I really want to take some good photographs of my orchids while they're in bloom, but until that's finished, I thought the hodge-podge of all the flowers together was still worth a quick snapshot!
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Orchids!
I really want to take some good photographs of my orchids while they're in bloom, but until that's finished, I thought the hodge-podge of all the flowers together was still worth a quick snapshot!
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
The end of mating season
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This guy's colors are starting to fade - the male iguanas front legs turn BRIGHT orange during mating season. Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of him while he still looked like a traffic cone, but he's still kind of orangey today. Steve says this guy weighs about 20 lbs. I say 30. Regardless, he's not letting us get close enough to find out!
Small tragedy - and a biology lesson
yesterday still had an inhabitant. We ALWAYS look in each one before
we take it home to make sure no hermit crabs are living inside, but
apparently, this guy had just moved into a new, much bigger shell, and
was able to hide completely inside. By the time we discovered him, he
had already crawled most of the way out of the shell and wasn't moving
any more. I really hate that we killed the little fellow, but I had
always been curious as to how in the world they could hang on to their
shell so tenaciously... When we pulled him out, it quickly became
obvious! Check out that tail!! So, the poor little guy did not die in
vain; I got a great biology lesson, and hopefully he's now sleeping
peacefully in my flowerbed, next to crabby stool. Very fitting.
Fishing Desecheo
Steve went fishin with the boys last weekend, and I've been slow to get the pictures off of his camera. They had a beautiful day, but not the best of luck. Flash was the only one with a catch; a pretty good sized rainbow runner. They all had a great time anyway - how can you have a bad time with sun, boat, water, beer, and buddies?
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Crabby
of hard to see here, but we are now the proud new owners if a very
funny crab lawn sculpture/garden stool. Steve's sitting on top of it
here. He was perturbed when I suggested that it might be too late in
the day to go diving, so he went over to the crab chair to crab about
it briefly. (for the record, we ended up having a wonderful afternoon
of snorkeling. Several new and intriguing sand dollars to dry and
bleach out!).
Friday, January 22, 2010
Trip to the Other Side of the island
This has been a really fun week! I took an unexpected trip to San Juan with Johanna and Josh's mom and grandmother, and we spent 2 days playing tourist. Was a really fun hen party! I'm posting a few pictures here; you can link to my google albums to find more.
Click here to link to album
Friday, January 15, 2010
Mmmm... Fresh bread
bread baking! We've been living off of bruschetta, now that we have a
gold mine of tomatoes coming in, so I wanted to try and make some good
crusty bread, rather than go to the local panaderia. The flavor of
these loaves turned out pretty good, though there's a fine line
between crusty and tougher than whack. Cory's comment was "it would be
GREAT toasted..." LOL! It's ok, steve and I were pretty happy with the
results. Though, with flour $4.30 a bag, I'm not sure it's not cheaper
to just go to the panaderia. Not nearly as much fun though!
Rain rain rain
While it's not been great for beach-going, I can't complain. I've been
getting over a cold, which would have kept me out of the ocean
anyways, it's kept the house marvelously cool, and we have fantastic
waterfalls everywhere!! This is From my favorite place to go poach
ferns. I love how lush it is back in there!
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Ever wonder what the inside of a termite nest looks like?
would have struggled to wrap my arms around it. It was beside my
hammoc. My afternoon entertainment was knocking it down, hacking it to
pieces, and spraying the bejeezus out of it with Ruben.
Why I never stick my hands blindly into anything down here
the open bag of potting soil. As a rule, I never stick my hand into
ANYTHING I can't see into; too many centipedes and fang-Landen spiders
down here. What I wasn't expecting was to shake this guy out of the
bag and into my pot. And yes, I squaled like a little girl.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
More treasure!
to drop everything and go get in the water. He was right - the
visibility was amazing again! I went back out and this time, found
this cool urchin.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
AMAZING!
