From one day to another … to another

irresponsible trash dumping, Uruguay

A few days ago, arriving at the dogs’ favorite watering hole, we found that some troglodytes had made an extraordinary effort to ruin it. Plenty of places to dump stuff nearby, but they put it here: from one day to another.

But another day, and it wasn’t there anymore. Note arrow indicating sand road said troglodytes use to carry other trash to the middle of nowhere, and tend to their bees, cow fencing, etc. (of course none of this is actually their property). Maybe they dumped it where they did so they wouldn’t have to look at it?

And, being card-carrying troglodytes, they had to include plate glass in the load, positioned so that it would shatter when they dumped it. What would have been a 5-minute cleanup job became a 20-minute job because of that glass…

… now prominently on display across their “road.”

Will they get a message from this? I’d be very surprised. But if it causes a couple of obviously-unused synapses in their brains to fire for a nanosecond or two, well hey, mission accomplished.

Behold the beady eyes

Hearing the dogs stir shortly after sunrise this morning, I got up to let them out. Almost immediately Mocha started barking at the closer avocado tree (for the record, not the one I put fence around). Aha!

comadreja - possum - in avocado tree — Hmmm …. trying to remember – can dogs climb trees?

The first year we had avocados, there were 32 of them. So when a possum got one, it was a big deal. This year, both trees have been producing since March. At 6:45 AM, standing naked in the back yard watching a four-legged looter getting ready to steal an avocado, my best course of action quickly became clear: go back to bed.

Later we saw that the critter had indeed had a heart-healthy breakfast. Mocha wonders if it is still in the tree.

Meanwhile, a few feet away, our little orange tree whose first harvest (three oranges?) happened this year, looks primed to do considerably better next. Which would be wonderful. But I have to wonder if it will be as “dumb” as our lemon tree, and grow so much fruit that a branch breaks. Time will tell.

Before and after

Mexico – January 1, 2009 (southern hemisphere summer): I read Syd’s post about a forest fire which started on the beach side, jumped the Ruta Interbalnearia (main coast road), and did extensive damage to wooded areas on the north side (fortunately not homes, which here are generally not combustible). Three months later we visited, met Syd and Gundy; three more months visited again to check it out in the worst weather; three months later moved. (By the way, Uruguay has been my longest stay in one place since I turned 16 and got my driver’s license!)

Informal loggers moved in, using the excuse of dead trees to remove more than a few perfectly healthy ones. I don’t include in-between imagery because it’s not that good, but clearly shows large areas of dead trees.

Over seven years later, when Benji and I joined Syd and dogs for walks, occasional charred stumps were the only indication that something devastating had occurred. Syd was – and still is – frequently pointing out grown-over paths that used to be a “road,” mostly for horse-drawn carts. And he has frequently told me of areas that used to be forest. I didn’t exactly not believe him, but I was amazed to consult Google/CIA Earth historical satellite imagery and see how vastly the area has changed. The wooded image is from 2006; the barren from 2014. The trees have thickened a bit since then. When stuff grows here, it tends to grow like crazy, but unfortunately the “loggers” of firewood here now do their best to prevent any trees from growing to maturity. We have no idea who the land belongs to.

Uruguay: Villa Argentina norte, before and after fire

It’s a lovely area to walk dogs – though not without issues: cows, bees (we were inexplicably attacked near hives we know about yesterday), horses which Mocha hasn’t yet learned to “live and let live,” motorbikes and quads, which happily Mocha ignores, unlike Benji, who went crazy chasing them.

But it’s also for the most part brush. Not particularly interesting. I look at how it was, and can only think it must have been almost magical, compared to now.

Don’t it always seem to go ….

Santa Rosa 2018

Apparently the Santa Rosa storms have arrived. It’s dreary, and windy, and rainy. So perhaps appropriate to post photos I took a few days ago, on a beach walk, when I thought the weather was just awful, and rightly predicted that virtually no one else would be on the beach. (Hint: no blue sky today!)

dune walkway, Uruguay

This is the access board walkway I have shown many times in the past. Because of a “valley” walkway through the dunes to the beach, “they” built a board walkway. But “they” didn’t realize that, free of erosion, the dune would naturally build back to its original height, maybe 1.5 meters higher than the highest point of the walkway, making it the second choice for crossing the dunes. But it gets “better:” to the left (from this perspective), the new “valley” has now become so massive that it’s actually stripped away dunes from where they grew over the walkway. Great work by whoever “they” are (who BTW also budgeted zero for maintenance).

lifeguard shack, Uruguay

In the next town over (five blocks away), I am heartened to see that I am not the only one disgusted with the fishermen who leave behind their trash.

