An inquisitive old fart with a camera
General observations, generally during dog walks
Cool wind this morning. Time to wear shoes and socks again after happy months of flip-flops.
As a kid, I loved autumn crispness, new clothes and return to new adventures in school. Now it seems more a chore: order firewood, figure out how to clean the stove pipe, clean up garden. Stay warm. Wear shoes to the beach.
Autumn in the months that ~should~ be spring — still weird, the third time around.
At times here, you’ll hear a frog chorus sounding like the ‘mew, mew’ of cats. Confuses newcomers used to croaking. Last year we had many, many frogs – but also many, many mosquitoes. This year less. On the decline, or just an off-year?
Yesterday, our friends’ afternoon asado of suckling pig turned to evening with fat toads hopping around the parrillada.
This morning, the honey bees are busy on the basil plants I’ve let go to seed.
Good to see the indicator species – and the bees – thriving. From what I understand, that’s not the case elsewhere.
When I lived in Europe, it seemed fashionable for ‘experienced’ expats to tell newbies how the place had gone to hell in the last (pick a number of) years.
Here, I can list a number of improvements in two and a half years. New airport, improved roads, much faster internet, better selection of white wine in the local supermarket (we must have helped), and an effort to conserve the dunes, with boardwalks erected since the first time we visited.
Alas, our nearest wasn’t particularly well built. Its entire length used to have hand rails on both sides. Still, its convenience provides incentive not to trample the dunes, and the base is solid.
Some will argue the place is going to hell (today the rumor of a revised effort to introduce a worldwide wealth tax on residents – enforceable precisely how, pray tell?) but I don’t see it. Yet, anyway.
We ponder and plan. Worrying helps nothing.
Gallinetas (pronounced ‘gazhinettas’) are one of my favorite birds here. I’ve only seen them in our yard a few times, though I hear their raucous calls almost every morning. When, this dreary morning, I saw a pair of them in the front yard, I grabbed my camera – to see that one had jumped onto a fence post (behavior I’ve never seen) as though posing. Only then did I realize I couldn’t shoot through a window screen because of the camera’s auto-focus.
I quietly opened the front door a little bit, expecting the bird to spook. But no, it just stood there. Indeed as if posing.
In Argentina, it’s called Ipacaá; in Brazil, saracuruçu. In English, Giant Wood-Rail.
Brisk westerly blow-cap-off-your-head breeze during my grounding walk on the beach this morning. A degree or two lower and I would want a windbreaker over my t-shirt. Only a few days ago, wearing a t-shirt if you didn’t have to was crazy, given the heat and humidity.
The climate is volatile, the economy is volatile, the social mood is volatile – the last I know from reading, not direct experience. For now, Uruguay remains tranquilo.
Early at my desk. Back door open for pets. Suddenly a loud squeaky toy. But our pets have no squeaky toys. Rush to dining room, drag the little dog from hell by its tail from underneath the sideboard. In the next moment cradle in my hands a small brown songbird, upside down, damaged, panting furiously. I carry it to side wall. Its eyes blink, look at me. I imagine healing energy from my hands, but it looks like a goner. I gently place it – not upside down – atop the wall amongst squash plants, safe from cats.
An hour later, it’s gone. Apparently not a goner after all.
Not my footprint, honest.