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Where I'm At        
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Patiently Waiting May 13, 2008  I'm still patiently waiting the news on the baby. No word yet. So, I will share this little photo I snapped last Friday at work of a barred owl. It was not happy with me at all. There was much hissing involved and me reassuring it that I was not about to make off with it or possibly its nest. This is the best one of the shots I took. I did a little curves work to make the owl stand out better and it seemed to work well....because this is my second photo, now, to make Explore! I am excited! I was a bit surprised because there weren't as many comments but I think that the trick is to have people favorite it. I don't know, I can't read Flickr. It is fickle sometimes. But, this photo makes me happy and I just might have to print it out. There's not a whole lot going on. I tried a run this evening and made it about a mile and a half and had to walk most of the rest of the way. The trouble with running before dinner is that you smell all of this incredible food in the neighborhood and start envisioning running into peoples living rooms and feasting. That and I was having trouble with my breathing today. I am also down three miles so far because I kayaked instead of running on Saturday. *oh well*. Slowly, slowly, I waddle on. Through Bookmooch I got Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife, the 'sequel' to Pride and Prejudice. I am thoroughly looking forward to reading this, and it is even written in Regency English. WOO! Heh! My yard is already escaping from me. It is so hot these days. And no rain. Please, send us a mediocre Tropical Depression. Note, I did not say hurricane. Almost An Auntie May 12, 2008 My bff, Michelle, (well, one of my BFF's), is going in for an induction tomorrow to have her baby!!! I'm super excited and when I called her this afternoon I almost hung up crying. My voice cracked there are the end, because this is such an exciting little event for me and she's one of my closest friends. We connected somehow our freshman year of college, and though we're several states away and don't always get to talk on the phone or email, we always have this connection. So, tomorrow, when it gets tough Chelle Belle, think of those times we sipped green tea on my balcony and watched across at Galveston Bay. I'm getting all teary eyed just writing about it! Sometime last winter one of the owners of My Folia sent me an invite via Flickr. I signed up and didn't do a heck of a lot with it until getting reinvigorated about it recently. My page is there and I am slowly adding things to it. I'm thinking it will be a great way for me to remember what we have in the garden. I will need to go around, slowly, adding what we have been growing over the years. Because I am the worlds biggest dork, I had to start a new Flickr group today. It's called Awesome Octagons, and I just know someone reading this wants to join!! I found a group for the hexagon crochet squares, but no octagons and I wanted to share! So, now there is a group! WOO! Also, I am trying to get The Divine Sisterhood of the Gluestick up and going too. Meghan has been doing wedding related activities lately so I am going to try and post challenges every once in awhile. There's one up right now that I need to do myself, but I hope I can get a few of you reading to join!  These are the stacks of octagons I am working on right now. I am working on another round of purple and then have one each left of both colors. I saw there is a nice sea green color that I think I will use to join and to add the border.  So far I love this yarn. It is Paton's Brilliant. The speckles of silver intwined with the color make it very shimmery and I think unique for a baby afghan.  The rose is blooming again. This is the not the most recent one I bought, but the one I've had for awhile. I started more onion and okra seeds tonight. Sunday Scribblings May 11, 2008 It's hot outside. The summer heat has arrived, and with it a complete lack of rain. I don't think we've seen any significant rain since early April. The yard shows it. Everyone, save those who actually water their lawn, has brown grass and the weeds are taking over. Chris has slowly been taking some tomatoes down today. I am guarding a few of mine, hoping to get some more tomatoes out of them to save and eat in the next few weeks. But, they are mostly done. We'll start again with sowing seeds in late August, this time for an earlier harvest than we got this year. I know which I will and won't be planting again. Copia was a deadbeat. I think I had one or two come out of that one, and Great White did poorly. We lacked on water and part of the problem was the amount of tomatoes we had planted. They were fun to plant and watch as they grew. I will miss having the fresh tomatoes in the kitchen. It's a good thing we've stocked up on salsa! I do have one tomato sauce left as well. Yesterday we braved the heat and went to the Loxahatchee River up in Jupiter to kayak. The water was cool and with the shade from the old growth cypress we weren't too hot.  We put in at a park on Indiantown Road and paddled down the river to the second spillway. We've done this route before while doing a geocache.  It is a very peaceful river, with just a small amount of flow, a few spots a little faster than the rest, and the water was lower than the time we'd came before.   Chris' kayak is larger than mine and has more difficulty going through lower areas.     Chris got out to take some photos with the SLR a few times. The river was very busy yesterday; lots of canoes and kayaks and we'd have to pull over in tight bends and between trees when oncoming traffic approached.   There were quite a few turtles perched on fallen logs.  We also encountered two alligators that were chilling on the edge of the bank in the water. We didn't see any swimming as we kayaked through.  There were two logs that were so low over the water we had to practicaly lay down in the kayaks. We'd paddle enough to get us through and then crouch down as far as we could.  After an hour or so, we made it to the second spillway. This is a popular swimming hole and takeout spot for lunch. It was very crowded yesterday at lunchtime!   I had to get in the water and Chris joined me too. It was very cool and refreshing and much like being at the lake in Texas. I could have swam around for an hour. Don't worry, no gators in the water!  When the water was higher you could kayak over the spillway, but there are takeout ramps to move down the river here.  One then we saw a lot of were these invasive Pomacea insularum, channeled apple snail, eggs. They are different from the native apple snails in that the eggs are bright pink. They were everywhere and large clutches were on many cypres trees and logs.  We made it back to the first spillway to find a traffic jam. Apparently someone in a canoe had gone down the spillway and flipped. Chris had gone down it on our way down the river, but I chickened out because I knew I could have flipped. I'm not exactly a world class kayaker. So, we had a lot of people in front of us and we sat waiting while everyone hauled their kayaks out of the water and down the other side of the ramp. The fun part is going down the ramp. You can get in and slide down and Chris did just that and almost lost his camera bag. I thought he was going to flip, but he luckily didn't and nothing got wet! Phew! I forgot to mention that under the road bridge for Indiantown Road is a colony of bats! They are so cool and you can hear them chirping as you paddle under the bridge. Some you can see peeking out of the crevices and holes!  