relaxing hike

a Sunday hike to the abandoned town of Granos Básicos and beyond

tranquil

@ Granos Básicos

The waterfall

froglets

still the ubiquitous tick bombs

descent & heat

...and a bit of birthday cake(s)

how much resin does one pine tree produce?

We kicked of April with the measurement of pine resin production. Farmers in the ejido are interested in knowing how much resin is produced and how much this varies among trees, so are we. I accompanied a group of skilled farmers to their harvest and gathering, and weighed (with a spring scale) the resin produced by around 270 trees. The trick was to not let things get (too) messy and sticky: pure mountain entertainment.

tagging, weighing & harvesting

woodpeckers are also in (acorn) harvest mode

after the lowlands it's time for the mountains

It's busy times for pine resin production at La Sepultura, and so after coming back from The Netherlands I quickly headed to California to check out what was going on there and agreed with a few farmers to measure resin production together. Resin collection, gathering and selling in the cooperative was on hold because of Semana Santa, but will be taken up again shortly (I'm headed there tomorrow), so we surveyed the resin areas and tagged a few hundred trees in preparation. We'll basically measure extraction by weighing the resin produced by trees; so far nobody really knows how much resin a tree produces and how much it varies among trees.

tree-tagging

With ticks in season it's not the best time to survey riparian/river areas, they love it there. But to keep up the spring-tick-festival tradition, I scrambled through the brush following the streams and dry streambeds of a few paddocks. Overall, riparian areas haver been heavily impacted by agriculture and ranching. Some areas have been completely transformed into open dry hollows, others might present scattered trees and non-woody riparian vegetation, banks and streambeds are frequently eroded, other areas retain some tree cover, even large remnant fig trees. There's a running stream, at least in some sections. Snails, tadpoles and snakes; hummingbirds were feeding from inga tree flowers. This vegetation and habitat could well be restored, many would benefit.

the many 'looks' of riparian areas

Cicadas were playing their tymbals, I noticed them not from their song, but from being showered by them when passing below a tree.

cicadas sucking and extruding sap