June 23rd, 2009 fmorgan
I hate being injured. Fortunately, it doesn’t happen that often, but about ten days or so ago, I did something really strange to my leg. A storm came up as I was walking from the office to the house. I don’t care if I get wet, but I had some papers in my hand so I started running up the steep path to our house. I do it all the time, but this time something popped in the calf of my leg. It felt like someone punched me or something. I still don’t know what happened, but I had to get someone to rescue the papers and bring me a big stick to lean on so I could hobble my way to the house.
I had an important visitor the next day whom I was going to escort all over the farms. In the morning I could still put no weight on the leg nor flex my foot, so I had a driver take me to pick up the visitor. I made a valiant effort, but after about ten steps, I had to let someone else escort him inside the first plantation. I got home as soon as I could, turned over tour duties to others, and retreated to a couch to attempt not to move for a while.
By the next night it was a little better, and we sat in a hot spring for a while. That helped.
Now after about ten days, it is almost okay, but it still twinges, which tells me I better not go running for a while. Thankfully, it has recovered enough so that I no longer am in danger of country remedies. We have a lot of workers, and they are very concerned if I get sick (very rare) or injured (rarer yet). They want to help, but their help is a bit scary. All that most of the workers know how to treat is horses and cows, and since I am nearly the same size in their eyes, the suggestions for remedies sounded frighteningly similar.
Why is it that anytime someone suggests a cure around here, they start by saying that it will really hurt a lot, or taste horrible, or in this case burn like fire, but then it will really help, too! What I gathered was that some nurse or possibly a pharmacist would take a huge needle and inject a muscle relaxant into my butt. This does not sound good. After the agony was over, the muscle would be fine and I could go about my business, after of course visiting the dentist to fix all my teeth because I had clenched them so hard. I bet the pharmacist does veterinary work on the side. Maybe dental work too.
Just to be on the safe side, I have been working at walking as normally as I can. You never know, if they get the idea I will never walk and run normally again, they might suggest I be put down.
Posted in cultural adaptation, culture, doctor, finca, horses, injury | 3 Comments »
May 16th, 2009 fmorgan
You mean I gotta take another bath!?
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When I lived in the USA, I was always conscious of what month it was because each month in the northeast is for me strongly associated with a certain weather pattern.
In Costa Rica, although I am rarely sure what month it is, I do know which season it is. It’s so obvious. Costa Rica only has two seasons: mud and dust.
The mud season. For eight months of the year, I walk out the door and put on my rubber boots (after shaking them in case something crawled in there during the night). Unlike when we lived in the USA, I don’t check outside to see how many layers to wear. Temperature really doesn’t change that much year round, so what you wear is pretty much the same everyday, except for what you put on your feet.
When the rainy season starts, we generally have two weeks of sogginess. There is daily rain, sometimes very heavy and at times with lightening. We get the same thing when the rainy season ends. During the rest of the seven months, at the Monte Cristo plantation where we live, generally there is a big rain twice a day, at about 4:00 in the morning and again in the afternoon. Inside the La Garita plantation, the rain comes every other day. This would seem to make for better living conditions at La Garita, but it really doesn’t, because the sunny day heats the soil, and the previous day’s rain creates a sauna. For living, I prefer a daily rain, but the trees don’t care.
The dust season. Activities change drastically during the dry season. We have more visitors and it is easier to do changes to infrastructure, like road and bridge building, etc. Construction is much, much easier when you aren’t ankle deep, or more, in mud. You can nearly double your time in construction if you do it during the wet season compared to the dry.
One very nice thing about the dry season is it coincides with the coolest time of the year. So the increased sun is offset by the cool winds that come from the North.
When the temperature may vary no more than 10 degrees Farenheit for the entire year, even a change of 5 degrees seems like a lot. So we all act like we’re freezing any time we have to put on socks.
The dry season is great for swimming in our river, as the water is low and crystal clear. Not so good for fishing though. A rain makes the water a little more murky and so helps hide me from the fish. Most of the Ticos go fishing during the dry season because there are places that are accessible no other time of the year except by horse.
We do the heavy pruning of the trees in the dry season. Mainly because bark is slippery and when we are pruning large trees, it is important that nothing is moving around. We can prune for form all year round.
This is good because the grass isn’t growing as much, so workers who would have been working at keeping the grass cleared around the trees can switch to pruning.
For tree owners, the best time to visit is during the dry season, which is also peak tourist time. This is because getting into the plantations is much easier. During the dry season, we can almost drive up to the individual trees. Otherwise, it can require quite a walk to get to the trees.
