The howler monkeys welcomed the New Year by gorging themselves on the blossoms of the Cortez Negra trees. The trees were bare within a few days!
Who knew? - For 23 million years, these little guys have been cultivating Streptomyces, which is found in over half of antibiotics used today! (video capture by Todd)
https://ticotimes.net/2015/04/03/the-secret-lives-of-leaf-cutting-ants
Across the street from our rental house is a finca, or farm, with horses. As it turns out, we have a lot of encounters with the creatures, which Parker is pretty sure are simply too large to be okay. Once or twice a day, when a caballero rides past on his horse, Parker barks his alert. If the gate is open, he’ll go out and run behind them for a while.
The horses escape their confines pretty often and end up milling around on the road, as above, except in this photo, at least they’re not actually on the road. Horses, and even more so, cows, regularly can be found blocking roads around here. People in cars wait patiently for them to move away; no one honks. That’s right, no one here honks. Ever. It tells you a lot, doesn’t it?
The best horse story so far comes from Todd’s experience the other day when he was out running, Toward the end of the run, as he headed back down our street, he saw that the horses were out standing around on the road. Checking up on the neighbors, maybe. He wondered what they might do as he ran past. They’re rather large, after all, as already noted by Parker. Todd decided maybe, at worst, they would get agitated and knock him over, and if so, he’d probably be all right. He continued running toward the horses. They turned to look as he approached. Then they turned back around and started running too, with him. The animals know - we’re all in this together.
A sunrise moment at the restored jungle/nature preserve/aspiring sustainable community of Pura Jungla, on the Nicoya peninsula, where we’re renting now and will be building. Yesterday was spent driving back and forth to San Jose to fetch our stranded dog. Today, we have more cleaning, set up, and housekeeping to do. But it’s 76 degrees, vitality is everywhere, and we have Parker back! Love from all of us living creatures at Pura Jungla.