Project Granja Caimito

I would like to organize a few group events for volunteers to plant more trees and related activities. These events should be well organized, have a clear objective and a defined duration.

Duration: a minimum of two weeks (arrival/departure on Sunday)
Minimum participants: 2 people
Maximum participants: 8 people (we have 8 beds) across two rooms
Food: groceries and kitchen will be provided (recommended to rotate the cook role)
Schedule: self-organized but on task with enough breaks and leisure time
Incentives: welcome dinner on arrival day; probably a group adventure on the weekend (we rent a van); farewell bar visit before departure day

The events would be in Spring (mid April to June) and Autumn (October, November) due to the temperatures.

The general objective for Spring would be to plant a lot more Paulownia trees and protect the planting site with suitable fencing and also install an irrigation system.

These Paulownia trees are a building block towards a more diverse forest system. They are not meant to stay a monoculture of any form. Paulownia trees make deep roots, fix nitrogen, are well suited for chop and drop, provide a lot of shade during summer and thus are a great tool to start more sensible plants below. They can also create the foundation to introduce small animals (chicken, geese, sheep, pigs) later.

For Autumn we might then add additional layers to the Paulownia sites (eg. lavender as ground cover) or improve related infrastructure.

As we have learned we need to prepare the planting site with the excavator so that the Paulownia trees have it easier to make deep roots. We basically dig a long and wide trench 2m deep and backfill it with the loosened up soil. In that we can set the trees. The trees will be set a bit closer than recommended so that we have a few for chop and drop or thinning as it's called in forestry.

We can discuss this further right here. But PLEASE send email to info@caimito.net if you are interested in participating. I will then begin to discuss details with the group via email as it forms.

11 months ago | [YT] | 10

Project Granja Caimito

As you might have noticed from the past videos we apparently have a human around who kills horses on purpose. I think it is worthwhile to discuss this a bit as there is a cultural dimension to it and there are vast differences about how the legal system works here versus how it works elsewhere.

First, we are in Spain and in general the legal system in Spain is very slow. That means until something ends up in court in front of a judge it might take years.

Second, killing an animal is in general damage to property and as the owner of the animal one would have to start a civil damage claim to recover the monetary value of the animal.

Third, killing an animal that is classified as a pet (horses are) might be considered animal cruelty and is considered crime.

Fourth, there will be no investigation and much less a conviction without clear evidence. Nobody will be strung up on a tree based on mere suspicion or plausible motive.

Anywhere anyone can walk onto somebody's rural property and do whatever. There is usually no protection of any kind and hoping for the police to protect is pretty hopeless. The best protection is dogs but dogs are not perfect in do not work in every situation.

Livestock guardian dogs (LSG) need to be imprinted on the type of animal they should protect. The only change to do this is when they are puppies at some weeks old. You basically put them together with the animals they should consider as friends to protect. If you miss that opportunity you end up having an LSG of 50 kg that is a highly capable predator.

If you let them group up between sheep, then they will protect the sheep and let nobody come near the sheep. It might work with horses too but unlike sheep horses come to people and are friendly with people by default. Horses also don't like to be herded. So LSGs might not work if someone wants to feed the horses over the fence.

LSGs also roam and we do observe unknown dogs walking over our land. That is how we got our dogs in the first place. Their mother ran away (probably been treated badly) and give birth to the dogs we now have.

Let's talk about what we can actually do.

We CANNOT go and try to intimidate the suspects. That in itself would be a crime. In Europe we need to respect the government's exclusive use of force. That means ANY action from our side to protect or scare away is in itself a crime and we end up holding the shorter end of the stick.

When it comes to safety and security preventing a crime is more important than avenging a crime that has happened. The animals that have been killed will not come back to life. For the future we can create a credible deterrent and have systems in place that will capture evidence in a form that a court can then use to convict.

But even there are some restrictions. The use of cameras requires us to post signs about it so that people's right on data protection is not violated. We have those signs obviously. But you can see that the cameras need to be in the open and known in order to use their recordings in court.

We also cannot film someone else's property. But we can film the easement and our land. That means we can design a security system in such a way that we can record anyone approaching. We can also create a double fence in the sense that the animals cannot come close to any perpetrator. We have some of that in some areas from the time when we had pigs. It's called a biosecurity fence to prevent our pigs from rubbing their noses with wild pigs or the neighbor's pigs.