Using the formal (su instead of tu), graffiti implores one to take [away] your trash. And then, Mister Fish[erman] (a little confusing to me, since it seems to say pescada, whereas “fish” in this sense (literally caught) is pescado, care for the river. I have explained – but with over 1,000 posts, don’t easily find – that the Uruguayans consider this thing that others might reasonably call an ocean, having no flow nor other side, a river. In fact, an estuary. Whatever.

Anyway, I find the formal and polite nature of this message amusing. Perhaps explains why I found some of my stickers apparently scratched off trash containers, as if they were too norteamericano blunt.

But hey, they got the job done – sort of. More on that later.

Taking down a tree

This is time of year, the sound of chain saws is quite common. But a couple days ago, I hadn’t figured out that something more interesting might be going on until my wife spotted a guy with a chainsaw high in a tree. Only once have I topped a tree as part of felling it, but it was a pine, nowhere near this size, and swayed like crazy after the top fell. And I did it with a bow saw – no way was I climbing up a tree with a chain saw!

So here’s this guy up a 15-meter (I presume) ladder. All rather impressive. Listen for the guy on the ground yelling ahora! (now!).

I hired tree people a couple times when we lived in North Carolina. We had a lovely old spreading oak that needed thinning. The tree people – who worked at the Augusta National Golf Club – said they never use ladders, but only free climb, and also don’t wear spiked shoes, in order not to damage the trees. Quite spectacular to watch!

No worry about damaging the tree in this case. Also, being eucalyptus, it will regrow. And regrow.

Unlike the last time, this does not affect the sunshine we receive in our yard.

Trash tour in the Villar Wilderness

I took Mocha to run today. He was neutered one week ago and has been constrained as a result. The weather was on-and-off, and Syd had gone with his dogs earlier, during a clear break. So it was just us, traversing this route for the first time in a few weeks. Happily, no motos, no quads, no horses, no woodcutters – OK, a few cows that Mocha ran to and barked at – but with little apparent result (with Benji they would have been making noise and moving, not a Good Thing.)

I’ve previously written about trash dumped there in the middle of nowhere, for no apparent reason, but it continues to beggar the imagination. Consider this location —

— where we now find a discarded Epson printer. And not just discarded: the blue-green stuff to its left are the bits of glass from the deliberately smashed display. So somebody carried this thing far into an empty area, only for the purpose of smashing its display screen and leaving it?

deliberate trash Uruguay

A bit further along, new discarded clothing, apparently children’s winter wear. So we’re in the middle of winter, and the best thing you can think to do with unneeded clothing that can keep a child warm, is not to donate it to the take-anything thrift shop, or even discard it in the ubiquitous trash containers for some scavenger to find, but carry it hundreds of meters into the middle of nowhere and throw it on the ground where it will serve no one?

deliberate trash Uruguay

I’m sure at some point I documented the sudden appearance of discarded auto parts. These have in fact diminished – there were, if I recall, three windshields. The other two, unbroken, have apparently been harvested. And maybe other parts as well. I have photos here, elsewhere, somewhere.

deliberate trash Uruguay

At another location, where overnight appeared a huge pile of construction plastic sheeting some time ago, now widely scattered by the wind, a new visual accent: a smashed and probably UV-sun-rotted plastic dish rack. (But why so shattered?)

deliberate trash Uruguay

I discussed this over dinner with my wife. Perhaps we’re not witnessing a cultural manifestation (these people!), or necessarily a low level of awareness (these troglodytes!).

Maybe something different: an expression of frustration, anger. Not that you would experience that meeting them. But they are expressing frustration and anger about their environment – not discerning physical from emotional. Trashing their physical environment somehow serves an emotional need, not so much different from people who cut themselves.

Down the rabbit hole…

These is the image Paul refers to in his comment below.

