“Nature never hurries. Atom by atom, little by little, she achieves her work.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
Noticing Little Things in Nature . . .
About my “Miracle Flower” & Change in My Blog
¡Buenos dias! Good Morning! I hope you missed my blog post yesterday! 🙂 It was not more computer problems or too much AI, but I simply did not make a post yesterday and will not every day any longer. Some people wonder what old people do with their time while I wonder why I seem to never have enough time! 🙂 Just daily life seems to fill every moment, not to mention the many appointments and daily tasks I must complete, a lot related to my health and basic things that just simply have to be done! 🙂
Lately I have also been strained to see enough birds and butterflies in the continued high winds to have enough photos for a daily blog along with the busy schedules and sometimes just being tired. Plus I don’t want to force a poor photo into a blog post which has been done. So I will continue to share nature photos when I have some that I really want to share, which just may not be every day. Though when I travel there will always be photos to share every day for a while! 🙂 Now today’s share . . .
History of my Desert Rose Plant that has bloomed every day for 9 years!
In 2017, in this same month of April, my next-door neighbor and artist friend, Anthony, left to go back to the states, hoping to get an art teaching job (never happened). I bought his small flower pot with a small Desert Rose in it. Unfortunately I made no photos of it until this one in 2020 (3 years later) when it was still small as seen here between the larger Crown of Thorns and Bougainvillea, both of which have since died and the Desert Rose has more than tripled in size! 🙂
Today most visitors I have at my house are amazed at the growth, beauty, healthiness and longevity of this Desert Rose plant that has always been on the east side of my casita in direct morning sun until maybe 1+ pm. My head gardener has never seen such before! And he stares at it on his every-other-week visit. They are hard to find in any plant nursery here. The photo below was made yesterday. And it keeps blooming every day, 365 days a year for nine years now! 🙂
Note that in the above two photos you can see a sort of bulbous base to the plant. That is to hold water for when no rain as this plant is native to dry North Africa and the Middle East. And also in the 3rd photo or feature photo, there are almost always buds next to each flower ready to replace it when that flower wilts or dies. Google’s AI summarizes this plant as follows:
“The Desert Rose (Adenium obesum) is a succulent originating from arid regions of Sub-Saharan Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and Madagascar. It thrives in full sun (6+ hours) and requires extremely well-draining soil, such as succulent or cactus mixes. It is best grown in pots in warm, sunny, and dry conditions, with minimal water in winter.”
In some ways, it is a good model for retirement life! And I hope I continue to “bloom” in whatever way possible for the rest of my life here in beautiful, tropical Costa Rica! 🙂
“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” — Anais Nin
More flower photos: My Home Gardens GALLERY
¡Pura Vida!
And how you can grow a Desert Rose . . .
¡Pura Vida!
Unidentified Skipper
Neither the AI nor I could positively identify this tiny little Skipper, but it is another encouraging sign that the wind was slowing down a week ago when photographed and soon I will be seeing many more species, though it will probably be May before a lot of them! 🙂 This one was maybe the size of my thumbnail, which is too small for any of the Longtails he looks a like and I just chose to not identify.
¡Pura Vida!
Fawn-spotted Skipper
With the wind still blowing I found this little guy in my garden 6 days ago along with the tougher Polydamas Swallowtails. Not an every day butterfly, but I’ve seen 4 or 5 as shown in my gallery: Fawn-spotted Skipper, Cymaenes isus
¡Pura Vida!
Simple Nature as Art
“My garden is my most beautiful masterpiece.” — Claude Monet
See more in my GALLERY: Leaves & Nature Things! Which I consider as one of my “Photo Art Galleries.” 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
White-winged Doves
During this very windy time of the year (Jan-Mar) there simply are not many birds on my little hill, but in February I got photos of this pair of White-winged Doves (my gallery link) in the overlapping Nance Tree & Palms adjacent my terrace that I could photograph from my outdoor rocking chair. 🙂 This species is a little larger than some and seems to handle the wind okay, but others have simply disappeared to who knows where? And of course virtually no butterflies.
A wonderful thing — a tree!
“No matter how beautiful architecture men can make, they will never create such a wonderful thing as a tree.” ~Pier Luigi Nervi
¡Pura Vida!
And of course I have a Trees gallery!
February Flowers
I’m rather late with my monthly flowers report, but that is because of all the photos from the 3 day trips with my Canadian friends. Below this one email photo is a gallery of a dozen shots. Click one to see it larger. Enjoy my tropical paradise!
Villa Blanca Cloud Forest Birding Gallery
The last of the three day trips that I participated in with my Canadian Friends was to the Los Angeles Cloud Forest Reserve better known here for its Villa Blanca Cloud Forest Hotel where we had breakfast after a couple of hours of birding. And the clouds never lifted or burned off the entire time we were there. Click the first page of that gallery below to access it or if you prefer an address: https://charliedoggett.smugmug.com/TRIPS/Birding-at-Villa-Blanca-Cloud-Forest-Reserve
¡Pura Vida!
Carara National Park Gallery ready
Because we went after the Rio Tarcoles trip, it was too late in day for many birds, I got only 2 species, but I did get 10 species of other wildlife including some interesting species like the Helmeted Iguana, stick moth caterpillar, etc. and one of my dark monkey shots is visible. Click the first page of gallery below to enter or if you prefer an address: https://charliedoggett.smugmug.com/TRIPS/Hiking-Carara-NP
I earlier did a post on the Helmeted Iguana and one on the Stink Bug, two of the 10 “Other Wildlife” seen at Carara this time. See gallery.
And tomorrow I will hopefully have completed the gallery for our morning visit to Los Angeles Cloud Forest Reserve and Villa Blanca Cloud Forest Hotel.
¡Pura Vida!