I did finish and mail off this afghan the other day. WOO! Or, maybe I should say, WHOOP, since it is an Aggie blanket! I wanted it to be bigger but my hands were just worn out. I can tell a difference in using thick acrylic yarn vs other yarns. Everyone here in Florida says Happy Mothers Day to our mom's, grandma's, soon to be momma's Chelle, Erika and Stephanie! :) An Evening Out and About May 7, 2008 Christine told us last weekend that we could come visit her at the park she works at to check out a few rare and endangered plants that are found there. She also has caves on the property!! Chris met me near work and we drove down in his car to the park. It was nice doing something other than rushing home collapsing and taking care of everything at home. The park is closed to the public at the moment but she let us walk around and see a few things. We were mostly interested in Passiflora sexflora, P. sexflora, and Lantana canescens, L. Canescens. Both are seemingly insignificant, but highly endangered. We walked the paths through the tropical hardwood hammocks and the palmetto scrub areas, back to the caves. Yes, there are caves in Florida! They aren't Carlsbad Caverns, but you know, it works! Chris jumped down into one of them and explored it for a few minutes. It wasn't a very deep cave, but he did see stalactites and snails. The evening was cool and enjoyable and we topped it off by stopping by a BBQ place on Krome for dinner.  These are our beach woodpeckers that we saw on Sunday at Lovers Key State Park near Fort Myers. As I said a few posts down, we don't normally see these in this habitat. Seeing the brilliant red was a bit of a change from the browns, greens and blues of the beach.  There were many osprey around and we spotted a few nests.  I couldn't believe how lucky Chris got with this photo. The magnificent frigates hardly come this low, at least the times we've seen them in the Keys. I call them pterodactyls.  The pelicans were doing fly-by's along the coastline, searching for the perfect fish to dive in to catch.  This is a complete Chris photo. I love how it turned out, he had an excellent eye for this one!  I had to get Chris to snap this one. As we were walking back to the car, we stopped on the bridge going over the little inlet area to look at what was swimming about. This horseshoe crab was swimming by on its back, moving along to another part of the ocean. When I worked at Moody Gardens we had a few in the touch tanks and they were always interesting to watch and to laugh at because they would continue ramming into the sides of the tank. By the way, don't ever buy one at the shell shop. Bad idea. Skip the seahorse while you're at it, and the pieces of coral.  There were baby hawks nesting in a tree in the parking lot. Mom came by with food before we left to the beach and she wasn't around when we returned.  After we put our beach stuff in the car we walked a bit down a trail. We didn't realize it was so long, around 2 miles, so we just walked through their native butterfly plant garden and then a little down the trail. On their list of animals you might see were gopher tortoises. We were surprised to see them on the list and then shortly after we saw this one as well as another one that quickly went down its burrow when we tried to get a closer look. I am completely loving Lady Antebellum a country band with their new song Love Don't Live Here. Awesome stuff!!! I might be popping over to Amazon soon to get it! Run to you May 6, 2008 Songs always have a meaning for me. Most songs at least. Right now Bryan Adam's Run to you is on the internet radio and it is always a good late night song. It reminds me of freshman year of college, the light to my cabinet desk on, a book open, the blinds open to the darkness of Galveston Bay and the twinkling lights of the Texas City refineries. The staring out into the darkness at the farthest lights across the bay to the west, wondering what is going on out in the darkness. Or sitting on the beach, feeling the breeze on my face, the smell of the sargassum washing up on the beach and the cool sand underneath my feet. I just had to write that down. I don't even know if it makes sense. Another one is Sunset Grill by Don Henley. A complete beach song. 3 miles down out of 36 for the month. I'm running again, three times a week for this month. Slowly working up to it. Now that my throat doesn't have constant mucous and I don't have a runny nose constantly, I can actually breathe. It felt good. Slow, strong, tiring, but good. I missed it. I want to be a runner. I used to consider myself one. I liked that I could do it. The feeling of accomplishment. I will get there again. It took time the first time I started and it will take time again. What songs send you into a memory frenzy? A bit of mustiness... May 5, 2008 All I could think of when I walked into Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary is that I should work here. It was me. I could see myself leading educational groups down the boardwalk or doing biological studies. Dagnabit. Insert Misti and Chris' Rule of Fun Jobs *here* (ie: Fun Jobs Never Pay). Right when you walk into the boardwalk area is a board showing what animals and plants that have been seen. Then you walk through a little wet prairie and into the cypress swamp. Right away the musty odor comes to you, smelling like an old tent that you've left wet for a few months. Mmmmm, camping. We meandered through the boardwalk for awhile, looking for chompers, caterpillars, in particularly a giant sphinx moth cat or ruddy daggerwing cat. The moths will chow down on pond apples and the daggerwings like strangler figs. We'd see a few nibbled leaves here and there but no caterpillars. I was taking in the new cypress leaves on an overhanging branch from a cypress when Chris exclaimed he'd found one.  That's little green bean looking thing in the top center of the photo. That little bugger.  Chris sat for awhile trying to get his best angle. He'd seen two at Fern Forest here in Broward County, but the photos didn't come out that great. We encounterd a few people wondering what in the heck we were dying to get a photo of and we told one couple who stopped to ask. He snapped awhile for awhile and then we started to walk down the boardwalk in search of the 'super ghost' orchid. We ended up back tracking a bit, further back than our caterpillar to find it.  Don't strain your eyes too hard to see it. It is actually hard to define, but you can tell. Those roots in the middle of the crook of the tree. You can't see it from the boardwalk; you've gotta use binoculars or a camera. No spikes that we could tell so far and we didn't see any pollinated seed pods from last year.  I couldn't stop staring up at the resurrection fern on the tops of the cypress. So beautiful.  There wasn't a lot of wildlife on the trail, but we did see these bugs...    This green anole didn't scurry off while I took a photo. Luck me!  I see similar bugs like this on my tomatoes. And they freakin' bite/pinch!!  I saw this tree towards the end and had to hug it. It was begging to be hugged. ;) It feels good to complete projects. I'm almost ready to move on from the book I'm reading, the Bonfire book. Right now the last bit is interviews and I think I am going to skip it. I'm ready for some chick-lit. Something to read quickly, in a few days, and to just mellow out to. I made more guacamole tonight. I ate the first batch already. I couldn't resist. I am going to get fat off of avocados. Leo just walked up onto the computer desk and has the cutest bit of water dribble on his chin. I want to eat him up!!! Weekend Goodness May 4, 2008
Guacamole! May 2, 2008 This post is for the Swedish Chef who posted a few posts back and asked for more cooking posts. I have an inkling of who you are Mr. Chef, but it is fun to try to guess. Today you are getting guacamole for your cooking post. Last weekend we went to Moe's Southwest Grill for lunch. We like Moe's. It's a good replacement for a Freebirds (in Texas) and I got guacamole with my burrito. I then had the hankering to make it so yesterday at the store I picked up some avocados to try it out. I mean, how hard can it be?  I used:
 Then it all went into the food processor.  And it was ready in just a few minutes!  When my family first came to Florida for vacation back in the late 80's we were introduced to Everglade's Seasoning. We savored the can the whole year because you couldn't get it outside of Florida. It lasts a long time but it is very good to have on hand. They also have a Cactus Dust that is excellent on steaks and chicken. The guacamole was yummy! Chris didn't try it because he doesn't like it so the more I have the better! :) I am happy to announce that I finally finished the blanket I was working on. I need to weave in the ends and wash it because the cats have laid all over it. I'm DONE! I'm excited because I wanted to spend the weekend doing paper related crafting. This month I am trying to accomplish another baby blanket (seriously what on earth are all you people doing having babies this summer????? My hands are going to fall apart!!) and do a little illustration for a friend and hopefully finish a scrapbook I started much too long ago. I also need to catch up on my Paper Adventure '08 project. This weekend I need to put some more seeds on the Etsy shop and do a bit of yard work. I feel slightly 'caught up' in the yard, but need to do some work on the porch. Our rat friend is still hanging around and I think his IQ is 130+ because he/she seems to know what those traps are for and is avoiding them at all costs, even going so far as to hanging out on the right side of the grill when there is a nice trap on the left side of it. ARGH! I'm hoping it will go into the live trap Chris bought the other night so we can just take it to a field and let it go. Leo thanks you for all his birthday wishes, here and via the phone. ;) He was a happy cat eating a whole can of wet food. He usually gets dry food and wet food and fresh fish are treats. I even tried to get Sam to eat some but he turned his nose up to it. Picky cats!  Baloo on the other hand is not picky. He will eat whatever you give him. He's been known to lick the floor, and I've seen him trying to stand up with his paws on the kitchen counter. Eliana, you gave us a handful!  He has the wettest licks too. And doesn't know when to stop. Wruuff! 4 May 1, 2008  The squirt turns four today. We don't actually know his birthdate, but when he showed up July 1, 2004 we guessed he was about two months old. I've posted this photo before and I just never get tired of it. He is darn cute!  Of course he is known for being a little bit of a nutcase!  But who can resist the troublemaker???? It's been a long week here. Super busy at work. Tired. Tonight I'm going to pour some wine, sit in bed while I crochet and watch McDreamy and McSteamy. :) An Evening April 28, 2008 Tonight I am enjoying my sparkling pomegranate Izze. Mmmmm. I like to treat myself to these little drinks sometimes and the other day for the beach I bought a four pack. They are tasty, though Chris says otherwise. We're working on making dinner, or rather Chris is working on dinner. First, though, he had to clean the grill. You see, we had mice living in it. Last week I went to cook some chicken and opened the hood to find a mouse scurrying out of the way and a little nest being built snuggly in one corner. Funnily enough, the nest was made from cotton that came from my plant in the yard. Hrmph! So, tonight Chris finally started cleaning it up. We've had a mouse problem for awhile. It started when we weren't keeping our sunflower seeds for the birds in a container. They subsequently chewed through that pretty quickly and made good entertainment for Leo. Probably two weeks ago, almost, I was letting Baloo out in the middle of the night and saw a rat climbing on the screen of the porch. Yuck. I can handle mice but I don't want rats running around, especially with Samson going on the porch sometimes. Samson has been banned for a week and he is a bit sad about that. Hopefully we will be less friendly to the mice in the future by making the porch less of a mouse habitat than it already is. The mice weren't the only ones using the cotton, though.  A ring neck dove momma had decided to nest in our ric-rack cactus hanging basket.  I didn't see her tonight so I hope she didn't abandon the nest.  I'm excited about this citrus. We started it from seed several years ago and I am not sure which one it is. The problem with labeling your labels with a Sharpie is that eventually it dissapears! So, it could be a lemon, lime or keylime. I hope keylime!!!  There's also an amaryllis bud forming. This plant has done a lot of blooming in the past year or two, which is surprising to me. I've found some of my container plants to not bloom as much as I would think they should.  This is the mockingbird nest that was in the passionvine. I haven't seen the babies or the momma lately either. On the craft front I am still trying to nose my way through a large blanket I am crocheting. I just keep telling myself there's only one more large one to do. Ahhh! I have to whiz through another baby blanket in a month because I am now going to go to Texas at the end of the month for my friend's baby shower. This isn't helping because I really have the urge to paint and draw. There are two books I am trying to finish as well. The Texas Aggie Bonfire and No One Garden's Alone: A Life of Elizabeth Lawrence" are both good. I started the first one because my boss gave it to me to borrow. I suppose I didn't know a lot of the history of A&M, my alma mater, and it really is an eye opener. It was written almost immediately after the Bonfire collapse in 1999 and published in mid 2000. It is interesting reading about the evolutions of the traditions and how it went from all male to co-ed. This has been my carpool book, but I just can't manage to do a lot of reading lately. The second book I picked up at a nifty, small town bookstore in Greenville, South Carolina about a year and a half ago. I was on travel for work and was killing time in the evening and found this little bookstore, The Open Book. It was nice not being in a big-box store and they had a large selection of southeastern authors. This book was on sale so I picked it up and thought it'd be a nice fit on my bookshelves. It is a biography and isn't boring! I mean, remember all of those snooze-fest biographies you had to read in school? This one isn't like that, thank goodness. So, I'm trying to wade through both of those, slowly, in pieces, pages at a time. It's raining now and time for dishes, putting laundry up (fun! joy!) and then settling in for some crocheting and House M.D. Ghost Time April 27, 2008 First, I did a little random number drawing on the 'net and the winner turned out to be Logan, my reader from Ravelry! COOL! :) I already sent you an email asking for your addres, so just reply to that when you get a chance! Thanks for participating! It just enticed me to go back to Ravelry and see what was going on in the fiber world. I have been a bit lost from yarn lately! Aside from smashing three of my right hand fingers in the garage door tonight as I was putting it back down, this weekend was pretty good. Oh and aside from a crabby episode last night, too. OK, so the weekend was mostly good with a bit of crabby/ouchness. Yesterday I spent the day at John Lloyd State Park with a lot of my coworkers. We decided to have a beach get together and it turned out great. The weather was nice, the food was good and I spent a lot of time in the water! WOO! The only sad part was that Chris went fishing instead of hanging out with me. Drat. That was part of the crabbyness. Today we slept in and then went out to Little Slough for the first time, or really it was my first time this year. Chris has been out several times already. I was a bit reluctant to go at first. Last year really wore me out, but once we got on the trail and started walking out it felt like home again. The water is a foot higher than last year; it was mostly dry this time last year.  We still have things to do from last year, like mapping out all of the orchids as well as documenting some that we decided to come back to get when we had a ladder.  This seed pod is opening up from last year, or 'dehissing'.  Some plants were doing good and others were declining in health from last year. It looked like a few were rebounding, though.  Chris was a bit reluctant to go check the gauge because he'd seen a small alligator last time he had come alone. The water there was about 25.6".  This was one of the cool things we saw. A fisheating spider with a fish!! I was about to walk by it when I looked down and saw the spider, took a step back and then realized that it actually had a fish! That was pretty awesome until...  we came to one of our giantor ghost's (around 70 roots!) and saw a fisheating spider that had just nabbed a lizard. This photo sucks but Chris got some with the Rebel. It was really interesting to watch.  We counted between 15-20 spikes out there with one flower opening in the next few days. And so it begins. It's a Miracle! April 24, 2008 How to eat a miracle fruit: Synsepalum dulcificum  First, find a ripe fruit from your plant.  Next, cut up some lemon slices (these were variegated...of course!).  Then, taste the lemon because it is going to be sour!  Take a bite of the miracle fruit berry, skin and all.  Yummy!  