Mario Hernandez's Contacts

Mario Hernandez's Farms

What is your previous experience with Organic Agriculture and Sustainable Development?: Sustainable engineering classes

What are your reasons for joining WWOOF Mexico?: Learning about sustainable living and agriculture, Getting to know Mexico better

What do you want the farms and fellow WWOOFers to know about you?: I am looking forward to learning experiences with travelling and organic farming.

At 12:55pm on August 9, 2009, Stephen Pike said…: Hi Mario,

As much as we like to have another Minnesotan (I'm originally from the Chaska area) it does not appear that we will have any projects for wwoofers for a while. We do have some unfinished GPS/GIS work, maybe a month's worth. Do you have experience with field GPS equipment?

Regards,

Steve and Regina

At 3:29pm on August 10, 2009, Stephen Pike said…: Hi Mario,

Yes, it is a surveying project. Because of the extent of Mayan ruins on our land, INAH will not sign off on our "uso del suelo" until we provide them with a very accurate topographical map of the entire property. We have new NASA data from a 10 meter grid, but we need to take denser measurements in areas of interest before the map will satisfy their requirement. I have a 12 year old Trimble GPS system which gets differentially corrected horizontal errors of a foot (2 feet elevation). However, the forest presents a real problem because it doesn't receive enough satellites. My son suggested using a longer mast to get above the canopy. That may work but is bound to be rather time consuming. So that would be your job if you had the patience for it, unless you just happened to have access to a foliage penetrating LIDAR system and a platform for it.

Steve

At 6:09pm on August 15, 2009, Stephen Pike said…: I suspect that once I have the additional pieces for the GPS it will take several weeks to get the minimum number of measurements that MAY satisfy INAH.

As far as language is concerned, all of the people in our area speak Spanish. There is definitely a Chiapanecan accent but they tend to speak more slowly and draw out the end of sentences, which helps me to understand better than I might otherwise. We have two workers who cover the ranch work. One is at the ranch 24/5 and he lives in the main house so we interact with him like a family member.