Ok - that's the title of this blog for multiple reasons. First reason being that it was an unbelievably amazing day to be facedown in the ocean today. It was some incredibly good visibility today. Steve and I snorkeled for more than 2 hours straight - and the only reason we got out was because I gave up and admitted I was cold when my hands went too numb to grasp stuff any more. Second reason it was amazing is because I found a Lionfish at Playa Shacks. We had done the "stomach-sucking-in-scoot" across some of the shallow reef east of Shacks to look in some of the deeper holes. I thought I saw a large feather duster coral on one of the short walls, and I was getting ready to swipe the water in front of it to watch it pull into its tube, when I thankfully realized that it wasn't quite moving the way I thought it should. Turns out, it was a good sized Lionfish hanging out in the reef. Talk about dodging that bullet! The guy was beautiful, but definitely not something I wanted to tangle with! I couldn't believe what I was seeing, because they are NOT native to the Caribbean waters. When we got home tonight, I looked it up on Wikipedia, and found this interesting little tidbit:
The lionfish is not native to the tropical region of the world, but various species can be found worldwide. Due to a recent introduction, the lionfish has been spotted in the warmer coral regions of the eastern Atlantic Ocean around the Azores and extending into the Mediterranean Sea, and also in the Caribbean Sea and in the [Red Sea] .[2] It has been speculated that this introduction may well have been caused when Hurricane Andrew destroyed an aquarium in southern Florida.[3] DNA from captured lionfish in this region shows that they all originated from the same six or seven fish.
I'm posting a picture I found on the internet - alas - I didn't have my camera with me.
Good to be home!
This is from Dawn and Brett's. There was much booty shakin - but too
dark for anything but blurry pictures. What a great weekend!
To add to the merriment, Steve and I spent a blissful day at Shacks
Beach, where the water was surprisingly clear. We only threw masks in
the car as an afterthought since the water was so choppy... But I'm so
glad we did! Was a really windy day too, so the kite suffers were out
en masse. Nice to watch the colorful fish below, and the colorful
kites overhead!
Friday, January 8, 2010
Working in the garden
garden to see how many tomatoes we had left. (For the record, the
total was 48 - AFTER both Josha and Anna had taken at least 20 last
week). The vines had grown so much in the past month that they are
again on the ground, so we got old flower pots to temporarily prop
them up. This little fellow scampered out of one of the pots and
decided to seek shelter on...me.
The sun is shining again
if it grew a very impressive new weed. Jury's still out
Monday, January 4, 2010
So, some of the REALLY good highligts of Christmas vaca 2009
new years day hike to icy waterfalls with the lamms, a Comair reunion
full of laughs and stories, a great Christmas party with dear friends,
and lots of extended family. Shew!
So, some of the REALLY good highligts of Christmas vaca 2009
Was delightful to see And twirl old friends back in town!
So, some of the REALLY good highligts of Christmas vaca 2009
Nothing like good mom-lovin. (Even when it does involve torturing the
cats)
Summary of events of Christmas Vacation 2009
We're changing our last name to Griswold
Here's a summary of the highlights of Xmas vaca 2009, for your parusal:
1. Our Pathfinder was totaled. While it was parked. By a teenager
backing out of his parents' driveway. TOTALED. 2. Mom got sick. :-
( 3. Tracy got stomach flu 4. Steve's folks house caught fire 5. Tire
blew 6. Flight canceled 7.furnace broke 8. Nine degrees outside 9. Got
bumped from next flight. Which means... 10. Christmas vacation STILL
not over. What next?!? LOL!!!
Ps - light in garage just blew too.
Sent from my iPhone.
Day Nineteen. Hostage.
Cincinnati for another day. So, deciding to make the best of it, we
started In on the house and worked until it was time for lunch.
Because it was 9 degrees outside, we turned the heater up a little so
the house would be nice and toasty for us when we got back. Instead,
we brought our full tummies home to a cold house reeking of burning
electronics. Oh yes. The furnace blower seized. So. The next hours
were spent on the phone trying to find anyone who wasn't already
overbooked and who could come out and fix the furnace. By the time we
got through those 247 phone calls, the inside temperature was quickly
matching the outside temp, and we were sitting huddled over the oven
trying to stay warm. Just in case you're wondering, 450 degrees is the
perfect setting for warming fingers and toes. Since the blower motor
was apparently spot welded in at some point in time, the whole
apparatus had to be replaced. It came as absolutely no surprise that
the part wasn't in the repair guy's aresenal. So. This morning, he's
back, trying to replace it, and I'm grateful to hold this little phone
for the warmth the battery gives off! Steve and I were holding strong
until we went to check in for today's flight... Only to find that we
were going to be bumped of of all of today's flights.
There may have been tears.
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