mesmerized

It's hypnotic, I was captivated by this feeding cow.
A bit embarrassed to just stare. The cow did not seem to mind.
This video is unsurprisingly not quite as fascinating 😏.

a September to remember

This month has been etched into our -Mexican- collective memory as both tragic and heroic, with two major earthquakes shaking our country. One of them, the so called "terremoto de Pijijiapan", emanated from the Chiapas coast on the night of September 7th not far from our study site at La Sepultura Biosphere Reserve. We surely felt it here in San Cristóbal as we hurriedly tried to get out of our trembling homes. The villages at La Sepultura suffered damage, mostly the adobe houses (* update below ), but fortunately -what I heard- no one was gravely hurt. I visited there a few days after the event and still felt many of the aftershocks. People are obviously concerned and discouraged, but they are also resilient and strong and are helping each other out. They've carried on. I have great admiration for them, and all of Mexico in these times of amazing solidarity.

Los Ángeles, Villaflores @ La Sepultura

* I just heard (a day after this post) that the Los Ángeles ejido decided to tear down and demolish 30 houses that suffered structural damage!! Among them the building and rooms where we stay (picture below) when visiting La Sepultura. Sadly incredible. I plan on visiting next week.

tearing down the house

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On the other side of news all forage quality samples are being analysed in the lab, forage biomass has been harvested and weighed twice this season, and just this afternoon as I went to visit the nursery (I hadn't done so in a while), I noticed four seeds of totoposte (Licania arborea) have germinated! Three months, we should pre-treat the seeds next time ;)

analyzing leaf phosphorous content (I'm just there for moral support)

totoposte seedling in the making

alligator lizard - lagartija lagarto

We close the month off with a photo from this beautiful lizard that has a vague resemblance to an alligator or what I at first thought was a snake because of its long and slender body. It was not at all camera-shy.

"Alligator lizard", Gerrhonotus liocephalus (Anguidae).
More pics can be seen in the naturalista record.

lagartija lagarto sureña

harvest, dry, process...and analyse

August has been all about herb quality throughout the paddocks. More specifically, the nutrient and fiber content of both graminoids and forbs, as well as some shrubs. With this we're exploring the quality of forage available to livestock in open pastures and pine-oak forests. Half the samples are already in the lab, the other just arrived fresh from the field and is being processed.

sun-drying the plant samples

ready for lab analyses

lo and behold...

a giant earthworm!...exploring the above-ground scene.
Primordial snake-reflex asides, it was a really nice morning encounter.
We both went our way.

a bit coy, it shrunk with the airlift

biomass - forage harvest

Now that grass and other plants have started to emerge and grow with the rains, cows are back in the field feasting on available forage. We started to quantify how much that actually amounts to in terms of graminoids and forbes. We just carried out a first harvest (21-23 July), simulating how cows regularly feed in the paddocks, and are currently busy drying and weighing the biomass samples back in Ecosur.

one square meter of green biomass

the rooftop drying method

July, the wet season has arrived

the rains have arrived...here comes life

valley of green

chopped firewood inhabitants