Category: Atenas

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Too Much Free Time?

NEVER! Since I retired at the end of 2002 that has not been a problem for me, though as a former “work-obsessed American,” what I did with my “free time” was at first very important to me, making sure I was “accomplishing something” all of the time! Not now!

This and feature photo at top made from hill above my house, inspiration points! 🙂

This so-called “Free Time” was brought to my mind Wednesday as I read this article in The Washington Post: Why having too much free time can be as bad for you as having too little and I apologize if you can’t read it as a non-subscriber, but I think they allow you one article for free. That article is mostly focused on people still working and not us retirees. But it motivated my little essay here on free time:

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My Burning Bush

“Earth’s crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God: But only he who sees takes off his shoes.”

~Elizabeth Barrett Browning

It’s just a Croton Plant in my yard, one of many and in one of the many colors that Crotons come in, most multi-colored. But for some reason the other afternoon when it wasn’t raining and a ray of sunlight hit it. I saw a “burning bush!” Maybe I should remove my shoes more often! 🙂 And thanks to Elizabeth Browning’s thought, I will continue seeing “every common bush afire with God,” and other parts of earth also, where God waits for us to notice. 🙂

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Variable Cracker Butterfly

A first for my garden, seen on the trunk of a small palm tree. This “strange” butterfly is very much like the Guatemalan Cracker, with the latter having 2 blue rings instead of one. I have photographed 3 species of the Crackers, seen in my CR Butterflies Galleries: The Gray Cracker in Nicaragua, the Guatemalan Cracker at Corcovado NP Costa Rica, and now my third, the Variable Cracker in my Garden, Atenas, Alajuela Province yesterday. 🙂 More photos are in the gallery linked above.

Variable Cracker, Hamadryas feronia

“If you haven’t found something strange during the day, it hasn’t been much of a day.”

~John Archibald Wheeler

🙂

¡Pura Vida!

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Poan Skipper

Yes, I had a photo of this butterfly not too long ago, but this one looks a little different and it is my last garden share before the Caribe trip. Just two shots and my first of one flying.

Poan Skipper Butterfly, Atenas, Costa Rica
Poan Skipper Butterfly, Atenas, Costa Rica

“Beautiful and graceful, varied and enchanting, small but approachable, butterflies lead you to the sunny side of life. And everyone deserves a little sunshine.”

-Jeffrey Glassberg

¡Pura Vida!

My Poan Skipper Gallery.

ID is from book: A Swift Guide to Butterflies of Mexico and Central America by Jeffrey Glassberg.

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Great-tailed Grackle

Yesterday morning I heard some bird making a racket or singing a not-too-melodious song. I walked out on the terrace and found this young Grackle male moving from limb to limb in my Guarumo (Cecropia) tree chattering away. These two shots show that he is probably a younger male since he is not as large as most male Great-tailed Grackles nor was his tail that “great” like the bigger males. His tail will grow! 🙂

With his smaller size I almost thought he was a Melodious Blackbird, but his song was not “melodious” (which theirs really is) and the yellow eye (instead of black) cinched him as a Great-tailed Grackle, teen or young adult male (perhaps looking for a female which is brown in color). 🙂

Great-tailed Grackle Young Male, Atenas
Great-tailed Grackle Young Male, Atenas

 “Everything in nature is lyrical in its ideal essence, tragic in its fate, and comic in its existence.”

—George Santanaya

🙂

¡Pura Vida!

See my Great-tailed Grackle Gallery.

And the eBird description of him.

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Orange-chinned Parakeets

I hear these guys flying over my house most afternoons when it’s not raining hard but they seldom stop on their way up the hill to their roosting tree at my friend Dan’s house. Yesterday afternoon, before the rain started, they flew over and stopped for a little rest and grooming in a neighbor’s tree. I got a few shots, though not good with the overcast sky. But as bad as the photos are, they’re my nature shots for today! 🙂

This first shot is of the tree showing several scattered throughout and then I follow with a gallery of 6 individual birds or couples, with one couple cutely snuggling! 🙂

Orange-chinned Parakeets stop over on their way to their roosting tree up the hill.
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Cloudy-Hills Sunrise

The hills opposite my hill looked like they had whipped cream on them this morning. A photo cannot replicate what I saw but here’s my effort with a 6-shot panorama. And this was late, like about 7:00 AM.

See larger image at top as header of online post.

“The sun always shines above the clouds.”

– Paul F. Davis

I look forward to totally different sunrises next week on our Caribbean coast, where I spend Monday to Monday on the beaches of Hotel Banana Azul, my favorite September retreat place.

See my CR Vistas Galleries.

¡Pura Vida!

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Whispering from Every Leaf . . .

“There is another alphabet, whispering from every leaf, singing from every river, shimmering from every sky.”

― Dejan Stojanovic

And I have always considered every leaf an individual work of art – O so many beautiful canvases!

Anthurium Leaf

Yesterday I was motivated by another blog to go photograph leaves. Below is that collection of 14 “Art Masterpieces” by God Himself! Fourteen totally different leaves in my garden . . .

Continue reading “Whispering from Every Leaf . . .”
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Looking Up!

Yesterday it was afternoon before looking for something to photograph. The morning blue sky and fluffy white clouds were gone, so I looked up the other direction behind my house, up the hill where others live and to the beauty of their gardens above my Monstera seen below! 🙂

Monstera on wall ABOVE one garden & other shots from above this.

“Look up on high, and thank the God of all.”

~Geoffrey Chaucer

Here’s the 4 shots of LOOKING UP at nature from my garden!

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Driving Into the Hills of Atenas

As with any good coffee farming town, Atenas is in the hills below the big mountains and away from the plains of the big city of San Jose. Yesterday as my taxista drove me back home from a doctor appointment in the city, I cellphone-snapped these photos of the approaching hills as we neared Atenas. No great photos but they bear testimony of the terrain of my little pueblo.

The Hills of Atenas Costa Rica from Ruta 27.
The Hills of Atenas Costa Rica from Ruta 27.
The Hills of Atenas Costa Rica from Ruta 27.
And by the time we were at my house, the clouds had moved in for the afternoon rain. 🙂

“We are now in the mountains and they are in us, kindling enthusiasm, making every nerve quiver, filling every pore and cell of us.”

~John Muir

¡Pura Vida!