Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Gerry makes Jambalaya for Thanksgiving.  His first attempt using John Besh's recipe.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  I hope you spent the day with family or friends, or at least with your dogs, celebrating all that we have to be thankful for.  All around us we face threats and problems.  So, it’s important on this day – and perhaps everyday – to look at what we have, with gratitude and humility, and to celebrate joyfully.  Sometimes, feeling this joy amongst friends, we have sudden bursts of inspiration.  Suddenly, we don’t have a problem – we have an opportunity! 

Second-Line Buddhist style in New Orleans

What a different world.  I took this shot several days ago, while sitting rather glumly in our apartment in New Orleans.  Suddenly, I heard the jazzy sound of a Second-Line Parade!  I rushed to the window and saw that it was the annual Hara Krishna Second-Line.  I got this picture but, unfortunately, missed the musicians and the crowd in front.  However, you get to see the float with the maestros sitting there being pulled by some of their acolytes…

Happy Thanksgiving, wherever you are today!

Jazz for Early Risers

Last night we listened to John Cleary play his magic at d.b.a. on Frenchmen Street. He’s an amazing one-man show – a legend in New Orleans – stirring the crowd of all ages and all walks of life to movement and joy, as he played that piano and sang to us – giving it his all. Pure magic! After the show, we had drinks at Tujague’s, dinner at Evangeline, and were in bed before midnight. Like some other talented musicians in New Orleans, Cleary started his show at 7p.m.

This morning, we read in the Times Picayune, that another Jazz trumpet legend, Kermit Ruffins, announced that he would begin playing his weekly gigs at Vaughan’s (a traditionally late-night watering hole) also at the very reasonable hour of 7p.m., so that he too could get to bed by midnight! We’re all getting old. We want to go to bed early and get up early. Kermit wants to walk his daughter to school in the morning. I have always been an early riser - and the world has just now caught up to my early-rising habits. We can have our jazz and rise early too! Thank you Kermit! Thank you John Cleary! Jazz makes life worth living and we can now get it live – and early!

Today is Veterans’ Day. I’m thinking of it more now, as history repeats itself. We went to the renowned New Orleans World War 2 Museum this past week, and reviewed once again the horrors and devastating losses – 65,000,000 dead throughout the world! The Museum displayed all too vividly the battles at Normandy, the bombings, the endless horrors throughout the Pacific, the nuclear devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which ended the war. And we walked out of there feeling glum and uneasy. Humans study history so as not to repeat human mistakes, and yet we just do not learn. We just cycle around again, as if determined to self-destruct our species.

Lettuce Experiment

Rainy weather is the best time for growing lettuces - under cover.  Take a look at Jose’s lettuce experiment.  We have found that our ‘sweet’ lettuces (90% water) prefer their roots snug – as in these hydroponic bamboo containers that Jose built.  We found it curious that lettuce grows faster, and looks better, in this hydroponic-type set-up than in the compost-rich soil pictured below.  The really green vegetables, like spicy lettuces, arugula, spinach and mustards do great in compost-rich soil, but it seems that high-water-content lettuces grow better in bamboo.  I was surprised and have had to think about why this is so.  That’s what experimenters do when faced with unexpected results. 

Today is Thursday, October 20, 2011, and for the last ten days we have been in what Costa Ricans call a “temporal”:  persistent rains, all day and all night, punctuated by periods of torrential downpours; followed by thick, cloudy mist – which is the time you can dash outside and see about the chores; followed by more rain.  We have forgotten what the sun looks (and, more importantly, feels) like…

This morning, I noticed that the Pseudosphinx tetrio caterpillars are back on the Plumeria trees again!  Back again so soon?  Or perhaps hawk moths metamorphose all the time, rather than just during particular seasons.  They were here during the month of July/August and now again in October; let’s see how the Plumeria tolerates leafing out again - and again!

I’ve started reading about the Animal Kingdom, particularly those groups representing the climax of a specific evolutionary line (birds, mammals and, of particular interest during this rainy season, insects).  And, within the insects, I have become quite fascinated by the Subclass Pterygota, Division II – Endopterygota.  They undergo complete metamorphosis and develop wings from inside the body (from imaginal buds) compared to Division I – Exopterygota (eg.Dragonflies), which undergo incomplete metamorphosis and develop wings outside the body. 

Even more specifically, I’m looking at the ants, bees and wasps (Hymenoptera).  The word Hymenoptera comes from:  hymen (membrane) + ptera (wing) = hymenoptera (membranous wings).  The Hymenoptera have inhabited the planet for over 200 million years and have the second largest number of species in the Insect Class - over 100,000 species have been described worldwide!  There are some 17,000 species in Costa Rica and many live here in the Zona Protectora, El Rodeo.  Ants, wasps and bees are my focus but I’m also looking at butterflies and dragonflies.

Photo of Diaethria astala
There are myriad butterflies here in the Zona Protectora of El Rodeo, including Morphos, which are quite common.  Students and experts come from all over the world to study butterflies and moths (Lepidoptera) here.  In fact, our neighbor, Gabriela, has a butterfly species named after her, which was discovered at her home, Finca Hamadryas.  I have always loved butterflies but felt overwhelmed by the idea of studying them. 

D. astala top side.
However, they really are the best way to begin studying the Insect Class, so I finally bought the prohibitively expensive DeVries books.  Butterfly life-history is an excellent example of complete metamorphosis. 

