Category: Family

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This Lens

The host of My Photo Gallery is SmugMug.com and they regularly produce little short videos about photography or photographers and the little one they released this month shares in 3.5 minutes how four or fve different persons see their world through “This Lens” chronicling a growing family, promoting a cause, capturing nature like me and another the magic of outdoor sports. I thought it interesting enough to share on my blog:

My lens? I’ll just keep capturing the works of God through nature! 🙂

¡Pura Vida!

The feature photo by Tom Oakley is of me many years ago on a nature photography trip in Tennessee with the Nashville Photography Club. You can read more about the history of my love of photography after retirement on my Photography Page.

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Crimson Patch & Semana Santa

One is a butterfly and the other maybe the busiest week in Costa Rica.

Crimson Patch Butterfly, Guayabo Lodge, Turrialba, Cartago, Costa Rica – A “Bokeh” Photo!

Crimson Patch Butterfly

This butterfly is one I photographed at Guayabo Lodge last week and my first time for it! I had earlier mistaken a Bordered Patch for this species, but the big difference is the two-toned orange on the underside of wing. 🙂 See my new Crimson Patched Gallery and to compare the two, my older Bordered Patch Gallery. Even though the photo above is of a damaged butterfly, I like that photo better than the next one below because of the better soft background which I just learned yesterday from another blog is called a “Bokeh” photo – “. . . defined as ‘the effect of a soft out-of-focus background that you get when shooting a subject, using a fast lens, at the widest aperture, such as f/2.8 or wider.’ Simply put, bokeh is the pleasing or aesthetic quality of out-of-focus blur in a photograph.” ~nikonusa.com

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Two New Restaurants in Atenas

For the last year or two I’ve worked hard a preparing good, healthy meals at home from making 8-servings of spaghetti with meat (eating 1 & freezing 7 for future meals) to multiple recipes of homemade vegetable soup to help me eat more veggies, last week a yummy Chick Peas Salad from a Washington Post Recipe and also last week a 7-layer dip (mostly veggies). And I do breakfast at home all but one morning a week with 3 or 4 fruits, nuts, whole grains in either bread, hot or cold cereal or French Toast, saving my omelets for some dinners! 🙂

But living solo, I still like to eat out and I’m now trying to find more restaurants that I like while some I liked closed during Covid. So I was a little surprised to see two new ones open in the last few weeks, one serving everything from pizza & burgers to steaks & seafood and the other one our first “genuine” Mexican Restaurant:

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Nest Surviving Strong Winds

We’ve had strong winds today meaning the Dove nest I introduced the other day is being tested. She has not left the nest for at least 2 days now, implying that she has laid her egg(s). In the wide photo you can tell that the nest, circled in red, is in a palm frond that is partly held secure by the fork of the Cecropia Tree (did the Doves figure that out?) and behind that frond is a row of bamboo palms blocking some of the wind. So the nest might make it, especially if she doesn’t leave it or leave it much when the wind is blowing. I don’t know if the male will bring her food; I haven’t seen him around. I will be pleasantly surprised if this nest continues to survive and we see baby doves! 🙂 Remember that earlier an Inca Dove nest did not survive a palm frond location, but it was more in the open with no shelter or support like this Cecropia Tree fork of limbs. Time will tell.

Nest (circled in red) is on a Palm braced by Cecropia limbs and shielded by ornamental palms. It may survive the winds!
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Dolphins & A Whale

Today I took the “Whale-watching Tour,” 4 hours on a boat in the Pacific Ocean with 4 other tourists, all from Germany, and we saw much more than a whale which we only saw during our last hour. Later I will post about the natural arches, birds on Whale Rock Island, snorkeling, and other things we did or saw – just the dolphins and the whale today with 3 photos of each. Note that whales come up for air only every 10 to 15 minutes and stay up for only 3 or 4 seconds and one doesn’t know where they will come up! 🙂 Almost impossible to photograph! 🙂 Below whale shots are me barely catching the tail as it goes back under water – same whale, 3 different times. Fortunately, Dolphins stay on the surface longer! 🙂

Tropical or Spotted Dolphin, Uvita, Costa Rica.
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Cloud Cuckoo Land a Must-read for . . .

