Checking my list

The tree was decorated and gifts wrapped/bagged early one morning last weekend. My son likes to sleep in (I think I've mentioned that a time or two), so I puttered around downstairs doing things I figured wouldn't disrupt his rest. This year, with a good portion of the tree back against the wall, I only decorated three sides - takes less time! I couldn't find my hangers for those ornaments without strings, so a number of the ornaments are merely "stuffed" into the branches. The box with the hangers are in a tub in the garage and I'm too lazy to go looking for them. Since Saku rarely bothers the tree and the ornaments are the unbreakable kind, I'm not worried about losing any.

I haven't yet picked up the gift cards for DeNiece and DeNephew, but the card boxes are tucked under the tree. I'd best not forget! Bags are my friend and I re-use several of them each year by either using it for the same person, or removing the sticker and adding a new one. 

This week I got more Christmas baking done, and there is a full container for my friends K&J in the freezer and a partially filled one for my brother R and his family. I need to bake the third batch of shortbread and a second batch of sugar and spice cookies for their tin, along with one more Christmas'y cake or cookie. I like bars because they take less time and effort, but cookies are always good too.

I did my weekly grocery shop on Wednesday morning. I have really got to get back to every 10 days as I spend less, but there were a few sale items I wanted to pick up for Christmas. That afternoon, I went to stitch and chat, visiting with S as no one else made it this week. We did have company though, as a young man sat in the room with his laptop and ear buds. 

Thursday was my first foray into the world of Mahjongg at the nearby community center. There is a fairly large group of women who play, but this day there were only six including me. They play four people to a hand, and one woman is an instructor of sorts. She plays when there is a seat as they rotate, but seemed to generally be helping others. After I watched a game, she took me to a separate table and explained some of the need to know terminology, as well as the rules of the game. But not all of the rules, because there are far too many to learn at once. When the second hand was complete, she sat with me and I played my first hand with lots of assistance. We played two more hands, and surprisingly I won the second hand I played. Did she ask the others to throw it to me? I don't think so but I'm sure it was her instructions that made the difference. Anyway it was fun (and challenging) and I'll be going back next week. 

At home, I've been working on several projects: crocheted ornaments, a knitted elf hat, and a cross stitch stocking pattern. I couldn't locate my safety eyes in my craft boxes in the garage so had to wait until a new set arrived from Amazon. I don't know why our local Michaels doesn't carry them, even on-line. I finished up on of the Christmas tree ornaments and I'm not entirely happy with it. The elf hat is partially finished, I have a lot of ends to sew in and a pom pom to make to complete it.

I spent most of the day on Friday doing housework, baking buns, watching curling and knitting. The biggest chore was vacuuming the basement and cleaning up the equipment area. We had the water softener removed this week and the area where it sat was filthy with dust and salt. I should have washed the floor but as I finishing I heard a couple of large trucks out front. There was a letter in the mailbox the other day from a pumping company, notifying us they would be cleaning out the sewer lines this week. I scrambled around the house closing sink drains, wrapping the toilet bowls in old towels, closing shower stall doors, and covering the main drain in the basement. According to the letter, the force of the water could come up in the house but thankfully that did not happen. I did, however, listen to the roar of the equipment for almost two hours. 

Today will be a mostly quiet day. There's more curling, more crafts, a jigsaw to work on, and maybe a run out to the hair salon to get my mop cut. 

I'll leave you with a photo of a hare I spotted across the road a few days ago. I'm glad to see we have some wildlife in the area, though hope it stays on this side as we're not far off the highway.

Have a great week ahead, everyone!

Another week and no spring yet

To start, the photo of the deer wasn't from my yard but from my daughter's. She's had a few deer roaming through her yard for a good part of the winter, and they've decimated the cedars that were planted by the former owner. She had her handyman over doing some work in the house this week, and asked if he would cut down what the deer had left. He did, so I suspect the visits will end now. It's sad they were ever there in the first place, and because they are very nearly becoming domesticated - D says they even look both ways before crossing the street! 

I'm just as happy not to see a deer in my backyard. Several years ago, one of my co-workers had a deer find it's way into his yard, and it crashed through a bedroom window and bled to death on his daughter's bed. It was quite the mess to clean up. Large animals like these don't belong in the towns and cities but with the deep snow, it becomes difficult for them to find food in the rural areas. That's part of the reason my brother leaves bird seed in the yard for them.

