Critters

Creature Sightings

 

The Muse has been off gallivanting about the country.  Around the 4^th of July holiday she went to Philadelphia to meet Nick for a visit to the Barnes Collection   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnes_Foundation), Longwood Gardens (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longwood_Gardens), and other sites in the area.  Mrs. T had a relatively good time; you can all easily imagine her in one of the premier gardens in the US.  She returned for barely a week and then left again for Idaho to visit sisters Rita and Ruth.  The featured event there was the birth of a grandson to Rita's son and his wife.  Again, it will be left to your imagination as to the behavior of three grandmotherly types.

 

Somehow we also managed to entertain visits from friends John, Judy and Ethan, and then later from some of R's plant buddies Rebecca, aka Mouse, Kim and her daughters.  Mrs. T provides some of the highlights of those visits below.

 

 

 

Some of our friends have inquired about Stinky, the Stinkpot Turtle who lived in our pond when we first built it.  Alas, he is gone.  No, not dead as far as I know; he just wandered away.  Dan supposes he went in search of turtle companionship.  However we do have a new turtle whom I have named Sinky.

 

Sinky just appeared one day.  I have not been able to ascertain what type of turtle he may be.  My best guess is possibly a soft shelled turtle.  Whenever I try to creep close to get a good look at him he sinks slowly to the bottom of the pond, hence his name.  I have not seen him recently but one of our guests reported seeing him eating fish food; when they approached for a better look, he sank.  Sinky is not quite as big as Stinky, perhaps about 7 or 8 inches in diameter.  He certainly is not as social but still it is nice to catch the occasional glimpse.

 

One of our other pond denizens Slinky is a bit more disconcerting.  Slinky is a water snake. Slinky is quite small, about as big around as a pencil and perhaps a foot or so long.   Much to my chagrin I have gotten several good looks at him.  I think he is a Kirkland Water Snake.  His one redeeming quality is that I seem to make him just as nervous as he makes me.  Whenever he sees me he swims frantically away.  I know he could not possibly hurt me and is not poisonous but I just can not feel too fond of Slinky.  Dan, of course, is continually saying silly things such as, "Snakes are our friends."  (Some of you may recall our previous encounter with a black snake; they are also our friends. –dt)  I think this probably says more about Dan and his friends than it does about any social relationships I have or ever will have with these reptiles.

 

One day I found a cast off Slinky skin.  I put it aside too keep for some friends who were coming for a visit, knowing boys were fond of such things.  I was surprised when Ethan (our young friend) found another Slinky skin by the pond.  Ethan took both of the skins home with glee.  Could there be two Slinkys?  Alas yes. 

 

A couple of weekends later some of my plant-lover friends came to visit.  Rebecca (this is not me but another Rebecca) brought me a couple of water lilies and volunteered to plant them for me.  She was hip deep, trying to position one perfectly when suddenly she said, "It's a snake!"

 

"Get out, get out!!" I urged.

 

"It's OK; it doesn't bother me," she bravely replied.

 

"Well, OK if you're sure," I replied realizing who would have to get in the pond to plant the things with a scary snaklet if my friend Rebecca did not.

 

"Oh no, now if it were a spider that would be different," she blithely replied.  (I'm scared of spiders too.)

 

As we watched, Slinky approached Rebecca cautiously and looked the situation over.  Then he swam away.  He is curious, I thought.  He is trying to see what she is doing.  Rebecca resumed planting and a moment later another Slinky approached from the opposite end of the pond.  He looked at the new plant and left.  After one more inspection visit I was forced to conclude we have not one but at least three shy but curious little Slinky snakes.

 

Of course we have the usual deer, groundhogs, and wild turkeys wandering through.  But the other day Dan spied some new and different critters.  Yes trotting down our driveway were a couple of porkers.  They were not sociable and scooted off when he tried to approach.  Investigation proved that these were escapees from our neighbor.   And after he was notified we have seen no more of them.  (We will probably be buying half a hog later this year. –dt) There is supposed to be a problem with wild hogs in the area but we, thankfully, have seen none of those.  (Hunters in Ohio are allowed to shoot any wild boars they see; no permit is required. –dt)

 

I did see a beautiful red fox earlier in the year. Also, as this has been a very warm summer, we have also seen a lot of little salmanders scurrying around.  Alas no bats have taken up residence in our bat box.

 

This in brief is the wildlife report from the Terrible Wildlife Preserve.  If you urban dwellers visit you may also see something a bit out-of-the-ordinary; no promises however.

 

Hope you all are enjoying your summer weather, probably hotter than normal for most of you.

