Dog adds to waste pickup

The beach was quite filthy today, with a mix of organic stuff—shells and some kind of eggs—and the ubiquitous plastic.

For some reason (it not being tourist season), beach cleanup crews had been at work, as evidenced by the bags everywhere waiting for the tractor that will carry them away. So of all of that expanse of beach, where do you suppose my dog decides to take a shit?

You’re right if you said on top of one of those bags, and not only that, exactly where someone will reach to pick it up.

You really have to wonder.

Rainbow

View out the front door a few minutes ago.

Interesting little critter

A bug our dog found in the firewood near the stove. I was able to get it outside before he initiated an asymmetric play session with it.

First frost 2021

First frost of the year. Very pronounced in the neighbor’s front yard, but the camera thought it more interesting to focus on the branches of the closer bush. Oh yeah, and something about having left it in macro mode the last time I took a picture.

They’re just trees. They won’t hurt you, honest.

Yesterday these still trees were pretty in the afternoon light with a cloudless sky. The last time I walked here it was cloudy, with strong and gusty winds…I felt a little uncomfortable, for some reason.

Pretty, but don’t eat.

Mushrooms spotted on the dog walk today.

Wasp nest revealed after leaves have fallen

Pruning trees

Until we moved to Uruguay, I thought all trees sort of got along. Then I noticed the small pear tree in the front yard had branches growing toward the neighbor’s bushes, then reversing course and curving in the opposite direction (photo except I gave up on it and removed it recently).

Likewise the lemon tree in the backyard apparently doesn’t like the pine (look closely). And the entire anacahuita to its left is leaning away from the lemon tree.

So I decided to remove the pine branch infringing on the lemon tree’s space, but spotted a nest. It’s the middle of winter, so no chance there would be birds in it, but got out the taller ladder to be sure.

This is the nest.

Lots of wind recently, and this morning I noticed another nest in the grass.

The pine tree provides shade, which is good, but I had thought about cutting several meters off the top. Didn’t do it mostly because it wold be very messy, given pine sap. However, this past year I have become aware of how birds just love its dense foliage. I won’t be removing more than necessary.

A dog-walk mystery

About three meters up a pine tree, its lowest branch over two meters off the ground (so not boys climbing trees), the cut-off top of a 6-liter Salus water bottle is stuck in place, presumably with its edged wedged into a piece of the bark.

But why? And how?

Tree rings

This is the stump of a pine tree that was recently logged (without permission I expect), and is typical of the wood used to build the house I documented yesterday. I added my foot for scale. My shoe is about 12″/30 cm long, so this is a big tree. But: less than 20 years old.

It was one of a small grove of attractive trees, and we were sorry to see it sacrificed for a few board-feet of shitty lumber, Probably 7-8 meters of the trunk was hauled off; the top and all the smaller branches and needles left behind to rot — and fuel the next wildfire.

Perhaps we should make it a project to bend young trees so they grow crooked, with no commercial value to lumberyards?