Sand Castles!

If you read my last post, you'll remember that we just had a really bad freak wind storm slam into our neighborhood, Thursday night, bringing havoc. My electricity and phone were cut off until the next day Friday 1:30 Pm. Others got their power on much later, about 3:30. Friday was still rainy and windy and so no repairs could be expected that day. Saturday, was the first day that I could get my solar hot water heater repaired. The man said he would show up at 4PM that evening to install the 4 new solar tubes.

Saturday morning, January 25th. after making my phone call to the solar guy, I was thinking about all of the debris in my neighborhood and wondering if the fallen trees blocking my street would be removed in time to allow the repair man to travel up it. I decided to wash the breakfast dishes. I like having a window above my kitchen sink so that I can look out at the world while washing the dishes. My view through the kitchen window is extra special since I can see the water and the beach through it.

Thinking about the fallen trees, I noticed through my window a large group of people on the beach working in unison and standing in a single file, passing black buckets of sand to each other, fireman style. I wondered if some flooding had occurred and whether they were filling sand bags to shore up some river bank? So I decided to grab my camera and I went down to investigate. Imagine my surprise to see some new flags and banners erected notifying everyone that the First Sand Castle Festival for Marindía was being held!

The group of people were in fact passing sand buckets to each other, not for a disaster but for the sand works. So in the midst of a storm cleanup, the community went ahead and had some preplanned fun.
I now used my camera to take photos of the work. I realized that, it might be better to come back later in the day to see some of the finished projects, so I did just that.

Everyone was welcomed to join in from Professionals down to children. They even had white printed Tee-shirts for the participants to wear to commemorate the date.

I was impressed with the variety of sand art, not only were there castles but also animals, sea life and well, I'll just have to show you what there was. The above picture is of José and his Dolphin sand creation. He said that this was the very first time he has ever done a sand piece. So the first sand festival meets it's first time ever participant. I was impressed with the scale of his piece.

Next, I saw a professional piece. Louis and his partner Matheo did an ambitious piece from a Greek mythology. The Titan "Prometheus" is chained to the ground in perpetual torment while an eagle eats his liver (over and over again). Well wow, what a subject. Since we were speaking in Spanish, I didn't have the wherefore all to ask why they came up with that subject. The last photo of the 4, shows a chain he sculpted out of sand on the wrist.

I am glad that I saw the Prometheus piece and the above "Otter", by Alejandro Arce, when I did because some neighborhood dogs ran by and jumped into them later. A teenage girl had brought them down unleashed. I actually recognized the dogs and tried with several others to catch them but the pup got away. I told the girl (whom I didn't recognized) later as she was walking by my house that the sand artists were irritated with her dogs. She asked why.  I explained how they were ruining the pieces, she just shrugged. She was clueless. I think she was just a visiter for the summer because the adult owners of the dogs are real sweeties and as nice as can be, they wouldn't have allowed the dogs to do that.

I think this next photo is of an "Aardvark", an African mammal that eats ants. The tail was well done in my opinion. Looking up the beach in these photos you can also see how low key this Sand Castle event was. It was spread out with no set rules.

The above sand "Sea monster" was really cool! It's tentacles were sticking up from the sand quite away, aways from it. Behind the monster there was a fat bosomed women being captured by a rear tentacle. I choose that photo of the lady instead of a closeup because in the background you can see my house and 2 of my next door neighbors' houses from this beach.

For this next piece of sand art, I didn't get a chance to meet the artist but his mother ( in a red coat) was sanding guard over her son's creation. She said his name was Isaac. He had done a "Sea turtle" nesting on land. What was so unique about that peace was the back of the turtle laying eggs. It showed the eggs coming out. Wow, how graphic and detailed!

The next very professional endeavor was by a deaf couple. I have several friends who are studying sign language. From them I have learned that sign language in Spanish is different from American sign language ASL. When I was a teen, I tried learning a little bit but I'm not very coordinated and I don't seem to be that great at foreign languages. So I left the couple in peace knowing that I couldn't really say anything but I smiled a lot. I don't know what their theme was about? Two sand people looked to be making out or having sex while another sand person was nearby. It seemed to be an epic like scene from the east or India, maybe some karmasutra poses? The 3rd sand person had octopus tentacle like arms. There should have been signs for all of the participants with the name of their creations and their own names. Just a suggestion.

