Mi Pura Vida Naturaleza Jardín by Charlie Doggett | Make Your Own Book
You can thumb through it electronically for free! My very first book in Spanish! 🙂 Be sure to click the “Full Screen” button bottom right.
Banded Peacock Butterfly
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| Banded Peacock Butterfly, Atenas, Costa Rica |
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| Banded Peacock Butterfly, Atenas, Costa Rica |
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| Banded Peacock Butterfly, Atenas, Costa Rica |
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| Banded Peacock Butterfly, Atenas, Costa Rica |
“and when all the wars are over, a butterfly will still be beautiful.” ― Ruskin Bond, Scenes from a Writer’s Life
See my Costa Rica Butterflies Photo Gallery.
House Wren?
Well, actually it is a Rufous-naped Wren who happened to come inside my house!
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| Rufous-naped Wren, Atenas, Costa Rica (On the back of the couch in my living room! Looking out the screen window.) |
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| Rufous-naped Wren, Atenas, Costa Rica Making himself at home on a drink coaster. This is what happens with doors left open. |
Beside them the birds of the heavens dwell; they sing among the branches.
~Psalm 104:12 ESV
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| Rufous-naped Wren, Atenas, Costa Rica Singing outside my window in the Strangler Fig Tree |
See also my Costa Rica Birds Photo Gallery.
Dione Juno Silverspot
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| Dione Juno Silverspot butterfly, Atenas, Costa Rica |
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| Its top side looks much like a Julia, but underside (folded wings) different. Sorry – not a good image, but only one made of top side. Dione Juno Silverspot butterfly, Atenas, Costa Rica |
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| Dione Juno Silverspot butterfly, Atenas, Costa Rica |
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| Dione Juno Silverspot butterfly, Atenas, Costa Rica |
My garden is getting to be about as good as one of these butterfly houses or farms! It has been like a new species every few days! But the book says June and July are the two best months for butterflies in Costa Rica, so this show may start tapering off soon! I’m enjoying it while I can and don’t miss my Costa Rica Butterflies Photo Gallery!
The average butterfly life is between 5 and 14 days. And I think I don’t have enough time?
The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.
~Rabindranath Tagore
Enjoying the moments in Costa Rica! -Charlie
What to do with your backpack?
CONVENIENCE OR SECURITY?
Many major stores provide free lockers right inside the front door for you to secure your packages from other stores or your backpack or other big bag which makes shopping easier for you and gives them a little more security from shoplifting, which I understand seldom happens here.
This photo is of lockers at my primary supermarket, Coopeatenas, where I have left packages or my backpack, but not always. They do not require you to. And sometimes I use my backpack to carry my groceries. I’ve read that in Grecia most stores require you to check your bags. That is usually not the case in small town Atenas. People are mostly trusting of each other. The only store requiring it here is El Rayo, our “Dollar Store” with cheap Chinese stuff. Guess people shoplift cheap stuff! 🙂
I used this one at Coope today for a package from another shop and my umbrella.
Colobura Dirce Serendipity
I reach for a paper towel in my kitchen and there is something alive on it!
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| Colobura Dirce butterfly, Atenas, Costa Rica I read that they like Cecropia leaves and I have a new Cecropia Tree! But not inside my house! |
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| I don’t even have to go outside to photograph butterflies! 🙂 But he startled me at first. |
The only other place I’ve seen one of these was at a butterfly farm a few years ago. My Guarumo Tree is a type of Cecropia and that may be why he is at my house. This is what happens when your doors are open without screens during the day. The book says this butterfly does not eat the nectar of flowers like most but the above leaves and rotting fruit and for some reason likes to get on wet clothes drying on the clothes line. The top of his wings are dark brown with a yellow stripe. He hadn’t moved when I went to bed, but saw him by the sliding glass door the next morning and observed the top of his wings, but couldn’t get a photo.
ser·en·dip·i·ty
ˌserənˈdipədē/
noun
-
the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.“a fortunate stroke of serendipity”
synonyms: (happy) chance, (happy) accident, fluke
And all my butterflies at Costa Rica Butterflies by Charlie Doggett photo gallery
Choosing & Hanging Art
One of the toughest jobs settling in my new rent house has been choosing what art to use . . .
. . . or really, what art to keep and what to give away. I’ve done it! Here’s the results and from now on I will be focused on making new art! And oh yes, my walls are all concrete! Had to buy an electric drill and concrete drill bit. But worth it! 🙂 And landlord said I could drill all I want! I just pay for spackling and a paint job when I leave.
. . . or really, what art to keep and what to give away. I’ve done it! Here’s the results and from now on I will be focused on making new art! And oh yes, my walls are all concrete! Had to buy an electric drill and concrete drill bit. But worth it! 🙂 And landlord said I could drill all I want! I just pay for spackling and a paint job when I leave.
