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!