Rock rolling, etc...

Ourlatest project was tackling this mess -
This fine little fellow took on the job of 'straw boss':
He's not totally done, yet, but haven't the past 3 days made a wonderful improvement?
AND - drum roll, please - we got our occupancy permit ... we got our building permit the same day, which does make our builder sound efficient, however, due to him not getting the building permit to begin with, we've had all sorts of problems ... and we hired a local firm just to avoid this sort of problem!
& This newcomer to our neighborhood stood on the welcome mat quite a while before s/he realized that we were not interested in a fly-through:

Last but not least, 2 photos of moths -

Rock rolling

The following 3 photos are of our current 'rock rolling' project - in the 3rd one, you can see a local 'taxi' for the workers coming down from the farm behind the rocks waiting to get rolled into place.

Honest, the truck in the background really is a taxi for farm workers.


These are some of the last rocks waiting to be 'rolled' ... believe it or not, they look better than the ones pictured above did prior to getting put into place.
& lastly, Paul found this caterpillar hauling around a leaf to duck into in case of danger ... at first, we thought it was trying to make a cocoon.

Indoor projects

My favorite indoor project is my new pot rack ... we looked all over for a pot rack, but only found the scrawniest things, then we found some heavy duty commercial shelving units & inspiration hit ....


The phrase 'you get what you pay for' proved itself correct, again, when we purchased cheap ceiling fans in an effort to make our builder happy about the budget.... The fans look okay, but their blades kept growing a nasty mold -


You can see it better here -

Solved the problem by having pressure treated lumber resawn into thin slabs, then fitted into blades.

And here you see the finished product - I like it much better than the original and think these blades fit in with my 'rustic' theme much better.

Other 'babies' in our neighborhood.

The young gentleman on your right is Carlos, he's Victor's son - we introduced you to Victor, last year. When we need a hand with the yard, Victor is the first person we think to call. Really nice person, and very knowledgeable about plants and rocks.



The girl on your left is Macareahna .... don't know if I spelled that right. She's Carlos' cousin and she giggles a lot.

Carlos also has a baby sister - Myrna was born near Christmas, last year, so I think she's about 11 months, now.... IF you ever visit Panama's mountains and see a Ngobe Bugle * woman with the strap of a woven bag over her forehead, you now know one thing she might be carrying in her bag:


* The Ngobe Bugle are one of the seven tribes of indigenous peoples in Panama, and all the ones we've met have been short, but strong. We enjoy having them for neighbors.

Typical rural hydro-electric plant, etc....

Quaint, isn't it?


& this is our photo of the week ... this little fella belongs to our friend, Rigo, and was very interested in Paul's donut.


The piglet above reminds me of a blunder I made .... in Spanish, the word for kitchen is cocina (pronounced co-seen-ah), however, for years, I enjoyed reading our daughter's Italian cooking magazine and the italian word for 'kitchen' is cucina (pronounced coo-chee-ah) .... close, but in Spanish that word = small pig, so now you see why the photo reminded me of that learning experience. Anyway, I was explaining to ~ Javier that the main difference between Panamanian houses and 'gringo houses' was the fact that in Panamanian houses, the kitchen is a small room, away from the main parts of the house, but in 'gringo houses' it was the 'heart of the home' .... poor dear got quite confused over why a piglet would be the heart of any place ;-) And my response was, "Oops, I said it in Italian." Then went on to correct myself.

I may laugh as I now say 'cocina', but I never mix that word up with Italian.

Moth of the week, etc.:

We discovered the above beauty clinging to laundry we'd left out over night ... it was almost as big as Jeanne's hand.

We'll add butterfly photos if we ever figure out how to get photos of them with a digital camera ... you would not believe how speedy the ones down here are! Of course, the birds are fast, too, so I guess their prey must be, as well.

At present, we're inching toward November, which is a month when it seems like every other day is a holiday in Panama. We'd expected to have our pensionado visas by now --- the lawyer originally told us "2-3 months".... it's been over a half year. While it would be easy to put all the blame on our lawyer, I must be fair and explain that it's also the system she's dealing with - as we understand it, shortly after we applied for this visa, the head of Panama's Department of Immigration changed the rule for tourist visas from 90 days to 30 days - and inundated his department with tons of extra paperwork and ill will from visitors.... after a couple months of this, the president told the director 'either you resign or you'll be fired' ... he resigned. At that point (2-3 months ago) our visa had been approved and was only awaiting his signature .... it seems no one else is authorized to sign this .... The good news is that a new director was appointed about a month ago / the bad news is that instead of catching up on paperwork, his first 'act of office' seems to have been to visit the district offices and fire everyone, thus now no one knows what they're doing.

What can I say? Welcome to Panama, a mix of 3rd world mud-floor huts & 1st world skyscrapers.

The trout farm up the hill ....

Looking down at the trout farm, you can see the main ponds, but you can't grasp the full impact of what a pretty place it is.



