August was a month of tree planting, construction, and maintenance of trails.
The classroom construction is well underway. Cloudbridge is building a classroom to enhance our education program. It will be used for school groups, both local and international. It will expand our research capabilites as well as our educational outreach.
Victor and Jason planted replacement trees up on Stephan’s research plots. It is not an easy job carrying all of the heavy bagged seedlings up the Sendero Montana trail and across the narrow pathways to the site. Good job guys! Stephan will appreciate the effort when he comes to visit in November.
We were fortunate to have a soccer team from Beacon Hill School in New York City visit us and they spent time hiking and volunteering at the reserve in between playing soccer against the local teams. They helped with the classroom construction by shovelling gravel into a truck to have hauled up the steep hill to the construction site. They then wheelbarrowed it from the truck closer to the classroom. This task took some good muscle power and lots of shovels. We hope all of the shovelling and hiking didn’t wear them out for the soccer games. They also planted trees up on the slopes of jilguero. Some of them admitted that they had never planted a tree. Lets hope that this will encourage them to plant many more in the future. You are welcome back to contribute to the rainforests and make a difference in our environment anytime.
Therese a botanical artist from Massachusetts, USA was here at Cloudbridge to capture the true likeness of many of our beautiful native plants. She brought her family along to relax and enjoy the trails and serenity of the area. They went home with some great memories of their adventure. There was something said about interesting ways of dealing with the mice in their casa. We look forward to the paintings when they are shipped back for others to enjoy here at Cloudbridge.
Rachel Ratcliffe spent two weeks here teaching Spanish to Tom and Linda. It is necessary to speak the language when you run a reserve in Costa Rica. Thank you Racheal for all of the lessons. We continue to practice and hopefully improve with all of your information and guidance. Its a good thing we know the verb «comer – to eat» because we don’t have that flash card anymore, the dog ‘ate’ it. True story. Thanks to Rachel’s husband Morgan, we got alot more work done on the classroom. Its good when we can call in the army.
The trails are in great shape because of Henry and his dedicated efforts on maintenance. We have had lots of compliments from hikers that have come from around the world to enjoy them. This is the green season with all of the rain and the trees look great, the heliconias are blooming and you can a find a variety other plants flowering along the trails.
Cloudbridge has space for additional researchers, please pass the word.