I am also studying a much smaller insect group at the same time:  the utterly beguiling Damselflies and Dragonflies (Odonata) with only around 5,000 species (compared with groups such as wasps, butterflies or beetles, which possess over 100,000 species each).  I see Dragonflies daily – glittering wings fluttering deep in the forest.  They are so beautiful!  Dragonflies are always around water.  They spend their larval stage in water, where they are voracious carnivores, consuming huge quantities of, for example, mosquito larvae.  Another reason to love to odonates!  InBio have published a nice field guide on Dragonflies and Damselflies by Carlos Esquivel.    

But I get ahead of myself.  Before tackling any species of the Insect Class in the Animal Kingdom, where you can quickly get overwhelmed, the student is wise to go back to the beginning and …read the introduction.  This is how you really get to know the author of any book and, in the case of biology, become inspired to go beyond just the syllabus, beyond just the question we have on a certain species.  And, when we do, we find that species have more in common than not.

All plants, no matter what the species, use inorganic substances to build themselves (photosynthesis).

All aerobic animals use glucose and oxygen in a process that produces carbon dioxide, water and energy, usually in the form of heat.  This process can be described in the chemical equation:

C6H12O6 + 6O2 = 6CO2 + 6H2O + Energy.

My general focus during this long, rainy season is on aerobic organisms adapted to dry land.  They all have in common complicated devices to preserve their internal environment.  Animals (Protozoa) and Plants (Protophyta) reproduce and respire and have that extra something that makes them alive and not dead.  So far even a 3-year old gets that much.    

The Insect Class belongs to the Phylum, Joint-Limbed Animals (Arthropoda).   The Spiders, Scorpions, King Crabs and Mites Class (Arachnida) are not insects – they are eight-legged.  That’s for another day.  The Insect Class alone is a huge area of study – hundreds of thousands species.  Once again, it’s important to read the introduction and look at what’s in common.  In the Plant Kingdom, I have managed to study plants to the Family level, but not often can I nail the Genus and Species.  But that’s the goal.

My neighbor, Paul Gloor, reminded me that I must always remember to document not just the Genus and Species, but also the discoverer and date of discovery.   Luckily, the Swedish naturalist, Carolus Linnaeus, did a lot of the work for the rest of us.  His work, Systema Naturae, 10^th Edition (1758), became the basis of the binominal system of nomenclature employed in the classification of animals and plants.  Nowaday, you need to go to research websites like Mobot, InBio or the Plantlist.org to study the latest in nomenclature of plants.  And yes, I have been most lax in not including, at the minimum – L. – along with the species.  In Costa Rica, plants and animals are getting discovered and identified all the time.   Taxonomists might change species around within Families and Genera but the species name and discoverer will always remain the same.  You just might have to go find it in a different Family…

Why study animal taxonomy now, after years of focusing on botany, trees and medicinal plants?   Well, it started long before that day when I wanted to know the name of the hawkmoth caterpillar crawling on my Plumeria trees.  Just by looking, you can see how well-adapted insects are in this forest environment.  And with climate change, we shall see ever faster adaptations.  I am also increasingly intrigued by the relationships observed between insects and plants.  Just observing ants, I understand that they are more ancient, better adapted and will survive the human species.  They succeed by their numbers alone and exist in virtually every habitat on this planet.  Here in the forest, we might not see a collared anteater every day.  But we will see ants, wasps and bees every day, whether we want to or not…

The ants are just here now – a few feet away from where I stand inside the house in this forest.  If a child drops a few crumbs from his cookie, the ants will soon come and clean them up.  If a moth inside the house dies and falls to the ground, the ants will soon come take it away.  This is harmonic living in the forest.  All we have to do is just let the food chain be.  This works just as well in the urban jungle, where the Insect Class has also flourished and adapted.  No matter how determined the human species is in attempting to annihilate the insects with toxic, chemical warfare, the resistant insects adapt and just come right back.  Like that persistent, impertinent weed that just pops right back no matter how determined the herbicidal warfare employed.  The smart humans must learn to try a different approach - just coexisting with like-adapted successful species on this planet.  We humans are simply part of the cycle.  We study the stages in the life-history of an insect which undergoes metamorphosis, in order to understand – and to sometimes develop strategies.       

Pterygota undergoes cycles (metamorphosis) – either complete:  egg – larva – pupa/chrysalis – adult, or incomplete, as in Exopterygota:  egg – larva (nymph) –adult.  Each species has its own set of requirements to morph and to survive in the environment.  Understanding these cycles, leads to discovery, understanding, and strategies for coexisting.

So, what have I learned so far?  Well, I am quite fascinated with ‘ovipositors’ – the egg-laying or stinging structures.  All Hymenoptera have an ovipositor, that, in the case of say, worker honey bees (Apis mellifica) has been modified from laying eggs to stinging.  The sterile worker bees use this weapon much more freely than the queen, who would be deprived of the normal ovipositor function of egg-laying. 

Much has been studied of the highly structured communities of honey bees and also many species of ants.  Wasps are different – they are usually solitary and parasitic.  The wasps use their ovipositor to modify the substrate on which their egg is deposited, making it more favorable for larval development, by altering the plant tissue or by paralyzing, incapacitating or killing the host or prey.  It’s not a pleasant image of Life-History but it is fascinating.  I sometimes observe wasps ‘casing’ prey.  Among the hymenopterans, we see parasitoids, predators and, also, pollinators and agents of biological control.  We have much to learn from these ancient species.  They will out-survive Homo sapiens, I have no doubt.

