Birds of La Fortuna

Waterfalls and Volcanoes

Well, it was clearish at sunrise, when I stepped out from our hotel cabin and onto the front porch to check on the volcano. It was still there.

I could tell, because I could finally see it. There was still some cloud cover on top, like a cap that was too big for it.

But DW and I said we'd take what we could get. The weather forecast in La Fortuna, Costa Rica, called for rain off and on throughout the day. 

We quickly readied ourselves and hopped into the SUV to make it to our first destination in time for its opening. We've learned that to get to a tourist attraction as early as possible meant that you'll beat the tour buses and most of the crowds.

We didn't have far to go: as the crow flies, it was only 7 kms away, but to drive, it was about 11. We were headed to La Fortuna Falls. 

We made it with about two minutes before opening, and the parking lot was cordoned off. Only one vehicle was waiting ahead of us. 

There's a lookout across from and above the 70-or-so metre-high falls, that emerge from the jungle and drop to a small pool, below. To access the base, you must descend a 500-step, winding stairway. But the view is worth it.

Thing is, what goes down must go back up. The months without using my spin bike cost me dearly, but I eventually made it back to the car park.

From there, we headed into town for a traditional Costa Rican breakfast at a coffee roaster and soda (the term for a small restaurant that serves simple and inexpensive food). It was so tasty and the service was so good that we promised to return (we ended up going for dinner and had the same server).

Next, we chose one of the many nature trails in the area, in search of sloths, monkeys, and whatever else we could see. By the time we arrived, Arenal Volcano was once again shrouded in cloud but the rest of the sky was clear.

We decided to leave our rain jackets in our vehicle. Big mistake. 

While most of our hike was under cover of the forest, there were some open areas, where we could catch cool breezes and see more of the landscape. We had chosen a trail that took us to part of the lava fields from the 1968 eruption that lasted for 42 years. Massive black boulders also covered the trail area from the initial eruption.

It was at this open area that the rain came down hard. We got drenched but it was worth it, even if we couldn't see the volcano.

We had already seen the volcano in all her glory.

It's too bad that we didn't spy any sloths or monkeys, but we have only been here two days. There is still time.

Today, we leave this region and will do more exploring. I'll try to keep posting as much as I can. 

Stay tuned. 

Life in the Clouds

Sometimes, the weather doesn't cooperate.

Sometimes, you imagine a place, and the environment that surrounds it, and the photos that you're going to take. And when the day starts off on the right foot, it's hard to imagine anything else.

We started our first full day in Costa Rica at a hotel, just north of the San Jose airport, up in the hills. We had a great unit with a large terrace that looked above the jungle that surrounded us. Breakfast was delivered to our door and we sat outside, marvelling at the myriad birds fluttering and singing over our heads.

Beautiful.

Our rental agency delivered our four-wheel drive SUV to the hotel. Our first order of the day was to get a data card for our phones, some local currency, and then to head to our next destination: La Fortuna and the Arunal Volcano that stands as the town's backdrop and is the area's biggest attractions.

The volcano erupted violently in 1968 and spewed lava for more than 40 years. It caused widespread devastation and caused the town of La Fortuna a lot of damage. 

Getting to La Fortuna was a two-and-a-half-hour drive that had us climbing windy, narrow roads over steep mountains. There were lots of switchbacks and tight corners.

But as we climbed, we encountered fog, then rain, and soon we were in thick clouds that made visibility a challenge.

I love challenging drives.

As we descended into La Fortuna, the clouds lifted (or more correctly, we got out from under them). We even caught glimpses of blue sky, and we looked forward to seeing the volcano.

But it wasn't to be. Not on our first day. 

We stopped in the heart of the town and found a nice restaurant for lunch. It was an open air restaurant and we could see straight up a road that led to the volcano, that was completely shrouded in thick clouds. We kept or cameras handy, in case there was a break in the clouds and we could capture a peek.

No luck during lunch.

After our meals, DW and I went to the town square, a park that is in front of the town's main church, which is a famous attraction because the volcano fills the background.

On this day, we only saw clouds. At best, we caught glimpses of the mountainous base.

