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 »
June 16th, 2008 fmorgan
We live above San Rafael de Guatuso, or perhaps I should say after nearly four years in Costa Rica, we are about to live there. We have lived in Costa Rica since July 20. 2004, and to this time, we have yet to have our own home. This is about to change; our home is nearly finished and we are very excited.
There is no phone service available there. Phone we can handle with wireless easily enough, but Internet service is a must for the business.
Having a background in telecommunications, I noticed a wireless bridge on a tower of El Colono, a building supply company with about 70 locations in Costa Rica. We are VERY good customers there, averaging in the thousands every month.
So we asked nicely if we could use their tower. The owner agreed and in fact connected us to their provider who came out, talked with us, did a site survey and installed a 6-meter post on the roof of our new home and the Internet bridge. We now have 256/256. I know that might not sound like much, but for us, it is twice what we have had. Then they came out again and did the wiring between our home and the office, including a wireless Internet bridge that we owned to connect the two buildings.
I feel so high tech! Here we are in the middle of the frontier of Costa Rica where there is no phone service having a line of sight wireless Internet bridge system! A funny story–ICE, the phone monopoly, had a rep out and our office administrator said, ¨Oh, we´ll just pay that bill right now on the Internet.¨ The rep said, ¨Internet?! What do you MEAN you have Internet here?¨ as he craned his neck searching all around for the wire.
I tried to do the outside wiring myself, but never could find the cable (special type for outside). Come to find out, you can only by it by the 1,000 meter roll and have to import it from the USA, or so I was told.
Anyway, tomorrow we pack up the office and move it to the Monte Cristo house and start staging our move.
Quick note: I originally wrote this back on May 15th, and now it is June 16th. Yes, we got moved - but this post sort of fell by the wayside. One thing as well, in the morning and the evening, our Internet works very well - but during the day, when it is sunny, not so well. The reason is interesting. It seems that there are some trees in the way, and in the morning, usually the limbs are lower due to rain and moisture, but during the day, they reach for the sun, and interfere with our connection… only in the tropics.
The solution is a 21 meter tower complete with aircraft warning light, scheduled within three weeks to be finished.
Posted in business in Costa Rica, cell phone, communications, forest, off the grid | 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 »
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 16th, 2008 fmorgan
Today I went to visit a new finca (farm) that we are looking at buying. We already have one finca for planting this year called Quebradon, but it only has enough space for 35,000 trees, which might not be enough this year. There is another, much larger, finca connected to it that we visited today.
By we, I mean myself and Nelson, our general manager. We didn’t drive to it, we took the ATV. When going back into the campo, it really makes sense to use an ATV instead of a car — after all, if the ATV gets stuck, you can just lift it out.
As time passes we have to find larger farms, and that generally means more remote. Also, this helps us keep the price down on trees. It does raise the cost a little while planting, but not that much. It is a blance between accessibility and price. More remote generally means better land, since it has not been farmed for too long. There is always much more wildlife as well.
Visiting a finca is usually done from horseback, especially the larger fincas. This finca is 183 manzanas, or about 311 acres, or 128 hectares. It has about 30 hectares of forest and the rest is pasture. Remember that 100 hectares is a square kilometer, to give you a perspective on the size.
As usual, the owner figured since I am growing trees what I want to see is trees! Not really, what I want to see is pasture, because that is where we grow trees. But what happens is that I first got a guided tour of the forested areas. This of course is the roughest section of the finca to travel in. Think the downhill ride/slide in the movie Man from Snowy River! I can’t believe the kind of terrain I ride on regularly. Today one spot was really bad and we actually had to dismount to help the horses go up it. It was worth the pain though — at the bottom of the hill was the largest Spanish cedar I have ever seen. We also had a snack of heart of palm — very nice. You haven’t had heart of palm until you have had it fresh.
You know that you are in trouble when visiting a finca and the owner asks twice if you know how to ride horses before you start. He really wants to make sure you can handle what you’re about to go through. Thankfully he gave me the best horse and the best saddle. His saddle was just a piece of leather with stririps tied on with rope, and he still rode better than me, but that’s no surprise. I swear some of the Tico cowboys defy gravity when riding. Perhaps they superglue themselves to the seat.
This finca is off the grid, that is, there are no electrical lines or phone. However, it does have power. First of all, the electrical monopoly here has a program of renting out solar panels that will give you enough power for three lights and a TV for 2 dollars a month. Also, within this finca is an mini-hydroelectric system that used to work. It can be repaired and will be.
The finca looks like a winner for sure. It is a good price and well suited for our planting. With this finca and our other that it is connected to, it will mean about 265 manzanas connected together, or 450 acres. One side connects to the reserve that extends from there to Arenal to Tilaran to Bagaces — I think that would be about 60 kilometers. Just a little bit inside the reserve I am told is a 100-foot waterfall. It should be fun to visit.
The next step is to have a forestry engineer review the titles to the property for any issues (such as it can’t be sold because it was a government gift house) as well as determine which areas can be planted with what species. After that, we make the deal.
Posted in buying land, campo, finca, forest, horses, off the grid, trees | 3 Comments »