An inquisitive old fart with a camera
General observations, generally during dog walks
A bird in our backyard pine tree, which is not particularly attractive but, as Syd told us long ago: “In Uruguay in summer, shade is good.”
Volunteer squash plants from the mound of dumped non-composted compost, taking over the side passageway of our house, fortunately not otherwise needed. Slightly wilted in the midday sun.
The squall-like wind did not last long the other day, but it came from every direction, which is why I so thoroughly sealed the stairway windows.
In Atlántida, a rather majestic tree was uprooted, taking part of the sidewalk with it. I don’t think winching it back into place is an option. Too bad.
A few meters away, the roots of another tree that fell the same direction, but was cut up to clear the street.
On a less-traveled street, a red rag warns passersby of a downed cable.
You’ll recall that Christmas Day 2016 was dreary as could be.
So was New Year’s Day. I’m starting to wonder if this forecast “hot and dry” summer might end up looking like 2014.
I “repaired” the incompetent window installer’s botched fix (see first link above). Turns out when he smeared everything with silicon, he covered up the drain hole. Someone else advised me to drill holes on the outside channel every 20 cm or so, and I drilled through the aluminum — but forgot to cut away the silicon on the outside. Anyway, in the yesterday’s bad storm, it (finally) didn’t leak.
The rain cleared and we had a lovely sunset at 8:30,
and a clear view of the waxing moon.
The second of January didn’t bode well. I got bitten by a dog.
Alas, it was my own dog. Accosted by an obnoxious and too-often-loose dog, Benji and Syd’s five predictably went crazy. Apparently when I pulled Benji back quickly he assumed my leg was the enemy. No harm done.
And another lovely sunset.
Yesterday brought the unusual sight of a fake soccer ball in a ditch, not far from where I once saw two real soccer balls in the ditch.
And I noticed for the first time that the townhouses are finally rented after two-plus years of construction.
Today I noticed that one started ten months ago is finally finished.
Meanwhile at the beach, the saga of the buried boardwalk seems almost over.
The exposed part is getting a little dangerous to walk on (but could be worse),
and while the dune has regained its height on the left, burying the elevated boardwalk, the path of least resistance has once again become the breach in the dune, which is now larger than ever. For a fun comparison of its early days, see this from October 2013.
And a much-traveled beach throwing stick that now — after ten or more trips up and down the beach — probably deserves to be retired.
Finally, more rain is forecast. I’m ready!
No, these are not in progress. They are finished. They are above the stairs, where no one sees them, and even though I have repeated sealed them, after water pouring down the wall inside during yesterday’s rain/wind storm I said enough! The goop I happened to have on hand is white.
They don’t even open. I intend to replace them with glass blocks eventually.
And in case we needed another reminder where we are — well, let me put this another way. Do you think that a person who makes his living installing windows should know how to install windows? If you answered yes, clearly you haven’t spent much time in Uruguay.
What makes this even “better” — the guy who installed it has already been back once to fix the leaks.
And this is not BK Aluminios, an incredibly bad but high-profile business. It’s a little mom-and-pop shop that at least pretends to care.
Always amusing to spot English words that seem out of place.
And the irony: the dog food container was a freebie from Equilíbrio, the same company. It holds only 15 kg.
So what to do with the “free” 3 kg? Fortunately, we ended up with two of these containers.
Yesterday, suddenly all the dogs were barking — at something just off the trail. Judging by the markings on the back, this doesn’t seem to be the one we saw a week ago.
And then a snake, similar markings to a dead one Syd and I saw. Not sure what’s going on with its tail. About 50 cm long and moving quickly to get away from us..
Here’s Ralf’s photo of the “dinosaur” Benji found the other day.
While Syd knows the entire area like the back of his hand, and has a pretty set route, Ralf likes to wander and explore. The other day we ran across beehives, which I’ve seen before, but wouldn’t be able to find on a map.
How nice to know that honey bees are happy and thriving in Uruguay!
Curiously, none of the other five dogs even acknowledged the lizard’s existence. The human is Ralf, Syd’s brother in law from Germany.
A few days ago, I transplanted three squash seedlings. They’re doing fine, but …
… I now see six. Hmmm. And when I check on the first of the tomatoes I transplanted,
I see six more. On the second transplanted tomato,
SEVEN squash plants! I had given each transplant a healthy amount of the compost I had taken out of our bin just prior, which a few days later
looks like this. Maybe I can get some of these starts to grow at our chacra, where we have plenty of room for sprawling squash vines.
So this is how my garden grows!
The tomato seedlings are in a bed with a fair amount of cilantro, which I also didn’t plant this year.
And yes, I do need to do some weeding.
Though I’ve always considered myself a mountain person, I do enjoy the constant changes of the beach. Today the small waves were washing up and over, forming and immense pool that ran the length of the beach.
Though the camera I bought four years ago can take a panoramic shot, I had no idea how to do that, so sloppily put two images together manually instead.
This is looking back from the direction I came. We crossed this about as far as you can see, where it was ankle deep. As I watched the dog struggling more and more to get his stick, I knew that was changing. Crossing back, the water came up to my thighs! Fortunately warm 😉