Still Building

We like building (on a small scale) almost as much as planting trees. So when the bath room was finished, we started looking for another project. We always wanted a workshop on the plot. The idea was that guests could get creative with beach wood, scrap metal or just paper and paint. And we could use it ourselves as well. Planting trees and building paths and rancho’s requires quite a bit of carpentry etc.

We made a design that we discussed with Francisco, our brick layer and builder. He had a few suggestions that make work a lot easier and cheaper. If you keep the work shop narrower than the corrugated iron roof sheets, life is much easier for a builder. Since we had roof sheets of 18 feet, that was no problem. And since most iron, pvc tubing and many other things come in lengths of 20 feet, the work shop needed to be longer than that. To keep it light and well ventilated, one long wall is only 1.10 m high and from there to the roof we placed chain link fence. One of the short walls has a large window and the other one is a door made of metal bars. Oh well, better look at the pictures.

To keep it al ecological and pleasing to the eye, we are going to construct a lizard wall on one side. Basically we just pile a load of natural stone against the wall, which will give lizards and other beasts plenty of room to hide. In the old house we found a vase with one handle left and that will be a ´cave´ in the stone pile…

We will also incorporate a wasp factory, consisting of old, untreated wood with a couple of holes drilled into it. Especially solitary wasps are welcome because they do not sting people and eat a lot of caterpillars! Finally we will have to build a ‘bat cave’. When we tear down the house, about a dozen bats will become homeless, which is neither ecological nor social. So we decided to provide alternative housing before we tear down the house. Some are already dining inside our workshop…

Most of the building and painting has been done; next week the lizard wall and wasp factory should be ready. Then we will build the ‘bat cave’ (this may take a little longer) and than this project will also be almost finished. Almost, because we have decided to organize a drawing contest among the children of Malena. The more we like the drawing, the larger and more prominent the artist may paint it on the walls of our work shop. The theme is, of course, nature. AS soon as this happens, we will take lots of photo’s and put those on the web and write a new blog about it.

The start of the Rainy Season

Alter a false start in mid April, the rainy season finally began last week. Straight away 62 mm in one day and 14 mm the on the next. A few more showers and we can start planting trees again. Kees has already planted a few Ixora-bushes and Heliconia flowers, but that is mostly to beautify the area around the rancho’s and to feed the hummingbirds.

Before we start to reforest new areas, we will have to replace the approximately 45 trees that did not survive the dry season. We lost about 5% of the 900 trees we planted during last year. Some will be replaced by other species because they did not grow very well at the place we put them. A small part of our land turns into a swamp for six months and some of the trees we planted there, can not cope with those circumstances.

We will get some new species as well. We left a wish list with a reputable nursery and when we checked last month, they had at least half of what we wanted. But most trees were still small. Furthermore, Loes has been busy in our own nursery and we have seedlings with exotic names as ice cream bean, jobo and tronador. We also found some new and interesting species for sale in the Summit Gardens in Panama City, which we immediately took with us. So now we have monkey condom, monkey comb and monkey pot trees. I am thinking of planting them right next to each other along a path, with a sign giving their common names.

Of the 900 trees we planted last year, 700 were sponsored by people who wanted to compensate for their carbon dioxide production. And, as you could read in an earlier blog, they also helped restore the biodiversity in the area (and since that blog we have registered two more species of bird and a caiman on our property!). If you would like to do this too, you can. For € 100 (U$ 160) we plant 20 trees on about 500 m². The carbon dioxide sequestered by these trees compensates about 5% of the carbon dioxide an average European produces during his/her life (2.5% for the average American). We will send you a certificate with a list of the trees you helped planting. We are trying to restore a forest, so we plant as many species naturally occurring in Panama as we can (tropical forests are very diverse) and we choose trees that are attractive to birds and mammals. We also plant shrubs and orchids to further increase the biodiversity. If you would like to support this initiative, or need more information, please send an email to tanagertourism@gmail.com.