Trying to Save the Rain Forest One Tree at a Time

Well I think the cat officially has a new home.  She has been staying with us all week after it followed the kids home from practice the other day.  The kids have been "trying" to find it a new home but they haven't looked too hard.  So the cat has made itself at home and earlier today I was up working on the computer and I kept hearing this meow sounds and turned around and the kitten was laying on my bed trying to get my attention.

This morning I volunteered with the Costa Rica Conservation Foundation for another day of tree planting.  This time I was actually able to go to the tree nursery where all the little trees are grown and see how they grow the trees and how many trees they actually produce each year.

This is a picture looking down the hill at their nursery.  A lot of hard work goes into collecting the seeds and growing the seedlings but what a difference all these trees would make for future rain forest.  The most common tree species they grow is a wild avocado which there are over 80 different varieties.  This species is so popular due to the wildlife benefits that it provides to all the animals that live in the rain forest.

Here is our chain gang trying to get all of the seedlings out of the nursery, up the hill, and on to the back of the truck to be planted.  Today's group was another group of high school students from the US.

The trees loaded and ready to go!

The tree planting begins.  Today we had approximately 203 trees to get planted which this group did in about an hour, I was impressed!  My job was to sit on the back of the truck and cut all of the black bags open on all the seedlings to make it easier to get them out of the bags in tact and then I was able to help with the planting.

Here you can see where the students are planting at the top of the hill working their way down.  The farmer that we were planting the trees for, which was donated by the FCC, was trying to reforest an old pasture.  There seems to be a lot of people in the area that have old pasture land they would like converted back to forested land so that is where the FCC can come in and truly make a difference.

This evening I went with the family to the Monteverde Friend's School where they had a pot luck dinner.  It reminded me of my church at home but not as many wonderful dishes and desserts.  Here we had a lot of fresh fruit, vegetables as well as breads, and lots and lots of rice dishes.  So don't get me wrong it was good, but honestly didn't see any meat on the entire length of the table.  Tomorrow morning I will be going with the family to the local farmers' market which I am really excited about!!