We checked into our hotel, which is even closer to the volcano and our room looks out to it. So far, all we see are clouds.

All that was left for us to do was to visit a natural spring that is naturally heated by the volcano. The whole time we were there, it rained.

But no matter: we were getting soaked in the best way possible, up high in the clouds.

Today, we'll try to see Arenal again. And a waterfall.

Trial and Error

As a photographer, I often see something in the ordinary and think that there's something worth capturing, worth retaining for future reference or to share.

I think I must have said, many times, that it's better to take a bad photograph than no photograph. I mean, if you see something that strikes you as being worthy of capturing as a photograph, take the shot. If you later find that that something was not photo-worthy, there's no harm. You just delete the shot.

But if you don't take the photograph, you may always wonder what could have been. And it may very well have been a great shot.

Take a couple of weeks ago.

I awoke as I do every workday morning: straight into the shower. Just before we started our reno project but after my appendicitis surgery, our shower stall developed a leak, which came through into our dining room. So until I can cut a hole into the ceiling and fix the leak, DW and I are sharing Kid 1's bathroom.

On this particular morning, Kid 1 got to the shower before me, and when the bathroom was available, there was condensation on the mirror and on the window. As I looked out the hazy window, I noticed that the sun, which had risen only a short time earlier, was trying to show itself in a gap of cloud. There was a warm, orange glow despite it being absolutely frigid outside.

I thought the light through not only the condensation but through the window screen made for an interesting picture. So I retrieved my smartphone and took a quick snap.

It might be a worthwhile shot, I told myself, or maybe it won't be. I wasn't wearing my glasses, so I could only see a fuzzy image and wasn't even sure if the photo was in focus, but I got something.

I took my shower and didn't give the photo another thought for several hours.

When I did, I was glad that I took the time to take the shot. While it's not a great image, it's not terrible. I did some subtle editing, cropped it to a square, and saved it.

What do you think?

It's better to take a bad photograph than no photograph at all, and I'm glad I took this one. I feel it captures a mood of a morning where the sun was trying to get through three obstacles: the clouds, the condensation, and the screen. It was my only view of the sun for that day and I would have regretted not snapping the photo.

And, had we not been sharing Kid 1's bathroom, I might not have seen the sun all day.

Happy Friday!

Done But Not Done-Done

The last piece of wood has been laid. The quarter-rounds are secured in place. The tools have been returned to our friend and all of the extra hardwood has either been returned in its sealed packages or been given away to someone who can make good use of it.

Our hardwood reno project is completed. But we're not entirely finished.

Our bedroom: the last to be finished and Finn-approved.

We had to pack some belongings away. There were books on shelves that needed to go somewhere so that we could move the bookshelves. We had other things on the carpeted floor that were moved down to the main floor, so that we could rip up that old carpet.

Before we even started work on the second level of our house, to convert the flooring from wall-to-wall carpet to hardwood, our house was a mess with things piled up, out of the way for our work. Now that our flooring is done, we still need to move things back, to clear the clutter of the main floor.

But it's not that simple.

We're reluctant to put all of the books back on the shelves. We've been wanting to rid ourselves of the hundreds of books that we have for years. So we're going to only place books we haven't read, or collections that we want to keep, back upstairs. The rest will stay in the packed boxes and will more to a place in the basement, until we're ready to move them out of the house--likely, in the spring.

We have little knickknacks that have done little more than gather dust on some shelves, on dressers, and on desks. When we were packing things up, before starting the reno, I already threw out things that I had barely paid attention to over the years: an empty, black beer bottle of a Belgian strong ale, Trompe la Mort, that I purchased and consumed in France, in 1991. I liked the unique bottle so I brought it home. It's sat on one bookshelf or another for more than 30 years, doing no more than collecting dust.

It went into the recycle bin.

I had a snow globe with a clay bald eagle given to me for Christmas by a nephew when he was a little kid, no doubt an impulse buy. The gift had no real meaning for me other than it was a gift from someone who was thinking of me.

That kid is an adult now and I doubt he would even remember giving it to me. So out in the trash, it went.

I got rid of a lot of stuff and as I said, we're reluctant to have our room return to being the holding place for things that we no longer want or need. But it's going to take time to decide what stays and what goes, and I doubt we'll have everything sorted before we leave for vacation, at the end of this week.