Don't pucker your face like the lemon is still sour, because the miracle fruit actually made it sweet! Ahh, miracle fruit. We were introduced to this genius plant at the Fruit and Spice Park down in the Redlands. You drink lemonade, have a miracle fruit, drink it again and it tastes like the sweetest drink on the planet. Mmm, good! I am getting seed packets ready for the lucky winner of the drawing. I am such a newbie at this giving away stuff that I forgot to say that you could post until Saturday night 11pm EST. On Sunday I'll draw the winner! So, go here if you want to participate! Garden Fever April 23, 2008 It's official. The gardening bug is back. There is something about being out in the yard when I get home from work. It is so alive right now. Yesterday I saw a zebra longwing butterfly and a gulf frittilary butterfly fluttering about. I also kept hearing chirping birds and today we discovered that there is a mockingbird nest inside all of that passionvine I posted the other day. The other day our spot breasted oriole friend, the one who has shown up the past two July's for a few days, has shown up again! He/she is a few months early, but I am happy it is around. Today on my way home from work, just as I turned onto the side street leading to our house I saw it fly over the road! Not 10 minutes later we were in the backyard, where I was picking cilantro seeds for my Etsy shop, when it flew into the tomato area and jumped from the vines for a minute before staying put on the fence for a bit.  Chris went in and nabbed the camera.  A tasty worm was found on my tomatoes and gobbled up for dinner!  This Halloween Pennant, Celithemis eponina, stayed put for quite awhile on the new rose. I've found these to be one of the friendlier dragonflies to have around. They are all over the Everglades and will readily be photographed.  Last night I stopped at Home Depot and picked up some eucalyptus mulch and some various herbs and got the vegetable bed ready. In the back are okra seedlings and I planted some ornamental variegated corn as well as some beans. My friend Sara recently asked me for some gardening tips. When Chris and I first started gardening it was mostly trial and error. We'd plant something and see what would grow. This was on our apartment balcony that faced west and got little sunlight, so there were many errors. Eventually we learned to read up and figure out light and water requirements. We'ved killed our share of plants, but now we've got a handle on how to grow things. Mostly. I haven't tried lately, but I know I do not do well with bougainvillea or Mexican heather. The other issue is that we live in the sub-tropics so we have a bit of a different issue. We have hot, humid weather. Our vegetable season is mostly opposite of the rest of the country. Everything is grown from mid-Fall until right around now, except some hot season vegetables like peppers which can handle the heat. Not to mention, we get daily rains in the summer and that affects how well things will grow. Many bulbs will rot in the ground and some won't even grow, like tulips, because they need a certain amount of chill hours. Some people circumvent this by putting them in their fridge for six weeks, but there are so many other tropical varieties of bulbs, why bother??? I think the most valuable resource have been Gardenweb. Just reading by your state or region and then by areas of interest will give you so much more information. Here is a list of books and links that I find valuable:
So that is a start. If you have specific questions, email or comment and I can try to answer them. In other news, for the past two weeks I have been avoiding dairy. I've contemplated doing this for awhile and after the mini-acupuncture that I had and my constant pleghm and asthma issues, I've gone dairy free. This is incredibly hard. Do you know how much dairy is in everything??? It's not just elmininating milk and cheese, but it is sour cream, cream cheese, yogurt, chocolate, ice cream, boxed goods, cheese covered chips and snacks and you just about name it, because there are milk derivatives in everything. Right now I am avoiding the major things, but I hope to wean myself off everything else too. *hope*. And I still go for things that I forget have dairy, like the fried chicken strips I had today at lunch. I'm sure they were milk battered because not too long after eating it I had a nice reaction. For the first week my throat was pretty sore, trying to recuperate from the past few years of throat clearing and coughing. It is feeling better now and I am enjoying this dry feeling throat and the ability to actually breathe. For about an hour after eating the chicken today I had issues breathing and clearing my throat. I hate that. So far soy milk has been good and I have not had a problem replacing it for regular milk. I tried some soy yogurt and that was good, but I got a block of soy 'cheese' and I knew when I unwrapped it I was heading for trouble. First, it was watery around the wrapper. Eww. Then, the coloring looked fake. I decided I was going to try a piece and when I went to cut it, the cheese was like rubber. Gross. And it did not taste good. I am wondering how it will taste disguised in some food, melted and cooked. I also bought some sliced rice milk cheese. I haven't had the nerve to try it yet. All of this is rather sad to me because I have goat cheese, gouda and feta in the fridge begging to be eaten. The good news in all of this is that it is easier saying no to all of those bad foods, like cookies and cake! I'm hoping this will become a benefit for my waistline as well! Hah!  I noticed the other day I had almost 60 subscribers and I really have no clue who 45 of you are. I know my regular commenters, family and friends, but who are all of the lurkers that read on a reader and are silent every day? I don't mind silence, but I would like to say hi to you at least once! :) So, to entice some delurking I am going to have a little giveaway. I will put together a little seed package to send to a lucky, randomly drawn person. Persons related to me by birth or marriage can participate, but if I pick your name I'll just draw a second time so that I am fair to all the other lurkers. So, come out and garden with me!!! Cleaning Up April 22, 2008  Saturday morning we left the house by 7am and drove down to the Rickenbacker Causeway on the way to Key Biscayne. We were hosting the Earth Day CITO for Eliana and Marc, they originally hosted last year, but this year they were chilling in Grenada. We had a meager turnout, but it was good people. We were lucky to have a nice day with no strong winds, partly cloudy and though the water was a bit nippy when we got in, it later felt pretty good after we started cleaning.  Eliana had found this island and saw how trashed it was from weekend partygoers.   A trash can had been placed on the island but it was quite full. The trash can wasn't there last year. You could tell people would actually attempt to get near the trash can, as there was a large pile on the beach surrounding the can.  Everything you can imagine was there. Empty tampons, cloths that you could tell were used for girls who went to the bathroom behind the trees, beer cans and bottles, fishing line plastic bags. You freakin' name it.  You can see the crew here. I think there was around 10 people. Last year we had a bigger turnout, but we worked hard and got everything cleaned up in just an hour or so.  I think we saw this last year but were unsucessful in getting it up. There was a tent buried in the sand. It seemed to go on for-ev-er (think The Sandlot). They'd tug and pull and a piece would rip. Sand would pile up and water would splash from the ocean. In the end they were able to get the majority of it up.  You can see some of the amount of bags of trash we collected. There were little bits of glass here and there and of course you could stoop forever trying to pick up little bits of trash.  