 

Dan and Rebecca

www.casa-de-terrible.blogspot.com

 

Fotos 05/06

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Surprise Visitor

IT REALLY IS Fowl

 

A couple of days ago I was sitting on the porch reading Chess Metaphors – an interesting book about AI (Thanks Nick!) – and I heard a loud buzzing; it sounded like a giant bumblebee.  We have some really big bees; in addition to varieties of flies, wasps, and other winged bugs; that are quite noisy when close by.  But no, this buzz was coming from a hummingbird that was feeding on the wild geraniums in front of the house.  It really was not too surprising as we have seen many hummers this year; sometimes they drink off the waterfall and other times they peak into the patio.  I called to Mrs. T to look out the kitchen window, but she was too late and bird was gone.  (It did come back later a couple of times.)

 

Rebecca was preparing to go swimming, which she tries to do once a week to "keep in shape" for her scuba diving.  I heard her go into the garage and then she called to me in a low voice, "Hurry and come in here very quietly."  I figured she had spotted the hummingbird or another bird, perhaps our pileated woodpecker – I thought I heard him knocking on a tree earlier.  I knew she had not spotted a snake because it would have been a yell for help.

 

I stealthily entered the garage and indeed saw something unusual.  We have told you about our turkeys, deer, frogs, ground hogs, and even beaver.  But this critter was a new one to the neighborhood.  I very quietly took my old camera out of the car and was able to take a couple of shots before he headed behind the house.  We thought he had left and Mrs. T went for her swim.

 

But he came back – screeching – and sat on the rock in front of the house.  All I had in the way of a camera was my iPhone, but I was able to take a shot.  While I went into the house through the garage, he hopped on our porch railing and peered inside.  I was able to grab another camera and take a couple of shots through the bedroom window before he decided to saunter away.

 

I called our neighbor Jamey and asked if he had decided to raise some exotic livestock.  He said, "Oh, you saw the …."  It seems that this boy had been up in his yard the day before.

 

And he came back the next morning and was making a racket at the top of the waterfall.  R heard him a couple of times this morning.

 

Well, any guesses about our new guest?  You will just need to look at the pictures:

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/9151458@N07/sets/72157623995483633/

 

Yes, it really is.  What will be our next visitor?

 

Dan and Rebecca

www.case-de-terrible.blogspot.com

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Not Dr. Seuss

GREEN HAIR and HAMLOAF

 

Return to the North

When we first came back we stopped at the Philo Post Office to pick up our held mail on the way home.

 

"Well, I guess you had a fire, out your way yesterday," Sam, the postmaster said.

 

We became quite concerned.

 

"Oh, don't worry, none of your buildings were burned, it was just a brush fire," he explained.

 

We rushed home to find that actually the fire was on our neighbor's land and our driveway had served as a firebreak, but it was a sizeable fire, burning 6 to 8 acres.  Because we live in the woods this kind of thing is worrisome but the volunteer fire department put it out after a couple of hours.  The problem was the fire burned through a natural gas line and that fed the flames.  Such is small town life that the next day when I was running errands a man said to me, "I heard that you had a fire out your way, I hope there was not much damage."  I am looking at this guy thinking: who is this?  When he said, "I'm Bill; you remember I helped Jamey (our very good neighbor –dt) clear his woods," my memory was jogged and I assured him that everything was OK and only some brush was burned.  Actually they do controlled burns sometimes to clear the woods but this was more of an out-of-control burn.

 

We of course had a lot of mail to deal with.  There was a problem with our forwarding but after a couple of weeks most of our mail caught up with us.  A few magazines and journals disappeared into the void but Dan has asked for replacements.  We did have a boatload of catalogs.  Since I had been for 5 months without fat lady catalogs there were a few things I really needed to order.  In fact Dan was browsing through one of my underwear catalogs (Don't ask!) and noted that with the bra sale they were cheaper than buying them at the store so I ordered a few of them.  Quite thrifty aren't I.

 

This has been a month and a half of normal goings on interspersed with a few oddities.  We got home and began turning everything back on and checking the filters etc.  One odd thing is that evidently the water heater had decided that we were on vacation and turned itself off.  Everyone denied doing this because the cleaning lady needed water for the monthly sprucing up.  Don't let anyone tell you that artificial intelligence is a thing of the future.  After a few cold showers --probably good for our morals - we got that squared away.  (Thanks, Jamey –dt)

 

 

I started back swimming at the Fieldhouse (A local athletic center. – dt); so far I have gotten up to 1000 yards.  One day after I dried my hair I looked in the mirror to arrange it and discovered my hair had turned a pale green.  I went to the front desk to inquire about this.  After considerable discussion and general admiration from the young staff, the manager was called.  Jim was more concerned.  He apologized profusely.