For riding a mountain bike, I prefer the rainy season, but after things have dried just a little. Just enough to keep the dust down, but not so much that all the rock is loose. One really nice thing about the dry season is you can ride on the pure dirt roads, which are nearly impassible even with a bike for much of the year. They come through with a grader and clean them up during the beginning of the dry season, giving a great opportunity to ride on hard-packed dry clay.
The truth is, I like both seasons. And the end of each, I am eager for the next. When the dust is everywhere, a nice rain is very welcome, and when you can’t seem to find a dry place anywhere, three months of no rain cures that feeling very well indeed.
Posted in clothes, cycling, finca, forestry, mud, nursery, roads, tree owners, trees | No Comments »
May 2nd, 2009 fmorgan
One of the areas I think that baffles foreigners most when living in Costa Rica is what things cost. First of all, you have to deal with a new currency, the colon. On top of that, some things are much cheaper here (for example, we just bought a pineapple for less than 50 cents), and other things, much more expensive (imported goods mainly–an apple is about $1.50).
So, getting prices straight can be challenging, especially when you start talking in millions of colones. We just sold a used ATV for 2 million (about 3600 dollars).
We all want to know ahead of time what it will cost to build something, but the price always ends up being more than quoted. I finally figured out that contractors here give a bid for the best case scenario. Basically, if everything goes perfectly, it will be that price. In a country where even plans for meetings are preceded by “Si Dios quiere…” (If God wills), you can guess how often everything goes perfectly. You would think that the estimates would reflect the normal course of events, but it doesn’t work that way. Since everyone bids for the impossible ideal situation, anyone who gives an accurate estimate will not get the job. Cost overruns are therefore the norm, and you are responsible for adding your own buffer instead of the contractor tacking it on. The odds of you coming out at the original bid and getting to keep that buffer are worse than the lottery, but I guess it’s fun to try. We have seen that if you work the price down to below usual, what you pay in the end will be the same as if you accepted a quote for around the going price, what with one thing and another. It is very possible the lower bid will end up being the most expensive when you redo the rushed job.
Bargaining is practically a national pastime in Costa Rica, if not an art form. Where you live, are you accustomed to hearing an exchange like this in a retail furniture store? “I appeal to your conscience on the price you are asking me to pay.” “My conscience is perfectly clear, thank you, I know our prices are some of the best around.” That last said with a big smile.
It seems everything can be dickered over, and everything is considered for sale. People frequently walk up to our door and ask to buy equipment that we are using in our business. The above-mentioned ATV was in daily use, but somebody asked if we would part with it. It is always good when you are not the one trying to sell, but the other party is trying to buy.
If you come up to a farmer and say, “I like your farm, how much?” expect to be shocked at the price. The custom is to offer it at 3 times a reasonable amount, which is to say, “I don’t really want to sell, but if you really want it…” More than a few farmers have been shocked when the crazy foreigner paid what they asked, and more than a few foreigners have been very upset to discover they paid three times market value.
The best way to buy land is to locate yourself in the area for a while and give yourself a few months to learn what a good price is. Then let it be known that you will buy land for that price. Resist the pressure to go look at properties that are more than your asking price per hectare or square meter. Eventually someone will show up with a property in your price range, because that is what the locals are paying.
After seven years of doing business in Costa Rica, I can see us now on our next visit to the United States trying to appeal to the conscience of some baffled clerk in Home Depot.
Posted in bargaining, business in Costa Rica, buying land, campo, construction, culture, finca, investing | No Comments »
January 11th, 2009 fmorgan
Sorry for not writting for a while. In truth, I have been writing a lot, but it has been software for the company. It has been keeping me rather busy, and amused if the truth be known.
We have had several people contacting us making sure we are okay, which we appreciate and of course they are also interested in the effect of the earthquake on the trees.
First of all, we barely felt the earthquake. I didn’t feel it at all even though I was standing next to people who did. I did hear the gates rattle though. The most exciting thing we had happen was for a vehicle in the repair garage to shimmy sideways during the earthquake.
Nothing else in our neck of the jungle. We happen to in an area that is probably the most stable in all of Costa Rica. Normally we don’t feel much at all, if we do, it is from Managua, Nicaragua. In fact, at first we were concerned that Managua had had another large earthquake.
