May Day

First, happy May Day to all. Hopefully some of you had a chance to make May baskets and dance around a May pole. I was back out in the forest again after a mini-vacation the last few days of April. Whenever its been a couple of days since I’ve been out to the forest, I’m always anxious about what I may find. But the monkeys were waiting for me, just as though they had been wondering why I hadn’t shown up for a while. They were sleeping low along the Camino, where I would be sure to find them. They hung out for a while, and then around 7 or 8, they started their circuitous route ever northward—finally ending in that heavenly Mango Patch I discovered them in last week.

So, it was a great start to a new month of data collection. It also seems that the dry season has finally ended. Ever since we got that little bit of a rain shower last week, the land has lost its parched look, and the sweltering heat has abated somewhat. I am enjoying this transition to the wet season—its before the path up to the forest becomes a river of mud, before the mosquitoes and spiders return, before I become constantly wet and cold in the forest, before the time when my shoes never seem to dry out. For the moment it is just nice to have merciful clouds in the sky that help to tone down the sun.

Morning is arriving earlier and earlier these days, so I've got to go and try to get some sleep. Thanks for reading, until later.