 

"Have you dyed your hair recently?" Jim inquired.

 

"No," I responded.

 

"Are you using a new shampoo or conditioner or anything?" He Asked.

 

"No," I answered.

 

Jim admitted he had done the chemicals in the pool that day but said they tested out as normal.  I told him I had not smelled too much chlorine or anything.  Jim asked that I go home and shampoo to see if it would wash out and call back to let him know.  Fortunately it did.  (Dan said later he wished I had left it in because he would have loved to see the faces on the ladies at church when I walked in with green hair, sigh!)  So I called the Fieldhouse to let them know.  Jim was not there so I talked to the young lady on duty. 

 

"Well that's good!" she said enthusiastically, "although I did think you looked lovely with green hair!"

 

 

HMMM!!

In addition to swimming I have gotten back into glass blowing. There is a high school boy named Anthony the Intern who works at the studio instead of going to school.  (Not quite correct; his internship is part of his senior service requirement, he still takes at least one class. – dt).  Back when I rode a dinosaur to school barefoot uphill both ways we never had it so good.  Nonetheless, Anthony the Intern has been helping me.  He is very enthusiastic, if not too good, so we are a perfect match.  As you are not supposed to pay interns I have been feeding him and giving him one thing we make every day; so far we have made mushrooms and paperweights.  I also don't shout at him, which I suspect the other guys do.  Of course they shout at each other too.  I am planning to trade most of the things we make for more plants at two plant swaps I go to.  Dan is not at all sure we need more plants, but we do.

 

 

Some of our family might remember that Aunt Winkie used to make hamloaf from meat she got at Lawsons.  Well a local store here sells hamloaf and I love it as much as ever.  The thing is, they sculpt the meat into the shape of a piggy with 2 olives for eyes; I suppose I am easily amused.  (Yes indeed –dt)  Well anyway it is good to be back home.  Oh and we got 82 new evergreen trees planted, the trees were free but we had to pay a neighbor $1 a tree to plant them.  Still a good deal I think.

 

 

No pictures with this episode.  Perhaps next time we will have a picture of Mrs. T's green hair.

 

Best wishes to all.  Keep in touch.

 

Dan and Rebecca

www.casa-de-terrible.blogspot.com

 

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Latest Events

BUSY MARCH

 

Mrs. T did not end her outdoor art activities with the chalk walk.  She had a couple more opportunities to demonstrate her skills which you will read about below.  And we have had several other items on our plates.  We have been watching the NCAA basketball tournament rooting for OSU of course, but also for Xavier and OU.  And before that we watched the Vancouver Olympics; remember we are surrounded by Canadians.

 

We also managed to fit in a trip to the Vallarta Botanical Gardens.  This is a jewel of a spot not far south of Vallarta proper.  We went with several of the aforementioned Canadian friends and had a wonderful time.  We left early in the morning to avoid the heat and made all the buses perfectly.  The weather was just right and we finished with a great lunch back in PV at the Pancake House.

 

And there was yet another trip, this one to Tonala, essentially a suburb of Guadalajara.  We went on a tour advertised as 'Shop 'til you Drop.'  Tonala is known for its craft market on Thursdays and Sundays.  Indeed, the city is full of studios and factories that churn out items that are retailed throughout Mexico.  Thus it is possible to sometimes obtain better deals right at the source.  As dilettante glassblowers we were intrigued by the prospect of seeing the 'Glass Factory' mentioned in the itinerary.  Actually we saw two of them, the advertised one and another we earlier discovered ourselves.  They really were factories, no pretentions to making works of art.  The workers were fine craftsmen – and a couple of women as well – who turned out objects in a very assembly line fashion.  Technical note:  they melted cullet, in this case bags of bottles recently emptied.  They were using crucibles in the furnaces, which sometimes doubled as glory holes.  The cullet was barely melted before it was gathered, hence a lot of bubbles and seeds.

 

Mrs. T describes her further art adventures:

 

 

I like to paint.  I revel in the colors.  It is magical how things appear and change.  I love the feeling of mastery when a sense of light and shade creep onto the canvas teased and coaxed by the brush.  There are hours and days of hard labor: shoving blocks of color into place; pulling them together into forms; wrenching time and space into a new reality; calling light to give the moment meaning. There is a moment of suspense - I hold my breath - and then IT IS.  This thing I have created has its own existence.  What could be more wonderful?