A few comments on the earthquake. If it wasn’t in January, or another part of the country, there probably would be no news - a 6.2 isn’t much. I can recall at least three that we have had since we have been here. The problem is the time of year and the location. Most of the time they are down at the border of Panama or near the beaches at Parita. This was in the mountains above the Central Valley. This area is very steep (unlike the coast, of course) and very deforested - and very populated. If it had been a 7.0, it would have been much, much worse.
The building codes of Costa Rica are very very good, but, people will cut corners and the inspections in the countryside are not what they are in the city. One thing however, most homes have a tin roof - even ours. This trend I hear started after the traditional clay roofs that you think of in Spanish construction killed many people in the earthquake in Cartago many years ago.
This earthquake as far as loss of life and property damage is the worst in a very long time I gather. Having a significant earthquake in January is a real problem. It is when the soils are the wettest. I know you have probably heard that the dry season in Costa Rica starts in December - well not on this side of the mountain. From December to about the middle of January is one of the wettest times of year. The land is saturated. If you take saturated soils, little rock, and deforestation and add an earthquake, you get landslides, which were the causes of loss of life.
Anytime something like this happens, the thought that goes through my mind is “Surely those who removed all the trees above their homes didnot realize they were dooming their family…” And my next thought is usually, “I wonder what things I am doing that are setting up disaster in the future for those I love.”
Though it isn’t healthy to always worry about the future, it also is not healthy to asssume there will not be dreadful consequences if we don’t consider the future outcomes to our actions. The most difficult ones are the actions that are like a time bomb. If, when you cut down a tree on a steep slope , immediately you had a landslide, no one would do it. But, what happens is that you took the tree and left the roots, and until the roots decay, the tree is still holding the slope together. But eventually (and this could be ten years and more for some trees) the roots will be gone - and then the slope will start to move. As you drive around Costa Rica, you can see slopes that have moved - usually about this time of year.
Posted in buying land, conservation, earthquake, finca, forest, landslides, resources, trees | No Comments »
September 19th, 2008 fmorgan
Here in Costa Rica, there are about 2,000 different kinds of trees, at least 150 of them are good for lumber. You would think seeds would be easy to get.
Nope, not at all. Generally when we try to order seeds, we find 4 or 5 different types readily available. These would be teak, gmelina, mahogany, cocobolo, and acacia. Everything else is fairly unpredictable.
I personally am not fond of monocrop plantations. They are not very interesting and for native species, not very good. Native trees grow better mixed — like in nature.
The majority of the rare trees we plant are from seeds that we collect within our plantations. This year, the only way we were able to find almendro was from our own trees. All of our cebo was from our own trees as well. A big bonus this year was finding balsamo, a very rare tree with wood as valuable (if not moreso) than cocobolo.
When we first arrived in Costa Rica, I thought to grow trees would be as easy as calling up a tree nursery, ordering the seedlings, and planting them when they arrived. I figured some day we would have a nursery, but just because of volume. The truth is, the only way that we could get the seedlings we needed was to have our own nursery. Nothing else worked reliably.
I am sure it is frustrating for some of our clients that in January they might order, say, 500 cristobal trees and I have to say, “It depends on if there are seeds.” This really emphasizes that what we are doing is working in an area that requires the cooperation of nature, and nature at times will decide that this is not a good year to produce certain seeds.
A good example is our mango trees on our property this year. I was starting to wonder if the mango trees we had actually did produce fruit, because for two years there was none. But this year they more than made up for it and there were mangos everywhere! The same thing is true for seeds we need in the plantations — we can’t just plant whatever we would like, because at times, Mother Nature doesn’t give us any seeds.
Another thing we often do is collect seedlings, or as they are called in the USA, wildlings. Currently in the plantation where we live, there are lots and lots of seedlings that have sprouted in the last month or so. We will go out and carefully extract them from the ground and put into bags, to plant inside the farms. Often, these are the best possible seedlings because they have already shown their vigour in surviving.
Aside from the very popular plantation trees, we never know exactly what we are doing to have to plant, but, that keeps it interesting.
Posted in acacia, campo, cebo, finca, forest, forestry, mahogany, nursery, seedlings, teak, tree owners, trees, wood | No Comments »
March 29th, 2008 fmorgan
We had a visit from a tree owner and spent a full day with them. They have been with us for a while and we have had numerous conversations with them. I always appreciate their visits because we have so much in common.
The good news is that after reviewing their trees they told us that there wasn’t anything they felt was wrong at all with them and they were thrilled at the size and quality. This of course was wonderful to hear. We do try very hard to do a great job and be diligent in following through with people, but as with all things that are part of nature, there are imperfections. I worry about imperfections. It is probably true that I don’t see the forest for the trees at times. If I see 5% of the trees not doing well it bothers me (and we replace them), and I can forget that means we have 95% growing very well. Our tree owners are always less critical than I am.
