The Retirement and Good Living website asked me to write an article about retirement in Panama, so I did. It’s published at http://retirementandgoodliving.com/retiring-in-panama/ They even used some of my photos 🙂
THIS WEEK, SHOW US A PHOTO THAT SAYS “GOOD MORNING!” It could be a shot taken during your morning walk, the morning vista out your kitchen window, your cat doing a pre-breakfast stretch, or a textured close-up of your oatmeal bubbling away at the stove.
This is my morning spot, the patio looking out into the backyard. We have breakfast and lunch here, and this is also my outdoor office.
That’s my computer on the table. The bucket hold my pencils, cords, and whatever else I carry in and out. There are some plant cuttings rooting in jars, the binoculars, and a container of lizard eggs I found in a window. I think one of them hatched because there has been a tiny gecko running around the table since last night.
We collect rain water in the white buckets for watering potted plants and other uses if the water isn’t on in the house. The bananas on the floor are from the woods across the street and should be ripe in a week or so.
The closer tree in the yard is a guanabana (soursap), much loved by everyone but us so fruits are given away when ripe, much to the delight of our neighbors. The tree farther in the distance is an orange tree. There are black squirrels nesting towards the top and we enjoy seeing them as they come and go. The banana trees are from the woods also, and should have more of those red bananas at some point.
The yard behind us is Narda’s place. She loves flowers and fruits so we have a good time talking about gardening and admiring her plants and trees. She’s out quite a bit so our meals are often interrupted for a hello and a chat.
There are always birds singing, various insects visiting, and butterflies flying about. It’s a nice way to greet every day!
That photo was taken this morning. It’s evening now – dark, raining, and thundering. I’m still outside at that same table watching the rain and lightning. It’s wonderful to live in a place where the temperatures are so nice and there are so few annoying insects that you can pretty much live outside.
You just never know what you are going to see around here! I went out this morning to take a photos of the tree where the toucans have been visiting, and I noticed a large column of ants marching across the driveway. We have ants of all kinds here, and the closest I could guess was leaf cutter ants. None of them had the big cutting jaws though, they weren’t carrying anything, and they were all going in the same direction rather than coming and going, and there were a lot of them.
So, I follow them and saw that they were headed for the house, and up the side of the house towards the attic.
The ants head up the side of the house by the front door
The numbers were increasing by the minute
Oh dear! I have heard about ants that invade the house, eat every crumb and scrap they can find, and then leave. I was told to just go out for an hour or two and when I return the house will be clean. Was I about to experience this? OK, maybe it will be interesting.
Then, I notice they were headed for the BEES 😦
There has been a beehive above the front door as long as I have lived here. The neighbors warn me that they are very bad and will bite very hard, but these are very mellow and have never caused a bit of trouble. As a former beekeeper, I figured this beehive meant that this is the right house for me! But, this was not to be a good day for the bees. We thought about spraying the ants or trying to do something, but by now they were totally overrunning the beehive. We didn’t see much chance of success so we decided to let nature take it course.
Meanwhile, the army of ants continued to increase by the minute.
By now, we could see the ants taking bee larvae out of the hive and carrying them off.
The number of ants was extremely impressive!
The ants were going around this bush, then around that large bush in the distance, over the wall behind it, and into the woods behind the house in the opposite direction from which they had come.
Ants going over the wall. The ants with the big white heads looked strange, and I didn’t remember seeing them among the ants on the house (though later I spotted a few in the photos)
It was an amazing attack!! I noticed them when they were first arriving and only a few ants were going up the side of the house. It wasn’t long though before there were incredible numbers of ants participating in the raid! The bees didn’t have a chance.
We went out on our bike ride, and when we returned maybe 45 minutes later there was much less activity going on, though there were still large numbers of ants going to and from the hive. I came out to check maybe ten minutes later, and it was all over. There wasn’t an ant anywhere to be seen!! The whole thing lasted maybe 1 1/4 – 1 1/2 hours in all.