Back to the human in question. Yes, we do have a pretty good idea about who that is and why they are doing it. They have done multiple attempts of harassment and also tried to utilize the police to scare us. We are doing things in a legally correct way and thus dealing with a police investigation just consumes some time. For the harassment we need proof and that brings us back to cameras (on the property, on the car dashboard, etc.).

The European way of dealing with this is by doing defense in mostly a passive way and then let the court system deal with it eventually.

Hope that helps some of you who have been interested.

11 months ago | [YT] | 29

Project Granja Caimito

Hello everyone!

Right now a long video is being uploaded. It will show you the upper swales but also I have to report another incident and by now this is not a coincidence anymore.

We have lost another horse.

There is no doubt anymore that it is being done by someone and obviously I have a very good idea who that someone is. We are in Europe and for a conviction of the perpetrator(s) we need solid evidence. That evidence is next to impossible to obtain and that's the main reason why the person has done it 3 times now. They feel secure in the shadows.

Therefore there is no reason to press charges at the police station as it will only confirm on a psychological level. Their main goal is to make us leave - just like what happened with the previous owner.

They also seem to be watching here a bit.

So everyone, please stay calm as we are. We are obviously not happy about the losses and the innocent animals that suffered for nothing and have been stolen their lives didn't need to die. However, none of that will change a thing and it has zero effect on us or this project.

Some day they will try something again and be caught on camera and then convicted. Beyond any doubt we will press charges once we have hard evidence.

The video will become public at 14:00 today.

Stephan

11 months ago | [YT] | 26

Project Granja Caimito

Once again there is no new video. There are things going on but I am busy myself and there isn't so much that looks good in a video. Soon I'll report again :-)

1 year ago | [YT] | 28

Project Granja Caimito

Don't worry. We are still here but busy with things and there hasn't been something interesting enough for a video. One major topic at the moment is water as it's getting a bit tight. You'll see in due time what happened.

1 year ago | [YT] | 25

Project Granja Caimito

Now that we are getting more and more instrumentation in place for control and monitoring I am wondering what might be interesting for you and we should share in some way.

We have a bunch of sensors and some cameras already. We can expand on that. For example, we could give you a live feed of the Miyawaki forest. Sure, it's not bamboo but a lot slower growing. But once we have animals again - not in the next few months though - there might be something to watch.

I'm fishing for ideas and wishes.

1 year ago | [YT] | 16

Project Granja Caimito

So... Good news but not yet a video. We have solved the transportation problem for Angel and from the coming Monday on we should be back into full swing.

We also dodged a fraud and did not fall for it while trying to buy a container. Apparently we had been in contact with a scammer. So we need to find a real supplier for the 40' container.

Expect a new video during the upcoming week in which we likely will show you cables and water lines being buried in trenches amongst other things. I guess we'll be on a weekly schedule for the videos from now on. We'll see how it goes. Lot's of things to do.

Also... Keep in mind: April 9 is the big planting event for the Myawaki forest. 28.500 saplings will be delivered on that day.

1 year ago | [YT] | 20

Project Granja Caimito

April 9 is going to be the day for planting 14.400 trees. More details in the next video. Please send email to info@caimito.net if you want to participate

1 year ago | [YT] | 18

Project Granja Caimito

Not a video yet but here is evidence of some prep work ;-)

This is going to be the leveled sitting place for the first 40' shipping container that will be our tool storage. What you is a mix of stones and dirt. It is slightly compacted and there will be more fresh stones around and on top. We've got some rain tonight as well and that should wash the dirt into the cracks. The container itself will sit on some concrete footers but everything is loose and held down by the sheer weight of the container.

A similar base will then follow later for the second container. The ground needs to be raised up quite a bit more for that and that likely means to extract more material from a pond.

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2 years ago | [YT] | 23

Project Granja Caimito

It is cloudy and we are getting some drops of rain but not real rain. More material has arrived and suppliers and service providers have called back in. That means things are picking up now. You'll see soon in an upcoming video what that is.

2 years ago | [YT] | 31