Mucho mas La Corona...

Between La Corona and some of our field sites is a rural school. We happened to be driving along the roads at 3 o'clock the other day to find school children heading for home. Their school day is 10-3 instead of our longer hours in the states. All the kids were on horseback or were walking back to their houses, and these two saw my camera coming out of our truck and stopped to pose. I imagine they probably don't see us tourists every day.

Also along the roads has been some logging operation activity. This day we watched as a machine that had a giant basket of logs was loading a truck for transport. I'm amazed at how many trucks we've seen going from the stands to the mill. The logs are cut into much shorter segments than what we're used to, and the trucks haul 3 or 4 short trailers behind them.

It was so hot the other day that the sheep were panting. This one on the right had his mouth opened so wide that it looked like he was constantly laughing. Juliana hadn't seen that too often, so she was cracking up to. It figures, though, as soon as I grabbed by camera, he stopped.

The other night, we drove out to some nearby ponds to listen to and check out the action of the local fauna. The noise was so loud it was incredible. Also another great part was that it was 11 o'clock at night and I was in a tank top, shorts, and sandals. As we watched the lightening storm off in the distance, we scouted out and found a few frogs.

We also noticed a bunch of fireflies, although I guess they are smaller here than the ones that are common in the states. It was cool to watch the area around the pond slowly light up and twinkle with tiny fireflies. We managed to catch one here - they look pretty nondescript. We also accidentally stepped on one, but as soon as it was injured it continued to glow. Apparently the light is created when two different enzymes mix, so when it's crushed it glows until the enzyme is used up. I felt bad that we killed it, but it was a good lesson in biology as well.