An inquisitive old fart with a camera
Our friend Gundy sent photos of a monster caterpillar in their yard. I had some incredibly camouflaged tomato hornworms a few years ago in my first garden here. I actually pointed to them from less than a meter away, and people couldn’t see them!
But this – wow.
She also sent a couple links about caterpillars:
Fotos de orugas (just learned a new Spanish word if you were paying attention 😉
Why you might not want to pick up that cute fuzzy caterpillar
Awaiting the alambrador (fence guy), I pile old sheet metal on top of logs and other crap to try to convince the big dumb bovines not to enter the area where my garden will soon be, and eat the volunteer squash plants growing there.
Spot a couple of large, odd mushrooms. I know very little about mushrooms; certainly haven’t seen this type before.
While in Connecticut in September, I picked my brother up at the airport. Driving back, I was amazed at cars driving inside the lanes on the interstate, and signalling to change lanes. Finding myself in the midst of a fairly empty stretch, I said, “I’ll show you how we drive in Uruguay,” and started to switch lanes, but only enough to perfectly straddle the line between two.
“What the hell are you doing?” said my brother – who, for the record, is legally blind.
“Driving like an Uruguayan,” I replied.
Today, shortly after an expensive car nearly clipped my fender in the process of creating a third lane in the middle of two eastbound lanes (hey, after all, it is Friday of New Year’s Eve weekend and we’ve got to get to Punta del Este!), I saw this car with Punta plates, which apparently left the highway at significant speed to travel so far and do such damage to the entrance of a children’s recreational area.
I don’t know the details, or what other vehicles were involved, but I can say with some certainty what happened was 100% the driver’s fault.
A friend’s country place includes a octagonal building with a removable center piece which conceals a fire pit. Apparently they – whoever they are – held retreats there.
The last three chairs of six and coffee table I bought used a couple years ago needed to go somewhere to free up space for our Christmas day party.
No, you’ll have to ask them why they think the stairs are the perfect place to hang out.
Anticipating holiday guests, a friend asked me to arrange transport (a flete) for her stuff, filling the guest space, to another friend’s shipping container in the country. With a local reference, I produced a hard-working driver with an ancient truck that did not inspire confidence.
But it worked just fine. The second of two trips. Truck: 1954 Commer.
Consumer goods in Uruguay tend to be shoddy, so bringing decent things when you move here makes sense. Linens and towels. Clothing. Hand tools, even comfortable chairs and a couch. Still, I marvel (sometimes poetically) at the quantity of stuff people feel the need to import.
Or perhaps I should say, feel the need to possess.
The 40′ container is now perhaps 60% full. Of unused stuff.
When the grader came through the other day, I thought that was it for road repair. But no, there’s all that tosca to deal with. This truck backed all the way down our road, then went forward, slowly unloading, pausing here to let a car by. Then the grader returned, and ta, it’s done.
I realize this is tremendously boring, but hey it’s my blog, and nobody reads it anyway.
Actually, smells like rain. But the sight of this rig reminds me – despite the un-summer-like weather today – that we will soon be inundated with Argentinians. Summer season starts in a week; continues through March, with another hiccup for Easter.
Can’t subject the visitors with money (they hope this year, given Argentina’s current cyclical economic crisis) to the potholed, rutted roads that tear our vehicles apart the rest of the year….
Since most of the Argentinians come from the port of Buenos Aires, they’re referred to as porteños – best not to their face, methinks.