Next, I saw some faces! The first surprised me, it was the face of "George Washington", then I saw a creepy "Skull", then a "Head hunter" type face with bone and then an "Artistic funky face".

One of the most fitting sand sculptures for Uruguay, is one that I almost walked right past. It wasn't until I went by it again for a second time that the light bulb went on in my head. I took another look at it and then I clearly saw it, for what it was, a "Hot water thermos and Mate set". The sand gourd cup was filled with sand yerba. How clever! Scrolled in the sand was a title. "Made in Uruguay". The "Pyramid and Sphinx" was cute and clever. I saw on a Facebook site that I missed seeing a tennis shoe and another great sand castle. The "Dinosaur" reminded me that kids were encouraged to participate and create something too.

Since this was all done by the sea, of course, some "Star fish" and sea creatures were represented too.
An "Octopus", another "Turtle" and a "Gecko". I then went home and my solar heater was fixed.

The next day Sunday, I was again looking out through my kitchen window (snooping), and I saw a group of people seemingly bowing to the sea and then raising their hands toward the sky in praise. Well, I grabbed my binoculars this time and saw that it was instead a yoga class being taught at the beach (around 10am.) So I waddled back down to the beach and found out that the Sand Castle event was going on for a second day! It was held January 25th and 26th; Saturday and Sunday. That's why I have included so many photos in this post.  I was then beckconed by some neighbors from my very street to see what my street's neighbors had made.  Two houses had gotten together to work on this. They let me stand inside the circle and take the picture of what they called the "Symbol of Marindía", "SpongeBob SquarePants". The little spongy details on his body where amazing. He looked great!

Since it was getting close to lunchtime, which is considered a very important meal here. Businesses all close for siesta time from 12:30pm to about 3:30. The SpongeBob group decided to go home. I was then happily invited to travel with them (since we live on the same street) and I was invited to one house for an Asado/BBQ. We had Beef, Pork and sausages, bread, salad and ice cream for dessert. My choice of wine, whisky or beer or coke. I had a beer! Cristina whose house I went to is one of my summer and holidays only neighbors, so it was nice getting to visit with them.

In looking back, everyone seemed to be having a great time at the beach. Not everyones castle or creation was professional or noteworthy, they just went for it. If there is a 2nd; Sand castle event next year, I will seriously think about trying to make something. I don't know what it will be but I have a year to practice. Meanwhile, I will continue to be noisy and keep looking out of my kitchen window. Who knows what I'll see next!

From Music to Disaster!

Well, I feel like I'm playing catchup with my January posts. The last few weeks of January sure were eventful. January was in the throngs of summer with hot days and fun filled nights. It actually had been too hot what with the temperature in the the high 90's and the nights in the 80"s

January 16th, a Thursday night, saw the first full moon concert held in El Fortin de Santa Rosa
January 17th, on Friday was the "White Night" event in La Floresta.

January 18th, Saturday, I heard that a music concert was to be held at the beach parking lot near my house. I have my congregational meetings on Saturday nights instead of Sunday. After coming home that night, I ate dinner and then I did something that I should do, more often. Because there weren't any mosquitos out that night I went out to my terrace with a Rum (Ron in español) and coke in hand and my now 3 dogs in tow to stand guard for me, I went out to enjoy the warm night. I was happy that I could hear the promised music concert, so clearly, coming up from the beach. Concerts here usually start with the most well known bands then move on to the lesser known and in need of more practice ones. It was true that some trees were blocking my view of the bands but I had the best of both worlds, no crowds and my bathroom just inside of my house should I need it. I stayed outside all night with my feet up listening to the beach bands play. Little did I know, how much that respite would mean, or how things were about to change.

January 23rd, Thursday I had my congregational meeting. The night was somewhat clear. After the meeting I came home and I had dinner and dessert, then I let the dogs out to pee and poop for the night. Right after that, it started to rain. Then the winds started to blow and blow and blow. I was glad that the dogs were already inside for the night. Then it struck! The winds started to slam into our neighborhood. Coming up from the water, Southward and blowing North inland, the force was intense and loud. Nathan, my cat ran to my bedroom door and when I opened it he ran under my bed. That is something he has never done before. He is no scare-dy cat but is normally quite fearless. Then the electricity went out in the neighborhood and the telephone service. I went to bed.

