An inquisitive old fart with a camera
General observations, generally during dog walks
Walking the dogs back past our local zoo, I saw only one llama standing, making a roink-roink-roink noise near the shed in which the other lay.
When I approached he bared his teeth and I vaguely remembered something about those critters spitting and kept my distance.
Expectant papa guarding mama inside?
Ya veremos – we’ll see.
Shortly before we returned to Uruguay, a powerful storm swept through. Here’s just one of many similar scenes:
On the ground in front you see a concrete power pole that supported the intersection of wires now hanging in the air, all knocked about by the large eucalyptus in the background.
By all accounts, it was a most exciting time 😉
New lettuce, and one cabbage plant, amidst very happy cilantro (growing with a top-dressing of seaweed). All volunteers, dug up from friends’ unworked garden that was very active garden last year.
We finally determined that the scratching noises in the roof many mornings just before daybreak are the sounds of bats returning home. Bats are good. Bats in the roof less so.
So how do you get rid of bats yet keep them at the same time? The answer: a bat hotel!
Welcome to the Hotel Murciélago!
I hope.
I don’t know fish, but this one looks OK. Fisherman abandoned it.<
Fortunately not a common occurrence.
Now, it’s not a Tarot card.
It’s what happens when you let an idiot put a pregnant cow into a loading shoot where she doesn’t have room to give birth, then produces a stillborn calf and can’t stand up, and your Uruguayan neighbors all show up to help.
The metal bit in the back is clamped onto the cow’s protruding pelvic bones. They rigged a beam between two trees. The back feet didn’t actually touch the ground.
Not our cow. We were called to help before the neighbors – who actually knew what to do – showed up.
As I washed dishes, I noticed something large and unusual in the backyard: a gallineta (ga•zhee•NET•ah). Beautiful bird who wakes us at 6 AM with a chorus of calls that sound like donkeys being answered by owls.
Reminds me that in the campo – a few km inland where we are now the owners of a 5.6 hectare (13.87 acre) farm of sorts – the neighbors call the guinea fowl who come to visit us gallineta. They also have their own word for gate. And who nows how many other things as well.
The frogs are back. Some frogs, anyway.
After all the rain, I’ve been hearing them the last couple nights. They sound like frogs, which makes sense.
Except in the previous couple years, they’ve sounded like cats. Mew, mew, mew…. Our German neighbor said that when he first moved here, he enjoyed that sound of nature, but had no idea what it was.
So now we have frogs that sound like frogs, and it’s weird.
The cold yielded yesterday: 100% saturated warm air that kept mopped floors wet all day, that condensed onto cold surfaces untouched by a mop. By afternoon thunderstorms rolled over, and we unplugged, plugged, unplugged again – everything, but first and foremost the phone line to the DSL modem. When that goes, you can’t just waltz by the office and get another. You wait and wait and wait on the phone along with everyone else, then you wait for a technician to come and swap the modem. Last time it took 11 days.
When the rain stopped, the low clouds remained, catching the light of the setting sun and turning everything incredibly yellow – then incredibly orange. We watched in amazement. I didn’t take photos. I knew they wouldn’t do it justice.
Then I was siting with my laptop at the kitchen island, and did an abrupt double-take. The yard outside the sliding glass doors had disappeared into black. One minute it was still day; only moments later it was night, as if someone cut off a light switch.
Had I been outside, I probably could have watched the shadow race past overhead, the line between light and dark on the top surface of the low clouds, lighting below as though through frosted glass. Next time, if ever?
Today we have just fog.
Saturday
Before I reach the dunes, I note the impressive swell lines. On the beach, clean left breaks with the tops thrown back by a gentle offshore breeze. 1-1.5 meters high, brown waves (alas), a couple of intrepid surfers doing their best. After a frosty-cold morning, the afternoon has turned out comfortable. Not so much that I would add to the fresh barefoot prints I see in the sand, but almost warm.
Sunday
Again pretty waves, this time a crystal green-blue color, again a clean break. And maybe 30cm high. Awesome – if you ‘re a surfin’ GI Joe.