I think one of the reasons they gave us such high marks was that they visited trees that they own with someone else (people they bought with before they knew about us) and were much less pleased. In fact, nearly 50% of their trees were replanted after 2 1/2 years and it was obvious that the care just wasn’t being done. It appeared that their trees were planted and then ignored. Also, some trees were planted in areas that were not appropriate for those trees.
Worse yet, when they arrived, it was obvious that the area had just been brushed out, i.e. all the undergrowth removed, and all nearby trees owned by other people had brush about six feet tall, which will choke out the trees. An example is their acacia. Their acacia with the other people after 2 1/2 years is the same size as ours after 6 months! If there was ever a good example of the difference between growing trees correctly or not, this is one.
The bad news for them, of course, is that they have to deal with this, but also it is sad because we in Costa Rica need every bit of lumber we can get. To plant and not try your best to produce the best trees you can just seems to me to be so short-sighted. After all, it isn’t like there isn’t a good market — no, correct that, a great market — for the wood after it is grown.
On top of that, it is hard enough for people to have the confidence to have people in a foreign land grow trees for them, and to not do the job hurts everyone, not just your own business. Thankfully, we have many people who have visited us (and some visit yearly) and so have seen the plantations for themselves and can attest to our quality.
After all, it really is about quality. The price of wood is shooting up as the supply dwindles. For us, to achieve our goal of reforesting a significant amount of land, we have to make sure to meet the obligations we have to those who have trusted us to grow trees for them.
I am happy to be able to say it appears that we are acheiving more than they expected.
Posted in acacia, business in Costa Rica, conservation, finca, forest, forestry, investing, tree owners, trees, wood | No Comments »
February 19th, 2008 fmorgan
All of our key people have cell phones here. It is pretty much a requirement for communication. They need to talk to suppliers, to workers deep in the fincas, to each other, and to the office to keep everything going.
The one person who is hard to find is me. 
I like it this way. Everyone has a cell phone except me. Even those rare times everyone has conspired for me to have a cell phone, we expand and my cell phone is needed by a new person. Often we have to wait to get a cell phone line, so I can then avoid a cell phone for a while again.
I find this great for Finca Leola. The temptation is always there if you can contact the president, to do so. It is a way of dumping your responsibilities on him. This is bad for development of department heads, and it is particularly bad for me, since I might not get the subtle hints of which way they think we should go.
But, if they are in a situation and can’t reach me, they will make the decision and inform me later. Very rarely is it a bad decision, and everyone knows how far to go on decisions without talking with us.
By staying out of touch, it allows me to focus on research and future plans — and of course, writing this blog. I really get very few interruptions during the day. I do make time most mornings to talk with all our key people so they can bounce ideas off me and discuss various things, but the thousands of mundane decisions are in their hands — with guidelines.
I like to base guidelines on a concept called a Pareto, or the 80/20 rule. Applied to management, this means that anyone doing their job should be able to handle 80 percent or more of whatever comes up and should seek outside help with between 10 to 20 percent. This percentage is usually when there is interaction with other departments or when there is a decision that only the owners are authorized to make. Handling these overlapping decisions is where I spend most of my time, because they usually require research.
When someone does something that isn’t exactly what we wanted, this is the opportunity to train. I find that if people aren’t making any mistakes at all, it means they have not yet learned that we value their input. They key is to teach concepts so that mistakes are few and do not put at risk the overall goals, then review the work frequently enough so that guidelines can be adjusted to deal with what we have all learned. It works best to explain the purpose of what is to be done rather than give someone a 3-inch-thick manual for their job!
Posted in Spanish, campo, cell phone, communications, finca, language learning | 3 Comments »
January 24th, 2008 fmorgan
…everything looks like a nail. This is a phrase I think about a lot because it says that if our tool collection is small, we often “fix” things in a manner that doesn’t make sense.
After all these years, I am now seeing how often forestry practices are, quite frankly, very primative. It is almost as though forestry engineers are being brought kicking and screaming into the idea of maintaining existing ecosystems instead of just having a job identifying trees and marking them for harvest.