It was all a joke, Little Gerry

No, no, you’re not actually For Sale.  And, yes, we all had a good laugh over it.  Of course, you didn’t laugh.  How could you?  You’re a calf.  I never REALLY meant to sell you.  I was just so mad that last time you broke into the garden – again!  You slithered right under the sturdy fencing that we had erected, just like a small dog, and then proceeded to totally decimate our corn patch – you chomped the plants right down to the root!  That crop had taken several weeks to grow, and we were just about ready to harvest the corn.  I wanted to put you on the barbecue right then and there!  And, yes, I offered you up for sale in a fit of fury!

We had a few offers too – but all too low (we wouldn’t let them insult you that way…).  Nobody understood your value.  The reality is, Little Gerry, you are not for sale at any price.  We shall keep you here at the farm, where you can continue to enjoy the pastoral life, and we have taken steps to reinforce the fencing.  However, Little Gerry, if you annihilate the garden again, Big Gerry is going to get served the best steak he’s had in his life…

No Turkey for Thanksgiving

Well, Mr. Turkey didn’t last long.  One morning, when Jose went out to feed all the animals, he found him dead in the hen house!  We were serving him a special protein-enriched diet, he was doing so well with the hens, and the weeks just went by in idyllic avian fashion.  So his sudden death - with not a mark on him - came as a real surprise.  Was it blackhead disease – Histamonas melagridas?  We didn’t go to the expense of an autopsy, but asked around if anyone knew anything about turkeys.  A neighbor told us that they are more delicate than hens; that sometimes they just keel over for no apparent reason.  Well, so much for Thanksgiving turkey…

As we have found out very clearly living here this long, you should stick with what works locally, go native….  In the case of poultry, we shall stick to ‘criollo’ hens.  The Finca hens live the good life.  They spend their days outside, pecking all around the stable-yard, helping us to control insect larvae.  The compost is produced so much faster with the hens pecking away at it, and they also add their own nitrogen-rich droppings to the mix.  Even if we didn’t eat the eggs (which we do with much gusto), we would still keep hens out at the stable to control the insects.  At night, most of them return inside, though some prefer to roost outside up in the trees.  But they stay very close; we live in a forest with predators close by…

The eggs taste ssooooooo good.  We’re just approaching a population size now where we should cull some of the flock, especially the roosters – or else they will kill each other.  In the past, we didn’t have that problem, as predators always got to them first.  I just reread the ‘Omnivore’s Dilemma’, by Michael Pollan, and it just keeps delivering fresh insights.  The author found the chicken-killing experience unpleasant – who wouldn’t?  But he did it nonetheless.  The chickens had lived a good life at Polyface farm, and grass farmer, Joel Salatin, made sure that they were quickly killed and processed; very 4H.

But can I actually kill a chicken?  I don’t know.  I definitely will not pluck one – we’ll rent one of those machines I read about in Pollan’s book.  The whole thing will have to be organized with help from experienced farmers.  In any case, we can at least say that we know where our food comes from.

We mostly eat vegetables and fruit grown right here on the farm, and the animals play a huge role in improving the soil in which we grow everything.  Horse and cow manure, composted with stable bedding, chicken droppings and kitchen, produces a compost mix that, I contend, has greater value than gold.  The soil keeps getting better and better, as we continuously add more organic matter.  Gardening is something everybody can do to make his or her life a bit more enriching – in health and in spirit.  You see nature at work and you begin to deeply understand how interconnected everything is – how life circles back around through the soil.  Pollan describes this very well in ‘Omnivore’s Dilemma’.  You can’t read his books and go back into the grocery store like you did before.  You learn where your food comes from; you’ve gotten a glimpse of the industrial food business and the brutal treatment of animals.  And you want to eat food grown locally, even better grown by yourself!  The gardening experience brings so many benefits.  I truly believe that, to comprehend nature, you have to go beyond observation; you have to engage in it – growing and rearing things yourself - and then you really begin to learn the lessons.  Plants and animals tell us what they need just by looking at them!    

Farewell Flopsy

Farewell Flopsy.  Flopsy died last Monday.  Here’s a picture of Yaneth holding Flopsy earlier this year.  He has been my constant companion since he came to live with us.  Several years ago, while still living in Ciudad Colon, Animal Rescue friends asked if I would adopt some dogs that had been tortured by a very sick man.  He had already killed several dogs and, finally, the neighbors had had enough of hearing the pitiful yelps of dogs getting beaten.  Flopsy came to us with broken ribs, a broken jaw, missing teeth and lesions all over him.  He could barely breathe without whimpering in pain.  I swore the day he came to us that he would never suffer again, if I could help it.  It took a long time for his injuries to heal, and years longer before he would even let us pick him up without yelping in terror.  But time heals all wounds, and we were so glad when he trusted us enough to finally let us pick him up and hold him. 

And, thus, he lived at the farm and went with me everywhere.   We took the most recent pictures of Flopsy, while hiking with Armando and the other dogs down to the waterfalls this past August.  He kept up just fine with all the other dogs, despite having lots of white whiskers – showing his age.  But he remained healthy and active until just a few weeks ago, when I noticed that he was losing steam, couldn’t keep on weight, and began showing signs of kidney failure – an ailment that had already taken his companions, Chispa and Spotty.  Thus, we sadly recognized the same symptoms.  I suspect the cause of the kidney failure but am not sure – we have taken preventive measures. 

