Category: Flowers

Posted on

Forest Details

At the end of Avenida 8 on the “Country Lane” part of the land is forest even though private property. As everywhere here in Costa Rica, if you look deep into the forest you see more details and colors like the orange Heliconia in the foreground of this photo and towards the back left the Red Ginger flowers. Yes, these flowers do grow wild in the forests as well as being cultivated in home gardens. Tropical Costa Rica! And even the variety of leaves and shades of green bring me joy as I continue to love forests more and more!

“In a forest of a hundred thousand trees, no two leaves are alike. And no two journeys along the same path are alike.”     

~Paulo Coelho

See also my Flora & Forest Galleries.

¡Pura Vida!

Posted on

Snips of My Garden

There may not be anything in my garden I haven’t already shared but I keep trying for some “New Looks” as I walk through it daily.

See My Garden Gallery or the bigger Flora & Forest Gallery.

¡Pura Vida!

Costa Rica’s President Alvarado talks with President-elect Biden about the urgency of both the Pandemic and Climate Change. A Tico Times article. Thankfully we prioritize the important things here!

¡Pura Vida!

Posted on

Pothole = Free Flowerpot?

Everywhere in the world governments are slow to fix potholes in roads. This Tico found an interesting way to reprimand our government here in Costa Rica. Just use the potholes for flowerpots! 🙂 I love it! In your face government people, “these potholes’ are in front of my house!” They are on the gravel extension of Avenida 8 in Atenas where I walk sometimes and find things to photograph. This is one of the more interesting photos to me. 🙂

¡Pura Vida!

🙂

Also seen on that walk yesterday:

These 2 photos are a part of my collection called “Country Lane” – Avenida 8 Photo Gallery.

Washington Post Article: Pace of climate change shown in new report has humanity on ‘suicidal’ path, U.N. leader warns

¡Pura Vida!

Posted on

Flowers

On the bird walk Sunday with my big camera I got a few nice flowers to share with the last one an Anthurium in my garden which I also show.

  • My Garden
  • Looking over a neighbor house down hill.
  • Unidentified
  • Blue Trumpet Vine, Thunbergia grandiflora
  • Unidentified
  • Coral Honeysuckle among unknown white flower
  • Maybe a Santa Lucia Flower
  • Anthurium

“To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.”

– Audrey Hepburn

See also my Flora & Forests of Costa Rica Gallery.

Weather Update

The Hurricane Iota rains started yesterday afternoon in Atenas which we expect to continue day and night for 3 or 4 days, but at least no big winds here. The now Category 4 Hurricane is slamming into Nicaragua and Honduras and could go straight through to the Pacific Coast and little El Salvador and/or turn north for Mexico & the U.S. For English weather updates on conditions here in Costa Rica, see TicoTimes.

¡Pura Vida!

Posted on

Wet

Rain, wet
Tropical green
Sunshine

And hopefully the last day of round-the-clock rain as Eta moves on toward Florida. At breakfast on the terrace this morning, the rain had stopped but all was wet and I tried to capture a little sense of the wetness. After breakfast the sun started peaking out and you can see a little of it reflecting off the wetness in the pix. It is the first sun in many days and a pleasant relief! Maybe today will be a more normal “rainy season” day with rain only in the afternoon or early evening. Then before we know it, December will be here with the rain stopped for months and soon after we will be wishing for the rainy season to start again! 🙂 Fickle humans! 🙂 While the cycles of life continue in a now very green Costa Rica! ¡Pura Vida! 🙂

Featured photo is a rain wet Princess Flower in my garden by Charlie and Haiku Poem is also by Charlie. Slide show is of the wetness observed on my terrace this morning at breakfast, just one more beautiful aspect of nature!

Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet.     

~Bob Marley

¡Pura Vida!

Posted on

Magical AFRICA

My last three years of working full time were in The Gambia, with visits to other West African countries like Senegal and Cote d’Ivoire. Plus I made three two-week long trips to Kenya & Tanzania that included two safaris in The Masai Mara, meaning I have a lot of Africa photos! 🙂

Thus I self-curated 139 photos for a beautiful little 7X7 inch photo book titled Magical AFRICA in 102 pages with the hardcover edition including premium lustre photo paper. This is my first book of Africa photos in my Blurb Bookstore and is a general “Portfolio” book.

Click the above linked title or cover image and as always, you can thumb through the book electronically by clicking on REVIEW and pages to turn them.

Another COVID19 benefit of being limited from much travel during the pandemic! 🙂

“One cannot resist the lure of Africa.”
– Rudyard Kipling

¡Pura Vida!

Posted on

Another Look

Pathway 
Pastoral
Pleasant

On today’s walk I decided that the above view of my “Country Road” from a few days ago is a much more pleasing view, and I also discovered a red Canna that captivated me . . . 

Brilliant
Burgeoning
Blossom

And you may have noticed that I returned to my earlier efforts of writing Haiku Poetry – the Americanized 2-3-2 syllable version rather than the original Japanese 5-7-5 syllables for two reasons: (1) You can describe more in fewer syllables in English than Japanese and (2) It is easier for this old man! 🙂 But I do stay with the Japanese original purpose of simply describing nature, as I also try to do in my photography. It is a FUN part of my retirement and keeps my elderly brain alert! 🙂 Though it will not always be possible to also make them into alliterations as I did today! 🙂

And if you like Haiku or poetry in general, check out my Haiku Photo Gallery or see a free online digital preview of my 2018 book Costa Rica Haiku, Describing Nature in Paradise.

And my Atenas Gallery!

¡Pura Vida!

Posted on

A Flower of Many Colors

The Hibiscus can be found all over Costa Rica except maybe in the higher mountains and it comes in many colors! This collection of photos does not include all the possible colors or combinations, like the one here with red and yellow swirled together. The feature photo of bright yellow with a red star center was photographed Tuesday on my walk to town in a yard 3 or 4 blocks from my house and it is the one that sparked the idea of this post. I will be looking for more colors on future walks & trips. 🙂

And then my GALLERY Flora & Forest

¡Pura Vida!

Posted on

Central Park Work Resuming?

I had been trying to keep readers up-to-date on the renovation of Atenas Central Park but they mostly stopped work after February when the park was closed to the public because of COVID19, which would seem to me a good time to get the renovation finished without the bother of people. But no, they stopped work or maybe ran out of money? No one seems to know. Then in June they completed this one radial sidewalk, almost.

Well, the other day there was one man working on that one section of radial sidewalk they had finished and I then discovered that he was planting flowers! Great! Maybe we will have beautiful flowers like a few of Costa Rica towns central parks have. Well . . . it was just marigolds! Made me think of that great movie The Hotel Marigold! 🙂

Anyway, remaining faithful to my duty to report on the “Progress” in the renovation of Central Park Atenas, here is the latest! Marigolds! And the mass of color IS nice! 🙂

And don’t forget that I have a gallery of the step by step progress on the park, at first it was week by week, then month by month and I hope it is not now year by year! 🙂

Remodeling Central Park Atenas Gallery

¡Pura Vida!