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?