Roberta's Forest Blog — Let's Get Planting

Corteza Amarilla

This blog is dedicated to generosity, because we have seen so much of it this past month and a half. Look at this beautiful sight (above) that Mother Earth is so generous to provide us each spring here at La Reserva. In this photo you can just see Tenorio Volcano in the background.

I am sorry for not posting a blog for such a long time, but as you look at all of the pictures you will see why we have been so busy. Hopefully it will be short on words and a lot to see.

The Crowd

On Sunday, March 1st some of our generous friends held a grand party for the LRFF/CR to raise the funds necessary for the reforestation of approximately 4 hectares. The 4 hectares have been generously donated by their owner for the restoration of native, tropical forest. We counted about 120 generous attendees and everyone had an amazing time. It was the only sunny day, within about 2 months time of only dark, windy, cold, and rainy days. All those generous friends worried on the Saturday before when the weather was still horrible, but Sunday dawned bright and beautiful and stayed that way for the entire day. The next dawn was just like every other one for the month before the party.

Danny and Becky Ness, barbecuing

The band, B. B. Zuniga and Ed Yurica, played brilliant music, as always

Free sailboat rides on Lake Arenal

You can see some of the highlights of the party above with live music, barbecued hamburgers and shish kabobs, free sailboat rides, an abundance of salads and desserts, a 50/50 raffle and garden raffle, dancing and a small auction. All of these generous people, by participating, earned over $2000 for the future reforestation efforts on the 4 hectares. Thank you to all of you who were in attendance and a HUGE thank you to those of you who not only bought a ticket to attend but worked hard while there. Some of these generous souls are Mary Blizzard, Michele Glenn, Danny and Becky Ness, Eduardo and Carla Gomez, Helen Hollenbeck, Mike Viola, Betsy Whyte, Duane Broughton, Mario Martinez, Mike and Marcy Wagner, B. B. Zuniga, Ed Yurica, Christina Glass, Ladies of the Lake, Jim and Rene Aoki and Matt Lee.

Matt Lee with Peluchi

Matt Lee came to volunteer at La Reserva for 4 weeks during the month of March. Another example of generosity is Matt. He was enthusiastic about whatever job he was assigned to do. He helped at the fundraiser all day, expanded the seedling nursery by over 1000 new seeds and seedling with Omar, built 6 benches along the La Reserva trails, fixed all of the boundary fences plus added wooden sides to all of the permanent beds in the vegetable garden. He and Omar collected a lot of mulch from the forest floors and seedlings to be planted in the nursery. He organized the seedling nursery and did an inventory of all the species and how many of each. Your generosity has touched our hearts, Matt. Thank you for all the excellent work and suggestions.

Matt and Omar filling bags with dirt for the new seeds and seedlings

In the garden with the new wooden sides on the permanent beds. Hi!!

Matt had to make a weekly report for the organization that sent him to us, www.uvounteer.org, and a final story. We were so impressed with his story that shortly we will be adding a page to our website just for posting the volunteer’s stories.

Tronadora High School class sitting on one of Matt’s benches

The Eco-Tourisim class from the nearby Tronadora High School came for a tour through the La Reserva forest. They were so inspired by the forest and how fast it can be restored that they are planning on reforesting 1 ½ hectares next to the school with a native forest from the La Reserva and ICE nurseries. We will be donating all of the trees and they are submitting a budget to us for the remainder of funds needed for transportation, labor to prepare the land and maintaining the seedlings for the first 2 years. Here are some of the highlights of the walk…

Eyelash Viper sitting on an orchid we were all looking at.

Afterwards, they weren’t as afraid of Gino.

Our dedicated friend, Mary Blizzard, took us over to see the two properties of Niko Panna in Sabalito and Rio Pedras. We will be renting a car (thanks to all of the generous fundraising angels) this month to go see another property down near the Pacific Beach, west of Santa Cruz . Here are pictures of the properties that we did see with Mary.

Approximately 2 hectares in Sabalito

Approximately 1 ¼ hectares in Rio Piedras.

The other property near the coast is a little less that 1 hectare. People are grazing cows on the Rio Piedras property which helps keep all the grass down until about 2 weeks before planting. The guys will just go in and dig the holes before planting day. The other property in Sabalito is well looked after as well, with both properties bordering on creeks. This is real advantage for the arboreal wildlife because they use creek beds as transportation lines. By restoring these areas next to the creeks they will have an expanded habitat to forage in.

The LRFF/CR and the Commission of Biological Corridors Lake Arenal/Tenorio (CBLAT) are collaborating on the planting activities during the first two weeks of June, when the rains have begun. These activities will include the volunteer planting by the schoolchildren from the Sabalito and Rio Piedras schools, our regular, generous tree planting volunteers and then a big celebration on Arbor Day (Dia de Arbole), June 15. The Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE) has always been generous and supportive of all the reforestation efforts around the Lake and has promised to help us in our future work, both as the Commission and LRFF/CR.

The Bushwhackers in the AM. From left, Leonidas Mongrillo, Eduardo Gomez, Ana, Me (Roberta), Carla Gomez, Luis Fernando Alvarez and German Aguilar. Arenal Volcano is in the background.

The LRFF/CR and some of the members of the CBLAT joined visitors from the Jaguar Program of the University in Heredia, Costa Rica for a hike along the Puma trail in Venado, east of the town of Nuevo Arenal. We were going to see the evidences of recent sightings and cattle attacks. To make the story short, it was a bushwhacking trip, meaning there were no trails except the leader cut with his machete and we walked over 8 kilometers as the crow flies. Believe me, we did not move as the crow flies, though, because there was a lot of up and down and round and round. We left shortly after this photo at 10:00 am and didn’t come back until after 5:00 pm. There was much beauty and friendship on this trip. We were in a timeless place within that forest. Look at the photos that Daniel took that day and you will see some of what we saw.

Looking east.

Looking west.

Going down into the forest.

Beauty within the forest.

More beauty

The Bushwhackers back in the PM. From left, Ronit and Ana from the Jaguar Program in Heredia, Leonidas Mongrillo, German Aguilar, Angel Guevara, Me, Carla and Eduard Gomez, Luis Fernando Alvarez and Wilbur Orozco. We did see the carcasses of two cattle and a recently killed wild turkey. Ronit said that it was a Puma.

On April 1st Peluchi, the baby two-toed sloth that we were caring for, made fools out of us. When we returned home from a morning errand I went out to get him for his daily outside time in the Hibiscus tree and he was gone. He had escaped the enclosure and crawled out the open door. I walked out and looked up in the tree next to the door and there he was up in the tree sleeping. Daniel and I watched him from below all afternoon until shortly before dark, but it was scary seeing him swinging by one arm from small dangling vines. We went in the house for ½ hour and when we returned we couldn’t see him up in there. We figured he was probably sleeping in one of the large bromeliads. Night fell and still no sight of Peluchi. The next morning he was gone and hasn’t been seen since. He is alright because there is no evidence of his demise. The message that came to me that afternoon as I watched him up there was that he was going to be fine and he was better off. The shorter time he stayed in captivity the better his chances of surviving would be.

So here’s to you Peluchi!! Thank you for teaching us so much about the tropical nature. Thank you for all of the generosity that is given to each and everyone of us each day in this work we are engaged in, making a new world. Restoring our Mother the Earth. We are all responsible right now.

Come on everybody,

LET’S ALL GET PLANTING!!