The last week, we knew that, soon, Flopsy was going to die and that there was nothing we could do but support him and keep him comfortable – and let him rest peacefully at home.  We have learned that if we take a dog with kidney failure to the vet, the dog does not come back home alive.  In no way do I want to denigrate our very fine and compassionate small animal vet, Dr. Rojas, in Ciudad Colon.  But he would be the first to agree that, sometimes, it’s best to keep the patient comfortable at home and not subject a dying animal to more stress, like IV drips and caged confinement, closed up with other sick animals.  Flopsy had a very good life after his rescue.  He brought smiles to us all with his very conversational…waoo wuoo wao wuoo and was much loved.   Farewell Flopsy.

m’a sa-laam-a Dr. Mahmoud El Zain Hamid

We were shocked and saddened to learn that Dr. Mahmoud El Zain Hamid died on Monday, September 19, 2011, while teaching at the University for Peace.  Mahmoud lived to teach – and inspired so many people in so many ways, that the University for Peace plans a special Memorial for him, so that people can give voice to how he touched their lives.

Yesterday, the University for Peace held a very nice remembrance service for Dr. Hamid, prior to celebrating planned activities for the International Day of Peace.  One of the students chanted a passage from the Koran, which was deeply felt by everyone.  Many tears flowed for this very kind and good man who left this planet far too early. 

We want to say to the world what Gerry said to Mahmoud when we last saw him:  “Thank you”!  Mahmoud inspired Gerry to go out and buy the publication:  ‘Climate Change 2007 - The Physical Science Basis’; the Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.  This massive document includes all the data and evidence pointing to the fact that the planet has, indeed, entered another period of global warming.  Gerry carefully read the book, studied all the data and analyses, and is now now more convinced of it (although not at the pace, nor with the certain catastrophic outcomes that some non-objective politicians and activists with their own personal agendas will have us believe).  The world must, therefore, brace for future change and mankind must adapt.  Mahmoud understood this; he came from Sudan to bring his message to the world at the University for Peace.  He passionately cared about the impact of climatic change on the peoples of the world.  He will be deeply missed.

After the remembrance service for Dr. Hamid, the students formed a large ‘circle of gratitude’ as part of the International Peace Day.  People from all over the world joined hands and, for many moments, we shared a collective sense of warmth and goodwill.  For me, it was a very deep and satisfying feeling to share with so many people.  I remain optimistic for the human species.           

Box Fight in Pricemart

So what’s life been like since Gerry retired?  Well, I’ll give you the latest little episode.  I usually enter the Membership Warehouse Store, Pricemart, with a list and a mission:  to get in and out of there as fast as possible.  When Gerry retired, I eventually talked him into going with me to help haul out the big, wholesale-sized packages, even though he really dislikes shopping in general and these ‘Big-Box’ places in particular (“I abhor these appalling bloody abysses, with their retarded zombie staff”).  He tries to avoid it like the plague – but, over the years, Gerry has learned that it’s sometimes best to take the path of least resistance…  Still, from day one, he made it clear that he only entered that store under great duress.  And that I owed him.  This trip last Friday was no exception but his mood was even more foul than usual - and I was irritable too.  So we walked in there with the list, quickly piled up the supplies in the shopping cart and went to the check-out counter.  While Gerry was unloading the items onto the conveyor belt and the clerk was scanning the items, I quickly moved to the end of the counter and packed them neatly back into another cart.  Every action was designed to expedite the process, in order to get out of the store as quickly as possible and with the minimum of fuss.

So, I had just finished stacking the items and was ready to sign the credit card receipt, when Gerry storms through the crowd, takes one look at our neatly stacked shopping cart, and does not like what he sees!  Suddenly, he demands of a ‘packer’ more boxes to pack up the merchandise the way he wants to do it!  He needs lots of boxes – and he wants them “ya” (right now, for non-Spanish speakers)!  So now boxes are flying, clerks are running to get more boxes - and I am burning with fury; I just want to…

…grab a box and whack Gerry up-side the head with it!  So he grabs a box and throws it at me – and now boxes are really flying.  And now everybody is throwing boxes…  Boxes are flying everywhere…  It’s a Box Fight at Pricemart!  And now everybody is laughing – because it is all so ridiculous – and everybody now gets a couple of boxes to take home. 

Wait a minute!  Did that really happen?  Well, some of it did.  As Gerry demanded boxes and more boxes, I ended up just paying for the bill, my face blazing hot with rage and embarrassment.  But I remained silent, keeping in mind that the mission was to just get out of there; Gerry gave the harassed ‘packer’ a good tip and we left the store – and we didn’t really start to laugh about it until later.  Did that really happen?  Did we just behave that way?  The main thing to remember in situations like that is to keep laughing and loving, no matter how much you want to pick up that box and…

What is this Caterpillar? Answer: Frangipani Hawk Moth Larva

Can anyone identify this caterpillar?  Thank you Kathryn Kostka de Tanzi and Barry Biesanz and Mark Plotkin for the feedback!  This is a Frangipani Hawk Moth Larva called Pseudo sphinx tetrio - a sphinx moth- that loves Plumeria trees - and also Oleander trees.  We had about 15 of these colorful creatures living on the Plumeria rubra (Frangipani) trees during most of August.  They chomped down on the leaves and soon nearly doubled in size, each caterpillar claiming his own branch, and eventually they ate all the leaves.   I need not have worried, the leaves quickly started growing back and no lasting damage was apparent.  What would they morph into next?  One day I decided to take these pictures.  And it’s a good thing I did, because the very next day all the caterpillars were gone.  Sometime during the night, they all came down from the Frangipani trees and went somewhere else! 

