Leafcutter Ants, Sarapiquis Rainforest Lodge, Sarapiqui, Costa Rica

In the Sarapiqui rainforest in northeastern Costa Rica, we watched a long line of cutterants hard at work carrying green bits of leaves down a tree trunk and along the ground enroute to their nest. Hoisting the fragments above their heads, these little stevedores are herculean since the leaves can be three times their body weight.

Surprisingly, the ants don’t eat the leaves but instead bring them to an underground chamber and feed them to a soft, spongy fungus that they cultivate for food. Cutterants are farmers par excellence! They work in a multifaceted partnership that makes their fungus farming successful.

An average nest has 5 million ants living in a complex system of tunnels and chambers that can be the size of a small car. The queen is the heart of the colony and can lay 30,000 eggs a day.

The ant workforce is quite diversified. Each ant type has specific work assignments. Media ants do the leaf cutting and the heavy lifting and portage. Large-jawed soldiers patrol and protect the ants as they journey back to the nest with their green cargo. Another ant group distributes leaf bits to the fungus. The smallest ants, the minimae, tend the fungus. They often hitch a ride on transported leaves to clean off competing fungal spores. (A minima is riding the leaf towards the top of my photograph.) Minimas chew leaves into smaller pieces, adding feces and saliva and attaché this sticky material to the fungus.

They fertilize their fungus garden using nitrogen-fixing bacteria. They kill unwanted garden parasites with a type of Streptomyces bacteria that resides on the ants’ exoskeleton. The ants don’t fall prey to insecticides produced by plants because the friendly fungus zaps them.

Leafcutter ants and the antimycin compounds linked with the Streptomyces they carry have inspired research on anti-cancer drugs to use against chemotherapy-resistant cancer cells.

Ants secrete a chemical trail that leds them back to their nest. They communicate rapidly and don’t need Facebook to form a “flash mob”. Remember their lightening-speed communication skills next time you have a parade of ants invade your picnic or kitchen.

Ants never captured my imagination as a child but here I am awestruck by their ingenuity, synergy and work ethic. Maybe — just maybe — an Uncle Milton’s ant farm is in order for all of us to learn big lessons from the tiny ant.

Leopard©, Okavango Delta, Botswana, Photograph by Trina Pate

My friend, photographer and infamous Nurseketeer, Trina Pate, took this photo of a sleek, graceful and watchful leopard in Botswana last year. Trina has been studying photography with Ralph Lee Hopkins, a National Geographic photographer, who started the Lindblad/National Geographic photography program.

Trina and husband Bud were part of a select group of photography lovers who didn’t want a quick snapshot of a wild animal but instead wanted a great image and would spend as much time as it took to get “that photo” of a rare and beautiful animal. They have been perfecting their photography skills with Ralph at National Geographic photography workshops in the U.S as well as on Lindblad trips to Baja, Alaska, the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and Antarctica.

Thanks Trina for sharing an inside peek of your adventure with this beautiful young leopard.

During our African photo safari in September 2013, we stayed a few days in Savuti Camp, located in the Okavango Delta, Botswana. On one of our morning game rides, we came upon this gorgeous young female leopard sitting atop a termite mound.

She was 18 months old, not yet fully grown, and was still learning to hunt. Many times when leopards are seen, they’re up in trees sleeping. This leopard was quite active, and we spent 4 1/2 hours taking photos of her. It remains the best day of my life in terms of photography. Normal people would have gone crazy, but all of us were ecstatic!

Leopard on a Termite Mound , Okavango Delta, Botswana, Photograph by Trina Pate

We followed her as she walked across open fields, through dense brush, around lakes. Sometimes, she seemed to be posing for us, thus she was coined “Cindy” after Cindy Crawford, the supermodel. After a while, she climbed up the tree in the photo and took a nap. She was aware of our presence, but seemed unbothered by us.

We were parked in a Range Rover less than 50 feet from the tree. She’d sleep for a while, move around the tree, and then grab another catnap over the next two hours. After she left the tree, she continued roaming, again striking poses for us. I think each of us took at least 1,000 photos of her. She is probably the most beautiful animal I have ever seen. What a magical day it was!

I can understand why people might want a coat made from leopard fur, but I cannot understand how anyone could look into her gorgeous eyes, and then kill her for her fur. Her fur looks far better on her than on any human!

Trina shot this photo with her Nikon D300s with a Nikkor 70 – 200mm telephoto lens. (This photo is copyrighted and cannot be used without Trina Pate’s permission)

Mermaid’s Delight, Mermaid Cottage, Solana Beach, California

Mermaids encircled me this weekend and I didn’t even have a toe in the ocean. The mermaid-inspired cottage we rented in Solana Beach was awash in sleek, green-finned mermaids — at the front door, embedded in the bathroom tiles, adorning the walls and the pièce de résistance — a sparkling 5-foot mermaid mosaic in blues and greens that illuminated our private patio.

Solana Beach is nestled along the northern coast of San Diego County and a 30- minute drive from downtown San Diego. After a relaxing 2½-hour ride on Amtrak’s Pacific Surfliner, Jim and I arrived at Solana Beach’s Quonset hut-inspired train station.

