Garden Remodel Yesterday

Yeah, I recently added the white caladium border and another little improvement, but this was a BIG change! With 2 hours of rain delaying some of the work, my gardeners spent most of the day on my flower garden yesterday including buying all the plants, soil & rocks. It was for a requested restructuring and elimination of some invasive plants.

The results will look better in a week or two, but we needed to get it done now because the rainy season will end in mid to late November and new plants need rain. I am so fortunate to have such a good crew to do work that is much more difficult for me now.

I’ll update the blog from time to time on the garden, but tell you now that they added a new “feature plant” at the corner by my door called in English an “Elephant Foot” plant which you can see in one photo with the “Elephant Ears” behind it!   🙂    It will grow and bigger ones are beautiful! Much of the other is for color without competing plants and providing a little more cohesive, flowing look to the garden with mounds of new dirt adding to the flow. In a few weeks it will be great! And the Elephant in a year or two!   🙂

Garden Crew Working

 

The New Garden

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Life begins the day you start a garden.     – Chinese proverb

¡Pura Vida!

 

 

Oktoberfest

“Willkommen zum Oktoberfest.”

Yesterday a bus of load of about 30 persons “Retired in Costa Rica” boarded a charter bus in Atenas for a German Restaurant in downtown San Jose, Paulaner München, for a great German meal including roast chicken, knockwurst, kraut and my favorite – apple strudel! We were also entertained by a Latin-flavored Costa Rican “German Band” complete with fake leder hosen!   🙂   And many of our group of retirees danced with the band, especially one couple who really know how to dance as shown in the feature photo. She even tried to teach the group to dance the polka with moderate success!   🙂    And who says old people don’t have fun?

Oktoberfest Costa Rica

 

oktoberfest
. . . .   AND the beer for many in our gang! 🙂

¡Pura Vida!

Joys of Flight

Not only does flying save me time and tiredness but I nearly always get at least one surprise photo on the little 30 to 40 minutes flights over Costa Rica. This latest flight to Liberia and back gave me many photos, but just two special ones today: The above photo of a very tall  unknown waterfall with no roads around it! — My main prize! Saw it just south of Liberia and hope to find out its name, though I think it is isolated from tourists!

And again we fly over Atenas and I get a good photo showing much in Central Atenas (Central Park, church, schools) plus the roof of my house in the upper left corner to left of the little roundish cow pasture. The string of houses over the hill is Phase 1 of Roca Verde where I live near the bottom of the hill by cow pasture.   🙂

Flying over Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica.

 

“There is no sport equal to that which aviators enjoy while being carried through the air on great white wings.”
~Wilbur Wright, 1905

¡Pura Vida!

Arrival Day Photo Overload

By the time I get to a place and settle in I usually have less than half a day there but seem to get as many or more photos as other days – the excitement of a new place I guess!   And so it was yesterday at Hacienda Guachipelín!   🙂

So to spare you, I’m saving today’s birds and butterflies for another day and putting today’s other photos in slide shows so it won’t look like so much.   🙂

Airplane Shots

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Hotel Grounds

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Hotel Mirador (Vista Point)

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Hotel Flowers

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“Wherever you go, go with all your heart”    –Confucius

 

¡Pura Vida!

Yesterday’s Sidewalk Encounter

On my 4 km walk to town yesterday, on the one steep hill, I came across this sidewalk grasshopper in the featured photo above.  (Actually a Cricket – See Comments below. I stand corrected!)     🙂

Sorry I can’t identify him – but that’s not expected here since we have 11,000 species of grasshoppers and crickets in Costa Rica as part of our more than 500,000 total insect species!  —  More bugs than the U.S. & Canada combined!   🙂   And oh so much fun! See my Insects Gallery or just my Grasshoppers Gallery to stay with today’s theme. I only have photos of 13 of the eleven thousand, so a ways to go in that collection!   🙂

Here’s a fun, educational YouTube Video about our grasshoppers with jokes about how some people in the world eat them, though not Ticos! They do not eat them here like some in Mexico and of course my past home of West Africa. I’ll just stick with photographing them!   🙂

Just another of the many daily encounters with nature while being retired in Costa Rica!  Love it!   🙂

“Crowds of bees are giddy with clover
Crowds of grasshoppers skip at our feet,
Crowds of larks at their matins hang over,
Thanking the Lord for a life so sweet.”

~Jean Ingelow

¡Pura Vida!

 

P.S.