It looked pretty darn good when we were completed. Nevermind those trash trees, Australian pines. Ugh. Invasive, exotic. We sat around after we were done and a few people ate some lunch. In an odd moment, a huge swell came on shore, sweeping the kayaks up and sending everyone scrambling. Honestly, it was like a mini-tsunami, especially after a mostly calm surf for the whole morning. Someone said they saw a large boat go under the bridge and that must have been the wake from it. While we were hanging out some people in john boats, from nearby anchored sailboats, were noticing a large brown area swimming in the ocean. Someone from the clean up crew noticed it came up for air and we quickly realized it was a manatee! Now, I've seen my share of manatee's up in Melbourne but haven't seen any in Miami in the wild. To boot, there were two!! Chris, Ana and I scrambled for our kayaks and took off to slowly follow them. We never got too close but both surfaced clearly and we could see their whiskers and snout. Very awesome!  Being on the water made me ready for summer, wanting a trip to the Keys and wanting to kayak more often. I want to go and float around the mangroves near Big Pine Key. Since it is Earth Day I thought I'd post some relavent links and talk a bit. The first is this article, Greed in the name of Green, from Wolfie and the Sneak. I have been thinking about this a lot lately with the new green 'revolution' taking place. It has been bubbling for awhile, just under the surface, but now everyone seems to be 'greening'. I think the biggest things you can do are to buy reuseable bags (and use them!), carpool, plant a garden, use less invasive chemicals to clean, recycle, reuse, and reduce the consumption of what you just don't need. Instead of buying new look at Goodwill, Freecycle, Craigslist, BookMooch, Amazon used books, etc, etc. Another thing I am just not very keen about is this move to ethanol. It has the potential to be incredibly destructive on the environment as we convert our grasslands, wetlands and forests to produce corn, not for food, but for fuel. I read an article in Time recently talking about the rainforest destruction going on in South America. It's incredibly sad, especially only a month out from being in Bolivia. I'll leave you with a few good books and websites to check out: Blue Frontier The War Against the Greens: About the green movement in the early 90's. Earth In Balance Hooked: Pirates, Poaching and the Perfect Fish I've read all of these books and highly recommend them. Leave No Trace Grist You Grow Girl An Inconvenient Truth Natural Resources Defense Council Environmental Protection Agency League of Conservation Voters Freel free to pitch in your links or recommend a book. Arbor Day is in a few days, so go pick out a tree and get it planted! Ahhhh, dirt! April 21, 2008 Today I came home first and checked the mail. I love to check the mail. I hate days that involve bills and junk, or even worse, the rare occasion where there is no mail whatsoever. Sometimes I think the mailman just skipped me! Today was a good mail day. I had a book from BookMooch, an Etsy order, a letter from my friend Em in Wales, a BB&B coupon (!!!), and Chris had an book from Amazon. SCORE! I came in and grabbed Baloo so he could go outside and enjoy the evening with me while I opened my mail on the swing. Chris came home not too much later and played with Baloo a little, running around the swing and letting Baloo gnaw on a piece of a palm frond. The book I got was awesome. Or, it will be awesome when I read it. So Excellent a Fishe by Archie Carr, the father of sea turtle biology. I've been meaning to read it for years and haven't gotten around to it, but I saw it up on BookMooch and nabbed it while I could. I already thumbed through it and I am completely excited!!! My other package was from Sara, from her Etsy Shop. I ordered a super cute bracelet. This wasn't my first time ordering from her; I ordered another cute bracelet back in the Fall. So, if you are looking for some beach wear, take a look at her stuff!  Today I wore the green one (from Bolivia), and the second from the left, and the new ones are the plain 'mimimalist' one on the far left and the lacy aqua one, second from the right. Groovy!!! I was reading Em's letter and then Chris got up and went to Best Buy. A few minutes later I heard him leave and I got up to go take something out for dinner to defrost. Hrm. I couldn't get in. He had locked the sliding door. I went around front. Locked too. Well, I decided I could spend my time trimming back grass from around the pots, weeding other areas and watering!  This is our ylang-ylang tree. We started it from seed almost four years ago. Actually, for awhile we had no clue what it was because we'd mislabeled the containers, then our friend JC id'd it for us. It really needs to be in the ground, and is probably rooted through the pot into the ground already.  This is our random brug that showed up in the middle of the yard. We suppose it sent a root out and grew from that because we haven't had any seed pods form. We've just decided to let it grow.  A bit of poking around revealed a monarch chrysalis that had already hatched a beautiful butterfly.  This is my second rose in the garden, a new addition. I bought it on a whim a few weeks ago while in Lake Placid. We had to stop at a hardware store for work and for $7, well, it had to come home. This isn't the prettiest bloom; the rest of the blooms were magnificent. I'll have to show you that later.  This little wildflower came from one of those self seeding packets/envelopes. You can purchase notecards and such with seeds built into them now, and this was something similar. It took awhile, but one of them germinated. There are several more buds forming and I hope I can enjoy it for awhile.  This purple basil is growing, self seeded from last years basil plant. There are a few plants in the container. Looking forward to the aroma!  Under the brugs I planted my gladiolus bulbs. I am a little late in the season for Florida but I hope I can get some blooms this year before it gets too hot.  The edible passionvine is blooming like crazy and taking over the back fence. I hope we will have a lot of fruit this year. Look for seeds on my Etsy shop if we do! I grew these from a fruit that I bought at the store. They take a bit of time starting off but once they are established they grow crazily.  My onion seedlings are hanging in there. I should mulch this bed. I ripped out the collard greens last night and cooked them up. I started those late this year as well so I didn't enjoy the vegetable as much as I could have. I think this weekend I will get some peppers and other herbs to plant in the bed for the summer. And mulch it too.  You can get some idea of how the vine is growing on the fence from this photo. I love the light in this one.  All that grass! Ick! It was climbing up the fence and drowing out the poinsettia. This is another area I should just mulch and make into a bed. I just haphazardly threw in various plants because I didn't have a place to put them, and they do grow fine, but the grass really overtakes that area.  I like this photo because it cracks me up! I harvested what tomatoes were out there and hadn't been eaten by the bugs, rolled up my shirt, went hands free and they stayed!! I recommend a bit of a buddha belly for this one so that the tomatoes have something to rest on!!  King Leo of Mt. Laundry approves this blog post. *meow*. :) There's some sort of force field between warm laundry and grey and white cats. Finally, Relaxation April 19, 2008 Last week was good but exhausting. Getting up at 10 'til 6 every morning is wearing on me, and then getting home around the 7pm range daily took its toll. Tuesday was brutal. A cold front came through and the wind was whipping most of the day. Most of us came prepared and were bundled up. The only portion of my face that wasn't covered, from my eyes to just below my nose, became very wind and sunburned. Now, my nose is peeling and my lips are very sore and cracked. The only thing that makes it feel better is this shea butter/honey lip balm stuff from B&B Works. I was digging around for Carmex, which I never found, and found that instead. I wished I could have slept in today, but we had to be up for our kayaking geocaching CITO (cache in, trash out) event on Key Biscayne at 8am. It was a great day for picking up other people's trash (ha!), and I am glad I went. Tomorrow I will talk about Earth Day related stuff. Chris and I did get a long afternoon nap in today, from noon thirty until around 5ish. Now, I just feel more tired! So, here are some wildflower photos from the week.  Coreopsis  Too lazy to try to identify. LOL! There are more like that...  Bristly, white, yellowed umbel shaped flower. BWYUSF. :p  Wild Ruella  Bladderwort  Marsh pink, Sabatia spp.  