 

As much as I enjoy painting it is both physically and emotionally exhausting.  Sometimes I just can't seem to get myself started.  When we came South this year I just could not find the inspiration.  Finally In January I began working on a painting I started last year.  It features three angels and the Holy Parakeet.  (My little joke!) 

 

After finishing that painting, one of my friends, Sandra, asked me to help her with starting the repainting of the Kissing Bridge.  So one Saturday, Sandra, her daughter Cindy, and I set out.  We got a lot of encouragement and some people decided they would like to paint a section.  Sandra had already repainted the walls of the bridge and marked them off in sections.  Sandra, Cindy, and I picked our sections near the stairs.  I was happy to encourage some of the young Indian girls who spend all day hawking embroidered bags a chance to do something different.  I wondered if their parents would object but they did not.  All kinds of people painted on the bridge:  indigenous Indians, children, expatriates from the United Sates and Canada, tourists, and of course Mexicans.  One panel was done by a tattoo artist from Canada; the different medium seemed to work very well for her.  Arturo, a sculptor and painter who lives next to the bridge has taken charge of the paints and brushes.  He loans them out to people who want to paint a section.  There are still a few unclaimed sections if you hurry down. Every time we pass over the bridge another section or two is finished.  I enjoyed helping to get the thing started.  Sometimes when I walk to the market I get a shy smile from one of the young artists.  You will see pictures of many of the panels.  (Also check out Cindy's website:  www.cidtalk.com )

 

As I was working on the wall Lucy, who is the director of a public primary school in Nuevo Vallarta, asked if Cindy, Sandra or I would help her children do a painting on a wall at their school.  Sandra and Cindy were unable to but I agreed to give it a shot.  (Even a fish won't get caught if it keeps its mouth shut.)  Well I went out and looked the situation over and told the assistant director what I would need.  The school contains approximately ten million first, second, and third graders.  Well, there were really only two classes of each grade but they bounced around so much it was hard to get an accurate estimate except to say there were a lot more of them than there is of me!.

 

So I had this wall which I divided with masking tape into 36 squares.  The teachers selected the lucky students who got to help. I brought my nature books so that the children could copy a picture of Mexican plants, animals, fish, birds, seashells and butterflies.  When a child selected a subject they drew it on their "Quadra."  After I inspected the drawings and made suggestions for improvements the children were ready to paint the amended drawings.   I worked with nine students at a time (this represented one row of squares).  Additionally one eight year old girl who was bilingual was my assistant as a translator. The fact is that the children had no difficulty at all understanding me.  I spoke loudly and clearly and SLOWLY.  On the other hand I was totally clueless as to what the kids were saying.  They started speaking Spanish at a mile a minute and speeded up. Also a lot of them spoke very softly.  The notable exception was that they had studied English and tended to shout out triumphantly any English word they remembered that they thought was appropriate.  For example a conversation might run something like this:

 

Rebecca: "?Listo pintar?"  (Are you ready to paint?)

 

Student : "GREEN!"  (GREEN!) 

 

Rebecca:  "?Quiere verde?" (Do you want green?)

 

Student : "Si, GREEN!"   (Yes GREEN!)

 

(Editor's note:  I forgot how to make the beginning Spanish '?'.  dt)

 

Although most of the students knew the colors in English I always had to double check because sometimes they forgot and asked for the wrong color.

 

I had only six colors of paint and spent most of the day mixing different colors.  This was new to a lot of the children and they loved watching me make new colors.  It took two days but we got the wall finished to everyone's enthusiastic approval.

 

Since then I have been working on a painting of a wave.  Mexican paint I bought turned out to be a rather alarming shade of green.  But I have managed to tone it down quite a bit with blue and black so that now it is merely astonishing.

 

Pictures of all these happenings:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/9151458@N07/sets/72157623671069406/

 

 

This will probably be our last posting from our southern residence.  We return north on Good Friday.  After we get that house up and running there may be another newsletter.  We invite you to come and visit; the spring flowers should be up and colorful!

 

Dan and Rebecca

www.casa-de-terrible.blogspot.com

 

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Miscellaneous

A SHORT NEWS LETTER

 

We have a brief newsletter of just a few items.  It is being sent as an attachment this time because a couple of photos are imbedded in it.  (You may need to hold down the Ctrl button to follow the link mentioned in it.)  If you have problems opening this blog, let us know and we will try to send it a different way.

