I completely forgot to post this and I didn't do anything exciting today, so I guess it's a good thing that I'm combining these two things!
Thursday
I woke up at 5:30 (as usual) and worked on the farm from 6:30-11:00. I recorded the dairy protocol as usual, except I left a few parts blank because we don't do some procedures. We should be doing these procedures consistently, but the workers only do the full procedure when Jenny and the other students are there. Anyway, I got that information down and helped clean up afterwards. I've fallen into the routine of the farm and it's come to the point that I know what needs to be done next. It's really nice and I know I'm going to miss it a lot when I leave.
After the farm I went to my room to shower and type up the data I recorded into one of my many spreadsheets. I've learned to love microsoft excel even when I still don't know how to make a good histogram on it. Thankfully Profe Moro's been helping me out with that.
After that I ate a quick lunch and headed off to the library to meet with my spanish professor.She took Kilian and I on a field trip to the periurbana, which is the urban agriculture farm. It was amazing! We learned about hydroponics, aquaponics, and other forms of agriculture that could be used in urban areas.
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| A poster that describes some of the benefits of urban agriculture |
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| A wind chime made out of recycled materials |
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| One of the hydroponic beds |
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| Beets! These are used to feed insects so they don't eat any of the other plants! |
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| Some flat beds |
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| Beds made of recycled materials like tires and washing machine parts |
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| A biointensive bed fenced in by water bottles |
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| Raul talking to us about hydroponics and when to transplant seedlings into the hydroponic system |
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| The aquaponics system |
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| An aquaponic bed with Tilapia underneath. The water the fish live in are cycled through the plants, giving the plants nutrients and water while simultaneously cleaning the water. |
Friday
Today was a national Costa Rican holiday! We celebrated the annexation of Guanacaste, which was originally a part of Guatemala, by having the day off.
I slept in and had breakfast at 8:30 which was extremely weird. It's 3 hours earlier than my normal breakfast time so I've been a little thrown off. Whenever there's a holiday everything is pushed back by and hour or so.
I hung out most of the afternoon with my friends Kalem and Jhoselyn. We watched Frozen in spanish, talked about stuff that goes on here at EARTH, and we took a few unplanned naps. These girls are amazing. I learn a lot of spanish from them and I teach them english in return. I've even taught them how to say "Hey baby, how you doin'?".
That's about it! I'll be working on the farm tomorrow and that'll be interesting! I'll type that up (on time) tomorrow.
Bye!
-Allie
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