Every year around this time, we see these caterpillars - Tetrio Sphinx-  during this particular phase of their life-cycle.  They are so colorful as larva but morph into a rather dull, grey moth.  Robin came over and saw one thrashing about - why?  It was trying to avoid a pair of bees trying to sting it!  Not sure if Robin got the shot. 

Actually, right now is high season for butterflies in the El Rodeo forest; there is an astounding variety of them, which would dazzle any collector, or even any non-collector for that matter.  And there is much to learn from them.  Our neighbor has even observed moths that mimic wasps.  Nature never fails to astonish and fascinate, offering lessons to those who want to observe and study it, and producing a state of wonder for those who just want to walk within it.

So what’s this big white bird running about with our hens?  We now have a turkey out at the stable!  Until recently it belonged to a neighbor, who bought a pair of them with the idea to breed them.  But her dog had a different idea…  That big bird was just too tempting.  So, after the female became Thanksgiving doggie-dinner, she asked us to adopt the male, and he has adapted surprisingly well.  He seems to get on with the hens – he doesn’t bully them and they don’t peck him. 

He’s a gentle giant in a hen house where, yes indeed, there is a pecking order…  We let them out into their garden during the day but they all go back inside at night, along with the turkey.  We have learned that the forest can very easily make quick meals out of ‘free-range’ hens.  But Jose has accomplished the next to impossible – he has created conditions so that the hens can thrive in a ‘free-range’environment yet survive. We breed criollo hens for their eggs. Criollos, like all natives, can resist illnesses and are adapted to the tropical climate – and they produce incredibly delicious eggs with very bright yellow yolks!

Seeking Wild Tomatoes

I am a tomato freak.  One time at a dinner party, a friend told me, “Do you realize that the only thing we’ve talked about all night is tomatoes?”  Those are the sorts of friends I have.  Back when we lived in PA and NJ, I tried growing lots of tomato varieties, and so relished the taste of a tomato just off the vine after flourishing in the long summer sunshine.  The best-tasting tomato is the one you grow yourself in your garden.  The reason why store-bought tomatoes taste so insipid – the more perfect the red tomato you choose, the more insipid it is likely to taste – is due to commercial practices. 

Read investigative food journalist Barry Estabrook’s book, called ‘Tomatoland’, for the sad, shocking story of tomato cultivation.  Estabrook inspired me to look again at the original wild tomato, the tiny cherry tomato – Solanum pimpinellifolium – progenitor of the modern tomato.   Unfortunately, since tomatoes have been cultivated commercially, the original wild tomatoes have become rare, even to their native Andes.   Estabrook described his expedition in the Andes in search of the elusive wild tomato.  He obtained GPS coordinates of a, “pretty good cluster”, of wild tomatoes from the well-known tomato geneticist, Roger Chetelat, of the University of California at Davis.  Chetelat e-mailed him a list of common names to help him in the search – tomatito, tomate de campo, tomate de culebras, tomate de zorro, tomate silvestre.  The names tell us that the locals refer to the progenitor as a ‘wild tomato’, not really a tomato that they would cultivate and eat. 

His Peruvian expedition was full of unexpected adventure but, finally, Estabrook found the plant way up in the high desert of Peru.  Solanum pimpinellifolium was a scruffy plant; scruffy but surviving, despite impossible odds – and laden with tiny tomatoes!  He popped a tiny tomato into his mouth and described what he tasted:  “The bright, sweet pop of taste was followed by a lingering, pleasant tartness, that essential balance that defines a great tomato.”

Unfortunately, the store-bought tomatoes are just as insipid in Costa Rica as everywhere else, but it’s not easy to grow large tomatoes in the tropical garden.  The sun sets in Costa Rica by 6 p.m. year round, and the rainy season limits sun to less than 4-6 hours daily, which significantly reduces the variety of tomatoes that you can grow here.  Thus, small is better.  Tiny tomatoes have a chance to ripen and turn nicely red on the vine long before the tropical elements begin to attack, which invariably happens with large tomatoes.  Where could I find a Tomate Silvestre here in Costa Rica? 

Our search led us to our friend, Hugo A. Zuniga Molina, who has carved out a totally self-sufficient garden paradise for himself and his family up near Pico Blanco in Escazu.  Years ago, he found some tiny tomato plants while walking in the wild areas of high Escazu, took them home and planted them.  Now, they are all over his garden, clearly healthy and seeding readily and delicious.  However, Hugo did remind us that for reliable results, we should ferment the tomato seeds (from the basket of tomatoes that he generously allowed us to pick!), not dry them, prior to germinating them in our garden.  We’d found our wild tomato! 

Hugo regards nature as his teacher and, over the past 25 years, has transformed a steep mountainside into a series of terraced gardens, just like in Peru, where the (now) rich, composted soil produces an amazing array of edible plants.  He collects all the water from the rooftops and directs it into holding tanks, where it is recycled back throughout the garden and into fish ponds.  His septic system produces gas for his kitchen and treated water further down the mountain, which flows crystal-clear into a stream.  Hugo doesn’t recognize any plants as ‘weeds’; all plants have organic value at least.  And most have much more value to man than that; it just requires a little observation and study to discover it.  He explained that every problem on the tropical, organic farm can have very simple solutions, if you just stop to think about it – how to conserve seeds, recycle hydroponic water, produce fertilizer, and so much more, to make your farm more productive and ecologically sound. 

