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The Overcast Between Rains

This photo was made yesterday morning when for awhile the Hurricane Iota rains had stopped but the skies still overcast. The last hurricane (Eta) gave us 4 days of non-stop rain, so at least this one has given us a break in the rain, even if overcast! 🙂 And I even got to walk to town without opening my umbrella! 🙂 Tomorrow I will show these same hills in the sunshine from last Sunday’s walk.

Post Script: As of this morning, still very little rain compared to the identical sized hurricane on the same path, thus we are not getting as much rain from Iota as we did Eta. No two the same! 🙂

“Gray and overcast from my earthly perspective, but it’s sunny above these storm clouds. Grace lets us see life from God’s point of view.” ~Mark Hart

¡Pura Vida!

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Flowers

On the bird walk Sunday with my big camera I got a few nice flowers to share with the last one an Anthurium in my garden which I also show.

  • My Garden
  • Looking over a neighbor house down hill.
  • Unidentified
  • Blue Trumpet Vine, Thunbergia grandiflora
  • Unidentified
  • Coral Honeysuckle among unknown white flower
  • Maybe a Santa Lucia Flower
  • Anthurium

“To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.”

– Audrey Hepburn

See also my Flora & Forests of Costa Rica Gallery.

Weather Update

The Hurricane Iota rains started yesterday afternoon in Atenas which we expect to continue day and night for 3 or 4 days, but at least no big winds here. The now Category 4 Hurricane is slamming into Nicaragua and Honduras and could go straight through to the Pacific Coast and little El Salvador and/or turn north for Mexico & the U.S. For English weather updates on conditions here in Costa Rica, see TicoTimes.

¡Pura Vida!

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Banded Peacock

This Banded Peacock Butterfly was just one more colorful thing in nature I photographed on yesterday’s morning walk. I don’t carry my big camera on all walks because I photograph too much! 🙂 And tomorrow I will share the flowers I photographed on yesterday’s walk!

¡Pura Vida!

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Morning Birds Today

I just walked up the hill above my house this morning with my camera this time and lots of different photos as usual. I’ll share only 8 of the birds I got and today tried to present some in different positions that the usual side-view on a limb or power line, like the Yellow-throated Euphonia male grooming himself (I also got a profile of him) or the two Inca Doves napping. Enjoy these and I may share some landscapes & flowers tomorrow.

  • White-winged Dove
  • Yellow-faced Grassquit
  • Barred Antshrike
  • Tropical Kingbird
  • Tennessee Warbler
  • Yellow-throated Euphonia Female
  • Yellow-throated Euphonia Male
  • Inca Doves

¡Pura Vida!

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Why I Deleted a Post

A post I wrote yesterday was scheduled to release at 4 am this morning and it did – for 30 minutes – then at 4:30 AM I woke up and felt compelled to delete it, meaning most of you who subscribe got an email linking you to “Whiffs of West Africa” and received an “Oops message” saying the post is not there.

I felt guilty that I was inflaming the few Trump supporters who still follow my blog, so at 4:30 AM I deleted the post that compared Trump to Yahya Jammeh, the Gambian despot who refused to step down when he lost the election and the featured photo showed him being escorted out by military troops.

Joe Biden has declared this “A TIME FOR HEALING” and I don’t want to make it more difficult for him. So I will honestly try to write no more anti-Trump posts and I hope you “other guys” will decide to work with Biden to bring America back together for peaceful progress as one nation, not two! And yes, the above flag photo is mine, photographed back in 2005 at the Everglades National Park Visitors Center. 🙂

E pluribus unum – Latin for “Out of many, one”

God Bless America!

P.S.

StoryCorp.org and Public Radio are trying to organize “One Small Step” where you can join them in getting people with opposite views or politics to simply talk to each other. Click the link to check it out and see if you want to participate. Sounds like a great idea Americans!

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Enjoying a “Thank You”

I do a little 7 X7 inch photo book on almost every lodge I visit in Costa Rica and send a copy to the hotel and/or the guides. After my September trip to El Silencio Lodge & Reserve I sent two such books to the hotel along with a copy of my CR Birds Book & one of my CR Butterflies Book for their guests to enjoy.

One of the guides sent me a What’s App message “Thank You” yesterday afternoon with the above photo of my two El Silencio guides, Daniel & Bryan, holding a copy of the El Silencio Book. Nice to be appreciated! 🙂 Thanks guys!

¡Pura Vida!

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Celebrating in Costa Rica!

  1. Hurricane Eta Rains are gone and we have blue skies!
  2. JOE BIDEN IS PRESIDENT ELECT of the USA!
  3. And Trump is gone!

The featured photo is looking towards my house from my street along side the cow pasture. The visible house on the left is my neighbor across the driveway from my house which is hidden in the clump of trees behind that street light. I like being in the woods! 🙂

The “Big House” is barely showing on top of our hill which our landlord has rented out since he now lives on the beach north of Jaco. And that’s today in my neighborhood! 🙂

“Love thy neighbor — but don’t pull down your hedge.”

~Benjamin Franklin

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¡Pura Vida!

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Wet

Rain, wet
Tropical green
Sunshine

And hopefully the last day of round-the-clock rain as Eta moves on toward Florida. At breakfast on the terrace this morning, the rain had stopped but all was wet and I tried to capture a little sense of the wetness. After breakfast the sun started peaking out and you can see a little of it reflecting off the wetness in the pix. It is the first sun in many days and a pleasant relief! Maybe today will be a more normal “rainy season” day with rain only in the afternoon or early evening. Then before we know it, December will be here with the rain stopped for months and soon after we will be wishing for the rainy season to start again! 🙂 Fickle humans! 🙂 While the cycles of life continue in a now very green Costa Rica! ¡Pura Vida! 🙂

Featured photo is a rain wet Princess Flower in my garden by Charlie and Haiku Poem is also by Charlie. Slide show is of the wetness observed on my terrace this morning at breakfast, just one more beautiful aspect of nature!

Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet.     

~Bob Marley

¡Pura Vida!

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Effects of Eta Rain on Costa Rica

HURRICANE ETA

For 4 days and nights it has been raining almost constantly in my Central Valley town of Atenas, while some lowland areas that typically flood or have landslides are being effected much more than we and our just wetness.

For example, see this related Tico Times article: Indirect effects of Eta lead to at least 500 evacuated in Costa Rica   (my feature photo by Tico Times from this article)

Most of us in Costa Rica are fine with no landfall of Hurricane Eta here, it has made landfall in Nicaragua and Honduras and I understand will just scrape Guatemala and Mexico as it heads for Western Florida and Alabama.

And the rain just makes us greener and more beautiful for when you tourists come here in the next few months!  🙂

¡Pura Vida!