Stairway to compound

The morning before Chris's flight home we started working at 6h00 am with the guys to get the base of the stairway from the cabins area to the main building. We managed to get the stair trusses in for the top stairway and the foundations of the decks built. Then we jumped in the truck and drove like mad to Belize City, so they could catch their plane.

Big O testing out the foundations to the deck and stairs

The week after Vanessa and I and the guys finished up the 2 stairways, the multiple decks and gate to the lower part of the center. The stairs look awesome and the decks allow visitors to stop at a couple of areas to look at the mountains, do some bird watching and just enjoying the view! The top deck gives us another location to hang out at the end of a hard day!

The three tiered stairway

Eva enjoying the new viewing spot

Looking down to gate from deck 2

Top deck 1, excellent for birdwatching and just plain out relaxing

Yoga Retreat Workshops

Ecorana is proud to announce that it will be offering Yoga Retreat in the Spring 2013! If you are interested please visit us at http://ecorana.ca/yoga-retreat-in-belize/

Getting Closer

Hello everyone, we are very sorry for the delay in postings! We have now been here about a year and we are getting very close to being able to open the station for business! So we have rolled up our sleeves and are working even harder than before to have the station fully operational for January 2012!

Our biggest hurddle right now is to have all of the facilities ready for January! Vanessa's family came down to help out and with the great leadership of Chris we now have a beautiful shower building! We still have some plumbing and minor construction to do but it looks great! I am very proud to introduce out new solar shower facilities at T.R.E.E.S

Phase 1 - Posts into the ground!

Phase 2- Base platform set-up!

Phase 3 - Making sure everything is leveled up! Ready for the building!

Phase 4 - The building itself! It is Eva approved! Thanks Chris!!!

I will add a couple picture one we have doors and a everything is hooked up!

The work shed

It took about 6 months and three different contractors as well as work from us and the neighbours but we have finally built the work shed. This outdoor building has 5 ports in total, 2 car ports, 2 work area ports and a beautiful workshop. It is a large covered area with electricity so can work at night and when it is raining, nothing can stop us now!

Phase 1 - this phase lasted about 6 months, I had pretty much given up on the project!

Phase 2 - The roof, a good start that took lots of effort to get there! The tractor was happy at least!

 Phase 3 - Finally the completed shed, includes electricity, rain water collection cistern, and tool shop. A great spot to work in the rain, a place to put all of the lumber and the vehicles! Awesome!!!

Comments and emails

Hello dear readers, a few of you have sent us some great comments and some of you have written with some questions about the station, positions available etc. Unfortuneatly, Blogger are not providing us with the email of these comments.

Again, we kindly request that for specific questions about the station you visit our website at www.ecorana.ca or send us an email at info@ecorana.ca ! Your questions are valuable to us!

Thanks,

The Ecorana Team!

New T.R.E.E.S LOGO

Our friend Peter Diamond has created our new T.R.E.E.S logo! We are very proud of his work and especially of the new logo that will represent the N.G.O and Station!

King Vulture at TREES

As you know I have done some research in the past on the King Vulture in Mexico. So, I have a bit of a weak spot for the beautiful new world vulture. Last week after butchering a pig that the neighbour provided, we took the remains that were unusable such as skin, fat, some bones etc., and set-up one of our remote field cameras. We placed the remains and the cameras on one of the trails, right in the jungle and then came the hard part, waiting 5 days before we could see what visited our site.

After 5 days we picked up the cameras and rushed to the computers to see what we got. There it was, on the first day we had the elusive King Vulture, right on the TREES site. We were all very excited by this visit, and now we are planning experimental designs to start studying this bird, part of our long-term research protocols. Anyhow, very exciting!

In addition to the King Vulture, we had a couple of Turkey Vultures and a Common Possum. Not bad for a first try!

 

Officially our first King Vulture observed at TREES (on the ground that is!!!)

 

Turkey Vultures scoping out the food situtation

 

Common Possum