The reno project is done but we're not quite completed. We're not done getting our house back in order. But we'll work this week to at least make the main floor livable. It would be nice to feel comfortable inviting friends and family back into our home.

When we get to that point, maybe we'll be done-done.

Dry-ish January

It's not by design; it's just turned out that way.

On New Year's Eve, DW and attended a dinner party at a friend's house. It was a pot-luck dinner, so we brought a salad, some wine, some bubbly for midnight (though, initially, I suspected we wouldn't stay that late), and some beer.

I knew that our hosts would have lots of beer already, so I brought a dozen cans of non-alcoholic IPA for anyone who wanted to take it easy, especially if there were those who were going to drive home.

I was planning to drive home and I wanted as little alcohol in my system on that journey.

During the dinner, our hosts opened a bottle of port wine. Having a weakness for this Portuguese specialty, I partook with a very small glass. But I stuck to the non-alcoholic beer as my bevvy of choice.

At midnight, I had a sip of sparkling wine to welcome in 2024 but after the initial "Happy New Year!" clinking of glasses, I put my glass down and didn't return to it.

Any R.I.D.E. road block would not have an issue with my alcohol consumption that night (even though we didn't encounter one).

One of my two pints.

For the next 10 days, I didn't have any alcohol. Though I wasn't participating in Dry January, I was keeping relatively dry. And in the past week or so since I noticed that I hadn't cracked open a can of beer or poured a glass of wine, I've only had two cans of beer.

It's not on purpose: I just haven't felt the urge to drink, not that it's really ever an urge.

My drink of choice this month? Water.

I have a travel thermos that I pack with ice cubes and then fill with water. The ice lasts for at least a day and I top up the thermos with water as I run out. I keep the bottle with me as much as I keep my smartphone, and I'm keeping hydrated.

Alcohol-free.

I know this trend won't last. DW and I are heading to Costa Rica in about another week and I plan to try the local beer and sip cocktails when they are available. Whatever Dry January I've followed until then will likely come to an end.

So, for me, this has been a Dry-ish January. How about you? Are you abstaining from alcohol consumption this month? How's it going? Leave me a comment.

No-Context 1984

Snow on Webs on Wall

Great Neighbours

Our first house was originally going to be a five-year home: 10 years, max, if we had good neighbours.

Twenty-four years later, we're still in the same place.

We almost moved about a year and a half ago. A friend was selling his house and DW was in love with the place, but in the end we decided to stay put. We had recently become mortgage-free and I have my eye on retirement, in the next few years, so the prospect of taking out a sizable mortgage for this house didn't make a lot of sense.

One afternoon, last summer, as DW and I were relaxing on our front porch, chatting with our neighbours, who were relaxing on their front porch, I let slip that we had almost bought my friend's house, and their jaws dropped.

"No way!" said one.

"You are not allowed to move unless there's a house, next to it, that we can move into," said the other.

Yeah, they're great neighbours.

More than anything else, our neighbours are the reason that we've remained in our first and only house. There are people on our street that we've known since we've first moved in, who are more like friends than co-residents of our street. We've had good neighbours who used to live on either side of us but have moved away, only to be replaced by equally good neighbours.

We've had neighbours keep an eye on our house, even taking the time to remove snow from our driveway, unasked, when we've been traveling. One neighbour, who didn't know we were away, was concerned for me when he noticed that a day had gone by since snow fell and I wasn't out to clear the driveway. He knew how I liked to keep my driveway a particular way, right after a storm, and so he checked in and was out with his snowblower when no one came to the door.

Yup, great neighbours.

It's important to have people around you who keep an eye on you and your home, who you can count on to be there in times of need. I've really thought of this importance over the past few days, after some horror befell our neighbourhood, last Friday.

DW and I work from home, so we're able to see if anything happens on our street during the day, as well as at night. And on Friday afternoon, as I was at my desk, on the main floor next to our front window, DW called down to me from the study.

"Did you see black smoke blow past the window?" she asked.