A worker feeds the baby fish

When one gets closer, they can see how pretty the individual plants are - Jeanne is particularly fond of papyrus, like this beauty



The hydrangea are quite nice, too



Also, when one gets closer, they can hear the water thundering over the dozen or so waterfalls that add air to the water and ambiance to the farm:




Due to the declining wild fish population, they are currently doubling the size of the trout farm and I'm confident that when the new sections are complete, they will be just as lovely as the original farm:

Just a note...

Yes, we do realize it's been 11 days since our last post - apologies. We try to post blogs that have photographs, but haven't been doing anything to take photos of (at least we didn't think to take pictures). Thus, I'll simply share a typical day in rainy season (since our rainy season coincides with hurricane season in the northern hemisphere, we still have a few more weeks - fortunately, this is my favorite season).

Mornings generally dawn with a varied chorus of birds heralding the sun and 60-65 degree temps. Sometimes, it's a tad overcast, but mornings generally make me think Spring is in the air. And as soon as breakfast is over, I'm generally out puttering in the garden (alias weeding and digging).

By lunchtime, the weather has veered into a lovely summer day, then in the afternoon, the rains bring the thought of autumn. The amount of rainfall we get on any given day depends on what storm systems are in the area - at present, we're getting heavy rain, which I believe is courtesy of Kiko. When the rains begin, we turn our attention to indoor projects....

Evenings definitely remind me of a crisp fall day.... thus, I think we get 3 seasons every day and are only lacking winter. (this explains why we've been unable to find canning jars for sale).

Getting back to the house...

Comments have been made that we haven't had the house on the blog recently. Sorry, we've been focused on the yard. Here is what it looks like as you drive up the road:

& the next couple take you a bit farther up the road ...


This one gives you a peak at the corner of the carport, which is in the background behind one of Paul's favorite orchids:

Here, you're looking down the driveway -
And now you're a bit past the house -

And now, getting back to my favorite topic or the yard: did you noticed that you can see the trees on the other side of the living room windows? If so, you'll understand why this poor little fella hit the window head on ...
As you see in the photo above, Paul gave it poor concussed hummingbird a lid with sugar water in it... I'm happy to report that shortly after it's drink, it was able to fly away .... I plan to make curtains for the living room windows a top priority so we have no more concussed birds.

A couple photos -

Paul found this slick bug clinging to our screen door ... it was about long as a pencil and 'fat' as the lead center:
This is what a typical rock looks like:
Looks like it's been there since creation, doesn't it?

As we move into October...

Juan, our neighbor took the following photo (and the one of Misty, which follows) ... this is a section of his guava orchard --- do you see the macaw watching the dogs?

Paul's favorite orchid ... at least it's this week's favorite:
Note that this one is being pollinated by ants:



Meet our new 'neighbor', Misty, daughter of Ms Lulu and Master Paco... at least Juan believes Paco is the dad (his horse is showing a remarkable devotion to mother and daughter, while Paco, the bull, seems oblivious) ... Juan is positive Ms. Lulu is the mom...



Doesn't look a bit like her parents, does she?

Babies of the neighborhood ...

I was quite startled to glance out the window to my back yard and see this baby hummingbird sitting on the sill ... was even more amazed when it stayed long enough for Paul to take its photo:
In fact, the little thing stayed so long I wondered what was wrong with it... Paul asked if it had flown into the window and cuncussed itself... no, it hadn't... I went outside to work and even though I'd opened the screen door next to it, it STILL didn't move ... however, once we got outside, we realized the little thing was mesmerized by its own reflection.

This is Paul's favorite photo of the baby deer because the spots are visible... Did I previously mention that he's discovered this little guy's mom eats banana peals like they're candy?
Strangely enough, prior to living in Panama, neither Paul nor I realized that anything other than fruit flies ate banana peals, but since being here we've seen many animals who think they're high on the 'treat' list.

And in the garden ....

Orchids are budding:
... these flowers aren't huge, like the ones florests sell, they're 'typical size' of a native orchid - see?:


Actually today is just another lovely day in Tisingal ... though it does look like autumn - the way I can tell is that some of the trees have barren branches raised to the sky & there are leaves to add to the compost pit, otherwise the climate is typical.

If it were not for various plants having 'dormant' times and the area having a dry season, every day would seem like every other day. This is not a bad thing, but it tends to give me problems keeping track of the season in the States.

Yesterday, when we checked on how the paperwork was progressing for our water concession, we discovered several bags of plants in the back of the place (the water department shares the building with the agricultural department) ... of course, Paul had to ask what they were & when he was told 'mountain avocados' he wanted to know how much one cost .... we purchased 5 & were happy to pay the dollar, now I'm wondering just where to plant something that gets a big as an avocado tree.....

And this is our animal photo of the week ... these deer have been monitoring progress on our yard and house since we started the rock wall, but it's the first time we had the camera handy to show them to you: