This Week In Review - Even Though It's Only Tuesday

Genny caught a bird this morning - the first critter she has ever caught in her eleven years. I didn't see exactly how it happened but there she was with a pile of feathers in her mouth which she then spit out. The bird flew away, thank goodness - we sure hope it didn't have mortal wounds. She is also stalking lizards and I need to find out if any of them are poisonous.

She adores being outside - but of course it's under our strict supervision. Her Costa Rica routine is going out first thing in the morning, coming in for breakfast, going out again until around noon. Then she sleeps the afternoon away in her cupboard and goes out again for a bit before the sun sets at six p.m. It seems I spend a lot of morning hours outside in my beach chair - reading and cat sitting.

Today, I made Fran Browne's fabulous key lime pie - we've eaten half of it already. I finally found graham crackers at the Super Mercado. I love our horno (stove) - it's an Atlas with three burners and a small oven with four settings - medio (warm), dorar (grill), hornear (bake) and maximo (high). I have no idea what the oven temperature might be on any of these settings but it cooked the pie just fine at the hornear setting.

Here's how we handle our garbage - put it out in this above-ground metal box and it gets picked up twice a week. I think the raised boxes are a great idea - animals can't get at it. Every house has one of these out front.

And, here is how we get our hot water - instant heating, no hot water tank. Why pay to heat a hot water tank 24 hours a day ... I don't know why these units aren't more popular in North America.  We can take hot showers for as long as we want....never run out. We have hot water in the bathroom and the kitchen. This particular unit is about a foot and a half high.

On Sunday, we spent a lovely day with two new friends from Maryland. They'll be moving down here permanently in a  couple of years and are scoping out different areas where they might want to live.