Another Landslide

The road caved in up the mountain near the sign that says: "Calle sin salida.  No pase."

The guys have been working all day to clear the mess.  And it's just miserable work in this drenching, unrelenting rain.  Many thanks to the Gloors for the truck and Jorge and Alirio for helping to clear the road.

Oh the joys of tropical living!

Finca Meeting, Mozote and Camouflage Artists

When things seem to flounder a bit in life, call a meeting. Sit down at the table with your spouse, kids, or work companions. Set an agenda, and you won’t believe the things you can accomplish...

Here we are, all the Finca personnel, sitting down with a glass of mozote, a very rural Costa Rican drink, discussing more efficient ways to capture and use rain water, conserve energy, implement integrated pest management during the rainy season, plan for the dry season, review maintenance routines and suggest ways to reduce costs. We all learned from each other. Marcia provided an excellent review on mosquito control that nicely tied right into recycling and overall tidiness. And we drank mozote! It was delicious!

Recently, Luis Poveda reminded us of the importance of mozote!  I regarded the plant (Triumfetta spp., F. Tiliaceae) as a medicinal – used to treat mostly gastrointestinal complaints. However, Poveda recently reminded us that mozote – a mucilaginous plant* – is also highly beneficial for intestinal health. It’s like an emollient for your insides! The locals make a drink from it and enjoy it regularly to maintain intestinal health! So, the next day, Armando cut a couple of mozote stems, brought them back to the kitchen, and taught us girls how to make the mozote drink. The plant grows very well in the meadows at El Tigre. However, once the meadow (charral, or abandoned pastureland) regenerates past the scrubland stage and grows into a forest, the meadow plants, including mozote, get shaded out and die. So, to prevent this from happening, we deliberately maintain some of the meadows, where the mozote plant thrives, along with other edible plants, like chan.

Here’s Marcia pointing out the mozote bark. The procedure for making the mozote drink begins by scrubbing the stem and then cutting and removing the outer bark. Inside, you can feel a mucilaginous layer, which you then peel off, cut into chunks, and place in a jug covered with fresh water.

At that point, you put it in the fridge and leave it soaking for 24 hours. Next day, you can easily notice how the water has thickened. And that is the mozote drink! But, if you want it to taste good (it has no real taste by itself) you can toss in a few herbal nutrients or fruit juices. For example, this time we made a separate herbal infusion (Stevia, to sweeten the water; a variety of mints; and pineapple sage) and, just before serving, mixed the cooled herbal infusion with the mozote liquid. It was delicious! We all drank two glasses of it (except for GRAK, of course) and walked away from our gathering feeling just great.

Regarding mozote, Luis Poveda wrote: "Muy estimada Victoria, recuerde que el mozote se puede mezclar con limón ácido y grape fruit, sabe delicioso también con naranjilla, carambola, casy otros frutos, es excelente para problemas de colitis, gastritis, estrenimiento y refrescante."

Gracias Maestro!

Take a look at this amazing camouflage artist. This insect looks just like a leaf! I took a picture of him here being held by Yaneth, and then another of him hiding in the hibiscus foliage. Can you see it?

*Mucilages are hydrocolloidal polysaccharides. I found the following description in ‘Herbal Medicine’, by Rudolf Fritz Weiss, MD: “Mucilaginous plants owe their name to the fact that they contain slimy substances. The slime or mucilage envelops and protects badly inflamed mucous membranes, including those of the stomach. At the same time they have a bland effect, binding gastric acid and irritant decomposition products.”

Squeezing out Torsalos: a Tropical Pastime…

Here’s the first of a few pictures showing Armando squeezing a torsalo out of Eddie the Beagle. I have written about Botfly larvae before and, no doubt, will do so again. Torsalos are part of tropical life, especially if you own dogs or cows. They are not something to fear – you just have to learn the life-cycle and deal with it. If you don’t want to deal with torsalos while visiting Costa Rica, don’t let the mosquitoes bite you! The vector for Botfly larvae is the mosquito!

You can Google lots of information on Botflies but, in a nutshell, the cycle starts when a mosquito that is carrying Botfly eggs lands on a dog, bites and feeds - and at the same time deposits Botfly eggs onto the skin. If the conditions are correct (hide thickness, etc.) larvae hatch under the skin and begin feeding on the host – in this case, our Beagle, Eddie; the larvae then grow under the skin and, after a period of time, drop out onto the soil, shortly thereafter turning into Botflies, thus completing the cycle. I have read that some entomologists have allowed Botfly larvae to develop undisturbed under their skin, but I don’t know of anybody who has done it. Everybody we know in Costa Rica feels exactly the same as we do about torsalos: kill them! Squeeze them out! Break the cycle! But make sure you know what you are doing!