You can learn more about Permacultura Pico Blanco by contacting Hugo and Norma at email:  picoblaco@ice.co.cr
Or take a look at their website: http://Sites.google.com/site/montniveus

It’s clear to all that I’ve been thinking a lot about gardens and weeds lately.  Yes, I just finished Richard Mabey’s delightful book called ‘Weeds’, and it just brought back the whole English realm of gardens, gardening and gardeners.  We used to go to England regularly for Pubs & Gardens tours – Gerry picked the pubs and I chose the gardens.  I loved them all but grew increasingly more fond of the natural, woodland ‘gardens’, such as in the Lake District - natural, free-flowing plantings.  As time went on, and after visiting possibly hundreds of gardens worldwide (but mostly in England – oh! the English and their gardens), I felt certain that you just cannot improve on nature.  The most breathtaking places on earth are natural woodlands.  Humans can create stunning gardens – but we can’t improve on natural succession. 

Reserva El Tigre is mostly forest – left to nature – with the gardens confined to near the house and the solar panels.  Over the last several years, the garden has evolved, as I evolved as a gardener, from exclusively exotic ornamentals to a mix of edibles and mostly native ornamentals.  Volunteers popping into the garden – called weeds by those who maintain designed gardens - are mostly welcomed to our free-form, somewhat chaotic world of green.  It turns out that some of the ‘ho-hum’-looking plants that unexpectedly appear in the garden can have great value.  In fact, a large clump of a rather weedy-looking shrub, Witheringia solanacea (yes, the tomato family again!) has brought students here from the University of Costa Rica, avidly collecting it for their research – yet another effort to seek the true value of weeds!

      

Mr. B's Story

So here’s how it all went down, at least as Mr. B later recounted his story to us - hysterical and true!  Gerry has heard Mr. B repeat this story a few times and laughs just as heartily as the first time he heard it!  And now the word is out!  Here’s how it was that night in Escazu:

There had been a robbery in the neighborhood the day before, so Mr. B. brought his guard dog home from his business establishment for a few nights to protect his house.  As he told Mrs. B, the dog will bark and chase off anybody who tries to jump the fence into the garden.  And the next door neighbor also reassured Mrs. B that, if any intruder gets past the dog, then he would get out his gun and scare the thieves off!

So that soothes Mrs. B’s nerves and so, after dinner, she goes to bed.

Meanwhile, Mr. B goes outside on the front porch for a smoke and a nightcap, watching his dog loll about in the garden.  The bar at the end of his cul-de-sac was bellowing out the usual music for the usual crowd (a highly questionable bunch – at best…).  But Mr. B is used to the racket; it’s just the normal background noise on his street.

Suddenly, Mr. B watches somebody’s hand slip through the fencing but realizes that it’s an employee from his shop, who knows the dog well, walking by outside.  So, the boy pokes his hand through the fencing for the dog to sniff and whispers some sort of doggy endearment to it.

However, Mrs. B couldn’t sleep, hears something, looks out of the window, sees a hand coming through the fence, and starts shouting – very loudly...  The dog then starts barking (the employee having rapidly disappeared, of course); the neighbor gets his gun and begins shooting into the air!  Well, now all the people at the bar run out, accompanied by much shouting and furor, scrambling over each other to get away (not knowing who was the target of the armed attack, but almost all with good reason to think it was them…) tearing down the street past Mr. B’s house.  And then, just to add further confusion, a police car that was driving around a couple of streets away, hears the shooting and comes screaming in to investigate, producing the usual, age-old response :  nobody knows anything; nobody was there; and, if they were there, nobody has a gun…  And so, finally, everybody goes back to bed.

However, as Mr. B recounted to us with a big smile on his face, he is still the only one who knows what really happened that night…

For Sale: Little Gerry

 Little Gerry (the calf) was born on Big Gerry’s (the husband’s) birthday last March.  Big Gerry had originally destined Little Gerry for the freezer and thus, for the past 18 months, the calf has been living an idyllic, pastoral life until the day would come when… “You won’t even know what’s happening, Little Gerry”….thwack.  However, this is Costa Rica, and so the long saga began.  Thank you everyone for all the logistics help related to a 4H-approach to knowing where your food comes from:  certifications, timbres, refrigerated transport to hygienic facility, professional butcher, vacuum sealing and, voila – ready for the freezer. 

But, “What were we thinking???”   

We don’t even have a freezer with the capacity for Little Gerry!  We are 100% Solar Power.  And what really made us question our sanity was this:  we rarely eat red meat anyway – no matter how excellent the quality!

Why not keep Little Gerry as a pet?  I learned that lesson the hard way.  Bovines are not equines!  They are a lot more trouble!  The short answer is to read the book:  “A Naturalist on a Tropical Farm”, by Alexander Skutch.  I read his warning on keeping bovines – the flies, the torsalos, the broken fencing.  Cows are vagabonds – but did I heed his warning?  Of course not; ‘stupid me’ had to learn my own lesson the hard way.  Of course, nowadays we have modern methods for controlling pests, as well as traditional ones – like stable hens chomping down on larvae and insects – but it’s a continuous battle to keep pests under control in the tropical forest.  And we always have to think about resistance.      

So what was I thinking?  Well, things always have a way of cascading.  We just planned on keeping one cow, Lola La Vaca, for her milk, and we just vaguely, kind-of, destined her future calves for the freezer.  We didn’t really think much about the how and the why until we got started with the logistics.  And that’s when the saga began.  Little Gerry was Lola La Vaca’s second calf and, at the time, I was really keen on making our own cheese and yoghurt.  So we were just beginning to experiment with her natural bacteria for cheese-making when she died.  Much to our shock, she died from an infection, a week after the traumatic, caesarean delivery of her third calf, stillborn, on Easter Sunday. 