I have my back to the window so I don't even notice when a courier has delivered a package to our front steps. My phone notifies me when our doorbell camera spots someone but it doesn't tell me that there's smoke overhead.

We both stepped outside and looked down our street, only to see a thick plume of black smoke rising above the rooflines at the end of our street. As we watched, we heard loud pops, like gunfire, and DW got jittery.

"That's a car on fire," I suspected, aloud. "That explains the black smoke, and the noises were likely the gas tank rupturing and the tires exploding." I started walking down our street, toward the smoke.

DW was still nervous but we made our way toward the fire. In the distance, we could hear approaching fire trucks and we could see that some police SUVs were already on scene.

Our street ends at another side street from the main road in our 'hood. And once we reached the end of our street, the smoke had changed from black to grey. One fire engine was already parked in the front of the house and at least two others were close by. A ladder truck, parked across the street from the fire, was beginning to raise the boom, to which a hose was attached.

The garage of the house was completely gone; the house, blanketed in the dense, fog-like smoke. The house next to it, closer to us, also had smoke coming from under the roof. In a matter of moments, it was clear that it, too, was on fire.

More people were coming out to witness the horror. I recognized a lot of my neighbours and we all murmured that we hoped that no one was inside, that anybody who was at home had got out safely. We later learned that there had been five pets in the first house, and all had been rescued.

As flames broke through the roof of the second house, I captured a short video. But not wanting to stay long, DW and I made our way back to our own home, where our three cats were safe.

At the end of my work day, I walked down to our mailbox but also returned to the fire scene, where only one fire truck was left, the fire fighters tidying its hoses and preparing to leave. Some police units were still there but they, too, were readying to leave.

The fires were extinguished, there was nothing left to take care of.

The residents of the second house to catch fire were allowed into their home. Apart from one side of the house and parts of the roof, the house seemed intact, though I could only imagine the smoke damage and the flooding from having water doused on the roof, making its way everywhere.

The residents had packed up what they could and were passing them to their neighbours who lived on the other side, away from the burned-out first house. Neighbours helping neighbours through a nightmare situation.

Great neighbours.

Over the weekend, DW and I were able to chat with our neighbours about the fire. We were all grateful that we knew that, had we experienced the same misfortune as the folks around the corner, we had people that we could rely on to have our backs to help each other in times of need.

How could we have possibly considered moving, the other year. This might have been our five-year home, initially, but it's now our forever home. I can't imagine living next to better neighbours.

(I'm still looking to move to Portugal after I retire, but that's going to be a tough decision.)

The Experiment

I don't know why I didn't try this experiment sooner.

Oh, now I remember why: I don't like typing on my smartphone, and Blogger—the tool that I use to create my blog posts—isn't as user-friendly on a small screen.

But last Thursday, as I went to bed without any ideas for a Friday blog post, my mind turned to my upcoming trip to Costa Rica. I had already made the decision to leave my laptop at home, which made me think that for the two weeks that I would be in Central America, there would be no Brown Knowser blog posts.

Two weeks is a long time for me to go without blogging.

Now, I had never tried to write a blog post on my phone before. In the past, I've composed posts on tablets, which gave me more real estate in which to work, and I've also posted through Blogsy, which made using Blogger a bit easier on the tablet.

But for 99 percent of my blog posts, I've written on a laptop, which gives me full ease of access to the space I need to type (with a keyboard), add photos, and format the content where needed. A smartphone just doesn't compare.

My blogging environment on a laptop.

Smartphone environment.

As I was lying in bed, thinking about my trip and wondering what to do about blogging, and disappointed with myself for not having come up with a blog post for Friday, I decided to give writing a blog post on my phone a chance. I rolled over, onto my stomach, reached for my phone, and started brainstorming.

When I run out of ideas for blog posts, I often dig through old photographs for inspiration. And my Google Photos account holds a lot of memories from the past, including some scanned photos that I haven't yet touched—that is, I haven't edited them at all.

I scrolled through old, untouched photos, until my eyes fell on an old slide image that I had taken as an early experiment in exposure. It was a flower bed, full of tulips, where I had measured the light of the ground below the plants.

I quickly edited the photo to correct the washed-out result of the slide and added a bit more saturation and detail. But that was it.