It's been a pretty quiet and routine week again this week. I did my grocery shopping on Tuesday, and stopped in at the thrift stores. I found two tee shirts at the Salvation Army thrift store, one for me, one for D, and a pair of lightweight pj's for me at Value Village. Total spend for all four pieces was about $15. Groceries were much more expensive than that. 

I'm continuing to work on the flowers for my large afghan. I should finish these this weekend and will start putting pieces together. I'm not entirely sure how many of the small flowers I'll need, so once I have the larger flowers put together, I should have a better idea. Not looking forward to this part of the process, but I knew what I was getting into when I started it. For a break from crocheting I've started another small cross stitch project. 

I've also spent several hours working on Ancestry. It's interesting to see where the branches of the tree take me. My favorite part is finding information that no one else has added - especially those where there is simply a birthdate and little else to go on. It doesn't happen often, but when it does I get a real sense of accomplishment. Sometimes it is a simple as reading through several wedding/obituary notices to identify family members and occasionally locations to input that one piece of info that solves the mystery. Yesterday, from an obituary, I found a  deceased spouse of a distant cousin, which led to a daughter that I didn't know he had. Her marriage information allowed me to to more searching and I discovered she and her husband had moved to the Domincan Republic in 1941 to work as missionaries. They had two children and the family returned to the USA twice, once in 1947 and again in 1960. That is when the trail goes cold, as I can't locate any of the four family members, though I did find a newspaper article that may include the youngest child.

Our weather has been stupid again this week. Tuesday morning was bitterly cold. At that moment I was ready to book a flight to anywhere warm, except my wallet wouldn't allow it. 

Since then we've had some afternoon melting, though the temperature hasn't reached above freezing. The sun feels warm now even if the air temperature isn't. The ground is still frozen so my back yard is mostly underwater - it faces south. With the warmth of the sun, I've been able to open the sunroom. Saku, the cat, has been enjoying his afternoon naps out there, and the furnace only cuts in once or twice in the afternoon. You don't want to be in the basement those days - it's pretty darn chilly! We're supposed to reach a high of 3C (37F) this afternoon, but Sunday is supposed to bring a "wintry mix". Do I sound excited? I'm not.

The seedlings are starting to appear, though I've given up on the petunia seeds I thought I saved last fall. So far, four tomatoes and two marigolds have been transplanted to larger pots, while the peppers (red and green), more tomatoes and marigolds continue to sprout. This week I added cucumbers to the mix - I'm going to try to grow these in containers as well this year. I'll do potatoes as well, but those will wait until the third week of May. I'm not sure why but I'll probably do lettuce as well - the rabbits tend to enjoy what grows before I do. 

Curling starts again today, this time the Men's World curling. The event is being held in Ottawa, which means no middle of the night games! I expect our Canadian team will be in the mix throughout the event. They are very strong, as are the teams from Sweden, USA, Switzerland, Scotland, and even the team from Italy. The latter won the gold in the Olympics last time so they cannot be counted out. Neither China nor Russia are participating, so there are teams from New Zealand and Turkiye in their place. 

I'm off to do a few chores before the curling starts. Then I'll plant myself on the couch with my crocheting and a cup of tea. Have a wonderful week ahead everyone!

Puntarenas, Costa Rica - Wildlife galore

 I had intended to finish this post this yesterday, but weather happened, and I spent time shovelling snow instead. Afer the snow came a bit of freezing rain and lots of wind, so I'll be out again to clear what blew in later today.

This is another photo heavy post - when I booked the jungle river cruise I had hoped to see lots of wildlife and I was not disappointed. We arrived in the port of Puntarenas, early morning of Wednesday, January 11. I was up before the ship docked, at 5:10 a.m. so that I could capture the sunrise.

I ran into one of the other women from the singles/solo group on Deck 16 and we chatted as we waited for the sun to make an appearance. I didn't last as long as she did, so this it the best I got.

After a breakfast from the buffet, out on the deck - why anyone would sit indoors when the weather is so lovely, is beyond me - I headed down to the Provence dining room for 7 a.m. Another of our group was also on the same excursion so we sat and waited for our group to be called.