I had been wanting to paint the front of the house since I arrived. The paint was old and worn, and some new paint would really freshen up the place. But, I wasn’t about to kill the bees and I didn’t think it was wise to paint with the hive right there. Well…. if the ants were gone… and the bees were gone… and I had paint on hand (from painting the patio the other day)…. lets DO IT! I enlisted Joel’s help and we went to work.
There were still a few bees flying around but they were so traumatized that they weren’t any threat. They weren’t even landing on the hive or paying any attention to me so I had no trouble painting. It looks so much better! I will paint the rest one of these days soon, but this was the section that worried me with the bees right there. Our timing was excellent because by the time we were finished more and more bees were flying around, though they still weren’t landing on the hive or being the least bit aggressive towards us.
And then, GOOD NEWS! Joel noticed a lot of bees flying around the bush right in front of the house and went to investigate. There, in that bush, was a swarm of bees.
I hope that these are my bees. Maybe when they saw the attack beginning they got out with the queen, and now they will be able to rebuild their colony. They don’t seem to be coming back to this hive, but maybe they can find another good place to live. There’s also another small colony of these bees that just begun in that same bush, so I am not without bees. Perhaps at some point, the hive above the door will look good to another colony of bees and they will move in. Please though, don’t tell the ants!
Yesterday afternoon we spotted the toucans again. This time we called our neighbors so we had quite a group of excited people in our backyard watching the birds. My neighbor, who loves birds, told us that she had seen one with a yellow beak a long time ago, but she had never seen these toucans. She thinks maybe they are living by the river somewhere and as long as this tree has the berries they like, they will come back. We saw two adults for sure, and she said she also saw a young bird, smaller, less color, and a smaller beak.
This is our house, and that big tree behind it is where we have seen the toucans, way up in the top of that tree.
One of the toucans in the tree. (Thank goodness for the zoom feature on the camera)
Such a beautiful bird! Thank you again Joel for catching a bunch of great photos.
We were standing in the yard discussing the house color, when to eat lunch, and other mundane things when a flash of color caught my eye from the huge tree on the other side of our fence. I grab the camera on the nearby table, and Joel runs for the binoculars.
Between the zoom feature on the camera and the binoculars, we realized that we were looking at no ordinary birds!! If my bird book and research are correct, they are fiery billed aracari. It’s hard to get clear photos of birds flitting about in the top of a tree 30-40 feet above us, but we got a few good ones. I know there were at least two birds, and I think there could have been as many as four.
According to what I have read, these are fairly rare birds who live only in a small area of eastern Costa Rica and western Panama, on the Pacific side in wooded areas. I am so glad we have a house right next to the woods. We have so many birds but this is the coolest one so far!
What a great treat to see these beautiful birds! They were silent as far as we could tell so if we hadn’t been standing out in the yard, and if another bird flying towards the tree hadn’t caught my eye, we never would have seen them. Thank you Joel for helping me get some good photos.
You have been warned 😀 It really is just a little one though.
I was sitting on the patio today when it started to rain. There’s a tiny spider web in a planter on the edge of the patio, and the rain must have misted it enough to coat the spider web in little water droplets. So, naturally, I had to grab the camera and the macro lens. The spider is so small that it’s hard to see in any detail with your eyes, but with a good camera that all changes.
The instructions are: This week, show us a photo of whatever you’d like, but make sure it’s saturated. It can be black and white, a single color, a few hues, or a complete rainbow riot; just make sure it’s rich and powerful.
Naturally, the first thing that comes to my mind is outdoors and the river!
We live in Panama close to the equator. The weather is warm and the sun is intense. The sun heats up the roof, which heats up the attic and the house. So, we got permission from the landlord to paint the roof white. What a nice difference!
The first step was to clean the roof. I believe the house is 7-8 years old and most of the roof has faded. The patio was added maybe 3 years ago, and roof over that area is much darker because it is newer. When Joel got up there he found it also had quite a bit of black from mildew. The patio is our favorite outdoor hangout, but we couldn’t enjoy it when the sun made it too hot.
