Mucho mas comida

Thought an update on what we've been eating might be welcome...

At yesterday's dinner, Sonia made two different kinds of quiche-like dishes (I'm not sure of the Spanish name) and assembled a big platter of salad. The blue pitcher you see is chillled bottled water, and the large bottle on the right was a dark beer, Patricia. There are only three brands of beer made in Uruguay - Zillertal, Pilsen, and Patricia.

The quiches had a typical filling of primarily eggs, but the crust was different than traditional pastry; it was more like a biscuit dough.

The zucchini dish was fantastic. The other was ham, and it was good, too, but for some reason the flavors in the zucchini quiche were awesome.

Whenever we've had a salad, they are presented in a similar way. Ingredients are presented separately, never tossed together. The lettuce is always shredded. This night, we had lettuce, sliced tomatoes, and hearts of palm. I've never had those before, but they are really good, and very tasty in a salad. On the table, Sonia placed a small platter of olive oil and balsamic vinegar carafes, with which we dressed our salads.

Today was the first day we were at La Corona for lunch. On our other days here, Sonia packs us a lunch complete with silverware, napkins, bottled water, and plenty of food. I think we've brought back food each day because there was too much to eat in one sitting. In the field, she's packed us sandwiches with breaded, fried meat (sandwich milanese) in them and also some fruit, she's assembled a rice dish that included tuna and corn (which was oddly tasty), and yesterday she packed us breaded, fried spinach patties and ham sandwiches.

Their sandwiches typically just contain a meat and cheese, or in yesterday's case, just meat. No condiments. The sandwich milanese had lettuce and tomato as well, and it was pretty fantastic (and much better than the attemped lunch at the gas station on the way up to La Corona our first day).

Today's lunch was at La Corona. We installed half the plots at our second site in the morning, and came back for lunch before heading back out to finish. We had planned to take a lunch out in the field with us, but Sonia had left for the weekend, and there was some miscommunication on one of our parts about whether or not to prepare a lunch for us ahead of time. We left a note that we'd be back around 1, and hoped for the best.

As a contingency plan, I quickly raided the cupboard and fridge in the kitchen and figured we could make a lunch out of pasta or rice, and the veggies and milk that were around, if we needed to.

When we came back to La Corona for lunch, we were in luck. The man taking over for Sonia while she's staying in Tacuarembo, who we assume is her husband, and may or may not be named Quique, is great. For lunch, he fixed us hamburguesas, complete with condiment dishes of mayonnaise and ketchup. He then went back into the kitchen and returned with two small plates of french fries. If that weren't enough (and not quite American enough), he brought us a dessert of neopolitan ice cream and a large rolled wafer stuck in each scoop. It took a lot of willpower to return to work after that, and not just nap away the afternoon.

Tonight, he cooked another good meal. This was more modest than some of the other's that Sonia has prepared, but no one is complaining here. We had thin cutlets of chicken, seasoned with herbs and pan fried. They were served with mashed potatoes. I missed the veggies a little at this meal, but I figure between the salad at lunch and the veggie-centric meal we had last night with the quiches and salad, I'm probably still doing okay.

Every dinner seems to be served with baskets of bread. Because of the humidity, it's common practice to serve things that don't dry out as fast as a loaf of bread. Instead, these are made as a cross between bread and a cracker. To the right, these little squares bake up into small towers of layers of dough. You can peel them apart and eat them separately. The crackers on the left are more what we're used to.

Dessert again. At first we thought that every dinner comes with a dessert, but after lunch we realized that every meal (except breakfast) is follwed with something sweet. Tonight it was arroz con leche, which was awesome. It's a traditional dessert in Uruguay, especially in the countryside. He gave us a taste of it before dinner to make sure we liked it. When it came time for dessert he asked us if we preferred the arroz con leche or ice cream. I'm not one to pass down the local delicacy...

This dessert is like a very thin rice pudding. It's mostly cooked milk with a little bit of rice in it, and sweetened. He suggested we top our bowls with a few shakes of ground cinnamon, which really made it taste great.

Stuffed, and tired from the sun and humidity, I'm off. Buen noche...

