What! You again?

What!  You again!  I thought I tore one of your legs off last November when I pulled you out of my riding boot?  Did your leg grow back so fast?  Or are you his brother?  Or has word gotten out…?  That this particular human female is tolerating tarantulas, so the coast is clear:  “Come on inside and chomp down on whatever nocturnal insect you can find, while the humans sleep – cricket, beetle, anything you can snatch”.  Our neighbor, Gabi, identified this arachnid as a Psalmopoeus reduncus – an Orangemouth Tree Spider.   We photographed this one on the glass shower door of the bathroom.  In the Tropics, the best fumigation method is good housekeeping, so there’s not much to eat inside the house anyway.  Out you go!   

There is so much flowering and seeding right now and the show is just getting started!  Here’s a shot of Passiflora edulis.  Armando planted this on the fence about three years ago, and I forgot about it until I saw the flower this morning.  Isn’t it lovely?  Of course, the bees are busily all about.  It stopped raining on a daily basis some weeks ago and the ground has already dried out.  Many leaves of the deciduous trees are starting to fall and the flowering season is definitely underway.  Unlike last year, Armando expects an excellent seed year.  Flowering trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants are blooming all over the place, from eye-popping trees like the stunning, yellow Cortez Amarilla or the gorgeous, violet Rondeletia, to delicate herbs in the understory. 

Take a look at this incredible flowering vine, with the flower and legumes attached on the stalk.  You can easily see herbaceous plants blooming along the roadsides and pasture edge, where they receive a good dash of sun.  Everywhere, as you walk around, you see dotting the landscape – Oh! where to start - mints, daisies by the score, Ageratums, Morning Glories, Legumes, Hibiscus, Justicias, Aphelandras, as well as a slew of flowering vines sprawling all over the canopy and causing confusion.  Is that a blooming tree or a vine?

One of my favorite native shrubs is now in fruit, Picramnia antidesma, which the locals call Caregre.  This elegant, small, understory tree, of the Simaroubaceae family, is utterly delightful, with its long, dangling racemes: tinsel-like strands of red, orange or yellow berries glittering in the forest shade.  All the berries eventually turn black and drop off, leaving the dangling string still attached to the shrub, giving a very charming effect.  I have long been fascinated by what factors in the forest determine the particular color of the berries of individual trees.  Here in the Zona Protectora of El Rodeo, we most commonly observe Picramnias with orange, orange-red or bright red berries. 

However, occasionally, we have also spotted bright yellow berries.  And the interesting thing is that, no matter what color the berry, they are all the same species, Picramnia antidesma!  Apparently, just as the human species has many individual differences, so do all other species.  Botanist and Costa Rican plant expert, Barry Hammel, explained it very succinctly in a note he sent to me: “Remember, species *do* vary, as we saw with that interesting pink version of the normally bright purple-flowered Justicia isthmensis at your place.  Also, I have Ruellia jussieuoides in a white-flowered form at our house, not seen anywhere else.  Coffee, itself, has versions with fruit color differences much the same as what you are seeing in Picramnia.  However, if you find other morphological differences, besides color, or maybe even phenological/and or habitat differences, that would be much more interesting than color alone.”

Orchids are also blooming now, although most are normally way too high up in the forest canopy to see. However, we can sometimes catch sight of both orchids and bromeliads growing on shrubs or small trees with chunky, corky-textured bark – especially the Guitite (Acnistus arborescens) - which flourish in this area.  With regular pruning, they do very well in even the smallest of gardens and can, thereby, bring the world of orchids closer to you.  We grow Guitite trees in the orange orchard as living fences – they are easily reproduced by estaca - and most of the orchids that are growing on them just suddenly appeared.  However, sometimes we rescue orchids when a tree collapses on the roadside and find them a new Guitite home!

Bromeliads are also blooming.  We rescued this Aechmea mariae-reginae a few years ago, when a tree collapsed across the road bringing down this huge bromeliad.   They usually flower way up in the canopy but, if you are lucky enough to see one up close, you can really appreciate the beauty of this magnificent plant. 

Here’s a shot of all four horses back together again after Lucero’s adventure.  The animals are all doing fine, although we had a bit of a scare recently.  Lucero, my favorite mountain-riding horse, went missing for two days a few weeks ago, and we thought somebody had stolen him!  During all the years here, the horses have always returned to the stables together.  However, often during the dry season, they prefer to stay out in the pasture for a few nights – there is so much to eat right now out there, including the delicious fruit of the Guazuma ulmifolia - and they don’t return to the stables for the special feed we use to entice them back.  Also, Lucero is normally the last to arrive and the first to wander off.  So, when only three of the horses returned one night, we didn’t think much about it.  However, when Lucero didn’t return for the second night together with the others, we immediately organized a search party.

