Jungle Jouissance

making a home in the Guatemalan rainforest

Archive for May, 2013


   May 22

Garden: White Lilies

These beautiful white lilies sprang into flower a couple of days ago after our first intimation of rains.

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   May 21

Garden: Vermicomposting

Last year, Project Ix-canaan hosted a vermiculture workshop led by Cathy Nesbitt of Ontario, Canada (Cathy’s Crawly Composters) and Maria Rodriguez of Guatemala City (Byoearth). You can read more about the workshop here. The goal was to find a way to replentish and reenergise the incredibly bad soil so it would support garden vegetables.

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   May 18

Nature: Stick Bug

Thanks to the miracles of Google, it took only a few minutes for me to discover that it is from the order of Phasmida, otherwise known as stick-insect, walking sticks or stick bugs. There are lots of interesting things about Stick-Bugs and I highly recommend a more thorough reading of the subject here … you will learn about their Anatomy ( Phasmids have an impressive visual system that allow them to perceive significant detail even in dim conditions, which suits their typically nocturnal lifestyle ), about their Defense M echanisms ( Phasmatodea species exhibit mechanisms for defense from predators that both prevent an attack from happening in the first place (primary defense) and are deployed after an attack has been initiated (secondary defense )), their Life Cycle ( Many species of phasmids are parthenogenic , meaning the females lay eggs without needing to mate with males to produce offspring .), their Behaviour ( Stick insects, like praying mantises , show rocking behavior in which the insect makes rhythmic, repetitive, side-to-side movements.

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   May 18

Recipe: Vegan Chickpea Burgers

For ages I have been wanting to find a perfect vegetarian “burger”. I have collected a pile of recipes, and I’ve tried a couple, but still hadn’t found one that made me want to run out to the kitchen and make more. Until this recipe.

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   May 12

Paca-Finds: Mother n’ Child

Purchases at the Mega-Paca fall into two categories … those that you go looking for specifically to fit a specific need, and those that you just see and know that it is perfect for something.

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   May 11

Nail Art: Arlene’s Stargazer Lilies

This Nail Art is in honour of my sister, Arlene, whose favourite flower was the Stargazer Lily. She asked me if I would do a Stargazer Lily design and I told her I would. It took me a couple of weeks and lots of different attempts to achieve a result that I was happy with.

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   May 10

Nature: The Ants and the Scorpion

I was walking into the house the other day when i glanced down at the path and saw this scorpion being dragged across the stones by a lot of ants.

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