January in Southern Climes - and Vail, Colorado

Costa Rica

Easter Island

Lima, Peru

Vail, Colorado, USA

Rio de Janeiro

South Island, New Zealand

Cape Town, South Africa

Rarely Seen Or Photographed Wildlife

Jaguar in Peru

Soala in Viet Nam

Bay Cat of Borneo

Twelve-Wired Birds of Paradise of Indonesia

(male on top of branch, female below)

Tiger Quoll, a marsupial of Australia

                           

Oncilla of Bolivia

Short-Eared Dog of Peru

Another Warm Day

Well, what a wild and crazy day...  I had a good time with Miss Rosie yesterday morning - she wanted to walk on Sumac and it made a nice break in our routine.  Boo didn't want to join us in the Snow back yard as some of the sprinklers were on, but Rosie and I were visited by multiple butterflies and a flock of house finches.  I was a relaxing morning.  The sky looked very hazy, and I found out that the wildfire burning near Four Corners (actually in New Mexico) had spread to cover more than 17 square miles, and the southwesterly winds were bringing the smoke and particulates from that fire with them.  People with breathing difficulties were being warned in several  counties to be alert and aware of changing air quality.  Then there was that incredible set of twin tornadoes in Nebraska.  The storm-chaser videos of that natural disaster were phenomenal.  And very frightening.
  We only hit 88 degrees yesterday, and thanks to the fact that I keep my thermal curtains drawn in the morning, and open them in the afternoon, the apartment stayed pretty cool for the entire day.  At least the tile floor was cool for the entire 24 hours.   It's 8 a.m., and already the inside temperature is 75; and we're expecting a high of 88 again today.  I've had blueberry pancakes for breakfast, taken my medications, and am getting ready to go walk Rosie .  Lovey and Nedi are outside, Bob is sitting on the patio, and Erwin is on the sofa.
  And in the 1920s, more than 80 textiles were removed from excavations in Peru and taken, by collectors, to Sweden.  One of the textiles will go on display this week at the National Museum of Peru, having been repatriated to its original country.  The piece on display is a 2,000 year old burial shroud and is made, primarily, of alpaca wool.  This Paracas shroud consists of 32 frames with depictions of farming scenes and deities, and is called the "Calendar Shroud."  (I'd love to be able to see and study it!)

 

Seen in Peru

Lima, Peru

 

The Peruvian coast

 

A llama before the impressive ruins of Machu Picchu

Seen in Tabaconas Namballe National Sanctuary in Peru

A common shrew opossum

 

An enigmatic long-spined porcupine

 

A new, unidentified type of night monkey

 

Usual Miscellany

Sanibel Island (Florida) Sunrise

A spatule-tail hummingbird in Peru

Warwick Castle, on the River Avon, in Warwickshire, England.  Original building began in 1068 by the orders of William the Conqueror.

Peru Gets Earthquake

Mother Earth is spreading her plates - today there was a 7.0 earthquake along the Peru and Brazil border, with the epicenter being in Peru.  The quake was felt in Lima, more than 350 miles to the southwest.  The epicenter for the Peru quake was 95 miles deep, while the Virginia quake was only 3.7 miles down.  ....
But my main worry is Irene.  What is she going to do?  I do realize that it's all a matter of water temperature, air masses, and pressure areas that steer the storm; it's just that....  Well, in my grandfather's house on Chincoteague, there were five high tide water marks on the wall paper on the ground floor, and each and every summer we were in the house, I was told tales of all of the storms that left those marks.  Mom was a very good and intense story-teller, and one of her most terrifying tales (for me, anyway) was during the 1938 hurricane. The radio weather forecasters were calling for good weather, but the watermen of Chincoteague looked at the waves, looked at the sky, and sniffed the wind.  It was their consensus that there would be "a bad nor'easter" coming in.  Grandma was dead at that time, so Grandpa and Mom oversaw rolling up the rugs, and taking all easily moved furniture, plus the rugs, up the stairs to the second floor.  There wasn't a bathroom in the house (until 1962), so all the chamber pots were stored in the closet, and buckets of water for drinking and washing were carried upstairs to the landing.  Sleeping pallets were made on the bedroom floor and up in the attic, where they didn't pile furniture.  The water started to rise.  Grandpa went down to the dock and poled the family dink (dinghy) down the street, where he tied it up to the top of the front porch.  Then he brought in a little more coal (that hadn't yet got wet), and told Mom, Aunt Ruth and Uncle Howard that they were going to have a real bell-ringer of a storm.  While they could still use the rooms downstairs, Mom went into the kitchen and cooked food that could be eaten cold the next day.  The rain began, the wind started to howl; Mom was very happy that she would be able to go upstairs again, soon.  There was a loud crack and the electricity went off.  Mom lit the oil lamp, and turned back to finish washing the dishes in the sink.  The rain continued to pour, and the wind seemed to increase in strength with each and every breath she took.  The rain seemed to let up a bit, and Mom leaned forward over the sink to peek out the window, hoping to see how high the water was.  As she leaned forward, there was a giant clap of thunder, and water splashed up, completely covering the glass, and then cascading back down.  Mom dropped the plate and towel she was clutching, and ran like a jack rabbit up the stairs.  Grandpa wanted to know why she looked so be-bothered - so she told him about the water on the window, and that she thought they had gone under a tidal wave.  Grandpa walked quietly down stairs, put away the towel, and swept up the pieces of china.  When he plodded back upstairs, Mom asked, "Well?   What has happened?"  Grandpa laughed and told her that the wind had brought down a few chimney bricks, and the big splash against the window was the bricks hitting the water already under the house.   - After that, it seemed that it took an awful lot to get Mom upset. - And the high tide mark on the wall from 1938 was at 4 feet, 10 inches.....