Birds, Diego meets a Costa Rican Kitty, & Chicken Shit

Birds:

I FINALLY have birds wooo hoooo! After weeks of trying I started putting out platanos (big starchy bananas) and voila! they came. The pictures came out better than I expected so I will be taking more! These are red-legged honey creepers. The handsome blue bird is the male. The green one is the female and she is much braver than him because she always comes first. We have a bunch coming now and they chatter away in the trees waiting their turns!

He is really a beauty!!

This is a blue-gray tanager who also is coming by with friends. The shot is not the best I know - where are you Mary???!!! I need help! But still this is also a beautiful bird. It started raining, surprise, so this is all I got today :(.

This is a blurry pic of one of the hummers that visit every day. This plant is in a palm tree that Mario hollowed out for me.  I just love living here!

I have no pictures of Diego with this story but we are still laughing so I thought I would share it. Yesterday morning he went outside for his morning business and there was a CAT eating his food! Well Diego pretty much hated cats in the states, but here they all come into the yard to steal his food so now he REALLY hates them. He spends his day checking on his bowl and chasing any that come along. (I feed him outside because of the HUGE bugs here) Well this cat ran like all the others with D in hot pursuit. He cornered the cat near my lipstick palm and started barking madly. I don't know why the cats won't jump the chicken wire fence, but they all seem to think they can't and head for the gate. This cat couldn't get to the gate with Diego in front of him so he did what all cats do, puffed up to twice his size, hissed, and lashed out with his claws. We have no idea if he actually touched D but Diego started screaming like he was dying! Yelping and running and rolling on the ground heading right for me for protection! Mario started laughing hysterically and saying "how embarressing" over and over again. I am not sure if he was embarrassed for D or for us having such a wimpy dog. Well D must have been embarrassed because he recovered himself and went back for the cat. The cat meanwhile had a surprised, did-I-do-that look on his face, paused for a moment, we are sure he was also laughing, and then scurried out via the gate. Poor D, thank goodness none of his new doggy friends were around to witness his humiliation.

Chicken Shit:

We have it and it stinks! With all of the plants I have been putting in I have been looking for organic fertilizer. As all good gardeners know chicken shit is gold. Well I saw a sign for organic fertilizer and gallina something as we were heading out of town one day and Mario got all excited. His dad too! They also needed some. We called the number and for a mere 1250 colones per bag were the proud owners of chicken shit. These are not small bags! They are the big potato sacks so you can imagine how 4 of these smelled in transit. 1250 colones is roughly $2.50. So I put our 2 bags in my composter to ferment further, spread some around and hopefully my flowers will be even more beautiful!

When the cure is worse ...

The fumigated again today. I am assuming it was to kill any emerging mosquitoes. We missed the motorcycle guy yesterday but Mario's mom let us know so I was ready! I closed all the windows and curtains and made sure Diego and I were way out back. Well as way out as we can be in our little yard. We listened as the whine of the fumigators came closer and closer. Finally we saw the smog coming down the road. They stopped when they got to our house and since everything was closed up didn't shoot the smog in. Mario's mom came out to see how we fared since Mario had gone to check on our car in the shop. We saw the smoke approaching her house and she scurried off to check on things. I started to head into our house since most of the smoke had cleared, when I heard Mario's dad shouting "Where is my wife??". Turns out his mom went into the house thinking that they would not fumigate inside. His dad, who was out front, asked the guy to do inside the house. When his mom saw the house filling with smoke she ran into the back room thinking the smoke wouldn't reach her. So when the fumigator opened the last door there she was. He told her to run out of the house since the rooms were filled with the smog. She came over to our house to breathe. She was OK thank goodness! Hopefully this is the last round of spraying. There are at least 5 cases of dengue in our little town so they are doing everything they can to eliminate the mosquitoes that spread it. I hardly get bit around the house, but I know there are tons of mosquitoes in the woods behind us. I usually off myself before going there. Think I will stay clear for a while til this dies down a bit.

I got my hair cut pretty short today. I like it though! It was so hot with it long and strangely it seems to be growing fast here. She made it so I can still put it up. I brought my color with me and she applied it, color, cut, styling and eyebrows, $16 - just wow! Some things are really great here lol.

It's not easy being green ...