 

 

Dan and Rebecca

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Hello Snow

WE SHOULD HAVE BEEN PAYING ATTENTION or

It was a Warm and Stormy Night

 

This newsletter was originally planned to be a short article about the 'Chalk Walk' (see below) as a follow-up to our last edition about our fun happenings.  But events intervened and we have a more dramatic story to report, the results of which have affected many of you in the US.  Do not be surprised when the tone of this offering is a bit different; Mrs.T, the usual muse, has graciously granted the 'stick in the mud' (umpff !) some writing time.

 

Febrero Loco

All the signs were there.  We already reported on the freakish waterspout.  The winter had been significantly wetter than usual, perhaps a record amount of rain for December and January.  Mrs.T had been saying the water temperature was above normal during her scuba diving; often she had not needed her diving suit but just her rainbow dive skin. (From the retailer Dive Goddess no less.)   And she had received reports that there are many fewer whales because of those warm temperatures.  We should have known.

 

The last weekend of January was grey and wet.  Although it had cleared up a bit, to be prepared for the next downpour Mrs.T bought a paraguas after church on our stroll through the Sunday market.  And indeed it would come in handy as it rained Monday and much more on Tuesday.

 

Then –WHAM.  About a quarter past 11 in the evening the bay was hit by a tropical storm that came ashore.  Winds were reported to be 100-150kph (60-75mph).  Now tropical storms do come through this area in the rainy season.  Generally they make a lot of rain, but not so much wind.  The depth of the bay – 1000-1200m (3000-4000ft) mitigates the strength of these storms.  Pacific hurricanes usually veer off.  And for such a storm to hit in winter is unusual, happening every 15-20years.

 

For the folks on the second floor of Condos Jacarandas it was quite exciting.  Windows rattled; furniture on the upper palapa blew down the stairs.  Electricity throughout Bucerias went out and would stay out for about 3 hours and then flickered on and off.  We at Jacaranda were fortunate.  Most damage was relatively minor, although not inconsequential.  Chairs around the pool were askew, umbrellas snapped, a few tree limbs broke, and plant matter was everywhere.  Bits and pieces of material from other places littered the yard.  Nerves were frayed.

 

Other places, especially those closer to the beach, up on the hill and on the other side of the highway were more damaged.  Trees, many quite old, were uprooted.  Roofs were blown off, doors blown out, walls blown over.  To our knowledge, luckily no one was seriously injured.

 

Here are some pictures, some of Jacarandas and some around town. They speak for themselves without descriptions.  Thanks to Luis for several photos.

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/9151458@N07/sets/72157623366600774/

 

And here are some more pictures and an article from a local online spot (Thanks Ron.):

 

http://www.buceriasnews.com/news/3-local/42-bucerias-storm-february-02-2010.html

 

We understand that Puerto Vallarta also was hit hard.  And flooding continued longer in the state of Michoacan south of Jalisco.

 

Cleanup in Bucerias started early the next day.  People took it onto themselves to get busy removing debris, clearing trees, etc.  Now, just a few days, later all is nearly back to normal.

 

For you folks in the US where a major winter storm has dumped all that snow – that is the same storm that came through here.  It sped across Mexico and the Gulf and into the southern US.  When it collided with a cold front from our friends in Manitoba and Alberta, voila:  snow.  Lots of it because of all the moisture brought up from here.  Aren't you happy we were thinking of you and sent our weather to prove it?

 

 

Chalk Walk

For three days during Fiesta Week, a new, but unrelated, event was put together:  Chalk Walk, our version of a via colori or madonnari.  This may become an annual event.  For the first two days, professional artists, 4 from Mexico and 2 from up north, applied themselves to creating four works on a section of Lazaro Cardenas.  Three of the Mexican artists worked as one team to create the work on the street and up onto the wall of Broken Art.  This was appropriate because Christy the owner/artist of this gallery/studio for mosaic and painted glass honchoed this project.  She worked with PEACE Mexico, the Recyclers of Bucerias, and several local restaurants to put together a splendid event, especially for the first effort.

 

On the third day were workshops for children to try their hand at this on-the-street finger-painting.  More children turned out than the organizers appeared to expect.  Emily L'Hoist, one of the staff members of PEACE (and one of Luis's charming daughters), had asked Rebecca to stop by that morning to help if she wished.  R thought it might be fun.  She brought several of her books with pictures of plants and animals, and was able to help out with the younger children while the professional artists worked with the older kids.

 

Here are a few pictures to give a flavor of this rather successful event which we hope to see again next year:

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/9151458@N07/sets/72157623242551973/

 

 

We hope you are having fun with your shovels up north (take it easy).

 

Dan and Rebecca

www.casa-de-terrible.blogspot.com

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