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Sunday, March 23, 2014

Bees and Our Palm Trees

Recently, swarms of stingless bees have been feasting on the flowers of our palm trees. Underneath the palms, there are many, many palm seeds.

I took photos of the flowers and the seed pods and made a short video of the bees.

Palm flowers

 

Palm seeds.

 

Saturday, March 15, 2014

Garden Waste Removal

Gardening in the tropics is obviously much different from gardening in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, where we came from.

Fallen palm branches are one garden chore that is certainly different. As the palm trees grow upwards, the lower branches turn brown and drop off. We regularly pick them up and put them in our garden waste pile for collection about twice a month.

We use Mario Vargas, Eco-Decoraciones Jardine, 2446-7201, for our garden trash removal. Recently, we had a huge pile of palm leaves and garden bags and were certain he would need two trips to remove it all. But, no, all of it went in the back of his truck. The garden bags contain grass cuttings and plant trimmings.

Tying down the load.
On their way.

 

 

Friday, March 14, 2014

Early Morning Bird Chorus

With the end of the month of March coming up, and the beginning of April probably heralding in the "green" season (we have only two seasons here), the bird life around us has become very active song-wise. I guess the breeding season has started.

The yiguirro (or clay-colored robin) is Costa Rica's National Bird and we have a lot of them around our house. One in particular starts singing while it is still dark outside, around 4:00 a.m.

I went outside the other morning when it was just getting light and, mindful of snakes, took some video footage of our singing alarm clocks.

Here is a photo we took of a clay-colored robin in our yard: