las Cuchillas!!

Greetings Bona Fide friends and supporters,


This last week saw the the installation of a super efficient LED solar electric light system up in the Las Cuchillas cloud forest village, which is w/o electricity. The library is not only used for study but also cultural events and community meetings. Walker Brown, Kate Bolton, Jeremy and yours truly participated and the apprectices flexed their new solar knowledge muscles in the name of learning and outreach. Watering and dry season work continues, bio-char creation continues, and seed collection for the Haiti trip for nursery establishment looms as thousands of seeds are collected.

Best,

Chris Shanks
C0-Director Project Bona Fide

Permaculture course 2010

Photo above: Making Bio-char with bona fide timber produced in renewable timber systems based on coppice and pollard system type management. Thanks to Shad for his help with our first charcoal making episode.
Above pictured: Fran and Guillermo with a 40 pounds Jaquero/Jackfruit!!!

Same jackfruit pictured with a plantain bunch and our first significant harvest of canistel or Pouteria campechiana. A tree crops candidate.

Permaculture students and botanical ninjas of peace hard at work on a vaulted locally fired brick oven with a cob insulating layer mix. Design courtesy of Michael Judd and cob goddess Rachel.


Greetings Bona Fide friends and supporters,

WOW! February felt even shorter than its 28 days. The month blew past whilst we held our 7th annual Permaculture design course. We hosted 18 people and had folks from: Canada, USA, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Germany. Thanks to all who attended, contributed, taught, shared, cooked, led work projects, and coordinated. This year saw the return of Reed Aubin to the Ometepe PDC scene. Reed brought 4 years of experience since his last visit to the course and to the translation experience whilst Tiny Man and Reed together provided a dynamic duo of new ideas, teaching and mirth. After 15 days we were quite exhausted and a few days of relaxation were called for. A trip to the Rio San Juan was in order and was made. The Rio San Juan is a must see for all folks who have the time to make it out to this percious SE corner of Nicaragua.

Many Thanks to all and more frequent updates to come.

Best,

Chris Shanks

El Berrinche eco-celebration and BF!

Greetings Bona Fide Friends and Supporters,

This last week was spent mostly in Granada, BF staff was recharging as well as participating and admiring the 5 day eco-festival with art and music called 'El Berrinche'. 10 days ago David and Norman, master mason's from Balgue and the chief ninjas on Chris' building team spent 7 days in Granada working with the artists and building the featured cob oven. They returned 3 days ago for the festivities along with Cat, Rachel, Steve, Jackie, myself as well as the inaugural apprentcies, Walker Brown and Kate bolton who will be with us for 3 months after a 3 week stint in El Lagartillo's languague school: 'Hijos de Maiz.' Yesterday Jackie and I did a pizza making workshop and we have been supporting the group in other ways with logistics and advice for sometime. Artists, acrobats, clowns, musicians from over 12 countries came with a special focus on Central American participants. Fire, stilts, drums, flips, workshops in local barrios and lots of eco-educational fun was to be seen and experienced and the final night culminated with 'Cuneta Son Machin' one of the most popular Nicaraguan groups in the country playing a hour long show with hundreds dancing at a free all ages event where children and adults played side by side.
Huge thanks to Diego of the Theater School of Comedy and Mime as well as Benjamin Wheatley our friend and gracious host for our opportunities to participate and for great lodgings. We hope to support this event next year as it grows and evolves.

Until next post,

Chris Shanks

Greetings Bona Fide Friends and Supporters,

Been a but quiet here on the ole blog range of late. Busy daze with lots of neat projects unfolding. This week we feature the month long project led by our administrator, Evelio Hernandez, the thatching anew of our beautiful 30' diameter classroom space with local grass from the area as well as our own land. The cutting, carrying, curing, tying, and thatching of this structure is A LOT of work and we extend a heartfelt thanks to our local team for all the overtime they put in as well as hard working volunteers and friends who made it all happen since late last December. A nice holiday treat!!

This thatch job comes well timed with the last local vines twisted and tied as we prepare for our 7th annual permaculture design course. This year we have folks from 5 different countries participating, the US, Canada, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Costa Rica. We welcome Tiny Man, Jackie Pitts Ashley Carter and Juan Jose Calero to our staff and are looking forward to a great course.

The final foto featured is the newly christened garden down at Casa Albergüe. Greens are coming prper this year thanks to Nevis, Norbert and all volunteer effort.

Upcoming posts will feature the 'El Barrinche' eco-festival in Granda this coming weekend January 28-30th with music, forums, costumes and art performance. It will be a blast.

Cheer to Diego, Ben and the entire Casa botellas crew for organizing hundreds of folks for a festivsl for thousands!!!!