Another Installation

We had another good day out in the field, and a much cooler one than yesterday. The sky threatened storms in the morning, but we never saw any rain or lightening. The clouds move across the sky so fast here, and the weather changes dramatically by the hour, it seems. It was cool and breezy this morning, and by the afternoon was hot, humid, and fairly still.


We're installing PVC pipe to use as plot corners in the treatments within each experimental site. To do this, we've got high-tech equipment like an old borer than tunnels into the ground so we can partially bury the PVC. We also used a hacksaw this morning to cut some PVC pipe in half so we'd have enough poles for today's site and learned after using it that the UY$ 69.35 price (which would be about US$ 3.50) was fairly accurate. The blade kept coming off because some wingnuts appeared to be missing, and the handle had to be held tightly together to prevent the saw from coming off because a connection piece was faulty. And it was apparently brand new.

The contractors were at this site as we were working as well, finishing the exclosure fence installation. It seemed to go fairly smoothly, and they do great work. The cows just past apparently are now very upset that they are not allowed to be in the fenced off area of the study. It's all in the name of science.
And here's another forest plot. These pines are 11 years old. They have been thinned and pruned (obviously), and the waste from those activities stays on site to break down. Perhaps since there isn't a lot of vegetation in the understory there isn't too much of a fire hazard from all the dried brush, but it still seems weird. In these forests, we are walking around on a carpet of pine needles that is a good few inches thick.

The First Installation

Earlier today we installed plots at our first study site. It was super cool to actually be on the ground, working in the field sites that I had only seen on aerial photos. Within each treatment (grazed grassland, grazed forest, ungrazed grassland - inside the exclosure, and ungrazed forest - also inside the exclosure) we installed PVC pipe to mark the sampling grid that we'll be returning to later to sample the vegetation.

Here you can see the PVC pipe in the grazed grassland treatment if you look closely.

Juliana and I are making sure a plot corner is at the correct distance from two others. I'm using the super technical method of triangulation - basically marking 4 plot corners by splitting the square into triangles. And people say you won't ever use geometry...

Here's Scott and Juliana installing yet another PVC pipe. This picture doesn't actually show what exactly it is like to work in 100 degree weather, in the sun, near the hole in the ozone. It was freaking hot, but at least there was usually wind to help us out.

And, as this picture shows, here's our badass local technician, Juliana. She's very serious about standing next to the giant ant hill. As serious as she looks here, she's been awesome to work with. Besides working her butt off with us and doing a lot of heavy labor, she also gave us a tour of La Corona when we arrived, taught us that "Whiskerie" doesn't mean that a building is a distillary but in fact it is a brothel, and convinced us that armadillo was definitely worth trying for dinner some night.

So far, it's been an awesome field work experience.

Muchas plantas...

At the risk of boring the people that aren't interested in the actual vegetation that we're studying (hello, family and friends), I'll keep this one short. Yesterday morning we spent time with Maria Bemhaja and Martin Juarena from INIA. They do similar vegetation research in grasslands and forests, and INIA is sort of like Uruguay's version of the Forest Service. They a government funded research organization.

In about two hours or so, we collected tons of plants and wrote down as much as we could while deciphering Maria's and Martin's accents, as well as having fun translating plant parts from Spanish to English. We left very overwhelmed, but it was a great introduction to the plants of Uruguay. Grasses still scare the beejesus about of me, so they'll be fun to get comfortable with. So far, it actually isn't too intimidating, but since we haven't actually started sampling vegetation yet, I'll reserve my final judgement for awhile.

For those of you plant geeks out there (hi, Lana!) this is Baccharis trimera which is very common here across the landscape. The cattle don't seem to like it too much, so even when everything else is heavily grazed, clumps of Baccharis stick out.

The plants that are more edible and preferred by the cattle are completely adapted to their environment. Inside the INIA exclosures (where cattle are prevented from entering), some small plants are several inches tall. Outside the exclosures, where cattle are feeding, these same species of plant are virtually a ground cover, not getting more than 1 inch of the ground. It's pretty interesting to see it in person.