January 24th, Friday, we were without power and phone until 1:30 PM. Others toward Atlántida didn't get theirs turned on until 3:30 PM.  When I went outside. I saw that my front yard dog house had been blown out from its corner and was now on my front steps.

My planter, filled with bamboo, had fallen over (it was a little top heavy in design). It had stood upright however, through other wind storms. Surprisingly the ceramic cup it fell onto remained unbroken but the saucer under it broke instead. My heavy wooden patio furniture had been blown as a group (they are chained together for security reasons) across the entire patio and they were now up against my shutters. I am so thankful that I have heavy locked shutters covering my huge picture windows, otherwise the furniture corners would have broken my window.

Those things were the things moved by the wind, they were not damaged. The only real damage that occurred was to my solar hot water heater. I lost 4 tubes.

Since I didn't have power or phone and it was lightly raining, I decided to wait until Saturday to call around for a person to fix my solar heater and replace the tubes.

I was very fortunate that I didn't sustain more damage. The reason for that was that I had already cut down all of my dangerous trees and had them hauled away last year at great expense. Now I can sleep like a baby during any wind storms unlike before the tree removals.

Friday morning, I went out into the neighborhood to see what was what. The neighborhood didn't escape the storm as unscathed as I did.



My street entrance was now blocked from 4 fallen trees lying across it. The 5th tree had fallen away from the street.

My neighbor up the street had a tree now leaning just on the edge of his roof. It amazingly didn't really damage the roof itself.

Around the corner gates were smashed. Fallen trees were everywhere.

Last year, one corner lot on Avenida del Mar had 19 trees fall, well this storm blew the rest down. I guess that corner is a terrible wind catcher!

Going past my few blocks, I started to see some heavier damage towards Salinas but still in my barrio of Marindia.

The worst damage by far was captured in the photos below by a person posting on Facebook to the Balneario Marindia site. These photos may have been taken by Maria Cristina Franco because they said "with Maria" and there were no people in the photos. I am just trying to give credit were credit is due.

The middle picture of a wooden cabin style home shows a house that used to be 1 1/2 stores high having an attic bedroom and window, now it was reduced to only 1 story. The last photo is of an interesting garage in my neighborhood. Part of the main house has the same odd design as the garage. These are all from my barrio of Marindia. These photos are near the highway by the Estorill store.

Amazingly, the power got turned on very promptly as already mentioned, by the next day.

The work of cleaning up the neighborhood went about orderly. It is still going on. The air is scented with pine bark and needles. The sound of chains saws fill your ears. Life goes on without grumbling.

The weather is now overcast and the days are cool but humid. Who knew that when I was outside enjoying music from my terrace on a hot summer night a week ago that things would change so quickly. From music to disaster what a difference a week makes.

"White Night" in La Floresta

Wow, January 2014 has had some interesting moments and events. It is the height of summer down here in Uruguay and the days and nights have been HOT, HOT, HOT both literally and figuratively!  Daytime temperatures have been around 95 degrees F /33c. and the nights have been in the 80's.

Thursday, January 16th was the first Full Moon of the year. This usually means that the folks in the town of San Fortin hold their yearly public concert on this full moon night and so they did. Even though, it was a Thursday night, the natural amphitheater was packed. My friends who live there, the ones who invited Wally and I last year, gave me a blow by blow report. My Thursday evenings are spoken for, what with my congregational meetings and Bible study. Still, Most events don't start here until late in the evening 9:30PM and on (due to a power outage the event was delayed in starting until10:30), which meant, I could attend both the meeting and the concert. However, I had been so over heated that day from walking in the heat (my feria/ grocery morning is also on Thursdays) that after the meeting I decided to skip the concert and just go home. I was saving my energies for the next night, the 17th of January!

Friday, January 17th , the city of La Floresta was holding their celebrated "White Night" event. This event has nothing to do with the moon at all. I've done a post before on the little beach town of La Floresta and as mentioned in that post, the people of La Floresta like to sponsor art events. The city has sculptures scattered all through it. It also has some interesting and varied architecture which the "White Night" event highlights. 

This night was bright ( remember the full moon was only the night before) and it was hot, so we waited until 10Pm to arrive. The idea of the "White Night" theme is that during this night the city is bathed in bright spot lights to highlight the various styles of houses and as a sort of "snap shot" or Kodak moment into the life of that town. Residents who own odd, interesting or old houses allow bright lights to shine on their houses and present a little vignette of how charming or interesting their place is. Often, they themselves will sit out in front of them and "pose" and stay frozen in that pose, in a sort of living still life. People like me will stop and take their photos. It's like we are peeking in on their lives.  

