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Ant on a Heliconia

I got a macro lens once and found it too much trouble to use and continued to use my 600mm zoom lens to catch tiny things like some of the butterflies and the other day I tried to capture this ant on a heliconia flower which is not real detailed but it was fun trying! 🙂

Ant on a Heliconia Flower, Atenas, Costa Rica
Ant on a Heliconia Flower, Atenas, Costa Rica

See my “More Insects” Gallery for more ants and other bugs!

¡Pura Vida!

My Blog/Website Stats for May 2023

1,000 visitors viewing 2,000 pages, writing 12 comments and giving my blog 80 likes (and only other WordPress Bloggers have a “like button.”) THANKS to all the many readers of this blog! And I’m especially thankful to those living in Costa Rica who read it! ¡Pura vida! 🙂

Art Gallery Did Not Materialize

The half dozen women putting together what was going to be a great art gallery in Atenas and I was to be one of the artists, gave up on all the setup costs and government regulations/taxes, etc. and just decided at the last minute (June 15 opening) that they will just not do it. I can understand their frustration, but it’s a big disappointment for me, especially since I’ve spent several thousand dollars on photo merchandise and even commissioned last week a big 30 cm wide basket to hold the accent pillows with my floral photos printed on them. But so goes life and I’ll figure out something to do with it all or give a lot of gifts. 🙂 And they may still do the Christmas Art Show!? If so, I’m ready! 🙂

Shop at My House!

And if you live in Atenas, call first (8410-9916), then come by my house and check out these gorgeous accent pillows, which I’ll sell from home now, along with greeting cards, coffee mugs, mouse pads, tote bags, T-shirts, and of course wall art photos! All below my cost! 🙂

DISCLAIMER:

As of today, 5 June, 2023, the 11 new Wall Art Metal Photos have not arrived for my pickup in Alajuela yet (Stuck in Customs!) and the only wall art immediately available are ones left over from the JIT Christmas Art Show. I’m hoping that the new Wall Art will be available when I go to Alajuela this Thursday and get the Mouse Pads that have arrived. BUT IF INTERESTED IN WALL ART, I suggest that you wait until next week and pray that Customs releases them soon! 🙂 But I do have 400 different 5×7 Greeting Cards which some people get several of for a wall “grouping” of similar images. Also, I am preparing an online photo inventory or “Atenas Gallery” of available photo items at my house with pictures, but that takes time and is not finished yet! 🙂 I will announce it here on the blog when completed.

¡Pura Vida!

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Recent Butterflies

I’ve been way too busy in the past month and looking forward to slowing down and spending more time photographing nature! BUT, in all the recent “busy-ness” I did walk through parts of my gardens each morning and though early for the peak of butterflies here, I’ve seen quite a variety. Here’s5 or 6 different species in my gardens recently . . .

One of the Epimecis Group of Moths – possibly a baby Epimecis hortaria, Tulip Tree Beauty. This was only about an inch wide at most.
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Birds, Rainy Season, and Personal Catch-up

Finally! Rainy Season seems to have started with rains every afternoon for 4 days straight now, but oh so much later than usual and from what I’ve read, we may still have a drier rainy season than usual. It is amazing how much greener it gets here after even one rain! And how many more birds! Below are photos of 4 birds I managed to snap this week. I love the rainy season, my favorite time of year here! And most days it rains only 2 or 3 hours in the late afternoon or early evening.

Rufous-naped Wren Eating an Insect, Atenas, Costa Rica
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Today is “Put a Pillow on Your Fridge Day”

According to the fun and silly holidays article in the Washington Post, Today is Put a Pillow on Your Fridge Day (May 29)! And it would be interesting to see how many people actually do this!  🙂

Put a pillow on your fridge day.

This weird holiday may be related to an old custom. In the early 1900s, putting a piece of bedsheet or nightshirt in the larder (food-storage cupboard) was supposed to bring plentiful food. After refrigerators replaced larders, the tradition shifted to pillows. Give it a try, and perhaps the fridge will be stocked with your favorite foods.

