Current project...

The arrival of this hard-working truck meant a long hard day of welding ... Rafa and Billy got right to work, but proved difficult to photograph. Still, I did managed to catch this one of Billy:

& this of Rafa:

This is the beginning of their project:

And Billy welding away at it mid-project:

AND, this is what they were working on:

This is dry season, but we've been getting a ton of rain --- if/when it gets dry, I will paint the metal and then move the plants into the new porch/greenhouse (plants tend to object to paint on their leaves).

closet ...

It took 4 years to decide on what we wanted for a permanent closet, but this is the start of it:

And a few more pieces added:

With Calisto supervising, of course (he's the one in the cap)

& now you see the bits all put together ---- we did not want doors on the closet because mold and mildew are problems in areas where air does not circulate, so until we can figure out a solution to that issue, we prefer to avoid the problem by not having doors:

These final 2 photos are of everything in the unit:

If we ever want, we can take out the shelves below the computer & use this area as a desk:

Makeovers...

Our Szuki Jimny looks about the same from the front, but if you look closely, you'll see that she is sporting a snazzy new luggage rack:

AND from the side, perhaps you'll notice that she's got stylish new rims:

You can really notice the new, stylish rims, when you look at her spare tire:

We had nothing to do with the other makeover - below you'll see that moss is growing on 'seal rock' in a pattern that resembles waves on the 'tummy' and it's even growing an eye! Wish I'd thought of this - I'd have looked for buttermilk to paint on the desired pattern, but I really don't think this natural one can be topped:

New neighbors ....

We discovered that we had new neighbors in a red grapefruit tree:

See how well the Hummingbirds hid it?:

For the birds ...

Just finished a couple birds (taking a break from flowers) - this chatty tucan:

& this thirsty hummer for Gen - it was based on one of her photos & I'm amazed at her luck/skill with a camera - I have been trying to photograph hummingbirds and butterflies in our garden (for years) and most of the time I end up with photos of blurry foliage.

I realize that at first glance this is quite a dull looking patch of flowers BUT they're the Central American version of butterfly weed, and we actually have several patches of them for the butterflies (and humming birds, too) -

If you take a close look, you can see this beauty:

Or this one:

We've seen many other species of butterfly sipping nectar plus 5 species of humming birds, unfortunately, as yet, have not been successful at getting a photo of the humming birds....

The garden is thriving

Welcome - come take a virtual walk with me down a garden path -


This patch of bird beak heliconias has been blooming for months - if you look close, you can see the eaves of the garage behind them... there's a large parking area there, too, but that's impossible to see.

We have many types of heliconias in the garden - ginger and bananas are in the botanical family, as well as this bizarre flower:

Here's another photo of it, which (hopefully) will give you a better idea of it's size - and how close to the ground it grows... that white thing is a 1/2 inch tube ... while the flowers are close to the ground, the plant is taller than I am:

This is a corner Maria, our gardener, and I are currently working on:

And this is the path we're walking:


This plant 'volunteered itself' ... in other words, no one has any idea where it came from, but it's certainly interesting - this is the back view of it -

And this is the front of the flower ... I've never seen anything exactly like it, before.

Actually, I'm not surprised when plants move into the garden - plants grow EVERYWHERE on the edge of the rainforest - that odd lump on the right is a rock:

This is the back of that rock and that plant on the left is an orchid - actually several of our rocks are covered with the small, native orchids.

Even the tree trunks are covered with other plants - and yes, that's yet another orchid covered rock next to it:

And here is another rocky view - that odd football looking thing in the upper right hand corner is a banana blossom (and yes, it actually is about the size of a football - the rock is about the size of a VW Beetle.

So, that's it for today's garden tour ... it's wet season and I need to keep the camera dry.