As an example, CATIE has been researching for 10 years here in Costa Rica how to grow mahogany without attracting a certain moth that lays its eggs in the tips of the young trees so that when they hatch, the larvae bore into the tip. CATIE now has results that look good, and we are using the methods they have researched. Since the damage to the tree occurs on the tip and only occurs twice a year, it works fine to prune after the damage. Also, planting inside brush helps a lot too, since the moth overflies the trees. After the mahogany tree is 6 meters tall, there is no more problem.
Various trials were done, but I was truly surprised that they didn’t try two that seem to be pretty safe bets. One would be to use a dormant spray to smother the eggs when first laid. You can predict almost to the week when the moths will lay their eggs, so a dormant spray could be very effective. Dormant spray is used in the North a lot for fruit trees. The other idea is to use bat houses to concentrate predators in the area. The photo below shows the type of bat houses we’re making. They will be mounted on rough posts that go all the way inside that the bats can climb up on.
I don’t know yet if these two approaches will work, but I really shouldn’t have been surprised that they weren’t tried. Forestry often resembles a horse with blinders, in that there is very little interaction with other fields, like growing fruit trees and organic farming. I do believe this is because forestry, up until recently, has been focused almost entirely on harvesting and managing existing forests, not in rebuilding forests.
It is so interesting to me that there are so many possibilities for learning inside our plantations and forest. A common question I get is how long do I think I will be interested in planting trees. The answer is probably forever, since there is so much to learn and so much to discover. You would think growing trees would be simple and in some ways it is, but there is so much room for improvement!
Posted in CATIE, bats, finca, forest, forestry, mahogany, pests | No Comments »
January 22nd, 2008 fmorgan
I figure I have to visit/explore between 5 to 10 fincas before I buy one. This latest finca is a good example of why. On the surface, all is good — the land is suitable and reasonably close to one of our other plantations.
But there is a serious problem — it seems that the previous owner is in deep trouble with MINAE according to my sources. If so, we won’t touch this finca with a ten foot pole. MINAE is in charge of plantations and so we work very closely with them. They also are in charge of protecting the environment.
We will have a meeting with MINAE to discuss this finca. It may be that they will wish us to purchase it as a way to prevent further problems, but there is no telling at this point.
The farther you get away from more populated areas here in Costa Rica, the more lawless people are. I don’t mean as in shoot you for your money, but as far as not following the regulations and honestly, not caring about them.
When they lose out on selling land because of the denunciations against their land by MINAE, they start to care a little more.
Posted in MINAE, campo, finca, forest | No Comments »
January 19th, 2008 fmorgan
Mixed species planting on one of our tree farms
One of our contract forestry engineers told us about a “plantation” that went astray. Many years ago in Guanacaste a person bought a lot of land, about 200 hectares or about 500 acres. He planted all sorts of different trees on it and then left it to grow, planning on coming back in several years to start realizing profit.
This is pretty much what you do up North, buy some land, plant some trees and go away for a long time because everything takes a long time to grow. Perhaps your kids will have a harvest. Here it isn’t that way as growth rates are up to 10 times faster.
Sadly, he never registered any of the land as a plantation, so MINAE doesn’t think it is. Now MINAE is rejecting his request to cut any trees because the “plantation” looks like secondary growth (it IS secondary growth because it wasn’t cared for) and he has no proof to the contrary. There are never permits issued to cut anything inside secondary growth.
This is so common down here. People assume that the laws of Costa Rica are the same as up North and go from the idea that if it is my land, I can do with it as I wish. This is not true at all here. In fact, Costa Rica now has a law in place that to start a business activity, you need to have it approved and how it will effect the waterways particularly. Even for us to build a modest workshop for building furniture and processing wood, we had to go through various steps.
Our plantations look like parks, all well cared for and no brush. I have had more than a few people wonder why, and this is why: If it doesn’t look like a plantation (i.e. rows of the same species), it is secondary forest unless you register with MINAE that you planted that way and it was the plan.
There are lots of abandoned plantations in Costa Rica. Around 1997 there were a lot of trees planted and not cared for. The plantations that are teak are pretty much a waste, and the few plantations that have natives, if they were left alone like this and not documented, are now part of the protected zone and untouchable. It is really sad, too, because there is not enough wood available in Costa Rica, in fact, only half of what is needed. If these investors had actually put in the kind of money and attention that is necessary to do it right, they would be retiring comfortably right now.
It isn’t like all of this information is not available. It is all documented in the forestry law, but a lot of investors just listen to their neighbors. You shouldn’t accept legal advice regarding plantations from anyone besides a registered forestry engineer, preferably two or three. Then read the law for yourself.
Posted in MINAE, buying land, finca, investing, trees, wood | No Comments »