Laisa es Muy Cansada

Both the cats, Laisa and Tontin, have welcomed us to La Corona, and have quickly settled into the routine of finding us for pets when we’re at the house.

At the risk of yet again being a crazy cat lady, I thought I would let Laisa help demonstrate what it is like to spend an afternoon at La Corona:

While she’s napping, we’ve been getting quite a bit of work done. The grassland areas are in bloom, which makes identification much easier.

We’ve started sampling in the forest areas, and I’m getting used to the sound of cows surrounding our study plots again. They decided to spend some time the other day figuring out our field truck.

I am constantly entertained by the juxtaposition of simple and modern, or old and new, here in Uruguay. It seemed funny to look up and see a sporty field truck surrounded by a small herd of cattle. Or driving amongst other cars in Tacuarembó, following horses and carts, and having motorcycles, scooters, and bicycles veer in and out of traffic. Or the fact that we’re using wireless USB modems to connect to the internet, but the electricity at the house will go in and out during most windstorms. It’s funny and it seems uniquely Uruguayan.

Almuerzos a La Corona

We’ve been enjoying some awesome food lately, and were fortunate enough to have lunch at the house our first two days here while we were getting things organized and getting ourselves settled. I think Sonia is cooking many of the meals she knows I like, and we’ve been happy to eat up the meals she’s served. On Wednesday for lunch, she served us roast beef with the simple potato salad I’ve recreated at home. The beef was good, and the salad is so simple and delicious.

To follow up our lunch, we had gelado with a wafer cookie. The gelado is always layered with different flavors – I think this one is chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, and dulce de leche. She then of course drizzled the gelado with two chocolate sauces and a blueberry sauce.

On Thursday, we had more beef, but this time it was stewed in tomatoes, potatoes, and carrots. We ladled this on top of yellow rice, which tasted reminiscent of a chicken style rice a roni. It was really good together, and the stewed tomatoes hit the spot.

We then had THE BEST DESSERT EVER. Whoever first thought up the concept of homemade crepes filled with dulce de leche is an absolute genius.

We are now relegated to mostly field lunches. Today we had Milanese sandwiches (Uruguayan chicken fried steak) with tomato, lettuce, and mayonnaise, which definitely beats typical field lunch food back home – like peanut butter and jelly or tuna sandwiches. We’re now devising a plan about running around the study plots each time we finish so we can actually attempt to work off all the wonderful food.

En el Campo

We’ve had three full days here in Uruguay already, which seems completely unreal. We’ve managed to check all my permanent field sites, as well as get our field gear, our field truck, and buy essentials like a knife, cookies, and some modems so we can more reliably use the internet at the house.

The area around my permanent study sites is currently scheduled to be thinned, but they kindly allowed us to identify our study areas and the immediate forest area that we wanted to keep undisturbed. Juliana, the most awesome field technician ever, went out and marked a perimeter around my study areas with yellow paint on all the trees in a very large square. She then spoke with the operations manager, and also communicated via email to make sure they understood.

This is what we found at one of the sites. Needless to say, the downed trees are not supposed to be there. Once we saw it we let Juliana and others know, and their response immediate and awesome. Juliana took the operations out again the next day to all of my sites to demonstrate further what she wanted done. I don’t think I’d want to be on the receiving end of that. J

The rest of the sites are just fine. One site has been correctly thinned around, and three others have yet to thinned nearby. Hopefully the rest will work out just fine.

Everything else is going well, and we’re off to a great start.

Hola from Uruguay…again!

Field season 3 has officially started! We landed in Montevideo the other day, greeted by sunshine and blue skies. We had a brief break at the local office while we waited for our ride who would take us north – and enjoyed the views from the 18^th floor.

La Corona is as awesome as ever. We were greeted with hugs, and ushered into our rooms, which had all been updated since I was here last time. There are more decorations than before, and additional daybed-style couches in the rooms instead of standard twin beds.

Sonia worked hard on our first dinner, serving us homemade ham and cheese raviolis with a pesto cream and mushroom sauce. It was so good, and it felt nice to be encouraged in to a carb coma after all the traveling.

For dessert she made Islas, which is like a dense meringue topped with syrup. She then made an orange sauce to drizzle over the top.

I’m going to now retire happily to bed, enjoying a belly full of good food. Tomorrow we’ll check out some field sites, meet Sonia and Luana’s horses, and hopefully be caught up on our rest.