It’s been clear for a while that a comadreja (possum) had been getting into our compost barrel.
Its last visit was indeed its last.
Since lately I’ve only taken compost out after dark (without a light), I don’t know how long it had been there. But I expect I would have heard it moving when I emptied scraps on top of it. The last time this happened, I actually tipped over the barrel so it could escape.
Atlántida can be a (relatively) noisy place — sometimes I refer to it as “Alarmtida.” In addition to regular and specious security “threats“ duly announced by neighbors’ alarm systems, we have weed-eaters, gas leaf blowers, lawn mowers, and chainsaws. The chainsaws have been mosquito-annoying persistent for a couple days. My wife had a revelation today, when all of a sudden her upstairs office lit up for the first time in the winter afternoon sun.
Turns out the neighbors spooked (perhaps) with the latest windstorm, and decided to remove a eucalyptus tree or two towering 40 meters or so to our northwest, where it/they blocked a significant amount of our afternoon sun (when you live in the south, the sun’s in the north).
A little hard to convey in pictures, especially when your point is, “Hey, the sun’s not blocked there anymore!”
From the balcony upstairs, outside my wife’s office window.
Most of the way up the tree in the middle, a guy with a chainsaw negotiated next moves and lowering of cut branches with the crew on the ground.
Seriously, there’s a guy in there somewhere with a freaking chain saw — about where the rope comes up from the lower left. At this point, half the tree horizontally has gone, and probably the top quarter of what remains. The neighbors will have a few years of firewood out of this. Good on ‘em (and thanks)!
The arbor vitae in the foreground doesn’t show from this sunset photo in June 2014.
And because it’s close, looks equivalent in this photo I took tonight. It’s not (notice the twin stumps of the removed tree, just left of it). This represents a huge, and wonderful, increase of light into our back yard. Sun glaring in the kitchen window — a new winter afternoon treat!
The microclimate of our back yard has just changed, for the better in terms of gardening, perhaps more challenging in terms of mitigating summer heat.
I noticed some school girls running up the pedestrian bridge yesterday. That bridge and another are some of a number of improvements we’ve seen in almost seven years in Uruguay. Granted, sometimes nothing is budgeted for repair or maintenance (see here and (yikes!) here). And the engineering — well, perhaps that’s too strong a word — leaves something to be desired.
Early this morning, I took the-dog-that-cannot-get-too-much-exercise with me to leave our car for an oil change. An excellent opportunity to experience that bridge for the first time (and very exciting for the dog!).
Alas, the Uruguayan acceptance of mediocracy rears its ugly head again. Yes, that’s a puddle. On a dry day.
But the bridge appears to be solid, which can’t be said of much of the decades-old infrastructure where I came from. Just before we moved to Uruguay, the History Channel did a 2-hour piece on the infrastructure of the United States. It’s the only long video on Youtube I’ve actually watched from beginning to end in one sitting. Highly recommended: The Crumbling of America.
Heard today that Atlántida is now officially a city instead of a town, having a population of over — drum roll, please — 15,000 people. Only in Uruguay.
Here’s the “junk house” in the middle of Atlántida that we walked by today. You can walk by it yourself in Google Earth Street View: 34°46’18.01″S 55°45’17.51″W. You just won’t see the spinky-face dog.
Benji disappeared into a yard, the second half of which, facing the potholed dirt road, has tall bushes. I couldn’t see him, but, leash in hand, was watching for movement through the bushes. Also monitoring the aging Doguita, who sensibly stays to the side of the road when a vehicle, such as a 50-year-old gardner’s pickup, lumbers toward us.
Sure enough, with impeccable timing and predictable lack of vector calculation, Benji comes blasting blind out of the yard and BAM! smacks into the truck. I thought he hit the bumper. Maybe he hit the fender. Anyway, an exceptionally loud noise. The driver stops, rolls down the window and I say in Spanish “They never learn.” Had I been a little quicker, I might have asked if his truck was OK. Whatever the look on my face, it must have been amusing. He smiles, says something, drives off with his workers. No big deal.
I think I detect a limp, but no, within 30 seconds Benji is on to the next house, yapping at the dogs behind the fence and running up and down with them, tails wagging.
(N.B.: I am careful to keep him on the leash where I know fast traffic is possible.)
Here’s the little darlin’ earlier today, once again delivering a destroyed tennis ball for me to kick 3 meters (max) from where I sit at my computer so he can chase it.
After reading comments and feedback, and wondering what can I do? I decided to distribute a little flier to every house in the neighborhood near the dog we found. Though not cold, today was windy and rainy.
NOTICE
At this moment, there is a dog chained to a tree within a few hundred meters of your house, in the woods. He has been left, with no shelter, for at least three days. The two times we have encountered him, he has had no water.
This may be intended as a temporary situation, but nonetheless it is cruel, inhumane, and in violation of Law 18.471, Responsible Animal Ownership.
If you know who is responsible for this, we encourage you to do what you can to put an end to it.
Before doing that, though, I wanted to be sure the dog is still there, and phoned Syd to see if he’d check, since he lives nearby. He did, returning home seconds before another deluge, to report this:
The dog has moved again, but now there’s a tent that appears to have been inhabited by a person last night.