There are other plants here that are unlike anything I have seen. They certainly are more tropical than the species I am used to in the Pacific Northwest, and since my experience is in temperate forests, this is literally a whole new world for me.

Tres gatos

We learned about two days in that there were some kittens on the premises, so I promptly grabbed my camera and ran into Sonia's kitchen. Under the stove was a box with Mama and her three babies. Born almost three weeks ago. I could not even stand the cuteness...

The kittens were sleepy, but they were good sports when I started petting them. Mama cat came out and wanted focused attention on her, and after a few pets around her ear I got a high-pitched purr in response.

I made it for bath time, and watched as Mama cat took her turn cleaning off all her babies, and then washed her own face.And then the gray one got a little feisty...

Mucho mas a La Corona

I don't think any pictures really do this place justice, but here's a better taste of life so far at La Corona. It's pretty rough. I'm sure every graduate or other unversity student has a similar experience when they study abroad...

The surrounding area below La Corona (which is situated on a top of a hillside) is owned by Weyerhaeuser. The landscape is a mosaic of forests and grasslands. There is quite a bit of work that goes on at la estancia. Traffic comes and goes, and you can hear a truck approaching for a long ways before you see it.

The building below seems to be where the mechanical things go on. You can also see the horses that freely wander around during the day.

The inside of the house was completely revamped several years ago. Apparently in 2001 there was no electricity - people just worked when there was daylight, and bedtime was imposed when you could no longer see. The estate has at least 9 or 10 complete bedrooms, some with private bathrooms and some that are shared between two rooms. All the bedrooms have doors that open up into the outdoor courtyard. Also opening into the courtyard, and surrounded by a porch on the other sides, is the common room that functions as a living room and dining room. The dining room can seat a huge group of people, and is set according to each meal.

The living room functions as a multi-purpose room. Where you are looking now is usually our office, complete with a wireless router in the corner for internet access. It's funny to be disappointed that the connection is slow, until you remember where you are and are surprised there is any internet access at all, really. The window below look out onto a porch and over the valleys shown above. It's incredibly beautiful.

The dark wood doors lead out to the side porch, which overlooks a pond. At night, there are several sounds coming from the pond. We identified a frog, crickets, and some weird bird-like noise, but we can't see what it is. The noise level in the morning and night is pretty high, but the sounds are completely different depending on the time of day, and much different than what we're used to back home.

This is my current bedroom, which doesn't look nearly as great in pictures as it does in person. The bed is pretty comfortable, and there is a small twin bed against the other wall that I'm currently using as a personal office. The ceilings look like they are about 20 ft high, and covered in beadboard.

This is the hallway leading from the inner courtyard to my bedroom and bathroom. The flooring in this place is awesome. There are old wood floors in the dining room, slate looking rectangular tile in the living room, and more slate or some other stone in the rest.

And to start the day, we have to have a good breakfast. The typical breakfast of Uruguay (at least for visitors) is toast with choices of butter, honey, and marmelade, different varieties of sliced meat, a platter of assorted fruit (this morning was mango, kiwi, strawberries, and what appeared to be something like a honeydew), cereal, thin yogurt (tastes like a combination between yogurt and a little sweetened condensed milk), juice, coffee, and tea. It's different than the hotel breakfasts I had the last time I was here - there aren't endless platters of sweetened pastries, which is probably a good thing...

A sampling of the wildlife...

Everyone hears about the cows and sheep that dot the landscape in Uruguay. It's still funny to see them grazing in the forests, and also grazing with each other. It's spring down here, which means lots of babies. We've seen a few baby lambs ("corderitas") roaming around with their moms ("corderas"). There are black lambs and white lambs. The cows are black, white, brown, or a combination thereof. Bulls roam freely with the cows.

More surprising is some of the wildlife we didn't actually expect. The birds here are fairly tame towards humans. They'll fly around nearby and land somewhere to watch for awhile. They are more tropical in appearance than what we expected.

We were checking out the trees with the epiphytes and heard a bunch of angry squaking. We looked up and laughed when we saw that the noise was coming from a bunch of parrots. Like the ones you see in pictures of tropical rainforests. They're loud and a bit obnoxious, but they are pretty awesome to see in person.

