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The last time I tried to count my Maraca Flowers (Shampoo Ginger) I counted around 52 of them! These are the ones behind my house in a very full garden area compared to another Maraca plant out front more in the open which flowers earlier than these and they are more red while these are mostly yellow. Having tropical gardens is a fun past time! 🙂
See also My Garden GALLERY.
¡Pura Vida!
This only my second time to see this species of butterfly, Red-studded Skipper, Noctuana stator (linked to my Gallery) with the other sighting being at Hotel Banana Azul, Puerto Viejo, Limón, Costa Rica – that’s on the Caribbean side where I will be in September. 🙂 This time I saw it here in Atenas on one of my walks to town in that Zinnia Garden at 8th & 3rd where I’ve seen a lot of butterflies.
A ground-level shot of the cow pasture across the street from my house where the grass stays taller and VERY GREEN during our rainy season, May to November.
See my photo gallery Cow Pasture Across the Street.
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And read in yesterday’s Tico Times English Language Paper the cool article on: Eco-Friendly Lifeguard Stations Coming to Costa Rica’s Beaches. In brief they are picking up the millions of plastic bottles left by idiots on our beaches, converting them into a wood substitute and forming substitute lumber with which they will build these cool Lifeguard stations for beaches all over Costa Rica! This is a great solution for both increased pollution and decreased forests! 🙂
Or check out this COSTA RICA CAMERA TRAP OCELOT:
¡Pura Vida!
Back on July 21 when I took Linda & Carlos Cobos to the Butterfly Conservatory, I was busy relating to them and did not photograph as many butterflies as usual there, but I did get 12 species! And best of all, one of those was a new species for me and my collection! it was the Consul fabius or Tiger-striped Leafwing. That common name is because when his wings are open, instead of folded as here, the top of his wings are black and orange striped like a lot of “tiger” butterflies but with different shaped wings that when closed look like a dead leaf for protection from predators! Only this one never opened his wings for me and we had to keep moving through the greenhouses. Maybe people look like predators to him! 🙂 But, regardless, I got my first photos of a Tiger-striped Leafwing! It is always fun to see something for the first time! 🙂
See all of my Costa Rica Butterflies GALLERIES!
246+ species!
¡Pura Vida!
I can’t find this in any of my tropical plants books or online, so I think is a foreign introduced plant and will try to get my gardner’s ID next time he is here. Most of of the time it is a dark green plant with white or cream bordered long leaves. Then occasionally it sprouts these long thin stems with tiny little yellow buds that finally open into a tiny white flower with a tinge of blue or purple and yellow stamens. These 5 photos are in order to tell the story of 1-green plant, 2-sprouting long stems with tiny flower and photos 3-5 gradually zooming in on the flowers.
This Heliconia Leaf seems to me to be gracefully bowing its head as the first signs of deterioration begin it’s final days with only a little touch of brown now and the folding of the once tall and straight green leaf. Nature as Art continues to inspire me as I find my own life slowing down and less capable than before. May I conclude my life as gracefully as this Heliconia Leaf! 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
See another Heliconia Leaf in a further stage of death that I used on the cover of a recent photo book titled Designed by Nature which you can preview for free online. Nature is truly graceful!
Several wrens have been checking out my severely pruned Triquitraque Vines or Flame Vines that I asked the gardeners to cut back and they cut way back! 🙂 Plus all the ground cover around them! Oh well – it will grow back and the vines are already sprouting new growth. But I think it is the open soil and not the sprouts that attract these Rufous-naped Wrens, probably looking for worm or insect food! 🙂 It has always been one of my common or regular birds year around and, though decreased recently, they seem to be returning in greater numbers now. Here’s 4 shots of these birds in their dapper plaid sport jacket! 🙂
The new Central Park Playground has been finished and open for maybe two months and I’m just slow reporting on it. At first I reacted negatively to all the bright colors and what looks like cheap Chinese Plastic, but I think I mis interpreted! It is designed for younger Elementary School and Preschool kids and now I think it is perfect for them! And the artificial turf too! The other day I stopped by one afternoon after many kids would be out of school and it wasn’t raining and there was a lot of activity! It was fun for me to see the creativity of some kids using the space under the tree house or slide and climbing wall to gather as in their “clubhouse.” The hyper little boys had plenty to keep them busy and I noticed for older elementary kids maybe, there was a tic-tac-toe wall with changeable X’s and O’s. Clever! And as expected, the swings were the busiest. I tried not to get any closeup photos of children and their faces for their privacy, staying on the periphery for all photos. Here’s four . . .
I’ve been in one of those creative moods and just churned out a 28 page photo book that is both biographical and a nature photo book! In brief paragraphs I share how nature provided healing at each of several traumas or losses in my life. Not a book for the larger public maybe, but a good cathartic expression of the ups and downs of a life full of both adventure and tragedies, plus the healing of nature at every turn. I use quotations throughout to highlight the healing. You can preview the book electronically at Life Tranquility by Charlie Doggett | Blurb Books or just click this image of the front cover:
¡Pura Vida!
When this first pot below was overflowing with Bougainvillea, I liked it contrasting against the white wall alongside the driveway, but now with Petunias, I decided that I like the “look” better beneath this greenery on my terrace and the taxistas like not having it along the driveway! 🙂
The other pot I had along the driveway was the Desert Rose and it hasn’t been blooming, so I’m trying a shadier spot along my garden walk, hoping it will bloom better there. Past logic was that with a name like “desert” it would like a lot of sun, and it actually did very well there for a few years, but is not blooming now. If shadier doesn’t work, I’ll try a larger pot next and maybe put it back in the sun. 🙂
And though not new, my BREAKFAST VIEWS are important to me!
And after breakfast I read the paper in these rocking chairs facing both hills and garden. All part of my joy of being “Retired in Costa Rica!”
That’s my garden terrace — always creating new views!
🙂
¡Pura Vida!
Retired in Costa Rica!