Category: Nature

My profession is to always find God in nature.

– Henry David Thoreau

Posted on

The “Retire for Less” Newsletter RETIRES!

Today I received the final edition of the “Retire for Less in Costa Rica” Newsletter. This wonderful couple, Paul & Gloria, are really retiring themselves now and it is about time! I have recommended them many times and they are keeping their website up for awhile, so check it out now if you haven’t before. They give the most practical advice of anyone on retiring in Costa Rica and they will be greatly missed, though maybe I will get to see them again for other reasons or socially. I hope so. They will be dividing their time between Costa Rica and Mexico which is an unusual way to retire, but very interesting.

In their last newsletter they included a summary of their philosophy over these 12 years that has not changed. I will try to copy it here:

What is the Retire for Less Philosophy?

Sometimes we tell people that we live the “retire for less lifestyle,” or perhaps we notice that others are also living in a similar way. So what exactly is it?

Conserve, simplify, enjoy. These three words sum up the Retire for Less Philosophy or lifestyle. We believe one can:

  • Enjoy the simple things in life
  • Discard some old beliefs regarding retirement
  • Count your cash, get your Social Security, and go where it’s cheaper
  • Reinvent yourself and begin a whole new, adventurous phase of your life
  • Look at your life differently, embrace the new culture, and try not to be ethnocentric
  • Scale down, live within your means, and learn to have fun, fun, fun!
  • Conserve energy, go green, and live without air-conditioners, heaters, dehumidifiers, and cars, as much as possible
  • Live without debt, reduce expenses, and reduce expectations
  • Save money, spend less, use less, and be satisfied with less – less is more

Conserve, Simplify, and Enjoy! Read our entire Retire for Less Philosophy here.

They will be missed and have certainly helped a lot of people retire here and elsewhere. Now I will just continue my very simple life in Costa Rica, not owning anything including a car. Zero debt. Walking almost daily. Enjoying the simple things of life in a simple country that puts people and nature above industry and money. Where nature is king and we will be carbon neutral in a year or so! (99% of electricity now.)

¡Pura Vida!

Posted on

Magical AFRICA

My last three years of working full time were in The Gambia, with visits to other West African countries like Senegal and Cote d’Ivoire. Plus I made three two-week long trips to Kenya & Tanzania that included two safaris in The Masai Mara, meaning I have a lot of Africa photos! 🙂

Thus I self-curated 139 photos for a beautiful little 7X7 inch photo book titled Magical AFRICA in 102 pages with the hardcover edition including premium lustre photo paper. This is my first book of Africa photos in my Blurb Bookstore and is a general “Portfolio” book.

Click the above linked title or cover image and as always, you can thumb through the book electronically by clicking on REVIEW and pages to turn them.

Another COVID19 benefit of being limited from much travel during the pandemic! 🙂

“One cannot resist the lure of Africa.”
– Rudyard Kipling

¡Pura Vida!

Posted on

Another Look

Pathway 
Pastoral
Pleasant

On today’s walk I decided that the above view of my “Country Road” from a few days ago is a much more pleasing view, and I also discovered a red Canna that captivated me . . . 

Brilliant
Burgeoning
Blossom

And you may have noticed that I returned to my earlier efforts of writing Haiku Poetry – the Americanized 2-3-2 syllable version rather than the original Japanese 5-7-5 syllables for two reasons: (1) You can describe more in fewer syllables in English than Japanese and (2) It is easier for this old man! 🙂 But I do stay with the Japanese original purpose of simply describing nature, as I also try to do in my photography. It is a FUN part of my retirement and keeps my elderly brain alert! 🙂 Though it will not always be possible to also make them into alliterations as I did today! 🙂

And if you like Haiku or poetry in general, check out my Haiku Photo Gallery or see a free online digital preview of my 2018 book Costa Rica Haiku, Describing Nature in Paradise.

And my Atenas Gallery!

¡Pura Vida!

Posted on

Country Road

Gravel & dirt roads with chickens, cows, and other animals – its universal in all countries and is romanticized, sung about, or just remembered from childhood maybe. But in a developing country like Costa Rica it’s very common everywhere and yesterday morning I walked again on this one that is so near, yet not a regular part of my walks yet. When you leave our paved-road gated community, most people turn left on paved Avenida 8 which takes you to Calle 3 or Calle 1 for a direct shot downtown, to supermarkets, pharmacies, the bank, etc. and it’s the way I walk most often (and share photos from) when not walking around in the housing development, and we have our own “country road here,” Calle Nueva, that I’ve shared about several times and that link is to a gallery.