Many of the houses will have its history listed out front so you can read about it while passing by. Some houses mention things like who lived there, maybe the town doctor or some famous or important person. Others, mentioned that theirs was the first or second house built in the town or things like that.

The vignettes they provide are very charming! In addition to the community cast and their homes, tucked in here and there are little bands of musicians and various art booths. 

When we first arrived, there was a stage we walked by, where two young women were shaking their stuff in a fast and furious Salsa dance. The stage and lightening setup was grand but the music was canned and they may or may not have been lip-syncing. I politely stopped and watched for a minute, I took their photo and moved on. However, hidden down one of the town's streets was a band of young men under a simple blue light who were really playing some fine contemporary music . Their sound was mellow and smooth. I liked them so much that I stopped and recorded them. I would have stayed but my friends moved on, so I followed them instead.

If music wasn't your thing there were art displays and fun art like statements spread around. Some pieces were actually woven into the city. A picnic area now had knitted "Granny squares" lining the support poles. and one street had a canopy of rag ribbons tied overhead to walk under.

Some streets had lighted candles and fabric flowers hung in their trees. I just had to get a picture of myself under that romantic scene.

The local church in the big plaza had singers out front singing songs about Uruguay. Of course, always my favorite to view, were some antique cars on display. I even got a photo of an original "paddy wagon" a jail truck.

Everyones' favorite attraction of the "White night" event however, was the techno light presentation that was held at midnight. The main, art deco styled, hotel building in town is transformed into a giant outdoor screen.

What is so interesting about the show is that all of the lights in the hotel are turned off by midnight so the windows are blacken but the light show called mapping takes into account the many windows in its display. The windows and the building are part of the show.

I hope you can see how wild and weird the giant screen show was by watching this section that I filmed. 

Click on this link to watch

I will be posting on 2 other events that happened in January, this first month of the year.

All in all, 2014 is off to a running start and I have camera and blog (pen) at the ready!

The Garden Gate!

My vegetable garden (mi huerto)

It may seem strange to you up North in the midst of winter to hear me talk about gardening but for us down here in South America, in Uruguay we are in the throngs of summer. Tomatoes and watermelon are a foot. This led me to think about Expats and Gardens.

I've noticed that expats usually follow, some similar stages of progression upon moving to Uruguay or any foreign country for that matter. It involves 3 steps.

Step one is deciding on where to live. Some travel around the country briefly, this is sometimes done on prior visits. A city, coastal area or the campo/rural place is then chosen.

Step two is that, once they have decided on the area they want to live in, the exciting hunt for real-estate in their chosen city, town or field begins.

Step three is hiring all kinds of workers to improve their newly purchased dwelling. Some enlarge their dwellings, others gut them. Nobody is ever 100% satisfied with them!

Once these 3 steps have been accomplished they need to start a garden, particularly a vegetable garden. Even people who have never kept a garden before, seem to have this compelling need to start one, upon moving here. Only then, do they feel truly settled! All of this, as a matter of course, is done during the first year of their arrival.

I followed these same phases as well but unlike all the other expats here, I never finished my garden in "my first year" here. I just petered out in my efforts. My vegetable garden back in Seattle, Washington, USA was very, very nice, at least I thought so! It had raised vegetable beds and gravel walkways in between and I wanted to do the same thing here. My garden back in Seattle was full of clever ideas, and speciality items.

My ex-Seattle garden. Can you guess which 4 herbs are planted under the sign!

I grew different types of lavenders in pots like English, French and Spanish lavenders. I even had a light yellow lavender, Yeah, lavender that was not lavender colored and a variegated leaf one called silver something??

More of my Seattle Garden in the USA. Collard greens in the bed and Raspberry vines.

For my garden here in Uruguay, I thought about getting older in Uruguay, so I wanted a low maintenance garden.  Since we have dogs that do, "like to dig", sometimes (Yeah, I know, out of boredom), I wanted the whole thing fenced in.

This is the entrance to my UY vegetable garden and why I needed to fence it in!