And that put an end to bovine cheese-making!  I thought briefly about goats – goat yoghurt is wonderful – but right now I’m taking a break from animal husbandry - and home-made, milk-based products!  Now I’m taking the path of least resistance and staying with organic gardening and just doing battle in the plant world.  Biodiversity is the key to organic gardening in the tropics:  mix many plants together; include lots of pest-attracting natives, like Tuete; and go with the flow.  Stick with plants that thrive and don’t slave over plants not suited for the location or that require too many resources to keep alive.

Some weeks ago, back when I was feeling a bit glum about having to give up on yoghurt pro-biotics, fellow gardener, Hugo Zuniga, introduced me to plant pro-biotics:  Water Kefir, gelatinous masses of beneficial bacteria and yeasts (also called Japanese Water Crystals, Ginger Beer Plant, Snow Lotus, Tibicos and other names).  I had lots of fun playing with recipes – trying to make it more palatable, so that somebody besides just me would drink it, but nobody really liked it - except the ants, which just love tapa dulce and completely invaded the kitchen!  So now Yaneth is grumpy and the Water Kefir is in our little freezer.

We haven’t completely eliminated animals, however!  The horses have adapted very well to forest-living and, now that the guys have built a proper enclosure for our chickens, they have begun to breed and thrive.  It’s fascinating to watch chickens – the protective mother, the pecking order.  But then, I’ve been observing insects lately – even having conversations with them, “Stay off my basil”!

Insects are the big problem here in the tropical garden, not so much ‘weeds’.  I’m currently reading this book about Weeds, by Richard Mabey.  He describes the correlation of weed behavior with human behavior:   humans, by reducing biodiversity, enclosing the Commons, introducing mono-culture, and applying chemicals, allowed only the toughest plants to survive, irritate, vex and plague humankind; who are now determined to eradicate the pest that they helped to create!  Mabey is a fun-to-read, botanical author like Michael Pollan; fun reading but with many insights.  The weeds we have in the tropics are mostly exotics that escaped from gardens, although the Pro-Nativa organization has recently been quite effective in guiding Costa Rican gardeners to plant native plants, rather than foreign ones.

So, the upshot is, we have no freezer for Little Gerry.  Do you want to buy Little Gerry for your freezer?  He is a natural grass-fed animal, who is in very good condition, unlike most cattle in this country.  Big Gerry is very unhappy about this but has agreed that it makes most sense to sell him – even though he threatened to put me in the freezer for prematurely whetting his appetite…

Monkey feasting on Pitahaya fruit

The monkeys always get the very best!  Here’s a shot just outside the bathroom window of a Capuchin monkey snagging the last and best of the Pitahaya fruits.  We’d have grabbed it first but couldn’t persuade anybody to climb up the tree to get it… 

Here’s a shot of the same Pitahaya cactus in full-bloom a few weeks later; the flower is huge, white and night-blooming.  I took this picture at about 5 a.m. while the flowers were still wide-open.  I also found another bloom on a cactus growing closer to the ground, with a slew of stingless bees pollinating it.  However, by 9a.m. it had closed, and that was that.  Show over. 

Willow Zuchowski, author of ‘A Guide to Tropical Plants of Costa Rica’, writes of Pitahaya: “The epiphytic cactus with the most impressive flowers is a dry-forest, night-blooming cereus, called pitahaya (Hylocereus costaricensis), a species with branching triangular stems.  In the wet season, the fragrant flowers open to a diameter of ca. 30 cm.  The bright magenta fruits are edible, and pitahaya-flavored ice cream is sometimes sold at the Pops ice-cream chain in Costa Rica.”

Yes, it’s true!  Fea still lives!  We estimate that she is at least 23 years old.  Back in Pennsylvania, our groundsman found Fea abandoned on the country road leading up to our farmhouse.  She was nearly dead from exposure, her Persian fur matted into a filthy mess.  He took her to the local vet, The Cat Doctor in Hellertown, who fixed her up - thank you, Susan - and a few days later, I spotted this scrawny, naked, really, really UGLY cat wandering around the barnyard.  He told me the story and hinted that he really didn’t want the ugly cat, so I took her and named her Fea – Spanish for ‘ugly’...  But then her fur grew back quickly, she thrived, and she even traveled with us to Costa Rica, where she has lived with us for the past 14 years.  Fea nearly died several times here in Costa Rica - this is a cat on her 8^th life!  I remember thinking more than once that Fea would be dead by the following morning – after the scorpion…snake…bad fall…bufo toad…and assorted other unknown ailments - but Fea was always with us the next morning and back outside again, where she thoroughly enjoys tottering about like a drunken sailor...

Menguante de Mayo

It was a full-moon for our last night in New Orleans, and the Mississippi river had nearly crested the levee nearby where we live. To save New Orleans from another devastating flood, the Corps of Engineers had just opened the Morganza Spillway upriver, flooding thousands of acres and causing much heartbreak. We left the next day for Costa Rica – coming home to a waning moon.

And there is no more important waning moon in Costa Rica than the ‘Menguante de Mayo’ – when we all rush to plant and prune as the first rains of the season begin.





And, Oh, the joy of farm-living; we came home to the Finca, finding abundant fruit – citrus, mangos, granadillas, pitanga, papayas, bananas, manzana de agua, capulin berries, and still more coming – all of it just so delicious! The air is fragrant with orange blossoms!





