Category: Nature

General observations, generally during dog walks

The calf

Neighbor told me about an “underage” cow that got pregnant. Gave birth, but can’t stand or feed herself. Has to be hauled upright with harness and pulleys and chain, milked 2 liters twice a day to feed the calf, here shown two days old.

Something about teeth; as a consequence they (humans) cut grass in our (non-pasture) yard for mama. Not a problem as regards our property. Maybe a gift. What do I know about such things?

The calf: two days old and still bit of umbilical cord hanging. Damn. Huge.

A walk on the beach

There may be a story here … or not.

Pigeon on TV antenna. Yes, weather that dreary.

A dead penguin on the beach.

An appeal to ecological awareness, which caused me to remark how surprisingly free of plastic waste the beach in fact was.

And a surprise: the fishing platform mostly gone – it has been a long time since I walked on the beach.

It always had room for several people … no more.

fishing pier
Sunset, pier, fishermen

And Mocha never stopped running the entire time – so many new things to smell!

100 reasons not to live in Uruguay

Obnoxious Acodike locations in Uruguay

This will be a little obscure to someone who hasn’t actually suffered through daily life in Acodike’s Uruguay. Gas for cooking (“Supergas”) comes in metal gas bottles sold by many vendors. All have phone numbers, and will bring gas on demand for a slight charge. And of course everyone has a cell phone, so anyone can phone anytime, anywhere, and have replacement gas within a few minutes.

However, one company thinks we still live in the 1990s, and has its drivers – apparently on commission, based on their wasteful repetition and overlap – drive back and forth endlessly, with a tinny and piercing version of Beethoven’s Für Elise screeching at high volume. Yes, the ice cream truck “music,” but not tempting you once a day. No, just driving up and back every street, occasionally turning the noise off abruptly, which makes it no less jarring. Not every truck is the same, and I’ve heard as many as three different ones in the space of a couple of hours.

Everyone (above a certain level of awareness, with the bar set pretty low) hates them. But they just persist with their noise pollution, because es lo que hay – that’s how it is.

Today – blissfully! – we have reached the afternoon without their intrusion. From being an acoustic hell the last few days, Uruguay suddenly seems like a nice place to live again.


Reduce, re-use: yes; recycle: no

A little over a month ago, I began drinking sparkling water (agua con gas) instead of wine.

I love the vastly reduced clink-clank of bottle recycling, and the cash savings will certainly buy a little sushi, but I didn’t feel good about the single-use plastic water bottles from the supermarket. Given tightening purity standards in China for recyclables, many municipalities up north have gone from making a little selling recyclables, to paying much more to send them to a landfill.

I don’t know the status here. I don’t know if plastic is really recycled, and if so, where (but they seemed serious about it last I checked, seven years ago). But then I remembered how we got drinking water before I installed filters: the water guy who comes around every Monday morning.

He brings pressurized bottles like the one on the left. Total waste is reduced from a bottle with three types of plastic, to a little piece of plastic wrap. Plus the water stays fizzier because the bottle is pressurized. Also it costs less. And the delivery guy is friendly and helpful. For example, after starting delivery only a few weeks ago, we were out last Monday morning. We returned to find six bottles of water at our doorstep, to be paid this week, no problem.

So how many times can these pressurized bottles be re-used? I have no idea. However, this is one delivered today:

refillable water bottle, Uruguay

Notice the phone number. Phone numbers in Uruguay no longer begin with zero. In fact, they haven’t since late 2010. So, chances are these bottles have been around a while.

I like that.

Not playing

Unusual fuss last night; dogs wouldn’t come in. Bandito the Shih Tzu was burrowing impossibly into the aloe vera, backed by chain link fence, until I had to swat at him with a flashlight to flush him. He went inside, I went inside. Then Susan announced that Mocha was inside, she not seeing, as I did, something a foot long hanging from his mouth.

My first thought was a rat, but he jumped on the couch and deposited a young comedreja (possum). “Dead,” I said, but Susan reminded me how well they play dead, so I grabbed it by the tail with a piece of paper towel and deposited it outside the fence, where our dogs couldn’t get at it.

Alas, the morning light revealed that it was not, after all, playing dead.

It’s not the first, but a little less mysterious than the last.