The drive to the Crocodile Jungle River cruise was about 90 minutes. Our guide, Christian talked most of the way. He gave us various information about the country of Costa Rica, pretty much all of which I've forgotten already. 

At the location, we had an opportunity to use the bano since we'd be on the boat for 2 1/2 hours, and then walked down a series of ramps to the lagoon. I didn't get a photo of the boat we were on, but basically it was a flat bottomed boat with a canopy over it, and a large motor on the back. I'm guessing it held 20-24 guests. Thankfully it wasn't full up. K and I had taken a seat near the back of the boat, and I ended up going to the rear seat near the motor in order to get photos without blocking someone else. Since I was so close to the motor, I couldn't hear what Christian was telling us except when the driver slowed the boat down or stopped. Luckily they gave us a bird guide pamphlet, and Google lens reverse search did the rest when I got home.

Within moments of boarding, we were on our way through the lagoon and this was the first crocodile we found sunning on the bank.

Across the way, was a Roseate Spoonbill. I wasn't quick enough to get a good shot of it. 

The driver circled the lagoon to allow us to view a pair of HUGE crocodiles resting. The first photo is a close-up of the female.

We were stopped so I was able to hear Christian - he explained that the mouth is open for two reasons: to regulate body temperature and to allow small birds to pick debris from the mouth. My question, unasked, was do the birds then end up being a meal for the crocodile?

The male was resting in the water. If one wasn't paying attention, I'm not sure it would be noticed. 

After circling the lagoon, we headed out to the river system. About this time was when I moved from the seat next to K, and moved to the back of the boat where I could stand. Even if I couldn't hear Christian, I could see which direction he or other passengers were gesturing.

We passed these two men in a row boat - it appears they were preparing to fish. Now, I don't know about you, but knowing there are crocodiles in "them there" waters, I wouldn't be dangling my foot in the water. In fact, when I was sitting, I kept pulling my hand in when I realized it was on the outside of the boat...nowhere near the water.

I had no desire to interact with anything like this crocodile here. I'm sure the locals are better at spotting them than I am. What caught my attention was the sunlight on the scutes (the bumps) on the back of the crocodile. I've read that these allow the crocodile to swim without causing ripples on the surface of the water while they swim underneath. Good for them, not so good for their prey.

I have many photos of the Great Egret, however many of them are difficult to see the bird as, even they, blend into the background.

Here's one that I needed no introduction to (at least not in the past few years). We've had cormorants on the pond nearby - it was nice to see where they winter. Smart birds!

Here we have a Snowy Egret. It appears to be differentiated from the Great Egret by the size of it's bill.

This white bird is an Ibis, distinquishable by it's long dark beak. 

Here is another Snowy Egret. What you couldn't see in the last photo were the yellow feet. Aren't they fun?

These are a pair of frigate birds. I've seen them many times in flight on my various Caribbean cruises but never resting. Not a pretty bird.

The males of the specie are slightly more attractive, but not much in my opinion.

At this point, we had turned around and started our trip back to the lagoon. The driver took us part way down a short tributary, where we saw this bird in the tree. Recall the Roseate Spoonbill in flight earlier in the post. This is another one settled in a tree.

I believe this is a blue Heron, although it does not match either the pamphlet or the reverse search. We saw a number of these birds, but they really were well camoflauged and difficult to photograph.

On the other hand, these were neither difficult to spot or to identify. These are Royal Terns - they are so much prettier than the gulls we see here but similar in size and shape.

This was my fun find on the camera card. I knew I'd captured a bird, but couldn't tell exactly what it was on the small image on the camera. This is an Amazon Kingfisher. Definitely one of my favorites.

We weren't far from the lagoon when the driver pointed out this iguana on the shore. I was lucky to catch a photo as it disppeared into a hole shortly after.

We saw other birds I didn't capture, sandpipers, brown pelicans, and warblers. There were monkeys in the trees too as we had started our journey, but neither my eyesight nor my camera lens could see more than dark blobs in the tree. I had hoped to see a scarlet macaw but that wasn't to be, however I was not disappointed at the variety of creatures that showed themselves to us.

