Bats and Greens and Coffee Beans

Last Friday/Saturday we visited a nearby nature reserve to learn about mammals.  Especially fascinating was the evening activity of netting and learning about bats (murciélagos).  One particularly interesting bat species has an incredibly detailed reproductive behavior.  Each male tries to attract a harem of females to its arboreal habitat and, once successful, tries to keep them around by hovering a few feet away facing them and singing a complex song.  Evolution sure has created some weirdly intricate biological patterns.

On Sunday, I cooked dinner for my family as planned: risotto wrapped in lettuce accompanied by rosemary olive oil bread and white wine from a box.  This made me nostalgic for the homestead, but luckily I had leftover bread to tide me over for the next few days.  As a side note, the Clos brand of boxed wine here is better and cheaper than the reasonably priced bottled wines (top score).

Here is a photograph of our growing lettuce plants (synthetically fertilized control bed for our experiment).  The signs are to dissuade prodding by greenhouse visitors.  We have been using the down time between data collection to prepare other beds for normal greenhouse produce and to create signage for all of Orlando's vegetables and herbs.  These signs will include origin, nutritional info and culinary/medicinal uses.  

I played piano at Vitosi (nearby drug store) again on Sunday.  This time I played for around an hour and a half, and after a while they even turned off the radio (which I took as a tacit complement).  A highlight of the day was overhearing two retirees quietly singing along while I played a jazzed version of the sesame street theme song.  

Tomorrow we will be investigating the methodologies/ideologies of two big coffee interests in the Monteverde region, which should be interesting/tasty.  Unfortunately, it means yet another jam-packed Saturday.  The program provides a lot of cool opportunities but I think all of us wish we had a little more unstructured play/exploration time.

There's a café nearby that has a book exchange program, which I have been taking advantage of.  I recently traded for Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, which I am stoked to start it (never read any Faulkner before).  

In other news, I am excited to be helping with another internship happening here at the Study Center: a SuperAdobe retaining wall.  I hope to implement the technique to build a dome-shaped outbuilding at the Homestead that can function as an improved Cabin Cat (Ohio winter is hard on outdoor felines).  I'll post pictures of the process when I have them, but for now I'll leave it at that.

Well, it's been a long week, so several of us are gonna check out a nearby tapas/cocktails place called Chimera.  (Mojito+fried yucca=sonrisas)  Hasta luego.