Mid-winter, fresh veggies from the feria (street market) a couple days ago. I threw all this and more into my own bag in order to bring home as little plastic as possible. Most of the vendors just love putting everything in plastic bags.
Category: Uruguay
Code, schmode
I saw this on the Faceborg recently and saw this in an Uruguay Expat Group.
Later I was standing near a house on the dog walk where I usually spend about ten minutes, and have hundreds of times, noticing its outdoor wiring for the first time.
Sure, just bring the current into the house through a wire lying on the lawn. Just pass over it with the lawn mower when you need to. No problem!
Dead, or faking it?
A peaceful walk around the neighborhood.
A large, red-pained pole that’s charred at the far end. Why, and why? And from where?
And then a dead–well, most likely dead–comadreja. We didn’t hang around to find out.
Professional and less so
Workers here at 7:30 AM, set up secure scaffolding (braced and tied to house) to work on replacing rotted parts of the roof valley. Done and gone by four.
Inspires a little more confidence than what Martín used to paint the house in 2010. Yes, that’s a crappy wood ladder (left with the house) tied to the top of my aluminum ladder.
Quincho
The local “excitement” for the last few weeks has been the re-doing of the neighbor’s thatched (“quincho”) roof. They’re apparently doing it in two layers, so the next time the whole thing doesn’t have to be torn off, just the top half. New idea?
I would be more curious, but the last time that roof was done, in October 2011, Denise Glass did and exhaustive and exhausting account of the process “here in Uruguay.” After reading it again, I do not want to burden the fabric of the universe with even one more word about it.
New trash in the middle of nowhere
So, a new, bright pink dog food bag full of garbage appears in the middle of nowhere.
Even if brought from the closest house, someone would have walked half a kilometer to litter. All the houses to the southeast have regular trash pickup, and it would surprise me if that house didn’t have the same.
So what’s the “thinking” here?
What’s going on here?
A few days ago, I speculated on what might be going on at this house. I did not express the thought that they might just completely tear down the wooden house, but that is exactly what they did, creating a mountain of plastic trash and another even bigger (center right) of asphalt-coated wood that will, as far as I can imagine, be completely useless. The room to the left had a huge amount of fiberglass insulation from the previous roof. Today it was boarded shut, so presumably they’ll re-use the insulation.
For some reason, the image of a puppy chasing its tail comes to mind.
What’s going on here?
A year ago, I posted these photos of a most wretched and entirely shoddy little house being built. It is still unoccupied, but more money has apparently been found.
First they added a strange brick structure on the left (gray) with no way to enter it from the house (maybe changed?). Now they’re enclosing the thing with ticholo, which has better insulation properties than brick. So what will happen to the previously exposed pine boards now hidden behind the ticholo? Dry rot? Black mold? Termites? Other critters?
It will be fun to monitor. Throwing good money after bad….
Fires
On New Year’s Day 2009 a huge fire deforested much of the area in which we walk dogs.
Almost 12 years later, in October 2020, another fire raged through.
Fortunately, many of the trees survived this time.
14 months after the last fire, last week, another big fire.
And yesterday on the dog walk we see this:
Wind from east northeast. The others came from the southwest. No sign of any activity. Around an hour later, Syd heard a helicopter (we leave from his house to walk), and this morning it appears to be out.
Almost 12 years between fires, then 14 months, then just over a week. Following that progression, we could have expected the next fire in 3-½ hours. Glad it didn’t happen.
The 50s of Uruguay
In 2017, Uruguay issued polyester 50-peso notes.
Unlike the previous notes, which were red, these 50th anniversary notes were blue.
And ugly in a brutal sort of way. Then in 2020, the polyester notes became red again.
There must be something about the 50-peso denomination that causes impishness. In 2011, they created a ridiculous and misleading 50-peso coin that nobody wants (an earlier blog post of mine).