If I had edited this photo on a bigger screen, I might have noticed some of the dust that was captured by the scanner, and would have edited the bits of debris out. But I couldn't see the dust on the image on my phone, so... lesson learned.

With the edited photo saved, I opened Blogger on my phone and started typing. It was a bit slower to write with only my thumbs and I was careful about checking for typos.

With the content written, I imported the photo into the body of the post. I added labels, as I do for every post, but because it was already after midnight, at that point, I didn't need to schedule the publishing. I just let it go live.

So last Friday's blog post was created and published entirely through my smartphone. Sure, it was a bit more labour-intensive, but the experiment worked.

When I have time to write, during my Costa Rica travels, I will do so. I won't have issues with dust on the photos and I've already proven that I can easily transfer images from my various cameras to my smartphone, edit them, and share them.

I can't promise that The Brown Knowser will continue regularly over my two weeks of vacation but I'll do my best.

Stay tuned.

Early Experiment

When I was starting out in my hobby of photography, I was always asking myself what if.

What if I shot from this angle? What if I slowed down my shutter speed and zoomed in with my lens at the same time? What if I... ?

I still like to experiment, and thanks to the digital age, I can do so at far less expense than in the time of 35mm film.

And in the digital age, I can take some of my experimental 35mm images and bring them to what I had originally envisioned. 

One spring day, in 1986, I set out to photograph the tulips near Dow's Lake, but I didn't just want to capture the flowers: I wanted to experiment with exposure.

What if I exposed for the earth under the flowers, rather than the flowers themselves? I imagined that the tulips would be somewhat blown out; that is, overexposed. 

But I also focused on the ground, itself, with the aperture wide open, which gave a very narrow depth of field. Before pressing the shutter release, I imagined an almost Impressionist style of image.

I wasn't off, but in the slide that I created, the colours and tones were dull, the contrast less dramatic than I wanted. It was a decent attempt but I had hoped for more.

Nearly 40 years later, I looked at that slide image again and asked myself, "what if?" What if I digitized that slide and applied some digital photo editing?

Well, what do you think?

I'll never stop asking myself that question, will never stop experimenting.

Happy Friday!

Back to the Old House

It entered my head as I was laying down to sleep, the other night. My mind dug through my memories and took me back to where I lived when my parents first moved from Montreal to Ottawa.

I could see our garden-home neighbourhood, off Bowhill Avenue, and the many pathways and backyard common spaces. I saw the multi-tenant parking garages and the multi-vehicle, outdoor parking spaces. And before I drifted to sleep, I wondered what the neighbourhood looked like now.

So I went back during my lunch break, yesterday.

I have many memories from childhood. I remember our neighbours and the kids my sisters and I used to play with. I remembered one friend and his tragic end, and shared that story several years ago. I straightened the facts in a subsequent post.

I looked through old photo albums, looking for any photos that showed our Bowhill house and hood. I came across a few, going back to 1968, when we first moved in. I have a photo of my sister, Holly, and me standing at the front door. The photographer can be made out, slightly, in the reflection of the window next to the door. I can't identify the person but it appears to be a woman who is not my mother.

I also have photos from 1969, sliding on my toboggan down the sloped lawn of our neighbours from across the street, the MacDonalds. I remember Colin, who was Holly's age, and his sister, Jane, who was even older. The twins, Robert and Roberta, were only about a year old, the same age as my younger sister, Jen.

On my return, yesterday, I saw the MacDonald's old house and that sloped lawn, covered with snow, and remembered that day of tobogganing.

The old MacDonald house, next to the parking garage. That slope seemed larger and steeper, then.

In 1970, my uncle and aunt, Richard and Wendy, came to visit. There's a picture of him holding Jen in front of the kitchen window, at the front of the house, with my head at the bottom-right of the frame. I also have a photo, from the same year, with a garden hose. I'm apparently washing cars but it looks like I gave Jen a shower, too.

The parking space was filled when I visited it, yesterday.

Looking at the neighbourhood, things hadn't really changed much. The doors had changed but the houses were the same. The parking garages now had gates: anyone could pull in when we lived there. We used to boost ourselves onto the rooves of the various parking garages and sometimes even rode our bikes on the flat surfaces.

