Earthwatch Team 4, July 2015. This team of teenage Earthwatchers spent time in the forest with 3t collecting seedlings, planting and monitoring endangered endemic tree species, and time with Norman in Hormiga Valley on herpetological surveys. Karen Babis,an Earthwatch volunteer in the past and her partner, Daniel Dioguardi spent time at the project and helped out in the field. Big thanks to Earthwatch Program Manager, Kyle Hutton, (third from left in image below), and Lena Cosentino for great teen team leadership. Myriam Bourassa made this wonderful video (https://youtu.be/n1me_5p_CLc) of her time here.
Images by 3t Vakil, Karen Babis, Andres Rua, Lena Cosentino, and Daniel DioGuardi 2015
If you are ready for a life challenge, interested in your personal development, and feel that you have useful skills and proficiency, or perhaps would like to learn how to do something completely new and different, hold a genuine love of the natural world, and want to live with other people and experience cultural changes, and life in another biome, please contact us. We welcome you to participate in VolunTREEadventure, the project’s total system as a volunteer. Three weeks is a good way to start.
Alfredo Lopez Nieves
Cho Hee Schrader and Chris DeForce
Hellen Galli
Stratton Yatron & Matt
Will Robinson
We give big thanks and appreciation to everyone that comes to live with us and volunteer their time and energy; we meet as strangers and leave as friends. Andres, 3t, and Magha.
Thank you Earthwatchers for your help in herpetological surveys, planting of endangered endemic trees, Cornutia obovata and Styrax portoricensis, and for help in the nursery re-potting seedlings collected from the previous year.
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
Principal Investigators: Dr. Mark Nelson, 3t Vakil, Norman Greenhawk.
2015 Images by 3t Vakil, Lisa Bennet, and Susannah Garrett.
Joel Kaufman of Ellicott City, MD, has created this fine intarsia piece in about 6 months, and we are honored to share it with you. The pattern was replicated from a Phillip Ratner tapestry. There are 50 different wood species using no stains or coloring with over 400 individual pieces. It has over 100 shims and measures 19” x 35”.
Joel: “The blue mahoe pieces are the water on both sides of the ark, the whale’s spout of water (this is where I love the varying shades of blue mahoe), the translucent pieces through the whale and the stripe on one of the people on the ark. No other wood I could find had these various shades of blue/purple/green and it was very easy to cut, shape, sand and finish”.
Using tested methods, humanure composting is underway at Las Casas de la Selva with impressive results. 3t has been very successfully composting humanure for over a decade. The process is exactly the same as an ordinary compost and along with depositing the humanure, (feces & urine), the compost pile is augmented with garden prunings, grass cuttings, leaves, etc. This pile is left to sit for at least a year and two months before use. The quality of this humus is phenomenal fertilizer for plant growing.
Shavings from the planer, all hardwoods from our forest, no treated wood. Smells great too.
Regular toilets usually flush humanure away into septic tanks using clean water, but it could instead be converted, through composting, into lush vegetative growth. Humanure is a valuable resource and saves a ton of water. These humanure toilets were built at Las Casas de la Selva, by Andres and 3t in February 2013, and we have been collecting all our volunteers valuable deposits ever since.
Deep colored, rich compost ready for using in the gardens. You can’t buy this anywhere!
In April 2015, we were fortunate enough to receive two teams from the Northshore YMCA in Salem, MA. These teams all got involved with various tasks that ranged from creating a new trail, making a dam, to setting up new tables in our nursery and moving all the saplings from last year’s collections into the nursery. A good clean up of the wood drying shed was also really appreciated. Special thanks to staff, Matt Buchanen, John Brinkmanship, Kat Moser, and AnnMarie Green for the first group, and the second group, Graeme Marcoux, Cat Marcoux and Katie Coleman.
As always a huge thank you to all these volunteers who shared their lives with us in April 2015.
Mahoe,Hibiscus elatus All dimensions are in inches and all slabs are slightly larger than stated. All pieces have been planed on both sides. Ends are Anchor-sealed. Shipping is not included, send an email for a quote.
1) Your shipping address. 2) Your shipping preference for a quote: USPS Priority (4-6 days) or USPS Retail Ground (14-18 days) .
We accept secure payments through Paypal.