Yesterday a motorcycle screeched up our alley with the Minister of Health emblem on the side. The rider informed me that they would be fumigating the neighborhood today since there are reported cases of dengue. We have heard our next door neighbor has it. If you don't know what Dengue is here is the Wikipedia link: Dengue Fever. Anyway, he tells me that they will be by after 8:30 am and will fumigate the house and yard to kill any mosquitoes which carry the disease. Now I used to chase the mosquito trucks on my bike when I was younger and wondered what lasting affects this may have had on my health. For those of you youngins that never experienced mosquito trucks, they used to come through our development and fog the area with a pesticide that would kill off mosquitoes. The kids in the neighborhood would hop on bikes and ride in the smoke as the truck went through. It was tons of fun because it smelled cool and you couldn't see where you were going because of the thick smoke. This of course was back in the ignorance is bliss days when you were certain that the government would NEVER do anything harmful. As a side note, I went to a flower show in Philly as an adult and saw an exhibit on the natural ways they are controlling mosquitoes now. I asked the man at the booth if there were any long term affects for us bike riders from the pesticides the trucks were spraying. He looked at my son and told me not to worry about it since I had a healthy child. When I told him that my son was adopted he made a quick exit - hmmmm food for thought.

Back to Costa Rica ...

So I wake Mario up at the crack of dawn, ok the f-ing rooster woke us up before dawn, and I tell him we need to poison proof the house. We cleaned off all of the counters and put anything that food might touch into the cupboards. It was irking me that I had no say in this, it was going to happen no matter how I feel about indiscriminately killing every insect with poison, but at least I could reduce the amount of it that would enter my body. So everything away we waited for the fumigator. We heard the hum of an engine coming down the road, so I packed up my computers and put them in the desk. I went to the back of the house to use the bathroom and let Mario know they were coming. As I came out of the bathroom Mario was looking frantically for Diego. Apparently the men came down our alley and fumigated without telling anyone. The house was filled with choking smoke, they just pointed the apparatus into the front door and let it fill the house. Luckily Diego came running and we all got outside, but there was no escape since the air outside was also filled with the same smoke. I took a deep breath and went to the front of the house where I had Diego's leash. We got him on it and walked until we came to an area where the smoke was thinner. In about 5 minutes the air was clear outside. We hung around for about a half an hour and then went in and turned on all the fans to clear out the house. I really resent having this done, I understand the risk of dengue, but I also feel I should have some sort of a say in what I breathe.

A few hours later the motorcycle was back. He was checking each house for any standing water that could be a breeding ground for mosquitoes. I asked him what the fumigators used to kill the mosquitoes and he told me that it only affected mosquitoes. Oh and it might kill spiders and cockroaches too. I asked about the butterflies, since we saw one dying in the road and he said oh no, they are too tough, the poison doesn't affect them. Funny cause I thought cockroaches were pretty tough and it kills them. The woman across the street has lovebirds outside that survived the ordeal and we saw lots of other birds, including hummingbirds, and butterflies this afternoon so life goes on. He says that they will be back again to repeat the process. I have learned from this experience. I plan to completely close the house and take Diego on a day trip. I don't want to be around here when they come again.

We are tiled and I am coming back for a visit!!

The tiling is done and we finished painting, ok we still have the molding and a few doors, but we have the majority done!! So this is what we look like now!

See how cute Diego is without his rosey glow! We still want to paint the bars white to contrast with the blue.

This is the view from the front door.

The living room. I know the candles are REALLY orange. For some reason it is almost impossible to find decorative candles here. Most are the emergency white kind. These are manderine and didn't look sooo orange in the store.

The kitchen/dining room. Notice it is no longer yellow. After we picked the tile I realized the yellow doesn't really match it. Thank goodness we had only painted the primer coat and were able to put this beige over the top. We left our bedroom and the spare bedroom yellow (no pictures since they are still a work in progress). The daisys on the table are from the weekly market and cost me a whopping 2 bucks. I plan to have flowers in the house all the time!

This is my office. We got the drapes in Dominical from the cute gal Mary and I met last year on our trip. She remembered us! These are actually wraps to use over your bathing suit but I like them as drapes. Yes that is luggage behind the desk, storage is tight here. The desk is covered in glass. I looked all over for a desk pad since I was scratching the surface with the keyboard. We couldn't find any thing like a pad in our city. When I decided to use my trunk as the coffee table in the living room I wanted to get glass cut for the top. Mario though I meant the desk so he measured that instead. I told him to keep the measurements but that it would be way too expensive to get glass for the top. I had priced it for my desk in the states and it was over $150. So we went to the glass store, yeah they have a glass and mirror store, 2 in fact, and they charged $20 for both pieces of glass, amazing.

I am coming to Point Pleasant NJ July 9th through the 18th. I hope to make it around to see everyone. I am staying with my parents so give me a call if you want to get together!!