These little bugs were taking over the thistle!  Flaveria lineraris  Another coreopsis with fleabane     That's most of the wildlife shots I took. I have some sandhill cranes I will share later and the swallowtail kites kept evading me once I got the camera out, so I don't have any good photos of them. It is also very hard to get photos when you are on bouncing buggies and full tracks. For the week it was two full tracks stuck in the mud, and one broken down buggy (at the end of the day!). I need a recommendation from anyone: I am looking for a recipe binder. I have so many recipe cards shoved into my box that it is just a pain to get to them. I'm looking for a binder with inserts that I can easily just file them away. I am not looking to rewrite them!! So, if you have a link please let me know! Today in Monochrome April 16, 2008      In Which I Write Incoherently...Probably April 14, 2008 I am oh, so tired. I was up early to go to work so I could meet my carpoolers and go to our Everglades Study which lasts all this week. We were in the field by 7am and then spent most of the day on full tracks in the Everglades, but being outside in the sun makes you very tired. Then, I got home late, almost 7pm, and we ran a few errands. I can already tell I won't accomplish much this week. Christine mentioned BookMooch on a comment the other day so I had to check it out. I am now addicted! I've listed 35 books, several which have already been vouched for, and I just need to take them to the post office later this week. It's a 'free' exchange. You pay the shipping, whatever is cheapest, and they get the book. So, even though you are sending books, you will also be getting books for the free. My problem is, the majority of the books on my wishlist aren't available. Many are on other people's wishlists. I figured Eat, Pray, Love would be widely available since it is very popular right now, but it isn't. A lot of Oprah books, though. The good news is I got rid of both GRE books! WOO! AND!!! And Organic Chemistry study guide. LOL! I think I'd list the actual book, but I have to pay the shipping and it is a doozy of a heavy book. It is worth a try if you have some books to get rid of. Baloo and the cats are coming around now. They are all able to hang out in the same room and walk by each other, but Baloo hasn't figured out that Samson doesn't want to play and keeps trying to pick little play-fights. Baloo has also caught onto Samson's trick of hovering at the front door when someone comes through that way and that is a big no-no. Sam has been known to pull a sneaky dash through the door and I know Baloo is perfectly capable. Eliana, your dog is a trickster!!! ;) He runs along the lines of Leo, mostly good/partly bad. He's a doll face, but he's a troublemaker, though they both don't usually know they are troublemaking! It was quite funny when I got home today, because he was at the front door since Chris was already home, and he was wiggling his little butt (that is really funny! I will have to video it.) and jumping up and down like he missed me alllll day long. I think I need to figure out an accent and put on a brown wig and see if he thinks I am Eliana! HA! Well, I do have a post about a hike/car ride we did this weekend, but that involves processing photos from RAW to jpg and uploading and thinking and writing and I am just not capable of that right now. So, you get to critique my little art work I did last week.  Parrot Fish Eye. 5x5 acrylic on canvas. It isn't quite what I envisioned, not bad, not great, but something I'll probably just keep and let hang out in the computer room. What do you think???? Bolivia Day 6: Witch's Market and leaving La Paz April 13, 2008 Waking up in La Paz was nice. Not having to travel that day made it even better. We all slept in until around 9 since we had nowhere to go and no real plans. Chris and I ambled down stairs for breakfast, the same breakfast we'd had upon our arrival on that Tuesday previously. Juice, tea, quinoa, fruit. It was good to eat, but I was still feeling the effects of the altitude sickness and by the end of breakfast my stomach was nauseous again and I felt so tired, even though we'd slept a good 9+ hours. We went back upstairs and Eliana, Marc and Chris decided they would let me sleep for a few hours while they went down to the Witch's Market and walked around. About thirty minutes into my snoozing I heard a parade with a band come through the streets. It was Easter Sunday and everyone was celebrating. The music reminded me a bit of Mardi Gras. It didn't bother me too long because before I knew it, the three of them were back and ready to drag me to lunch. I felt weak from not feeling well, but I made the walk down the stairs and we watched the parade that was in front of the hotel.  This particular parade took a long time to walk the street. They would slowly do their dance and move forward. I can imagine it would take hours to get through a route.    We were luckily walking slowly downhill, which was not too bad for me. There were street vendors selling everything from this corn to bottles of water and little trinkets.  Anyone need a bag of chili's?   We turned left (not sure on the direction) and walked down another hill on a more narrow street. We ended up eating at this organic/natural place, I think the name was 100% Natural or something like that. We attempted another place a few doors down but they were closed for the day. The building was tiny and already full of patrons so we had to wait a few minutes to get a table. This restaurant was very traveler friendly and you could tell it was probably always busy. On the menu I spotted chicken soup which was exactly what I needed for my stomach. I also ordered a chicken sandwich (sans hair this time!). When the food came out everyone realized their eyes were bigger than their stomach. Apparently Bolivia has the American food syndrome of too much food given on a plate. The soup was fabulous and exactly what I needed. Fresh and homemade. I threw a few pieces of chicken from my sandwich into the soup for a little protein. Mmmm! After lunch we didn't have to walk too much further to hit the Witch's Market. The Witch's Market isn't really what the name insinuates, though there are all sorts of poached animals that are used in who knows what, but it is mostly a tourist area where Bolivian and South American goods are marketed (one can hope they weren't made in China).  Chris made me try on one of the hats that the women wear. I look like a dork!  Eliana had tried on a similar one earlier in the day.  At first we just browsed at what we wanted. When Chris went out earlier he had already bought several items so I wasn't looking for too much more. You can mostly browse the street, walk next door and try to bargain for a cheaper price than you found it previously. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. The matter is, everything is already cheaper than you would expect to find at home that sometimes it just gets ridiculous asking for less.  Eliana found more oranges...   We never really felt unsafe here. As I said earlier the area was a heavily traveled tourist area. Now, if I had gone to the area, that the night before on the way back from the airport to the hotel, was blocked off and said military zone, well, there might have been problems. So, common sense is best.  There were so many beautiful things for sale. I ended up finding a beautiful necklace that was green leaves inlaid with silver. We tried to bargain on that one, using Eliana as our translator, and then we decided against it, only to find another necklace with the earrings as a set right up the stairs, not 20 feet away, at another vendor. I ended up purchasing those because it came as a set.   I saw these inside a little courtyard when we tried to find the postoffice. E & M said that the post office had been open the previously Sunday, but probably since it was Easter, they were closed.  There are dried animals skins, whole animals and parts at many of the vendors. It is such a sad sight to see. The llama's are good for fertility or something like that.  So, you can imagine what may have happened to any number of the animals at Inti Wara Yassi had they not been rescued. And you can imagine what happens to all of the ones they cannot take or aren't given to them.  