Discussing with Benjie on what needs to be done

We brought in our trusted farmhelp Benjie on July 17, 2011 to start working with us after the green light was given by the sellers that we can start developing the farm. We were all excited. We are fortunate because there is a small concrete house with the basic amenities in it just beside our property. It was generously offered to us by the sellers as temporary  shelter for our farmhelp. It has a power connection, kitchen and a toilet. We just provided a folding bed, bedding and a mosquito net. Our arrangements with Benjie is to pay him a regular monthly salary and a meal allowance for his subsistence which leaves him enough cash to send to his family in the province.

The farm was practically a jungle when we moved in. It was really a challenge transforming it to what we have in mind. We sometimes felt overwhelmed by the volume of work  but we just had to start somewhere. We decided to  proceed with small steps and reassess every so often if we were going into the right direction. The first month was spent mostly on clearing the vines and overgrowth that has taken over the trees. We knew that we needed to cut some trees to let the sunlight through. First to go were the softwood trees. We then decided to take out some santol trees, kakawates and tibig to thin out the crowding but we did not want to sacrifice the diversity of what we already have so the more mature ones were left as is.

We knew that it will take a while to do the clearing with just one farmworker so getting some outside help was the next best thing to do. A local with two helpers were hired to cut the trees and clear the stumps. It costed us about P3000 extra just for the clearing  operations but without them work will proceed in a snail’s pace and we were just too excited to wait.

To get a head-start, I bought some banana (latundan and lakatan) plantings so we can already plant along the sloping sides while doing the laborious task of mowing the weeds and clearing the trees.

I had the cut wood stacked in piles sorted according to future use. The big ones were reserved for lumber and the softwood were used as landfill in some slopes. Some were chopped into smaller sizes as firewood.

I know we still have a long way to go but every journey starts with a step. With the way things are progressing, I can definitely say that we even moved steps ahead than what we have expected.