Holidays: Friday Feathers

Two marvellous birds from the Zoo

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

 

 

And as an unrelated bonus:

A video I stumbled across indulging in my love for Peter, Paul and Mary: Puff, the Magic Dragon.

What I love about the performance isn’t so much the artists, but the audience who is singing along, or at least mouthing the words, from the toddler to the grandpa.

Tummy Thursday: Churros con Chocolate

One of the kids’ favourite places in the city of Mataró is the Xurrería, which absolutely does not offer tourists an authentical churros experience. It’s simply the real thing, as evidenced by the fact that is was closed for holidays during the second half of our stay, something no tourist oriented business would do at the height of the season. That’s something to say about the city in general: tourism is a factor, and a welcome factor, but it’s not a big enough factor for businesses, especially bars and restaurants to rely on it exclusively. This means they need to provide a service that makes regular customers come back. I understand that I’m the worlds biggest hypocrite here when I want to go for a holiday but not where there are too many tourists, but I can live with that. It means good food.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Here you see “porras”, a thicker variety of churros with my “cortado”, an espresso with a bit of milk. Traditionally you eat them with “chocolate” as in the next picture:

©Giliell, all rights reserved

These are the more commonly known churros with their typical shape. The chocolate is thick and dark and not overly sweet, so you can dip your churros in and enjoy the whole thing. It’s more like custard in that respect, only that it’s delicious.

Holidays: The Eye of the Dragon

Komodo dragons are wonderful beasts and I simply love their majesty. I know they’re plain weird, using both venom and biological warfare to hunt. You got to give it to an animal whose hunting strategy is : bite once and wait for a week until it drops dead.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

And as a bonus: self portrait in the eye of a dragon, a close up from the picture above. That’s how I want to go, trying to take a picture of a dragon and then being unexpectedly eaten.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Holiday: Cute overload

Sorry for basically disappearing on you. Apparently I caught a “summer flu”, a viral infection that is similar in symptoms though less severe than a real flu. If anything it has reinforced my determination to get every single flu shot every single year. It completely knocked me out, I’ve been in bed since Saturday and today is the first day I’m up for more than half an hour apart from doctor’s visit and school run.

Here’s some cuteness to make up for it:

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Cute? Right? That’s just to ease you into it because nothing says cute like a baby mongoose:

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Fungi Friday

This week we have another fine fungal photo from Opus, who makes magic happen with his detailed macro portraits. He’s also sent us a photo to give some perspective and scale to the close-up work.

Opus plans to nurse the garden along for a bit and then return it to the wild.

Moss Garden ©Opus, all rights reserved

Moss Garden – overview ©Opus, all rights reserved

Friday Feathers: Hornbill and Friends

As promised, there will be pictures. Lots, though I noticed that I took less pictures this year because after all, I went there before. Let’s start with some from the zoo. A great southern hornbill. I also add some others as to not spam my “own” blog with many different posts.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved
Probably a breeding female. Or a napping one…

Now for some frogs…

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved There was a lot of plants around acting as some sort of natural filter

©Giliell, all rights reserved

And finally a water lily. There be fairies.

©Giliell, all rights reserved Off focus but too pretty

©Giliell, all rights reserved No, absolutely no post production on this one.

Baby Ravens are Adorable

We’ve gotten some wonderful pictures of baby ravens from Anne, Cranky Cat Lady. Her daughter Emily Davis took the photos and Anne has been kind enough to share them with us.

…they run from the first time she spotted the nest through their fledging.  They were still being fed by the parents at that point, even though they were almost adult-sized.

These are your basic Common Raven (Corvus corax), also known as the Northern Raven.  The nest was in La Jolla, on the UC San Diego campus in Southern California

May 16/19, ©Emily Davis, all rights reserved

[Read more…]

Jack’s Walk

Early morning at the park ©voyager, all rights reserved

Tomorrow I’m going to be having my last 6 teeth removed and 2 dental implants inserted. It was supposed to be sleep surgery, but the Dr. won’t take the risk because of the combination of drugs that I take so I’ll be awake, which sucks. I will get nitrous oxide and I have some marijuana oil for before and after which the Dr. says will be fine by him. I’ve been told to expect a few bad days post-op which could mean a bad week or two factoring in my fibro. Why am I telling you all of this?

Well, Jack and I have decided to take a virtual vacation. Starting tomorrow until August 19/19 Jack’s Walk won’t be here. You’ll just have to guess what the Bubba and I are up to. Tree Tuesday will also be absent for the next 2 weeks, but Fungi Friday will be here and so will the daily books. Next week the books will feature a few of Caine’s favourite artists and I know you won’t want to miss that. Giliell will also be back from holiday next week and I know she has lots to share from her vacation in Spain. Those are all good reasons to keep tuning us in.

Jack and old, toothless me will see you soon.

 

Jack’s Walk

Milkweed ©voyager, all rights reserved

Poor Jack didn’t get out for a walk this morning. I turned off the A/C last night and opened the windows and by this morning the house was filled with humidity. I get this weird ataxia that puts me into slow motion and makes it feel like I’m moving through jello and high humidity is one of the things that can set it off. It took me a while just to get out of bed and I couldn’t make my hands work and I was feeling very frustrated. The jello wouldn’t lift even after the A/C cleared the house. I managed to get to pool therapy at noon and that really helped a lot, but by the time I got home it was too hot for Jack to go out. I promised to take him for a nice stroll around the neighbourhood after supper, but he isn’t bothered by the missing morning outing. At least that’s what he says – maybe he’s just being kind.

 

 

Jack’s Walk

Going in circles ©voyager, all rights reserved

The weather’s turned hot and humid again so Jack and I are back to early morning walks and let’s just say that early morning is not my best time. Jack doesn’t care about the time, though, so I decided the river was a good choice because Jack can frolic and I can sit and drink coffee and watch him. That’s what I call win – win. The water was a bit muddy, but Jack came out smelling fine(ish) and the towels were wet, but not dirty so he didn’t even need a hosing down at home. That’s a win – win – win. Not bad for dishwasher of a day.