We’ve never lost a horse here to snakebite, horse-thief or anything else, but 48 hours away from the herd was too long, and I was preparing for the worst.  Jose went out that night for hours searching the property and also first thing the next morning.  Armando and Norbert joined him in the morning as well, and searched the neighboring Muller pastures, quickly finding our Lucero frolicking and having the time of his life with a white mare owned by the neighbors.  Clearly, he seemed quite at home grazing with his new equine pal next door.  And no, Lucero did not want to go home!  In fact, he put up quite a ruckus!  I am still amazed at how Jose can handle that horse with so much ease…

Happy New Year!

Here’s a shot of Gerry and Jose sorting out the car.  We had hoped to jump-start the generator using both of our two car batteries in series – but we still couldn’t produce enough charge to get it started.  Jose even tried running the car, but no luck!  The generator battery was 100% dead!  2012 has not had a propitious start.  Our solar power system had not been operating normally for several weeks and then, on New Year’s Eve, the battery of our diesel generator died, which meant no back-up to the solar system.  Everything was closed for the holiday, of course, so we couldn’t purchase another battery until Monday.   This was an unprecedented event for us with the solar system – the first time since going solar six years ago that we were without back-up power.  Over the years, no matter how cloudy and rainy the weather, we could always charge the batteries with diesel power (normally two hours of generator power is enough to top-up the batteries).  It stopped raining weeks ago; however, most days remained overcast until…well, luckily, until just about the time that the generator failed.  Suddenly, a few days ago, the sun came out and we could survive on 100% solar power, if we were careful in conserving energy and not running down the battery.  However, the clock was ticking – we had fallen to 50% battery charge, when we realized that we would have to drastically conserve energy or risk losing power.  What that meant to all of us at Reserva El Tigre was that we had to conserve power and water!  We could only use well water and major electrical appliances during the sunniest part of the day, when the panels were generating solar power for the battery bank.  After sunset, therefore, we all had to minimize the use of power – just a few lights and no opening the refrigerator!  Gerry bought everybody candles in case we used a little too much power…  Okay, so that would mean a nice romantic New Year’s Eve dinner.  Que va! 

Our plan was to barbeque top quality burgers for New Year’s Eve.  However, it was such a windy night, that it took Gerry numerous attempts to light the charcoals; the wind kept blowing out the fire.  Finally, after nearly 30 minutes wrestling with the grill, he got the charcoals burning well and came inside, his hands black from the coals, for a well-deserved cocktail.  And then – suddenly, a big gust of wind knocked the grill right over and sent the burning charcoals flying!  So we rushed outside and put out the coals with the garden hose – using just enough water to put out the fire, of course, because of the generator problem…  We eventually calmed down, however, with the help of another cocktail, cooked the hamburgers in a skillet, and devoured them hungrily, if not romantically, accompanied by a very fine bottle of Chilean wine (Clos Apalta 2000) that tasted fine despite a rotten, exploding cork.  We then had a glass of Graham’s LBV port and went to bed long before midnight, as usual.

And now for something completely different.

Can you identify this arachnid?  I call him a ‘tarantula manso’ because he didn’t bite me even after I’d accidentally pulled off one of his legs!  I found him hiding out in my riding boot in Costa Rica after returning from New Orleans. It had been ages since I’d last gone out on the horses, so I grabbed my riding boots and shook them out as usual.  But sometimes shaking out a boot is not enough! I stuck my left foot in my boot but couldn’t quite get my foot all the way to the end because my big toe prodded and nudged at something that felt like a piece of cloth.  Had I left a sock in my boot?  I pulled out my foot and reached into the boot with my hand and groped around and felt something like a big puff of wool yarn.  So I pulled it out and put it on the floor.  And it immediately unwound and began to move away. 

That was the spider you see in this picture.  My first instinct was to scream - but in surprise, not fear; I no longer fear spiders!  My second thought was that the spider had had two opportunities to bite me but did not.  When I stuck in my foot, he could have ruined my day but did not bite!  And then, I pulled him out quite roughly and pulled off one of his legs.  He could have bitten my hand!  But he didn’t bite.  This spider must not die!  So after taking this picture – notice the spider has only seven legs left after his close encounter with me - I carefully removed him to an elevated part of the retaining wall outside. 

He later left and presumably found a cozy hole somewhere.  If anybody else from the Finca had found this spider, it would have been killed.  Hugo told me, “You should kill that!”  I asked him why – had a tarantula ever bitten him before?  No, but scorpions had stung him before.  Well, yeah!  I would have killed a scorpion too!  My neighbor, Gabi, told me that, by coincidence, a tarantula had crawled into one of her boots too!  Sadly, she didn’t realize it was in there and she crushed it with her heel.