Category: Nature

General observations, generally during dog walks

Totally irresponsible

Heading up from the beach, I saw a column of smoke rising. Before crossing the dunes, putting my shoes on, I heard men’s voices. Getting to the road, I saw a blazing, untended fire not far from one of the flammable garbage containers.

fuego

Twenty meters further, a woman backed out of her driveway, stopped by me and said ¡Que horrible! I asked her who did it. Los jardineros. But there’s nobody here, I replied. It appears that the gardeners who had been working nearby piled up the brush, lit it on fire, and left for the day.

I’ve mentioned this behavior before, but this is a little extreme.

But hey, it was time to go home.

Cero.

cero

Zero degrees Celsius this morning (32° F). The sun made quick work of this frost on the car, as it did last year and the year before.

Yesterday our neighbors from the campo stopped by in town, commented on how cold it was, and taught me a new saying: Julio los prepara y agosto se los lleva. July prepares something and August takes them. Huh?

Old people, they explained. The two coldest months of the year.

Julio los prepara y agosto se los lleva.
Julio los prepara y agosto se los lleva.

Brazil in flames?

I left the house about the time of the start of the World Cup semi-final match between Germany and host Brazil. On my walk, I saw something burning in the east, smoke plume extending far over the water.20140708-1

When I got back to the house, I could scarcely believe it: Germany ahead at the half 5-0. I looked more carefully at another photo.

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No, the smoke was between us and Piriápolis. And besides, Belo Horizonte, Brazil, where the match was played, is northeast, not east, of us.

But I expect for the Brazilians, not only has their chance to win the World Cup gone up in smoke, so has their national pride. It wouldn’t surprise me that the burn from this will be worse even than their 1950 defeat by their little neighbor Uruguay. Billions of dollars spent, 260 million of which on a stadium that will never again see any significant use after just four games, embarrassing delays and infrastructure failures, and now total, and I do mean total, humiliation at the feet of the flawless German futbol machine.

7-1. A record number of goals scored in a World Cup semi-final match. Ouch, Brazil.

 

Mold season in Uruguay

If you hail from, and live in, a place where building construction techniques have changed in the last couple centuries, you may be thinking, “oh, interesting. I wonder when mold season is in Uruguay?”

But, no, it‘s an inside joke for locals. When is mold season in Uruguay?

All. Damn. Year.

cloro

Meet my new BFF: cloro puro, not the overpriced, diluted crap sold in orange bottles (which have their own recycle container at the local waste processing/recycling operation). In this case no doubt sold in a recycled bottle.

Remembering Syd’s tales of protective eye wear and scrubbing ceilings black with mold, I realize I had it relatively easy the last couple days (wasn’t even this bad), but it has been a bit of work. 1.5 liters of bleach consumed yesterday and today, and much of yesterday ended up consumed in the entirely enjoyable project of helping one of my son’s friends (early twenties) build a 6′ high bookshelf (the event also involved the death of the circular saw I bought for $40 from one of Syd‘s strange tenants [our only tenants turned out stranger still] AND a Hyundai angle grinder that went up in smoke for no apparent reason).

Simple accounts lead to stories and more stories and more than you need to know. Perhaps another time.

Another rare Glove Fish sighted!

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Oh, OK, can’t fool you. Obviously it’s the same Glove Fish, a hundred meters further west on the beach.

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However, I did see red and white carnations and candles washed up over several hundred meters. No point letting those go to waste.

When I light them, I will say a silent blessing for whatever their original intended use.

DTOTB double header—two mysteries

I saw two raptors ahead on the beach. They took off, and flew over me. Large, with a most unusual wing pattern: white on the inside, black on the outside. Not just the flight feathers: a clean line in the middle of the wing. Stranger still, what they dining on appears to be another of the same species. Note the beak (head is bent under).

dogs investigate dead bird on beach

I have looked through hundreds of birds online and found nothing resembling these, which I would have guessed to be eagles.

Then this:

dog with dead river dolphin

dead river dolphin on beach

I’ve seen this DTOTB before — any idea what it is?

 Update: river dolphin.

 

Birds and fruit

A year ago, our neighbor in the campo’s flock of guineas was down to two, from six.

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And they were both males. So they got six more, expecting similar attrition (which hasn’t happened). And they’re more sociable than ever. As I was leaning on the gate talking to the neighbor, one, then another, then two more fluttered up next to me.

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Then they all followed us back to our place, where one of these days I’ll get back to making kitchen cabinets. (Found a stainless steel 20-tube 150 liter solar hot water heater the other day for USD 675 🙂

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Then we got back to town, wondering if we had really left a bag of garbage on a chair with the gate open? Last time we did that wandering dogs left a mess. But no, simply several kilos of oranges left for us by another Uruguayan friend.

Nice.

The strangest volunteer

It has been a strange summer, and horrible for gardening.Nonetheless, things I didn’t plant emerge, like this tomato plant

growing out of a hole in the lid to a plumbing junction box.

It’s right below an outdoor shower, so I watered it for a few minutes today. I put the fireplace tool holder to support it several weeks ago,  since it had grown beyond its ability to support itself.