If you don’t know how to squeeze the larvae out completely intact and alive, then don’t even try! You could make a mess of it, causing a major inflammatory reaction and infection. I suspect that messed up torsalo extractions account for a big percentage of visits to the vet. Every rural village, however, has an expert in extracting torsalos! In our case, it’s Armando. It just takes him a few seconds to massage the larva into position and then he just pops it out! If you don’t know somebody who can do that, then take your dog to the vet! And remember, there could be multiple larvae!

In our experience, we have rarely seen torsalos in cats or horses. Some dogs get pestered more than others. Why? Because some dogs let the mosquitoes bite them! Watch your dog when a mosquito buzzes near him. Most dogs will whirl around and snatch the mosquito, snapping their jaws shut; snatching it right out of the air and eating it! But mosquitoes do not let sleeping dogs lay and, unfortunately, Eddie falls into a deep slumber after a big meal - this is the second torsalo Armando has squeezed out of him this week! And he does not like the procedure one bit. The other dogs are so patient, understanding that we’re trying to help them; they sit quietly and bear the discomfort as Armando squeezes away - but not Eddie! When we have to squeeze a torsalo out of Eddie, it’s a major production. We need at least two people to hold him still and keep him from biting at Armando! As soon as Armando starts extracting the torsalo, Eddie starts to struggle and agitate, howling the whole time at the top of his lungs - and he’s strong! In fact, he twisted and agitated so much, that I had to put down the camera and help Yaneth with him, so that Armando could finish the job!

At last, done! Here’s a shot of Armando holding up the intact, living torsalo he squeezed out of Eddie. Most dogs actually eat them! As always, Eddie instantly felt relief. I massaged the area a bit with a dab of herbal cream with camphor, and Eddie trotted off to join the other dogs for breakfast. Some sources recommend suffocating the larvae, by putting Vaseline or some such goop on the skin over the air-hole to facilitate extraction, but I think that works better on humans than dogs because they just lick everything off.
For Lola la Vaca and her calves, we use the ‘big gun’: injectable Ivermectin, which kills both internal and external parasites, including torsalos. We also regularly bathe all the animals – forest living requires a multi-pronged approach in dealing with ‘plagas’ for both flora and fauna. In general, the lazy organic gardener’s approach – and perhaps the most effective in the long run – is the food-chain. If you see lots of grasshoppers chomping down this season, just watch the birds fly in!

Gerry’s just back from New Orleans. Go Saints! It looks like they’re still doing their Second-Half Magic! As always, we unloaded the suitcases full of goodies from the States not easily got here in Costa Rica. Years ago, we hauled back stuff like horseradish, but now Costa Rica sells all sorts of interesting edibles. However, even now, there are still things we have trouble finding, which must be hauled back from trips abroad. This trip, when Gerry had purchased everything on our mechanic’s list needed for our Jeep Grand Cherokee, his luggage was notably over the weight limit, even after splitting the stuff into two bags! I could forget my electronics wish list and everything else…

He didn’t notice what I had done to the hedgerow until the following morning. And, like everybody else who comes from the north, upon viewing the scene depicted in this picture, he believed that I’d gone completely bonkers – massacring our gorgeous, flowering hedgerow. Why not leave the hedge to grow and age, like the magnificent hedgerows all over the English countryside? Because we live in the tropical world – in a forest, with only a small clearing carved to allow in sufficient sunlight for solar living. You have to prune shading plants away from your solar panels! This is a major cause of power drop when consumption remains the same, especially during the rainy (growing) season.

There have been so many rainy, cloudy days this season, that the few sunny hours we do get become highly coveted. We need to maximize as much sun as possible for the fruits and vegetables planted in our small clearing. However, in the meantime, the shrubbery has grown and sprawled, shading and keeping areas damp. It’s the September ‘Menguante’ – time for a major pruning! The hedgerow is actually known here in Costa Rica as a ‘living fence’, comprised of plants that accept and even thrive from a right proper pruning! Our hedgerows are made up mostly of Megaskepasma erthrochlamys, Gliricidia sepium and Dracaena species (locally called Itabo and Cana india), along with a scattering of Bursera simaruba. All of these plants and trees not only thrive with pruning, but you can plant the pruned stakes right back into the hedgerow, making the ‘living fence’ even thicker and less penetrable than before. Thus, we keep the dogs in! And we let the sun shine in!