We call it the mosquito, and my philodendron quakes every time he gets it out.
Lily no longer hides in the closet, but still watches it with great suspicion. I think she would have already pounced, if it weren't for the awful noise it makes.
Karen's travel tips If you arrive in Quito on a Sunday evening, better have snacks with you! The carpets roll up and the metal doors come down at 6. Well, at least they do in the neighborhood where we are spending the night. There are a lot of restaurants close by, but nothing open. Add to this that apart from a tuna wrap at Dorval airport the only thing I could eat on the plane was the fruit salad (the steward kindly gave me two), and the pineapple juice, by Monday morning we were both feeling somewhat light headed when we set off down the many, many, many steps down to the commercial district (visualise Mount Royal, only steeper, no hand rails, and a descent at least twice as far, with your head spinning). Needless to say, we were a bit early for breakfast in the commercial district, but a cafe kindly opened early for us, and I essentially inhaled eggs, avocado toast, fruit salad and an almond milk cappuccino. Serge, who had ordered a larger breakfast actually ran out...
When I logged in to start writing this, the first item was my stalled letter from last year. Oy Vey! Yes, well, sorry about that, but 2023 was too hard to sum up and not sound depressing at the same time. Dad unexpectedly punched his express ticket out in April, and things did not improve from there. Enough said. The main lasting bright spot from last year is Sarah's new cat. Meet Helga, a ball of the softest fluff I have ever met. Given how tumultuous her life was before she arrived here, she is surprisingly at ease with her new life. Hopefully, she finds it refreshingly peaceful, and not too quiet. She loves to watch the action, and doesn't even hide when the vacuum cleaner is running. The shelter told us she was about two, and she was seized with her kittens from an 'unclean' home by the health department and then evacuated through 3 shelters because of the forest fires last year. When Sarah got her to our vet to clear up a lingering case of ear mi...
Sunday morning, our Canadian/Rhodesian neighbour dropped by because Serge wanted to show him the new plantings and chat about water management in one of our fields close to the Apuela river (affectionately known as the rice paddy), so we all trooped off to the south coffee field again. This time we all had machetes so my first action was to hack off that banana bunch and flip it out into the horse pasture, then I set off to help clearing out extraneous banana clumps. You want one banana plant to provide shade, but not so many that they start crowding out the coffee plants. Banana plants are nearly unkillable (as I said, giant mutant dandilions) so you can whack away as long as you take care around the coffee plants. In a way, it is quite relaxing, and best of all, if one arm gets tired (or, ahem, blistered) you can switch arms and still be just as effective. Discovered that while I can hit harder with my right hand, I am more accurate with my left. All in all, it was a...
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