Not only were there animals just being sold like this, at a music store we saw a guitar made with an armadillo. The armadillo was the back part of the guitar. I mean, it did look really interesting, but very useless and wasteful.   Yes, that is a head.  One of the cool things that I missed was finding an artist on the street. Chris bought the painting on the right and Eliana the drawing. They both posted with the artist and had him sign the work. I think they bought each for $10. We tried to find him again when I went out, but to no avail.  Collecting art from other countries is really cool. I have a painting from Panama that I need to have nicely framed. It is tucked in a not so good frame at the moment and not even displayed. After our forays into the streets we headed back to the hotel. Eliana and Marc had decided to spend a few hours on the free internet next door, in another hotel, and so we walked the several flights of stairs up. Wheeeewwww...that was difficult! Our rewards was a gorgeous view and a quiet cafe setting. There was a small snack bar run by one guy, three computers that were not very fast and several tables to sit and relax. The late afternoon sun was pouring in the windows, making it quite warm and toasty inside. Eliana and I bought some Pringles to share. Good 'ol junk food! I checked email for awhile and waded through the junk, slowly deleting what I could. I didn't want to be on too long, because it almost ruined the away from home feeling.   We left E & M to work on their website and Chris and I went back to the hotel to relax. Surprisingly there were several English language channels on the tv. I found a Hallmark channel with an interesting British mystery and we watched that for awhile. There were a few good movies on, but they were in Spanish with English at the bottom. Bummer. We laid around the rest of the evening, just relaxing. Eventually we packed up. We had to be downstairs at 4am to meet our taxi and get to the airport, which is a good 20 minutes or so from the hotel. Once at the airport we found the airport to be fairly busy, but the line moved relatively fast. Chris and I checked in with ease, but E & M had a bit of a difficulty because they were flying standby. We later found out they could make the flight to Santa Cruz, where we had a layover, but it wasn't guaranteed they would make it from there to Miami. We paid our exit tax, $25 each, and sat down at a small cafe to eat a little breakfast. Surprisingly there was a Burger King upstairs. I nibbled on a croissant, but my appetite hadn't returned fully. Soon enough it was time to go through security and we made it through with mostly ease. I was the only one to have my check on bag searched. Apparently carrying an oddly high amount of pens and pencils is warrant for a search. I was carrying my pencil/pen case to go with my travel journal (hey, you've gotta have a lot to choose from!), and they rummaged through that for awhile before turning me loose. We walked the duty free shop for a bit and I picked up some coca tea bags to bring back to my coworker. Before we knew it we were boarding the plane. Chris and I were almost at the very back of the plane and Eliana and Marc were in first class. I couldn't sleep at all, too excited and wanted to take a peek at everything that we'd see outside the window. We flew by some of the tallest peaks in Bolivia. Literally, we were probably flying as high as they were, 26,000 or so feet. Large, snow covered, and waiting to be explored. I wonder who, if any, has climbed them? Then we began flying over the rainforests and into the lowlands and the hour flight was almost over. We descended into Santa Cruz and I immediately knew I wanted to visit there the next time I went to Bolivia. It was flat, tropical and looked beautiful. At this point those that were departing in Santa Cruz had to get off. We tried to keep an eye on for Eliana and Marc but we never figured out if they stayed on the flight or had to get off. We had pretty much decided that they never made it and were going to have to stay, so we settled ourselves with that. We took of from Santa Cruz and I followed a large, winding river as it made its way through the lowlands. I was thinking of how long it would take to reach some of those remote areas and how people lived way out there. Eventually breakfast came and Chris and I gobbled that up and then fell asleep for a few hours. We woke up probably an hour before lunch and a movie was coming on, August Rush. I hadn't seen it so I decided that I was going to stay up and watch it. Lunch was served not long after and I was so happy because it was the first real food I could eat in awhile. I guess I just felt better without the altitude. The movie lasted awhile and eventually ended and we were still flying over the ocean. Then we started our descent. We flew over Biscayne Bay, Miami Beach, and over 836 and then we were back on American soil. It was surreal, for me at least. We were home and all of that beautiful country to be explored was so far south of us. We had to wait awhile to get off the plane since we were so far back. When we deplaned Eliana and Marc were nowhere to be found, so we headed towards customs. That was a long walk. Walking, walking, walking. When we arrived at customs the lines were very long, but luckily the line for Americans were relatively short and we found a fast moving line. The guy was nice, asked us a few questions and then asked if we'd gone to Bolivia without speaking Spanish. We told him we'd gone with friends who did. He stamped a few things and we moved along towards the luggage terminal. There's a separate luggage area for international arrivals and as we came down the escalator we saw Eliana! We were completely surprised. She informed us that they had to hoof us to customs because she knew that it would take awhile for her to get through since she was only an American resident and had her Columbian passport. We finally found where our luggage was coming out and waited. A customs officer with a dog was searching through luggage for odd and suspicious packages, mostly for fruits and vegetables brought in. We collected our luggage and then walked to our final stop where they could decide to search your bags or to let you go on through. A quick stamp and a short glance at the four of us and we were through!! Outside we waited on Eliana's sister who was supposed to pick us up. Luckily she found us on her first time around, though we'd been worried she'd been circling for an hour because of the whole clearing customs issue. We stopped off to pick up Baloo from his dogsitter and then we were finally back to Marc's place and our car. On our way home we stopped at Chili's for dinner and then we made it back to the cats at home. We had a great time on this trip. I would do it again. It certainly reawakened my want to travel. There is just so much to see here in the US and everywhere else in the world. I wouldn't have picked Bolivia, but the chance came up and it worked out. Of course if we would have been there for the complete 8 or 9 days instead of six it would have been much more rewarding, but you do what you can. I do think that my mindset has changed a bit. I think twice about throwing things out and wasting items. Not that I didn't have this before, but it almost seems much more important now. There's poverty here in America, but it is so different. There is a much bigger support group and outreach for those in need and in most places in the world that isn't available. It seems odd that we've been back for so long already. Time will just keep marching and the months will keep ticking away on the calendar. Wednesday Blatherings April 9, 2008 A little scatterbrained here today. I'm feeling listy....no, not listless, listy! ;) -I tried acupuncture today. There was a health fair at work and a an acupuncture dude was there. I told him about my asthma problems and so he did something to supposedly help it. The only needles that hurt were the two that went in my hands, at the fleshy junction between your thumb and pointer finger. Another went in my belly, and two went around the collar bones to represent the two lungs. It took awhile but I did get a feeling of calm and the feeling of being in relaxtion pose in yoga came over me. Fluttering eyes, deep relaxation and then came several deep breathes. I did feel better afterwards, but then, is it real or my mind? I was pleased with the nice back cracking he gave me as well as neck and then he talked about other issues from some other accupressure areas. Might be worth checking out if insurance covers it. Our new insurance had said some alternative medicines were covered. Heck, they cover Weight Watchers to some affect. -Worked on the painting a bit more tonight. Needs to dry so I can add a few more layers tomorrow. It's pretty cool, I think! -  I matted the drawing. Not the best photo as you can see the reflection and some shadow, but whatever. It's ready to go if someone wants it! -Can't decide if I want to buy the Into the Wild soundtrack. Mmm, Eddie Veder. Anyone got a review for me? Oh, if you are interested in some new music you should try Rachael Yamagata's Happenstance. Channel Tori Amos, Sarah McLachlan, Chantal Kreviazuk, ohhh and what's her face, the other piano playing, jazzy girl. My brain is losing fuction. Come Away With Me girl. Her. HA! Great cd. -  For Eliana, who has been to Jamaica, St. Marteen, and Barbados today and is hopefully in Grenada now. Too bad all of that was in airports.  