Among the grazing animals, it has been very common to spot a bunch of horses. There are several around La Corona, and they seem to meander the grounds along with cattle and a ton of birds. When we first arrived at La Corona, one of the horses had wandered into Sonia's own garden, and they went out to shoo it away. It's like deer in the country, but better.

I have no idea what most (well, virtually all) of these birds are, but they are impressive to look at and fun to watch anyway. I watched a bird like the one below walk up to the house today and wander around on the porch. Apparently they'll commonly peck the doors when they see their own reflection. Because they're super smart.

We also saw a group of donkeys ("burros") after a wrong turn during our field visits with Juliana. With most of the fencing, especially near La Corona, there is a gate to move cattle through, and also a path for cars that has parallel posts lying on the ground to make a grate. We'd call these a type of cattle grates, but here they are called mata burros (in other words, donkey killers).
They don't mince words here...

Mis bebes

Yesterday, with Juliana, we toured my field sites for the first time. Our first site was where the contractors were building the first exclosure. My project is studying the vegetation in forests and grasslands either with or without grazing, so at each site we will have plots in grazed grassland, grazed forest, and inside the exclosure for ungrazed grassland and ungrazed forest. It was awesome to see the fences actually being built, and my sites coming together. Juliana may have been perplexed at my excitement, but we explained to her that these were like my babies. Not sure if she completely understood their importance for me, but she got a good laugh all the same.

Here is the exclosure in action. They are basically a big rectangle (100 x 50 m) with a 50 x 50 m square in the grassland and 50 x 50 m in the adjacent pine forest. All the forests we'll be studying were planted in 1998-1999. They look slightly different than the 10-11 year old trees back in the northwest.

Here is another site, showing typical grassland and adjacent 10-11 year old pine forest. The ground looks almost like a park or lawn from the grazing, which is pretty incredible. I don't quite understand how the vegetation looks so consistently affected by grazing, since the cows and sheep can't be at the same place all the time. Apparently the plants have adapted to grazing, and the same species that are fairly tall inside exclosures are incredible short, almost creeping along the ground, out in the open. It's nature at work...

Mmmm...dulces

So dessert turns out to be very important for Uruguayans. Last night at the Asado we had chocolate ice cream, neopolitan ice cream and a rolled wafer stuck in both. Then Sonia passed around 'salsas', varieties of syrup...you know, just in case your sugar intake wasn't quite high enough.

I passed even on the dulce de leche syrup, even though it's completely delicious (Mom, you'll be happy to know my first night in town I enjoyed a flan with a huge dollup of dulce de leche - it was so rich I couldn't actually finish it). It was delicious anyway.

Tonight we dined with three Australians/New Zealanders. Talk about random. They were in town on a tour of forested sites and are going to Chile next after tonight. After all day acclimating myself to hear Juliana's and Sonia's Spanish, I had to switch during dinner to hear through the thick Australian accents.

We enjoyed a dinner of chicken stew in a slightly sweet almost curry like sauce. It was served with mashed potatoes, and of course we had a salad with the meal. This one consisted of sliced tomatoes, shredded lettuce, and sliced hearts of palm. I hadn't had this before, and it's pretty good. This was probably the best meal I've had so far, and exactly what I was hoping for down here. It was simpler than the food in restaurants and more satisfying somehow. Also, it was nice to not have beef or a change.

Tonight's dessert was mouthwatering (and I'm sure that had nothing to do with the 2 bottles of Tannat wine we opened during dinner). We had a lemon mousse type dessert, complete with lemon peel, on top of fresh strawberries. This was awesome - and so completely simple. I will totally be replicating it at home. I'm sure some of you will be getting sick of coming over to eat "all the wonderful dishes from Uruguay...". I promise I'll stop bragging soon.

El Asado es muy bien!

So we arrive at La Corona, and are greeted with the fact that we'll be guests at a company dinner. With 18 other guests. And most are corporate VIPs. Despite the fact that we're completely exhausted and slightly scuzzy from our awesome ~6 hour car ride, we're up to the task.