 Meanwhile other expats were already harvesting and eating their home grown garden produce like delicious tomatoes. Somebody gave me collard green seeds to get me started (Thanks John) since back in Seattle, I was well-known for my collard greens at dinner.

 Well, 3 years passed!

Cantaloupes grow well here by the beach.

Last year (year 4), I did attempt to start it up. I filled 2 beds with soil and had a great crop of bell peppers. I also tried my hand at growing melons for the first time, cantaloupes!

They were a rousing success! I got 10 full sized delicious melons from just the two companion plants that I bought in a dixie cup from the feria.

I also grew Eggplants. I read somewhere that since eggplants were heavy feeders that an interesting way to get them off to good good start was to plant them with an egg, no-less. I mean a real, raw, whole egg! Just dig your hole and put the whole egg in the bottom of it. Cover with only a little dirt and plant your eggplant on top. Fill in the rest of the hole as you would normally.

An eggplant grows well with an egg!

It must have worked because I had so many eggplants that I lost count of them. They were nicely spread out over months. With some just emerging from their flowers while others grew suitably large.

I found out that you can grow lettuce in a fairly shallow hole. I had left space for a rectangular planting spot in among all of those cement walkways. I wanted to break the space up and grow something. Well, when I went to plant something there I found out that there was a cement footer just under the surface belonging to my neighbor's wall, I guess?

I went ahead and planted the lettuce there anyway along with some basil and I had no problems in growing the lettuces, I grew both green and red varieties. I bought the starts for only 5 pesos each from the local farmer's market/feria.

I also, finally, after 4 years of living here, added a clothesline in my garden area (other expats had already done that also, in their first year).  I tried my hand at drying clothes with pure solar power, THE SUN!!. There is an art to that because depending on the weather it's not always successful (drying clothes in the rain doesn't seem to work, LOL)

Clothes and towels get stiff, scratchy and hence itchy when lined dried. To prevent that, several suggestions are to hang them up during the cooler parts of the day and to use vinegar in your rinse water when washing them (it doesn't leave an odor). Right before you hang items up, give them a good shake and rub or roll them to loosen up the fibers, then hang them up. Whew, I never knew about all of this preparation. Of course, some men like rough scratchy towels to dry off with. If you're one of them, just hang them!

My Uruguayan Huerto/Vegetable garden is enclosed with wire fence.

So now, it's been 5 years since we have been living here in Uruguay. In order to give me some motivation to keep adding to the garden this coming season,  I have installed a needed garden gate! (The title of this post!)

My garden is enclosed with wire. In all these years, I have had to lift away a panel of heavy wire to go in and out of the garden. So I hired some Hierro/iron guys to build me a gate. They are different guys then the ones who did my trash can. Those guys wanted to charge me 6800 pesos and I believe they would have  hung the gate on the existing wooden posts (logs really). I thought that price was a little high.

The phone number had nothing to do with the poster.

I looked around for someone else and saw a telephone number written on an old wooden board (Herrero means blacksmith), it was hung up on a street corner. I decided to call the painted number. I left a message. Then a man named Sergio called me back. I told him where I lived and what I wanted. An appointment was set.

When two people arrived at my house, I was pleased that they were quite professional considering their street sign, they even handed me a preprinted flyer.

These two were also a father and son firm, Nuñez is their last name.  They wanted to include the installation of new metal posts in their price and remove the old wooden ones. That got me interested and so I asked them, to also include, the cost of another fixed panel next to the new gate. That would allow me to remove more of the wire fence so that the new gate wouldn't look so tacky butting up against the old wire.

old wire fence gate. Just a panel  lifted on and off to get into the garden.

They quoted me 500 pesos more then the other guys but for that price they included my panel and the new posts! So I jumped at the chance. I went to Abitab (a bill paying place) with the workers cedula number/ID # and his phone and street address. I paid a down payment for the materials (4000 pesos). It cost me 100 pesos for the office transaction. In 2 days, they started the work. Upon completion, I paid the remaining 3300 pesos I owed them and that was that (¡Se acabó!). Their job had cost a total of 7300 pesos.

I am hoping that this new entrance gate, will inspire me to start taking care of this garden once again.

First, I will have to sweep up the walkways, then pressure wash the walls again and of course, buy more dirt, plants and finally plant an even bigger garden. Maybe, next year!

Okay, I admit it, I like garden designing more than actually gardening, you caught me!