Iguanas, Orchids, High Winds

This week has been notable for the high winds we have been experiencing.

To read the above text, click on the image.

The gusts have been very strong. So strong, in fact, that early on Thursday morning a part of the roof on the rear of the house was torn off. It blew up and over the roof and landed on the other side of the house, where it became lodged on the roof and the articulated umbrella. Fortunately, neither of us were in the immediate vicinity to be injured but the noise was something else.

We took photos and sent them to our landlord, Rodrigo, who lives in San José. From the photos, he determined it was not a critical part of the roof but something that had been installed some years ago .... for what reason, I do not know.

Rodrigo is an excellent landlord. He always responds quickly to any of our concerns and, sure enough, he arrived later that same day with a helper and they removed the fallen metal. They folded it up like an envelope (aluminum I guess?) and put it away for some later disposal.

Strong winds and gusts continued today (Friday) and I opted not to spend my daily hammock time under the palm tree in the backyard. Who knows when a branch may fall.

Recently, I went around our house and took photographs of various plants that are flowering right now.

I have two orchids in bloom right now and two others that have sent out inflorescences but the flowers are not yet open.

This is my Miltoniopsis. I bought this at an orchid show in Grecia a couple of years ago. This is the first time it has flowered for me.

And this one is Trigonidium egertonianum. Pretty little orchid flowers.

Moving on from orchids to lizards and iguanas ... the word seems to have got out that we will feed small pieces of bananas to our resident critters. The iguanas here appear to move around from house to house and water drains to water drains. We are now able to recognize quite a few of them. Here is a video I made of Lance feeding bananas to a couple of these critters.

(Click on images to enlarge)

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.