Marc and Eliana also have a blog: Not All Who Wander Are Lost. Some of the photos are ours from the Bolivia trip. This will be their main blog for their big Central American road trip! -My friend Sara from highschool art class has started a blog. It's interesting, we've become, I'd say good-ish internet/craft friends over the past year. It was a music/art/craft/scrap/Etsy connection. heh! I was always impressed with her work! -My brain is done. Time to turn in. Adios! oooh, Norah Jones. Got it. Of course at the last freakin' minute. Cat vs. Dog Tonight at 10 April 8, 2008 We're several days in to the whole Baloo experience and the cats are slowly progressing. The first few days were a complete standoff with Samson and Baloo. Samson was acting very patriarchal and defending his territory. He would get between us and Baloo and stand his ground so that Baloo couldn't enter the bedroom. Baloo just looked sad and dopey and couldn't believe this little white furball was being so mean to him. Samson has drawn out his hissing and growling and perfected it quite well. Now he's at a point of being able to handle Baloo in the room or even walking nearby, but when the dog gets within about two feet the hissing and growling starts. Leo, the one we thought would be a terror, is actually a scaredycat. The first few day Leo was inquisitive and would just get a little scared, but on Saturday night we attempted having Baloo stay out and sleep with us, instead of the cage, but he was playing and bouncing and Leo completely freaked out, dashing across the bed and narrowly missing the jump to the dresser, thus scattering photo frames everywhere. He then made a run for the front windows and underneath the futon. It took some coaxing to get him out and we had to put Baloo in his cage for the night. Sunday was better. We managed to get Baloo to stay out for most of the day, but Leo took to hiding in the showers of both bathrooms. He is still very scared from his initial incident, but we are trying to get him to come around. I miss my little bug. Tonight, just minutes ago, there was a Baloo and Leo encounter. They both calmly came to each other, Leo more cautious than Baloo, and touched noses!!! I am quite amazed at this because Leo, for the past several days, had a his hair on his spine on end, his tail go poofy and his ears fold back in fear. So, step one to making friends!! This weekend, despite wanting to spend more time outside, I huddled indoors and finished up the first baby blanket of the year! I am 1 down 2 to go for projects to complete this month. I was trying to get two blankets and a scrapbook done this month. It's doable, I just need more focus. I will probably have to dig out Alias for a marathon so I can get the other blanket done. The scrapbook should be simple enough. This weekend I rented three movies: Into the Wild, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, and Becoming Jane. Into the Wild was very good and sad. Thought provoking. If you are an adventurer I say rent it. I now want to read the book. Elizabeth: The Golden Age was also good. I love me some Tudor history, so this was great. I wish they had focused more on other aspects of her reign than the one that they chose for this movie and now I need to rewatch the first movie. Becoming Jane was a rewatch because I saw it in the theater. I was in need of a girly chick flick! I still can't bring myself to go see The Other Boleyn Girl for fear it'll ruin the book for me! This week, or weekend, I want to go through my books. I think it is time for a purge. Get rid of the books I've read and won't reread and the books that I just won't read. I want to put them on Amazon.com to resell, but sometimes that takes time so I may just post a short list here and if anyone is interested set up a way for you to cover the shipping cost (media mail, it's cheapest) and that would be it for the book. Or just take it to a used book store! Meh. I also think I'm going to go through the stack of magazines and pull out articles I like and recycle the rest. After almost two years here I finally ordered recycle bins! Now I don't feel as bad just tossing them. I do have a stack of Cottage Living and Mother Earth News that I am not sure I want to toss just yet. And art magazines are going to stay. I think those are invaluable. Speaking of art....  I couldn't help myself. I said I wasn't going to paint until I finished above said three projects, and well, I broke down tonight. It's 5x5 acrylic on canvas. I just couldn't help it. I have had it in my head for awhile. It is going to be a set of two. I should finish it tomorrow and I'm sure I'll start the second part as well. I kind of like the acrylic. Lots of control.  So, go make a mess today! Day 5: Saying Goodbye April 7, 2008 I have sad news to report. You know those two adorable puma kittens? Unfortunately one of them has died. Their nutrition is severely lacking. All they get is human formula, which isn't made for wild little kitties. Eliana has looked up some puma formula (I suppose what is given in zoo's, etc.) and has purchased the formula, costing $100. Now, she has to send it DHL to Cochabamba for it to be picked up by someone from IWY and that cost is astronomical...$183. So, you can see the need, the price, and how desperate they are to try to save the animals they have with what they've got. What's worse, none of this would have to happen if someone had poached their mother and left them to trade on the black market. Ridiculous. You can now see the link for any donations on the side bar, underneath  On Saturday, day 5, we slept in for awhile. It gave us much needed rest. Another rainstorm came in the early morning hours and ran off Chris' attempts for getting a hummingbird photo.  We did get up while everyone was still sleeping and the clouds were still hanging around.  There were two friendly dogs hanging out at the hotel, though one was in desperate need of a bath. Two cats were also there, one of which Eliana confiscated the night before and did a quick neutering. He recovered for the night in their hotel room, very unhappily. We did end up seeing him after they'd released the fella and he was not too shy, considering what had happened to him.  This is the cafe area where we had breakfast.  After breakfast we walked across the street... (lookking east)  (looking west, towards Villa Tunari). After breakfast we went into the clinic to watch Marc perform a necropsy on a monkey that they found dead that morning. We took a video but I don't want to gross anyone out too much and so if you want to see the end you can see the photo. The cause of death wasn't conclusive, but there was mucous that may have caused an infection.  Eliana and Marc had some final vet related things to do, so Chris and I decided to walk on the tourist trail again. There were many tourists from town and probably Cochabamba, so we weren't alone.  We stopped by the birds again and talked to some of the volunteers that we'd gotten to know a bit.  Right there was a big centipede. Kinda creepy, but cool nonetheless.  The walk up the tourist trail, the part we hadn't been on, was long and arduous. Well, long and arduous for two people from flat as a spatula Florida.  I'd wished we'd known to go up this way several days ago when it wasn't so crowded and we could have lingered and looked at plants.          I want this fern.   |