¡Pura Vida!

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My Blogging Pause & 2 Flowers

I mentioned earlier about being very busy with several projects like changing doctors, renewing residency, and helping start the new “Artenas Galleria” that all have seemingly taken the leisure from my life – but not for much longer! 🙂 This morning I had my leisurely 30 minute walk to El Fogon restaurant for an Avocado Toast breakfast before grocery shopping at La Coope across the street. and the two shots in this post are from my morning walks in the garden over the last week+, with more photos coming! 🙂

My last Plumbago plant just keeps blooming, though I got rid of others because they crowd out other plants. 🙂

And the feature photo (at top online) is of one of the recently budded “Maracas” or “Shampoo Ginger” flowers that I will have even more of this year. They are coming just as the other Maraca plant (orange) in my front yard has its flowers dying out, so I have one of the Maraca plants blooming almost all of the time on one side of the house or the other! 🙂 I will share more flower shots later along with very few birds and butterflies the last week. We finally got a reasonably good rain yesterday afternoon, but this is starting out to be the driest “Rainy Season” in my 8.5 years here! And somewhere I read that much of the entire globe will be dryer this year, including Central America.

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Blooming Cactus?

No – though the first time I saw these bright pink flowers on top of the cactus plant at a house I walk by frequently on my way to town, I thought is was going to be a beautiful cactus! But it seems that the owner of that house has allowed his Bougainvillea to climb over from the wall to the cactus and from a distance, the second photo, it looks like it’s blooming. And some cactus here do bloom, but I’ve not seen that one bloom yets.

Bougainvillea on a cactus makes it look like the cactus is blooming.

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Renewed Residency Today

I went to San Jose this morning to renew my residency with an attorney and 3 other American expats in Atenas. Since we were all three “Adultos mayores” or senior adults, we did not have to stand in that long line in my photo, but instead were escorted to the front of the line where we got the next available window to finish processing our paperwork (having paid in advance the fee amounting to a little over $100 USD, 66,000 colones). Then they photograph you and your new plastic card is ready in 30 to 40 minutes while you wait in an outside patio with coffee available.  🙂  Plus at the same time they email you the new (since my last renewal) electronic card that you keep on your phone and can use just like the plastic card. Getting too modern for me! 🙂 It is pictured below this Immigration Office line photo with my numbers scratched out. The actual blue plastic card is pictured in the center of the electronic one. Plus the plastic card is also electronic for card readers like on the public bus and government offices.

Waiting in line for residency cards at the Uruca Office of CR Immigration.

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Playground Equipment Arrives!

And as I expected, it is very modern or contemporary and seems to be geared to preschool and younger primary school kids. My feature shot at top shows a young couple holding up their child to see the installation. Below is a shot of the workers  installing the new play things and artificial turf which I guess is better than the gravel base installed earlier.  🙂  I made these shots yesterday and expect it to be several days before it is open for the kids to play on when I will make another cell phone shot of an active playground.  🙂  For new followers of this blog, this one area of the Atenas Central Park is just one of many very slow steps in this small town’s renovating the Central Park here for 3 or 4 years now. You can see all of my Park Renovation photos in the photo gallery:  Remodeling Central Park Atenas.

Workers installing playground equipment and artificial turf in the new playground for the Central Park Atenas.

THREE MORE PHOTOS BELOW . . .

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Blue-lipped Iguana?

Not really a new species, but this is first time I’ve noticed any iguana with blue lips! (Okay, I just looked in my gallery and one at Punta Leona had his whole head blue! 🙂 ) It is an immature Spiny-tailed Iguana and I have no explanation for the blue lips or earlier blue head!   🙂   Here’s 3 shots of him the other day in my Guarumo/Cecropia Tree . . .

Immature Spiny-tailed Iguana, Atenas, Costa Rica

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