If you live in Costa Rica how do you know when you are on vacation?

We took a four day weekend since my work was slow and everyone in the states had off on Monday. What fun!! We rented a car and went up to San Jose. I had the I want to buy everything in sight frame of mind but was able to restrain myself! We are having the floors tiled in the house, all of them, so everything is topsy turvey once again and we were just in the way, a perfect excuse for a get-away. We took Diego with us just for the fun of it and because he has been looking so depressed since there are no dog parks here.

Mario had a problem getting to the rental place so they delivered the car here. We will be utilizing that service a lot I think! We decided to go to San Jose via the Costenera. They paved the whole thing since Mary and I were here in June! Funny enough they still ride horses there although it looks like a highway now. This is one of my favorite pics from the June trip:

This is a paved road now.

We decided to skip Dominical until the way back, and headed directly to Manuel Antonio. Mario hadn't been this way for many years and kept commenting on how much everything had changed. We stopped for a bit in Manuel Antonio and Diego got to take a dip in the ocean. He loves the beach here. He can run out really far because it doesn't get deep and lay down til the waves break over him. The he runs around in the surf like a nut. It was great to see him so happy. We ate in a restaurant on the beach and a guitar player came and played one of my favorite Spanish songs for us (Te Amo Demaciado by Koporacion). Diego decided it was a sing-along about half-way through and almost gave the guy a heart attack. I guess he didn't see D under the table lol. From there we went to San Jose. I really don't care for cities and I remembered why while we were there. I can't take the traffic! It really sets me on edge. We stayed at a hotel called Hemingways. Thanks Michael from Doin Costa Rica! He suggested it as a dog friendly spot and it was. The hotel is a block from a park where Diego could do his business, hard to find greenery in the city so that was a blessing. They have a cute cat there so D couldn't lounge around with us in the public places, but the room was HUGE so he was comfy. We ate right next door and the restaurant had a bar so we hung for a bit. It was an interesting night, we were talking with a guy from Belgium who had come to Costa Rica for a long weekend 5 years ago and was thinking it might be time to move on. There were also 2 young guys there, one from Spain that worked on a cruise ship and another from Sweden who had just arrived and was staying in a hostel. We all swapped "how do you say this in your languages" for a while and had a great time. Then 2 of the bartenders "friends" came by and sat with the young guys. After a while we figured out the "friends" were there to entertain the young guys. Interesting evening to say the least.

The next day we walked to the boulevard and shopped shopped shopped. I didn't get everything on my list, but I put a dent in it! We had paid an extra $10 to stay in the hotel past the noon checkout time, and by 10 am we were pooped and thinking about leaving San Jose. We went back to the room and Mario crashed so we wound up using the extra time for him and Diego to sleep.

After the death defying drive leaving San Jose we went to his sisters' houses. I think the Costa Rica maps I got from NavSat for my GPS were a great investment! We used it everywhere this weekend! Although it kind of spooked me that the closest landmark to his sister Zuly's house was the morgue and it was in the POIs. As with all of Mario's family, although we had eaten and asked only to have coffee, both sisters made us dinner. We had a great time and I got to speak a lot of English with Mario's niece's husband who is from North Carolina. We left way later than we should have and headed to San Ramon.

We had booked a cabin in San Ramon at a place called El Bosque Lodge. It was kind of strange because you had to pay for the room in 12 hour increments. Now if I had my US brain working I would have said hmmm hotel by the hour, wonder why that would be... But I didn't think about it until we were leaving. The cabin was really n ice and clean, but there was no phone, no restaurant nearby, nothing that would make a 2 night stay worth it. It was a nice place to sleep and that's what we used it for. It was relatively cheap also. It was REALLY hard to find and at the bottom of a mountain road, not a fun drive at 9:30 in the pitch black. Waking up was beautiful, no traffic sounds, no roosters, just tons of birds.

We went to visit Mario's other sister and her family. The views from their house were INCREDIBLE and of course I forgot to take pictures. They have a furniture business and we got to see where they make the furniture. Really cool and interesting. The wood here is beautiful! Oscar is going to make a table for our living room from the center of a tree, he had a slice of a tree there that looks like it will make a beautiful table but unfortunately it is sold, he is looking for one for me.

We went to some really beautiful places with them, first we went to Zarcero to see the topiaries.

Then they took us to see a spectacular waterfall.

It was a great day! The next day we took a spin through Sarchi on the way home. They are famous for the hand painted ox carts they produce. Here is Mario next to a wheel:

Exploring my new home is really a blast!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOHANA!!