I got going earlier than usual this morning: I went meandering again while the daylight was nearly brand new. Just the angle of the sun can make a difference when it comes to taking pictures.
I got a couple of real beauties today. Postcard perfect images in a couple of them.
Your morning coffee/cocoa for 2026 growing here today in Costa Rica!
I am sorely tempted to pilfer some of these… but no…
they look best growing here in the wild, not in a pot on my porch!
A neighbor’s stairsteps to their personal paradise
Two postcard-perfect images of the sun shining through this tropical paradise
“DON’T TREAD ON ME!”
These wee ants know how to defend themselves
when their mounds are mangled, I’ve been told!
Amazing stone work
I stayed on Calle Esteban Salas again, so put in almost 3000 steps (so far) today. That’s almost halfway to my daily goal so I will make this a routine part of every day from here on out, perhaps twice a day as long as the weather cooperates. (It rains here nearly every afternoon.)
This is the home next to the driveway to my casita
This is the first part of the driveway to my CasitaTucana21.
Notice the sign on the fence!
They used to rent it out as an Air BnB…
Birds on a wire in front of my casita
Part of the steep driveway up to my casita…
(mountain goat territory, HAH!)
It’s steeper than it looks! At some point I will need to roll a ball down from the top and film it so you can get some idea of the angle, somewhere in the range of 75 to 80 degrees.
THE HUMIDITY
In the “postcard-perfect” images above, you can actually see the humidity in the air. But even though it’s significantly higher than on the east and west coast of the U.S. (in the northernmost, temperate zone), it really doesn’t get to me much here. I will sweat sooner — which is good! — but it isn’t onerous or unsettling.
Of course, I got here as “winter” arrived, so summertime may be a different story, but I have gathered various ways to mitigate any discomfort I might feel then. I prepared very well before I came! I had to use some of the mitigation options when I arrived, lower down in the valley, but I find myself doing well down there now, too, without mitigating in any way. My body has adapted well.
MIKEY IS A MUSH-MELLOW NOW
Mikey (formerly Mr. Fuzzy Grey Pants) is now a confirmed mush-mellow. He meows the moment he hears me awaken and he throws himself at me when I step out the door onto the patio. He won’t even eat what I bring him until I have swaddled him in petting and praising for a minute or two. He’s enamored.
He even lets himself into the casita (to pilfer Charli’s wet food!) — very, very surreptitiously because he knows he isn’t allowed in here — if I leave just the screen door between him and access. He knows how to open it! So I have to be careful to keep enough of the glass door closed, too, to deny him access. This is Charli’s sanctuary and I want her to have a “safe house” to retreat to any time she wants.
This means, of course, that Charli has to meow to be let in and out instead of me leaving the screen and glass doors open just enough for her to get through. Mikey would just slide them both wider if I did that! He’s an expert at slide-and-enter even when the screen door is competely shut, and he’s stronger than Charli so the glass door would pose no challenge for him!
ROW ROW ROW YOUR BOAT
If “life is but a dream”, I’m truly living it now!