Uruguay trash

First frost 2018

Since it doesn’t snow in Uruguay, frost has become a substitute. But it’s always fleeting: the clear sky that reflected no radiating heat last night allows the morning sun to make quick work of the frost. And it persisted all day today, making it lovely, sunny, and almost warm at times. Now the sun has gone down again, and any semblance of warmth with it. No doubt we’ll see frost again tomorrow.

First frost 2018 Uruguay

Finally, a break from dreary weather

To be fair, we have had some episodes of sunshine during the last five or six days, but the overall weather theme has been dreariness. Today we had scattered clouds and bright (but not warm!) sun.

Interestingly, several years ago we were told by a solar guy that with a hot water system in Uruguay, you need to plan your tank capacity for three days without sun, on average the longest you’d need. In the short time since then, several winters have proved that quite inaccurate. We never got a solar hot water system installed – a little complicated on our house – so I don’t pay particular attention, but it seems to me there have been many stretches longer than three days without sunshine.

Anyway, a new sight today, several blocks from the end of the feria:

cany sweet, whatever that means

“Candy sweet.” A ladder up a tree, and further to the left, a gas-powered electrical generator. Since it was chilly, I didn’t hang around to learn more of the nature of the (presumed) business. There will be time, if it becomes a regular feature. More likely, though, is that it will simply go away, maybe after a couple more appearances.

sunset, Atlántida, Uruguay

And a lovely sunset, with a clear sky undimmed by criss-crossing “persistent contrails” (nudge nudge wink wink) that mar the sky almost always and almost everywhere in North America and Europe.

Of paltas and comedrejas

The other night, quite late, I let the dogs out to the back yard and a huge uproar. Grabbing the flashlight, I saw a “dead” comadreja (possum) on the grass. (“Dead:” of course it was gone the next morning.)

By daylight, I noticed something near one of our two very prolific (this year, at least) avocado trees.

Possum damage to avocado harvest

Look to the top left and lower right, and you’ll see what look like mushrooms, or eggs, or – you guessed it – avocado pits.

Today, under the other, which produces larger fruit, I saw more evidence of recent activity.

Possum damage to avocado harvest

That avocado skin in the foreground measures 5 inches (12.7 cm) from end to end – a serious guacamological loss.

The first tree drops fruit; this one doesn’t. Since possums are very adept climbers, I suspect this represents an unauthorized harvest.

Possum damage to avocado harvest

Which is perhaps the reason I have had little scraps of fence wire hanging on the garage wall for so long. I don’t know if this will work, but the critter will have to navigate points of wire at the top, and the boards should make it difficult to get right next to the trunk. We’ll see.

If you’ve spent time in Uruguay, you may have noticed an abundance of parrots. They are quite charming until you plant fruit trees, and you find them taking a few bites out of each pear or fig.

One person told me that there weren’t always so many. It seems that the rapid increase in eucalyptus and pine planting in the past 30-40 years has given parrots very tall trees for build their nests – above the range of possums, who presumably like parrot chicks and eggs in addition to avocados.

First fire this year

wood stove, dog

Temperature is in the mid-50s F (12-13° C) and it just felt right to crank up the wood stove. I had the door properly resealed a couple months ago. When I last got the door redone a couple years ago, the job was sloppy, and the stove hasn’t been really tight for a long time. We were pleasantly surprised by the amount of heat coming from it – and of course forgot to dust the top before lighting. Eh, what’s a little temporary burning odor?

We don’t currently have enough doggie blankets for everywhere, but I did put some cardboard down after taking this photo, so Benji is now enjoying the warmth without vaguely thinking “something is wrong with this picture” as he lay on the cool tile floor.

The boxes above him contain a backlog of fire-starting material. I haven’t ordered firewood this year. We have a small amount of odds and ends, plus quite a bit of curupay from the deck of Tim and Loren, who left here over three years ago. I probably should think about that, since the weather’s been OK, and in the east of Uruguay, firewood is stupidly sold by weight. So, after a rain, if the wood is stored outside, you can end up spending 35% more – yep, that’s how much the wood can absorb temporarily.

So welcome winter, and we’re not quite prepared. I guess hoping it will be mild like last, resulting in an incredible harvest of avocados, starting March this year versus June the year before.

Ya veremos – we will see!