Sonia, the cook/housekeeper of the place was busy with preparations. Apparently she completely understood that this was a pretty important dinner. The table outside was set beautifully. Although she speaks no English and I speak pretty much no Spanish, she laughed when she caught me wandering around with my camera, repeating "es bonita!" over and over. At least she likes the compliment.

By the look of the patio, with cushioned adirondack chairs under the arbor, and this little side table, we were in for a good evening. During the progress of the evening, we discovered that Uruguayans are third in the world for Scotch consumption, literally falling right behind the actual Scotch and also the Irish (so suprise there).

We were greeted with a traditional Asado barbecue, where meat has been smoking and slow cooking all afternoon within the brick fire on the side of the estate. I was happy to see the table of salads, and ecstatic like any good food nerd to see a platter of brussel sprouts. The salads included brusses sprouts with a verde salsa (square platter), sliced beets and egg (round platters, odd combination but kind of tasty), fried plantains (in the middle, at least I think that's what it was - it was slightly sweet and a little salty from the fried, which meant it was very good), a platter of tomatoes, mild cheese and olives (oval platter on the left, my favorite salad of the night), a carrot salad (similar to the typical carrot and raisin salad in the US, in the oval platter just above the tomatoes), and a potato salad (in the left upper corner in the dark - very mild but also pretty good. In the middle were bowls of lettuces and tomaotes, and a small platter with carafes of olive oil and vinegar were provided just to the side.

And last but not least, the meat...this one's for you, John.

We had chorizo, fried cheese (can you say fantastic?), and sweetbreads (the odd thyroid glands I tried before but figured once was probably enough) as appetizers, and then Sonia continued to serve platters of beef and chicken throughout the night. The chicken were butterflied and cooked whole, and then cut into major pieces and served. The beef was cooked as a loin and also ribs, but were slightly different cuts than I was used to. There is something so simple and so completely delicious about salted, smoked meat, when there is a tiny layer of fat on it to help with the basting.

John, this was pretty much your dream dinner:

So, yeah, so far this adventure is pretty tough. We've already been made fun of for having such a "brutal" and "harsh" field experience. I'm sure we'll hit a lull at some point, but so far this has been incredible.

La Corona - es muy bonita!

Hola from La Corona! We're staying at an estancia, an estate house in the middle of company plantations. It is absolutely beautiful here, from the grounds to the estate itself. I'm so excited to do field work in this setting and with this weather, I can't actually believe how great it is.

I DROVE to La Corona from Montevideo, which I didn't anticipate doing. Thank god the rental car was an automatic; the Montevideo traffic was stressful enough. It turned out to be fun actually to drive in a city, although I think it was pretty obvious I was a gringa. I didn't weave through traffic like the locals, and I actually stuck to my own designated lane, which was an obvious tip-off.

We got to Tacuarembo and were greeted at the mill by several employees. Then we were escorted to La Corona and shown the estate. Apparently girls are ranked higher than guys, as I seemed to get a pretty awesome room. I have since changed rooms, but I'm actually considering it an upgrade. Pictures to follow....

This was my entrance the first night to my bedroom. All the rooms on the main house have these entrances from the outdoor courtyard.
This room was beautiful, and sandly the pictures do not do it justice. The furniture were all antiques, the ceiling was unbelievably high, and the floor was some type of stone. I think I was so tired that I slept pretty great.

This is one small picture of the center courtyard of the estate. There's a well in the middle of the courtyard; I don't know if it's used but it's kind of cool anywayAlso, there's a lot of fencing in the area, which control the intensity of cattle grazing. Well, and other grazers - in our drive up the dirt road to La Corona, we spotted cows, feral horses, sheep, and today we also spotted nandus (like emus) and plenty of birds. It's pretty awesome.

When we were wandering the grounds, we started checking out the trees on the grounds (some of which were said to be cork trees) and noticed a ton of epiphytes living on the tree trunks. One example was a succulant-like plant with awesome pink and purple inflorescences. They were hanging on to the tree by a tiny root structure.

Oh, yeah, we also spotted cactus growing in the trees. Yet another surprise from Uruguay.