. . . lovers of stories, books and libraries – the 3 main characters in this multi-layered story of totally different people from the 1450’s all the way through 2020 and to the future in 2164, all impacted by this fictitious lost and found story by a very early Greek writer who called his story “Cloud Cuckoo Land” (in Classical Greek of course!). It touches on so many life issues and about our own future on earth that I won’t try to list them all. You move between the stories of totally different people (ages 12 to 86) affected by Cloud Cuckoo Land (the Greek novel) in Constantinople (1450’s), Bulgaria (1450’s), Idaho (1940’s to 2020), Korea (1950’s), and outer space (2164) so that like his “All the Light” book (just 2 overlapping stories) you can get confused at first (if not more so). Eventually the many complicated pieces of the puzzle start coming together and you too begin to get what all these others are getting from Cloud Cuckoo Land. It is more multi-layered than Anthony Doerr’s previous classic All the Light We Cannot See (Goodreads Reviews), but just as impactful (if not more so) and will certainly become another classic! I highly recommend both books! 🙂

Read some other Goodreads Reviews of this NY Times best seller, Cloud Cuckoo Land. Now I will simplify my reading escapes with another Agatha Christie mystery! 🙂 Rest my simple mind which is still spinning from this read. 🙂

¡Pura Vida!

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WALKING PATHS of My Parents

Like I think nearly all the kids of my generation my Father used to tell us about the long country miles he walked to school in all kinds of weather and indeed his generation were naturally walkers much more than mine, though I walked to school too! Just in a town! 🙂 But of course no photos of him walking. But these two photos of my Mom give a sense of the walking in their age . . .

Mom Walking to School with Cousins & Neighbors Edwin & Harlan Hunt Jr., 1931.
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Costa Ricans Live Longer Than Americans. What’s the Secret?

As a kid some pushy boys would challenge you with “I double-dog dare you to . . .” do whatever outlandish thing they thought I or someone else was too scared to do. Well the linked article below in The New Yorker Magazine is a very long article (taking time to read), but if you are really interested in the health of people wherever you live, then I “double-dog dare you” to read the whole article! 🙂 I believe you will be impressed!

It tells the story of a doctor almost my age from Atenas, Costa Rica (my current home town) who revolutionized Costa Rica’s health care system to make it arguably one of, if not the best in the world by blending public health and medical care. It’s a life-changing story for Costa Rica! And it could be for rich, self-centered countries like the U.S. who need to quit fearing “socialism” and start thinking about what is best for ALL the people and not just the RICH few as it now works in the states. I applaud The New Yorker for this excellent article! May America soon wake up! And thanks to Steve for bringing it to my attention! 🙂

COSTA RICANS LIVE LONGER THAN US. WHAT’S THE SECRET?

¡Pura Vida!

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Adventure by Chicken Bus

Members of the ARCR (Association of Residents of Costa Rica), an organization formed to help expats get to and live better in Costa Rica get a subscription to the bimonthly magazine El Residente and I hope this link to the March/April 21 issue works for non-members! 🙂

The first main article in this issue is titled “Adventure by Chicken Bus” which is actually one chapter of a book by the same title, this chapter about the Canadian family traveling Central America while homeschooling is specifically about their efforts at helping Costa Rica save the endangered sea turtles on our east coast. A great story for nature lovers and wildlife preservers that will make you want to visit Costa Rica.

At the end of the story is a link to the book by this family’s mother and school teacher, Janet La Sole, Adventures by Chicken Bus, An Unschooling Odyssey Through Central America. Be sure to check out the tab “Chapters Gallery” which summarizes the chapters and where all they traveled through pretty much every country of Central America. Amazing! And they were backpacking with two young girls! That’s her book website. If you want to purchase, go directly to Amazon.com Adventures by Chicken Bus.

And in case you don’t know, “Chicken Bus” is the nickname for the small, rural, cheap buses (Used U.S. school buses painted bright colors) found all over Central America for cheap rural or out of the way places of travel. We do have big, modern buses in Costa Rica between major cities and towns and major tourist attractions, but these are common all over rural Central America and yes, they do carry their chickens on these buses. 🙂

¡Pura Vida!

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“Costa Rica Culture” by 7 “Kids”

Back in May 2018 I reviewed here and told about the Costa Rica made movie “Güilas” the title of which is the Costa Rican slang word for children like American English “Kids.” The movie is actually seven short stories about seven different kids, each in a different one of the seven provinces of Costa Rica thus visually showing many parts of this beautiful country and its varied cultures by my favorite Costa Rica Photographer, Sergio Pucci (I use one of his CR Calendars every year for his beautiful photography!). This is one of the best movies I’ve ever seen anywhere and is definitely the best one on the culture of Costa Rica! Well worth $10 USD from Vimeo!

One of the 7 Stories:

One of the seven short stories – this in the Caribe, Limon Province.
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