I looked at my old house and remembered our next-door neighbours, the Thompsons. Paula, who was also Jen's age, would later become friends with DW, when they were in high-school together. I last saw Paula about six years ago. Sadly, she's no longer with us.

My old house, on the left; Paula's house, with the blue door.

After Paula's house, there was a gap between the units that led to an inner courtyard and some backyards. The next house, after the gap, was the home of Bernice and Jack: Bernice became friends with my mom and I have memories of visiting, and Bernice teaching me how to play "Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star" on her piano.

Their son, Greg, would later marry my mom after my parents split up. He's really the only father I've ever truly known.

Next door to Greg's folks was my friend, Charlie, who I've mentioned at the start of this post.

Now that I've been back to this old house, I've wondered about some of the other houses we've lived in, in Parkwood Hills. Two of the houses are very close to this one but I didn't feel like driving by them on this particular day. Maybe, when the snow is gone, I'll take another drive out this way.

Just for nostalgia.

Happy Thursday!

On a Winter's Night

Out of Shape

I have about two-and-a-half weeks to go before DW and I fly to Costa Rica and I am in probably the worst shape that I've been in in years. I'm hopeful that I can somewhat turn that around.

For the past month, I have been unable to lift any substantial weight because of my abdominal surgery. Just last Friday, I passed the four-week mark for taking it easy, and unfortunately, those four weeks happened during one of the worst times of year, diet-wise.

I don't have a great sweet tooth, in that I don't actively seek sugary foods. But when Christmas comes around, I have a tendency to load up on chocolates and other sweet treats, such as shortbread biscuits, marzipan, and egg nog.

We've also been doing home renovations, which involved DW and Kid 1 moving furniture to clear out areas where we were laying hardwood flooring. In the process, they buried my spin bike—something I thought I'd be able to use while I convalesced—behind desks and dressers.

So, this past weekend, after my four weeks of inactivity were finished, I was able to help, in earnest, with the renovations. That meant hauling wood, moving more furniture, and banging nails into the floorboards.

And that's when I realized that I was seriously out of shape.

We've still got a bit more wood laying to do (we didn't get as far as we had thought we'd get over the weekend) and some furniture to put back into place. With the snowstorm that is supposed to hit Ottawa this evening and into tomorrow, I'll hopefully get some shovelling in.

And with my spin bike finally uncovered, I'll start pedalling again.

But I've only got a couple of weeks to get myself back into shape. I'll spend time climbing up and down the stairs, which is something we'll do as we explore the jungle areas of the Costa Rican countryside. (La Fortuna, for example, has 500 steps down to the base of its famous waterfall and we'll need to carry ourselves back up on our return.

DW is worried for me but I'm hopeful. My legs haven't lost much strength and I've always been able to outwalk her. I've stopped eating sugary treats and we've been eating healthier, now that the holidays are behind us.

But two weeks isn't much time. Wish me luck.

The Faults In Our Floors

"Nope."

"No."

"Not that one."

"Absolutely not."

Or is it absolutely knot?

DW likes perfect pieces of wood, and for her, that means unblemished, creamy-honey-coloured slats.

I, on the other hand, love the little waves of different shading and the imperfections in the cut of a piece of hardwood flooring. I like a board that has character.

At the very start of our home-reno project, DW stated that she was hoping for perfect pieces of wood. "I don't like the imperfections," she said.

"But I'm full of imperfections and you love me," was my comeback.

"Precisely why I don't need any more imperfections in my life."

I pointed out that if we only chose what she thought were perfect pieces of wood, we'd blow through our pile of wood pretty quickly and would be left with more pieces of marked wood than we could hide in closets.

She saw my point but still claims veto power over pieces that she finds too knotty.

Or did she mean naughty?

"That one looks like a vagina," she said of a piece that I was admiring. Maybe that's why I was admiring it so much?

"That one looks like a squashed bug."

It's taking us longer to finish the hardwood flooring than we counted on. Perhaps, in addition to some tricky sections and some pieces that ended up warped, we're delayed by DW's overly discerning choices in wood?

The project continues.