Mahoe,Hibiscus elatus, is a large forest tree endemic to Jamaica, Cuba, and now naturalized in Puerto Rico. The straight stems of mature specimens can rise to a height of 80 feet, with trunk diameters of 12 to 18 inches, on favorable sites attaining diameters of 36 inches. Its relatively fast growth makes mahoe a highly suitable candidate for sustainable forestry management. The leaves are long-stalked heart-shaped, flowers are large and funnel shaped, usually red, but occasionally yellow or orange. Mahoe is a moderately hard wood with a specific gravity of 0.58-0.62. The heartwood is very durable, highly resistant to attack by decay fungus, and resistant to subterranean termites. The fairly straight grain is richly variegated with shades of steely blues, metal grays, deep purples and pinks, olive greens and yellows, creams and browns, along with an elegant chatoyance in the wood. The narrow sapwood is pale white and subtly flecked, creating an attractive contrast with the heartwood. From reports and our own experience, the timber is generally easy to saw, plane, route, mould, mortise, carve, glue, nail, screw, sand, and turn, with a natural gloss in the wood when finished. It responds very well to both hand and machine tools in all woodworking operations. The wood has a musical quality and has been traditionally used in the making of cuatros, (puertorican guitars). Fine boxes, furnitures, inlay works, floors, details, turned pieces, exquisite jewelleries, sculptures, and ancient board games, have been, and demand to be transformed from the Mahoe. Architects, furniture-makers, designers, artists & wood lovers will find a charm in working with this wood.
Mahoe,Hibiscus elatus All dimensions are in inches and all slabs are slightly larger than stated. All pieces have been planed on both sides. Ends are Anchor-sealed. Shipping is not included, send an email for a quote.
1) Your shipping address. 2) Your shipping preference for a quote: USPS Priority (4-6 days) or USPS Retail Ground (14-18 days) .
We accept secure payments through Paypal.
Mahoe,Hibiscus elatus, is a large forest tree endemic to Jamaica, Cuba, and now naturalized in Puerto Rico. The straight stems of mature specimens can rise to a height of 80 feet, with trunk diameters of 12 to 18 inches, on favorable sites attaining diameters of 36 inches. Its relatively fast growth makes mahoe a highly suitable candidate for sustainable forestry management. The leaves are long-stalked heart-shaped, flowers are large and funnel shaped, usually red, but occasionally yellow or orange. Mahoe is a moderately hard wood with a specific gravity of 0.58-0.62. The heartwood is very durable, highly resistant to attack by decay fungus, and resistant to subterranean termites. The fairly straight grain is richly variegated with shades of steely blues, metal grays, deep purples and pinks, olive greens and yellows, creams and browns, along with an elegant chatoyance in the wood. The narrow sapwood is pale white and subtly flecked, creating an attractive contrast with the heartwood. From reports and our own experience, the timber is generally easy to saw, plane, route, mould, mortise, carve, glue, nail, screw, sand, and turn, with a natural gloss in the wood when finished. It responds very well to both hand and machine tools in all woodworking operations. The wood has a musical quality and has been traditionally used in the making of cuatros, (puertorican guitars). Fine boxes, furnitures, inlay works, floors, details, turned pieces, exquisite jewelleries, sculptures, and ancient board games, have been, and demand to be transformed from the Mahoe. Architects, furniture-makers, designers, artists & wood lovers will find a charm in working with this wood.
This all-ladies team helped out with a whole host of tasks, including the on-going plastering of the new terrace wall, and workshop cleaning, clearing, and management. Along with a salsa dance class, they enjoyed the rivers in the forest of Las Casas de la Selva, and also took a paddle-boarding class at Inches Beach in Patillas, with Omar Garcia. Thank you ladies for all your enthusiastic teamwork, we enjoyed your company immensely.
Fountain Valley High School from Colorado Springs, in their second annual collaboration with Las Casas de la Selva. This team of enthusiastic teenagers worked on the ethnobotanical trail, helped grade the main drive, helped in the wood workshop, learnt how to use a lathe with Andres Rua, and turn wood, had a Puertorrican cooking class with Magha Garcia Medina, enjoyed a salsa dance class with Yara, and after an afternoon at the beach, Villa Pesqueras in Patillas, and a wonderful dinner at Habitarte, Route PR 15, with Wanda and Riccardo. It was a pleasure to get to know you all.