The cleaning begins. Yes, that is the famous water blaster that was also used to clean the bathrooms.
The power washer did a great job, removing a lot of the old faded paint that was flaking off, and also the black mildew on the newer part of the roof.
The roof is clean and ready for paint! The newer part almost looks brand new again, and the older part doesn’t have much paint left on it any more.
Joel did the painting because he’s lighter, and you don’t want someone heavy on a tin roof if at all possible. And, to get up on the roof he rigged up a step ladder sitting on a plastic table top braced with wood supports, sitting on top on my Mazda. I don’t have confidence in my ability to scale such an imaginative thing!
The painting is in progress. He used a roller shaped to work on these roofs, but said the best tool turned out to be a mop. Look how white it is even compared to the metal of the older part of the roof.
The rig worked, he made it up there, and the roof is now a gleaming white! He used a silicone based paint by Lanco that our neighbor, the construction guy, recommended. It’s made a huge difference! The patio is cooler in sunny weather, and the attic is also a lot cooler. Joel said it used to be 110+ when the sun is shining, and he’s seen it as high as 127 degrees. Now it’s usually in the 90’s or lower. It’s a lot easier to keep the house cooler when it’s not being heated up from above.
So, this is the second of our home improvement and comfort ideas (after the air conditioner). Now we should be happy here indefinitely. I have plans to paint a few things that didn’t get painted before we moved in, and I’m always puttering around in the yard but I think we have everything we need to be comfortable and happy here.
I wrote a post not long ago about Panamanian home construction, and how everything is concrete and tile so it’s not damaged by water.
We bought this water blaster not long ago to clean the roof before painting, and anything else that needs a good cleaning, like the driveway.
But, the bathroom??
As it turns out, this works wonderfully well! There really is nothing in there that will be damaged by water. It cleans the grout, all those out of the way places that are hard to get to, and does it in a minimum of time. Afterwards, broom and squeegee the excess water to the shower drain and you’re done. It worked so well I went ahead and cleaned the other bathroom also. Our bathrooms have never looked so good 😀
Last night we watched Crossing Over, a movie from 2009 with Harrison Ford, Ashley Judd and others. IMDb link for more info. It’s a wonderfully done movie about immigration with stories about various families and individuals in Los Angeles trying to live as illegals, or trying to become legal, and some of the immigration officials who work in LA.
As someone living in a different country it was especially thought provoking. How easy it was for us to pull out our passports and enter Panama. How different it is for so many others entering a foreign country with hopes and dreams, or sometimes out of desperation with risk to their very lives. What is it like to live without legal status? What is it like to live with the daily threat of discovery and deportation? What would it be like to know that I could be stopped by any policeman and asked for my papers, and I would be unable to produce them?
I know immigration is a tough subject with many valid points on both sides. I don’t have any answers. I met undocumented people through my nursing work in Florida (which was when I first started learning some Spanish). When you know an individual with a face and a story it feels different. These were people who couldn’t find any work in Mexico to support their families. They risked everything to get to the US and didn’t see their families for years. Children grew up without seeing their father, and wives were single parents back home. They had taxes taken out but couldn’t file for their refunds. They worked hard and usually lived in very crowded conditions to save money so they could send more money home.
Anyway, I could rattle on but not come up with any answers or opinions on how to solve anything. This excellent movie just made me think about how very fortunate I am to be able to pull out a passport and go pretty much anywhere I wish in the world. And, I can go back to my country of origin without fear for my life and safety. There are countless people in the world who can’t say that.
I don’t mind looking at Harrison Ford for a couple hours either 😀
P.S. We have a computer hooked up to our TV and watched the movie on Netflix (streaming). We run Tunnelbear, an easy to use program which allows us to watch things that may be normally blocked in Panama, usually because of some non-agreement between the US networks and Panama.
The Panama Adventure 