And what a bumper crop of mangos we’re harvesting this year - the best ever since Armando pruned and fussed with the trees. You have to pick mangos at just the right time, before the fruit gets too soft, box them up with newspaper, and then - get out them recipes! So far, we’ve made mango chutney, mango ice-cream and mango cakes; we’re sharing mangos with everybody in the neighborhood - even though everybody has their own mangos this time of year; and we’re even thinking of freezing some for the off-season… And, if that’s not enough, the unripe, sour criollo mangos are also ready – perfect for a tropical mango salad!

It has definitely started raining here – although quite late in the month for us - so we are very busy planting and pruning. After several years of living in the forest, I have come to cherish the small spaces of sunlight, not just for powering our solar panels but also for the gardens. Basically, we have allowed native, forest species to take over the ornamental gardens, and all the other sunny spots have been snagged for the edibles. Where there is sun and a source of water, we will grow edibles. In general, it makes more economic sense to go to the local organic markets to purchase your food. But there is no greater pleasure - and no better tasting food - than to grow your own! The big secret, besides finding the right sunny, well drained spot, is the soil. We’ve learned a lot about composting in the Tropics. It goes without saying that the horses, cows and chickens have done much to enrich the soil… And now, as we enter the rainy season with fewer sunny hours, we hasten to harvest the tomatoes before they succumb to too much rain and not enough sun. We have recently planted smaller varieties hoping that they ripen faster. Experiment, experiment, experiment…


The start of the rainy season also means fewer sun-hours for our solar panels. We have discovered that the key to solar-living is attentive maintenance and flexibility in the consumption of power. Also, we have all had to learn a smattering of electrical engineering just to live with the system. It took a few bumpy years of too many hours of needed generator back-up, before understanding how to live comfortably and efficiently with solar power. For example, when the generator came on in the middle of the sunny dry season, Armando learned that we have to wash the panels regularly to keep off the dust, because it significantly lowers efficiency. But now the daily rain will help with that task, although there is obviously less sun during the day! There’s always some issue to think about, and then deal with, when you’re living ‘off the grid’…

Geovanna and Lucero

The horses are doing very well indeed at the moment. We watched them today, feasting on grasses growing in the pastureland below the house. However, the biting-fly season is starting early this year! Luckily though, we have found that more flies pester us on the opposite side of the mountain, when we go out riding near the rivers; so far, there are not that many flies up in the pastures on our side – yet! We have been trying for years to reduce the pesky insect populations – cleaning drains, composting manure, treating the animals - and we had great success last year. This season could be difficult, however, because we don’t usually see many biting-flies anywhere until around July - and it’s only May! It goes without saying that we’re experimenting with herbal repellents – they all work but are too short-acting – especially citronella, which works best in mixtures with other herbs. You have to vary the formula frequently to keep confusing the bugs, and not allow them to get used to the scent. They should ideally be fragrant and pleasant to us, but really nasty to the mosquitoes and flies…

I was delighted to read in La Nacion and see on local TV newscasts, that they are re-planting the city park in San Jose, La Sabana, with native species, some of which are coming from the CNFL nursery located at the University for Peace – just up the road from where we live. The forest here in El Rodeo is actually spreading to La Sabana! We are thrilled for the residents of San Jose because these native trees produce berries and flowers that attract many species of birds and other fauna. The Sabana park will become much more like a forest, bringing joy and fascination to all those who appreciate Costa Rican biodiversity. There is no greater comfort to the spirit and body than a walk in a beautiful park. Just the beauty of the nature all around you brings such pleasure, and soon you feel your troubles lifting. Everything becomes possible, do-able. Of course, I’ve sought out parks all my life. No matter what city I have found myself in, and no matter how much stress I have in work or life, I have found solace in the city park. Back in Michigan, parks were everywhere – practically every neighborhood has a park – some with lakes. Now, San Jose will have a park worth visiting, and I am just delighted.

Can you imagine reading such a question on an official, national Census Form: “How do you primarily dispose of your garbage?” And one of the possible answers to check is, “Dump it in a river, a stream or the sea”! Believe it or not, that was a common disposal method in Costa Rica until recently, and now the new Costa Rican Census will quantify, among many other things, how Costa Ricans currently dispose of their garbage. That shows how important the subject has become in this country, when the government wants to try to quantify the problem. And, not only that, Question 17 asks specifically about re-cycling. Why do I write so much about re-cycling? Because we live ‘off the grid’ and have no municipal services at all – including no garbage pick-up. So we have learned to re-use and re-cycle the vast majority of everything we buy. Necessity is the mother of invention!

Since returning to Costa Rica from NOLA, we’ve read several news reports about re-cycling and clean-up efforts. Volunteers began cleaning up rivers last spring, including here in El Rodeo, and the movement has apparently now spread all over the country. What has really impressed me about the Costa Ricans is that they are now not only embracing the concepts of re-using and re-cycling, but also that they want to go out and help make things right. Business opportunities have also consequently grown, as people become aware of the value of re-cycled materials. Here in El Rodeo, the re-cycling company, Servicios Ecologicos, picks up re-cycled materials from households on a regular schedule, now that we have had to remove the community re-cycling bins because too many uninformed people were just dumping unsorted trash, not using the correct bin, or making a mess in general. Every change in this world requires a process of education and lots of patience… The main thing is that we are headed in the right direction. I see much less trash littering the woodland roads now than a few years ago, although we always carry along a bag to pick up crap when we see it. All any of us can do is set an example.

The kids joined Armando and me for a walk this past weekend. Oh, how the kids have grown! We wandered the trails and took a few pictures. Here’s a shot of the group.