We were back on the ship by about 1:30 p.m. After a quick lunch I was reading and relaxing on the Promenade Deck when a loud band of musicians interrupted my concentration. I've included a short clip so you can hear for yourself. They kept this up all afternoon, until we sailed! Not just the musicians but the dancers too.

Next up is the port of Huatulco. I didn't have an excursion booked there so it will be a much shorter post. 

Another week bites the dust

 Another week where time has simply gotten away from me.  Had I not kept track on my calendar, I'd have no idea what I've been up to this week.  I mean I do remember going for groceries at one point, doing some housework, some yard work, reading, watching television, going for a few walks.  Pretty much a normal and mundane week around here.  

We've had some more heat early in the week, so the containers needed to be watered daily.  My tomatoes are starting to bloom. This has become a hot topic on a gardening group I follow on FB.  To pinch the first flowers or not? Some believe you'll have more fruit if the first flowers are removed, others say don't.  To be honest, I haven't a clue and I've never removed the flowers on the tomatoes I've grown in the past.  So I won't this time either.  

I ran out to Costco to pick up cat food for D on Wednesday - the sale price was terrific and much cheaper than she can get in her small town.  While I was out, I went to Home Depot to pick up a few bags of dirt and a peony. I've been so very envious of the various blog and FB posts this spring but didn't think I really had a spot for one.  But then I had lightbulb moment!  There is corner of the lawn area in the back yard, where the sunroom and deck meet, that is very awkward to mow. I always end up using a pair of scissors to cut the portion I can't get at with the mower.  So the next morning I spent some time digging up the sod, adding fresh dirt and mixing it in with our not so wonderful clay soil, planting the peony and adding mulch.  Then I mowed and appreciated the changes I'd made. 

This area is shady in the morning because of the spruce tree, but gets lots of sun as it faces south. I know I won't see blooms this year but maybe I'll be lucky and it will next year.

While I was out and about, I made a stop at both the Salvation Army and Value Village stores.  I picked up a couple of books by Sandra Brown (both mysteries) at S.A.  I did well at V.V. finding another pair of shoes and a bag of Lego for Eli, a t-shirt for myself, a candy jar, and a board to use for a sign for D.  

I had picked up the stencil at the $ store, so it was a simple process to add the stickers.  On the back I've attached a couple of picture hangers as the board is pretty heavy - we'll just have to put in a couple of nails in the wall to hang it from in her laundry area.

I did manage to walk several days this week but I didn't have the camera with me until Friday.  It was cool and overcast when I started out but the sun made itself known occasionally.  The breeze was nice as it kept the mosquitos (mostly) at bay.  

My maternal grandmother used to say it wouldn't rain if there was enough blue sky to make a Dutch boy's pants.  Apparently this was enough because I did not get rained on.

The gophers weren't the least bit shy this day.  I saw a least a half dozen of the critters.  This one appeared to be yelling to its buddies. :)

The wildflowers are blooming and some of the grasses are heading out.  

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I've no idea what any of these are, but they sure are pretty.

During my walk, I saw the Avocet pair - I'm still hopeful they have had young ones though I've not seen them.  But more exciting (to me at least) was spotting the Killdeer.  There was a pair nesting last year at the creek and it would appear they are back.

Over at the pond, most of the birds were on the opposite bank, until I reached the far end.  There were three pelicans, one grooming itself and these two coming in for a landing.

I've only seen the cormorant once this spring.  The water level was very high so the spot where it often sat (some sort of a pipe) was underwater.  It isn't now, but I have to wonder with fewer goslings and ducklings this year if it found another area to feed. There certainly aren't fish in this pond, yet last year the cormorants were around most of the summer.

Speaking of goslings, they are growing up quickly. While there are some more recent youngsters, this group are rapidly approaching adulthood.  Teenagers perhaps?

Today, we started out sunny but it is clouding over as the day goes on.  We may get some rain this afternoon but the possibility is still low.  I should have gone out and weeded the side yard this morning but instead I've been sweeping and washing floors, cleaning toilets, interspersed with reading blogs and FB, doing some Sudoku and crosswords, and putting things back where they belong. It isn't the most efficient way to get things done but it seems to work for me.

On that note, I'll wrap up this week's post. I'm sure you're all bored by now. Have a great week everyone!