Life at the Field Station

Yanayacu is a remarkably lovely place to work and live.  It's not luxurious by any means, but I love being surrounded by astonishing plants and animals, scientific experiments, and interesting people.

I'm an early bird so I was usually the first one up.
The expression "early bird" is apt.  It's the best time to watch the exotic birds flitting about.

Wet clothes never dried in this cold, wet, rainy place.

Big rubber boots were essential for the muddy trails.

These were my first roommates, Dianne, Cha, and Jess.  I bunked with them until night three, when we heard a scary, scuttling sound overhead as we were falling asleep.  It turned out to be an opossum, my WORST fear.  I bolted downstairs, had someone go back up to retrieve my blankets, and moved permanently into a room one level down.  Apparently the opossum could be heard running around every night thereafter!  Egad!

My post-opossum bedroom.  I still had the top bunk.

My post-opossum roommates, Steve and Brian.

Rainy stretches were spent doing more pinning.
I realized that I can postpone wearing reading glasses no longer.
Had to borrow a pair from Cha.

A soup course began every meal.  The Ecuadoreans put popcorn in their soup.
Try it!  It's pretty tasty.

Monzie and Jess hunting for baby caterpillars.

We had time to play games and goof around.

The field station at dusk.  So welcoming and so remote.

More photographing caterpillars with Teresa.

And more hunting for them on leaves.

Dianne and I were the big contest winners:  She came closest to guessing the number of caterpillars found on a pile of branches and I came closest to guessing how many leaves.
The prize: granola bars!

Dani and Richard laying out the pinned moths after their 48 hours drying out under lamps.

Here's Ryan checking out spiders under a microscope.

Removing the pinned moths from their boards.
(Tired of seeing me in that pink hat?  I sure tired of wearing it!)

A weird animal bone mobile.

The view from the field station never got old.

Here's Jess enjoying some hammock time. What a relaxing place.