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| On wall opposite the kitchen I put “Reelfoot Green,” a favorite photo of mine which at 34″ x 24″ is a transition from outdoor trees in windows right and left. I see fig tree through office left and yellow bell trees through living room right. |
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| The linoleum print of “Staghorn Summac” in the Smoky Mountains was a gift from my mother-in-law. + 2 of my recent garden butterfly photos on canvas. Corner of Living Room opposite my birds wall. |
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| Coming in from balcony or sitting on couch, you see a wall of tropical birds. Photos are mine, Costa Rica & Panama, Kuna Indian Bird Mola is from Panama. Painting of Scarlet Macaw is by boatman’s wife on Amazon River Mission Trip. Bust on table if from Mali, West Africa and little basket from The Gambia. Clock with rotating pendulum was an anniversary gift from LifeWay. |
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| I normally do not like art above kitchen cabinets, but this gift from a Masaii young man of Kenya was a gift after we entertained him overnight in Memphis. The colors fit here and no where else until I find a better place rather than donate. |
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| In the laundry room off the kitchen I found a place for my Cow Weathervane photo I made at Nashville Farmers’ Market. Glad to keep it! |
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| Above my Office desk is “The Trader,” a cloth painting by a Fula artist in The Gambia West Africa and my favorite charcoal head of Christ by W. Hoffman. |
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| Opposite my desk above a brown couch/bed is a Fula Batik from The Gambia. And a favorite photo of my Amazon Indian guide waiting in the rain by canoe. |
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| Again, I normally would not put art above cabinets, but to hold on to these, I have last week’s mystery butterfly photo and my Tortuguero Sunrise photo. The dark is my bookcase and the light is my guest room/office wardrobe. Both are photos on canvas. |
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| Above my bed is the print of “Christ in Gethsemane” by Heinrich Hofmann, 1890. It was in my grandmother’s bedroom until she died. The hand-carved cross is from the Pleasant Hill Kentucky Shaker Village. My monotone brown bedroom! I know, it looks like a monk’s room! That’s okay. It is peaceful and where I sleep. |
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| My photo of a Mandinka Potter in The Gambia with a portion of Isaiah 64:8 printed on it. Opposite my bed. “O Lord, you are our Father, we are the clay, you are the potter.” |
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| As I leave my bedroom, a monkey wood carving from Makasutu Forest, Gambia. And my collection of caps to protect a mostly bald head from sunshine. Art? |
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| As you enter the hall from garden is my oil painting by Uncle Harlan of Mulberry Creek, Arkansas. |
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| Painted by my Grand Uncle Harlan Hunt of a real place in North Arkansas Ozarks. My bedroom to left and office, kitchen, living room to right. |
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| Also in hallway, going to garden are two flower pictures by bathroom door. Tennessee Tulips are my photo on canvas and Yellow Roses oil painting by my Uncle Harlan Hunt. |
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| Coming out of the bathroom you see my photo of a door in 1582 Spanish Fort San Juan, Veracruz, Mexico. Another one of my favorite photos on canvas! |
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| In the bathroom opposite the mirror is my panorama of Vinales Valley, Cuba. |
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| At 36″ wide, I think it makes a beautiful vista for a bathroom. One of my favorite shots from the Cuba tour, Vinales Valley. |
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| I emptied about two of the large boxes of art for my walls, etc. Hard decisions. There are two boxes of family photos, etc. I am keeping, for now anyway. Now the rest of these go to Su Espacio for an Art Silent Auction this Saturday to raise money for both the community center and the Atenas Marching Band and its free music school for low income children. Then I get my dining room back! And the 3 pieces of rent house art I’m keeping are the fruit paintings in dining & kitchen. I love them! |
You can pray that lots of people show up for the auction and are generous in their bids. I’m hoping to raise more than a thousand U.S. dollars or 500,000 colones. 9-11 AM this Saturday, 18 July, at Su Espacio Community Center across from the Coopeatenas gasolinera.
To see photos of the art being offered in the auction including 22 international creches, go to:
http://www.pbase.com/charliedoggett/costa_rica_art_benefit_auction_atenas
And here’s the English version of the flier we are using to advertise it:
Costa Rica Fresh Fruit!
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| On Feria Day (Farmers’ Market Day) I process some of the fruit purchased . . . |
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| . . . and then have a fruit plate for lunch! 🙂 |
I cut up half or more of the mango, pineapple and papaya into little squares and put in zip lock bags in the freezer to use in my fresh fruit frescos, refrescos de frutas, batidos, jugo de naturales or just smoothies for people from the states. And there are a lot of other names for drinks made from fresh fruit, plus a rice, cinnamon, and milk drink call horchata or an even better version with vanilla ice cream called leche muella. Fruit rules in Costa Rica!
Images, Descriptions & Uses of The Tropical Fruits of Costa Rica NEAT PAGE!
Probably at least one fruit here you have never heard of! And sorry, but I have not tried all of them yet! And this list is not all of the fruits found here.
When eating a fruit, think of the person who planted the tree.
~Vietnamese saying
Life-giving Rain
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| At 1:30 I saw the clouds moving in over bright sunshine. |
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| By 4:30 the sun is gone and rain is everywhere, from the mountains to the valleys. Cooler too! |
After two weeks of a “mini dry season” it has been good this week to have rain again every afternoon and/or evening! Today it started at about 4:15 PM and is still raining at 8:00 PM which is good after the short dry period here in Atenas. The other extreme is the north of the country and the Caribbean coast has been inundated with rain and flooding, displacing many from their homes and closing several roads. So Atenas is still living up to our “best climate” fame.
The best thing one can do when it’s raining is to let it rain.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
2 Garden Additions Today
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| A stone-looking concrete bench (banca) by my garden door facing the garden. I hide garden shoes under it, can sit and watch the butterflies (mariposas), humming birds (colibríes), and toads (sapos). Sorry! Working on my vocabulario. 🙂 |
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| Also got a pot to match two others I have and planted a cluster of little palms that will grow twice that high with nice looking palm fronds. |
Night photos because I just thought to make them! 🙂 On cell phone of course! You are welcome to come sit on my garden bench or balcony rocking chairs (sillas mecedora) any time! Pura Vida!