Solana Beach is a favorite destination of ours. Small and inviting with lovely beaches, shops, restaurants, and nearby hiking. The Cedros design district has abundant art galleries, import and antique stores and cafes. Leaping Lotus, one of my favorites, has 21,000 square feet of shopping pleasure. Beautiful, fun, quirky and unique gifts, many created by local artists, always tempt me.

Many stores carry decorative items featuring the mythical oceanic half-female, half-fish mermaid. These beautiful, seductive maidens with their streaming auburn tresses have mystified seafarers for thousands of years and inspired myths, stories, movies and even an annual Mermaid Parade in Coney Island. Hans Christian Andersen’s Little Mermaid is perhaps the best know mermaid of all time, but who can forget Daryl Hannah and Tom Hanks in the 1980’s romantic comedy Splash?

In 1493, Christopher Columbus sighted three mermaids near what is now the Dominican Republic. He wrote they “came quite high out of the water but were not as pretty as they are depicted, for somehow in the face they look like men.” English adventurer John Smith described a mermaid he saw off Newfoundland in 1614, “her long green hair imparted to her an original character that was by no means unattractive.”

Mermaids, manatee, doppelganger, who knows? The mermaid spell has endured across space and time and clearly lingers in Solana Beach where surfers, paddle boarders, and families enjoyed the unseasonably warm November day.

On my last evening there, I walked to Tide Beach to watch the sunset. As the sun kissed the sea good night, I wondered if the fleeting green flash I saw was the shimmering tail of a lost mermaid as she dove down to the idyllic oceanic floor. I don’t know for sure… but I’d like to think so.

El Matador Beach, Malibu, California

Sometimes you find out information in the most unusual way. At a Dodger game a few years back, the votes of fans’ favorite beaches flashed on the scoreboard. I don’t remember what the second and third favorites were but El Matador Beach scored a home run on the video screen. El Matador? I’d never heard of this beach. But now I had to visit it

Jim, my nephew Chris and I drove to the west end of Malibu and found El Matador Beach between Leo Carrillo and Point Dume State Beaches. We were lucky enough to nab a parking place at the top of the bluff. One look down and we knew Dodger fans really did know beach beauty.  Below the rocky cliffs, a protected pocket beach awaited complete with sea caves, coves, rugged boulders and kelp-filled waters.

Walking down the steep trail, we watched a crew film a young blond woman in a white bathing suit and black gladiator sandals posing with a man with six-pack abs.  The models looked bored between takes but snapped into a romantic embrace for several retakes.

It was a perfect beach day. “El Mat” wasn’t very crowded and we enjoyed our own serene paradise, interrupted occasionally by a wayward Smashball or Frisbee sailing by. The beach was sheltered and pristine and I loved the feeling of solitude surrounded by rugged cliffs, boulders and monolith rocks spiraling skyward.

Malibu was once inhabited by The Chumash Native Americans who named it “humaliwo” meaning “where the surf sounds loudly.” And indeed, the surf did roar at El Matador Beach on this southern California endless summer day. The water was cold, invigorating and as deep blue as any Dodger fan could hope for.

Fields of Gold, Black Mountain Ranch, upper Ojai, California

Driving the windy highway 150 into Ojai is always an adventure. This two-lane road is so familiar to Jim and me after 28 years that even the pungent oily smell from Santa Paula creek near Thomas Aquinas College presents a unique welcome. We curve around windswept ridges, citrus and avocado groves and expansive horse ranches.

In upper Ojai, the Black Mountain Ranch is ablaze with color, shapes and forms. The mustard plants, orchard trees and Coast Live Oak trees form a stunning horticultural canvas.

Only 80 miles from our Glendale home, Ojai, nestled in the Los Padres National Forest, is a retreat from congested city life. Each year, we come in late April and join family and friends to watch “The Ojai” tennis tournament.

Ojai is a haven for artists, musicians and those seeking a healthy lifestyle. But lesser known is the oldest amateur tennis tournament in America (114 years) that’s played in this Mayberry-esque town. Tennis matches include PAC-12, community and independent college, junior competition, and open tennis play.

Tennis legends Billie Jean King, Arthur Ashe, Stan Smith, Tracy Austin and the Bryan brothers have all played here. Libbey Park, shaded by mighty oaks in the middle of town, hosts the major tennis action and dozens of courts all the way to Ventura are also used.

This tournament is so steeped in tradition that the “Tea Tent” opens promptly at 3 p.m. Tea is poured into china cups from an elegant sterling server for all who stop in. One lump or two? A slice of lemon? Women adorned in floral dresses stand ready with platters loaded with Oreos, maple, lemon creme, shortcake, and chocolate chip cookies. Fans reconnect around outside tables and discuss their favorite plays of the day while sipping tea.

We love “The Ojai” and my memories of the years here don’t fade easily.  Nor do the back of my white slacks with the green tinge from the freshly painted bleachers at Libbey Park.

We’ll return next year, stay at the Lavender Inn’s cottage, take an early morning hike up Shelf Road Trail with Christy and PJ and then watch the matches, cheering for the winners and the runner-ups as they receive their green and white ribboned medals flanked amidst pots of yellow chrysanthemums.  And yes, I’ll wear white slacks again. After all, that’s part of the tradition too.