So . . . if you leave our gate and turn right, the pavement ends in the equivalent of 3 blocks and becomes a gravel road (my “country road” yesterday) and it curves up and over a hill and back down to “The Radial 27,” the connector between downtown Atenas and our nearest controlled access highway, Highway 27 that runs between San Jose and the Jaco Beach & Puntarenas Port area of our Pacific Coast, and is always congested. But I digress! 🙂

Avenida 8 in front of Roca Verde development turns into a dirt and gravel road with chickens, cows, an orchard, barbed wire fences, and over the little hill it runs right into Radial 27 directly in front of the entrance to our Farmers’ Market Pavilion, serving the area with fresh produce every Friday morning. It is a nice walk to the Farmers’ Market and for me yesterday I walked on into town on the highway making a big circle for a longer day’s walk with a nice image of “country roads” on my mind, thinking I was John Denver. Just one more joy of living “Retired in Costa Rica.” CLICK an image to enlarge it:

  • Chicken in the Road
  • Farmers’ Market from the Road
  • Down the Hill – Yep! One lane!
  • Entrance to Farmers’ Market
  • Neighborhood Orchard
  • Rooster from Calle Nueva

Country roads, take me home, to the place I belong. 

~John Denver

¡Pura Vida!

Posted on

My Favorite Tree

Maybe because of the big leaves, or their fast growth or even because they attract toucans and sloths – I’m not sure why – but I’ve always liked the Cecropia or Guarumo it is called here. And when their leaves dry up and fall off they become works of art in my opinion!

To find out, SEE my Cecropia-Guarumo GALLERY with several shots over the years from my garden and other places and I will in the future work on adding more photos for it. 🙂 Or if it is ALL TREES you like, I have also recently created a TREES GALLERY which you might like with tree shots from all of my Costa Rica travels – a lot! 🙂

For more facts on Cecropia trees see Cecropia Wikipedia or Cecropia Britannica.

¡Pura Vida!

Posted on

One of 890 Species of Ants

Yep! That’s how many different kinds of ants we have in Costa Rica and I have no idea which species this one is, but not sure I’ve noticed him around my house before. The leaf-cutters are the most identifiable, always carrying a piece of leaf or flower, and I’ve shown them on the blog multiple times. This little guy was on the railing of my terrace two mornings ago. They are all interesting! Until they come in the house, I leave them alone and they leave me alone. 🙂

My GALLERY of Other Insects or of Leafcutter Ants

This one goes in the “Unidentified” Sub-Gallery there.

¡Pura Vida!

Posted on

Nature Unfolding

In October or November every year my Strangler Fig Tree or Ficus Tree locally looses all of its leaves in a week or two and immediately, before the last leaf falls, starts the replacement with new leaves, making beautiful picture of rebirth. The last time I blogged about it was in November 2015, called FALL? The Interesting Strangler Fig.

This year I decided to just focus on the growth of new leaves, the literal “Unfolding of Nature!” In Spanish the word for growth is crecimiento, which just sounds like what this tree is doing. 🙂

¡Pura Vida!

Check out my GALLERY Flora & Forest

Posted on

My Bird Count Today

The “Big Day” of Global Bird Counting was not extremely big for me. I chose the dirt country road alongside our development thinking it would have more birds as usual than around our houses, but . . . it was a little windy from 6 to 8 this morning and one of the bicycle clubs was out whizzing down our little country road which did not encourage the presence of birds. But I’m counting 12 species and a total of 50 birds, with three species not in photos below. Here’s my list for today with non-photo’d first and others alphabetically:

  • Gray-headed Chachalaca (3) not photographed.
  • Orange-chinned parakeets (12) not photographed
  • Melodious Blackbird (1) not a good photo to show here
  • A Finch or Grassquit unidentified (1)
  • Great Kiskadee (5)
  • House Wren maybe or Other wren (1)
  • Inca Dove (7)
  • Keel-billed Toucan (3)
  • Rufous-naped Wren (4)
  • Tropical Kingbird (1) – Featured Photo
  • White-lined Tanager (4)
  • White-winged Dove (8)
  • White-winged Dove
  • Great Kiskadee
  • Grassquit or a Finch?
  • Inca Dove
  • Rufous-naped Wren
  • Keel-billed Toucan
  • House Wren or Other Wren?
  • White-lined Tanager
  • Tropical Kingbird
My little contribution to Global Big Day. 🙂

¡Pura Vida!

Posted on

Bird Count Today!

Support nature which helps save the earth from the destruction of global warming — COUNT BIRDS TODAY and report them to eBird!  An account is free and you can also get a free app for your phone for easier reporting. Even if you see only one bird and report it – it counts and is important!

I will try to report later today which birds I see and report to eBird.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

¡Pura Vida!

Posted on

A Flower of Many Colors

The Hibiscus can be found all over Costa Rica except maybe in the higher mountains and it comes in many colors! This collection of photos does not include all the possible colors or combinations, like the one here with red and yellow swirled together. The feature photo of bright yellow with a red star center was photographed Tuesday on my walk to town in a yard 3 or 4 blocks from my house and it is the one that sparked the idea of this post. I will be looking for more colors on future walks & trips. 🙂

And then my GALLERY Flora & Forest

¡Pura Vida!