I arrive at Hacienda Guachipelín in Rincón de la Vieja National Park mid-day today and may start posting at odd times as things happen on this new and exciting adventure! Or I may try to keep the discipline of one-a-day posted for release at 5 am, which I kind of like. Keep reading the blog for totally new photos and scenery this week. Pura vida!

An Extra Article for Those Moving Here

How to retire as cheaply as possible in Costa Rica

Click the linked article for one of the most practical list of how to live cheap in Costa Rica – in short it is all about the life-style you choose and I can testify that living without a car not only saves lots of money but is easy and fun here! The article is by Christopher Howard in his “Live In Costa Rica” blog & website – the one who also does a great relocation tour coupled with the ARCR Seminar. Panama may be cheaper, but Costa Rica is a whole lot better!   🙂

Couple of Skippers

Possibly the most common broad category of butterflies  in Costa Rica is the Skippers and there are 3,500+ species of Skippers!

Though I may have seen both of these before, I don’t believe I have previously named them or shared photos of either.

DISCLAIMER: Uniquely colored butterflies are easier to identify than the thousands of brown Skippers which are very difficult to identify, even if in the book or online (and all are not). Thus no guarantee of the accuracy of these identities!   🙂

Skipper – Gold Costa

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Gold Costa Skipper

 

Skipper – Common Brown

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Common Brown Skipper

 

“Just living is not enough, said the butterfly, one must have sunshine, freedom and a little flower.”    – Hans Christian Anderson

¡Pura Vida!

 

See my Butterflies & Moths of Costa Rica Photo Gallery – 85+ species!

For most identities I use the book A Swift Guide to Butterflies of Mexico and Central America: Second Edition

Another joy of being Retired in Costa Rica!

🙂

Green Orchid Bee

I had several of these in my garden yesterday. Colorful bee! Read about them on Wikipedia.  Or see my earlier photo of one in 2015. Or my gallery of More Insects Costa Rica.    

 

When the flower blossoms, the bee will come.

~Srikumar Rao

¡Pura Vida!

Sitting on Rocks? Park Remodel Update…

The other day I showed that they were now building the concrete seating in a circle around the “Kiosk” or Band Shell. Well today as I walked by before my haircut I noticed something interesting. Instead of using re-barb inside the huge concrete two-level seating they are using locally harvested rocks – yep – big rocks around which they hand-pour concrete from buckets. Hmmm. Well, it does help fill in the space with something more than just concrete! And I’m not an engineer, so maybe it is as good as re-barb though I have my doubts, especially since we regularly have earthquake tremors around here. Oh well, not my problem!   🙂   Pura vida!

Step 1: Fill each level of form with rocks.

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Step 2: Hand pour concrete around rocks.

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Step 3: Finish with smooth concrete.

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Step 4: Finished product looks great!

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“Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.”      ~George S. Patton

¡Pura Vida!

 

My growing gallery of progress on the Atenas Central Park Remodeling.

The city has  a Facebook Page presenting the remodeling with architect drawings of how they expect it to look.

Potluck Supper Last Night

You guys considering a move to Costa Rica might be interested to know that it is common for neighborhoods to get together for potluck dinners occasionally. We did when in the apartments and we have in Roca Verde as last night. I’m on the RV Social Committee and we are now planning on 3 or 4 potluck suppers a year to get to know your neighbors better. And another fun part is how international it is in most neighborhoods with Costa Ricans, Europeans from multiple countries, and of course persons from the U.S. and Canada. Great food too!   🙂   Plus I got an invite for an American Thanksgiving Day Feast at one of the homes!   🙂

¡Pura Vida!

Sorry I did not get any photos last night but I have other social and fiesta photos in my photo gallery!    🙂

Progress?

Architects have forever been changing the look of our world, all around the world, including in this little coffee farming town of Atenas, Costa Rica. The other day I snapped this photo as just one example of many modern buildings coming up in Atenas. Some, like this one will, soon sit adjacent a “historic” or “antique” building providing the continued contrast of old and new across Atenas and around the world. My response is to just “go with the flow” and find beauty and joy in everything! ¡Pura Vida!

“You can’t stop the future
You can’t rewind the past
The only way to learn the secret
…is to press play.”
― Jay Asher

For more images of Atenas, see my gallery  Atenas.  Check out other galleries to see how I have adapted to “change” – old age, retirement, loss of family and work and encroachment of the future by embracing nature in this beautiful country dominated by nature.   ¡Pura Vida!  Retired in Costa Rica!