just passing through

Yesterday and today it has been dark and rainy.  For the past couple of weeks it has been hot, hotter than is normal for the month of August or September – kicking back the covers in the night type of heat.  The heat seems to have finally broken with the start of rainy season.   Generally we don’t have this type of warm air up here in the mountains except in February or March and the birds are loving it. The parrots are back from wherever they go in the winter months. This week they sat two by two up in the pines deciding their mates for this season and how they would get back into our attic to have their broods. And as of yesterday morning they were definitely back, squawking and chewing and probably doing their worst to our attic space.

In compensation, the show at the bird feeder at lunch has been great. This week I saw three robins. No photos, they stayed to far away from the feeder to catch them with my little 55-200 lens but I know I saw them and that is good enough for me. They come through here twice a year and stop over for 3 or 4 days each direction, so there is always next year. It is interesting that they used to do the same in Houston and I always watched for them there also, feeling pleasure and connection from catching their visits.

This year we have watched several newcomers to our feeder. We added a board below the feeder to put fresh orange slices and papaya pieces which the small birds seem to love. Yesterday I added pieces of pineapple that so far have been ignored. This fresh fruit, though, brought us a male and female (assuming) that are baby blue on the underside with ranges of turquoise to midnight blue on the wings. What I think is the males have dots of bright yellow on each wing. (sorry forgot you like to see…..)    

 

 

 

 

 

 

I make an assumption that this is a male (upper) and female (to the left) of the same family because they come together to feed, one will sit on an upper branch and watch, then they switch places…. rarely do you see birds of different families eating together at the feeder. These blue birds are very aggressive little buggers, we left a whole papaya (mamao as they are call here) on the veranda rail to ripen in the warm sun and before we knew it they had eaten the whole inside and left Camillo and I only the skins for our breakfast.

 

 

 

 

We have had squirrels, two big, one little and, of course, the parrots. The parrots usually come in groups of 3 or 4. Two at the feeder and the rest waiting patiently on the branches above. They scare away all of the other birds, then sit and daintily go through the seeds, greedily eating the sunflower seeds. They are very systematic - popping the seed and spitting the shell out on the ground. Maybe there is hope for our attic if they are this neat in their habits. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This year we have also had a very small, very black bird. I haven’t noted any differences that might distinguish male / female between the ones that come to the feeder. During the 5 visits or so that I’ve noticed, they seem to be the same bird.

We have also seen a small brown morning dove, a beige and turquoise bird with black eyes and one yellow breasted with black and white chipmunk like striped head.    We

also have routinely the big gray and brown forest pigeon and a small sparrow. We’ve really been enjoying our pre summer heat and dry and in no way look forward to the confinement of the rains to come…..

My Town Friday Shoot-out / Doors and windows

I looked back through all of my 25 blogs for the Friday Shoot – out because as I was looking for photos for Doors and Windows I just swore I had used some of these before.  I didn’t find any of the ones I had chosen for this week, BUT if you find one you have seen before – SORRY!

This week’s topic was easy for me.  Nova Friburgo is a place I have always taken photos of the interesting architecture.  In other towns we have visited, it is easier to take photos not crosshatched with telephone and electrical wires, or partially blocked by signs or traffic, but I do the best I can to see the best of what is here.  So - here are the doors and windows of Nova Friburgo.

Starting in 1819 when the king agreed to bring 350 + settlers from Switzerland here to farm in this area, Nova Friburgo has show a history as varied as its architecture.  Swiss, German, and Italians dominate the names of the families and make the faces and the building of this town a wide mix of features.  The houses have had a taste of Swiss / Italian with wood siding and wooden doors and windows with shutters.  The public buildings have a look of the classic colonial Portuguese, wooden windows with inset shutters and borders of stone or masonry, and on all there is a use of wrought iron, mostly made right here in Nova Friburgo, for security and style. 

    
There are just a few homes and buildings still standing that were built from the late 1800 until probably the early 50s. 
     
After that there was a boom in construction and a glut of cheaply made apartments and ‘sobre lojas’, apartments built above the stores downtown. 
     

These, to my eye, seem to not had any changes or maintenance since being built.  They are basically BASIC with no grace or even intended elegance.  Quite a contrast to those home built in the earlier era.

The downtown's stores (lojas) when closed up for the weekend lend a deserted look and the housing that is now under construction may never have doors and windows.  Climbing up the mountains are houses in different styles and levels of completion (or not) that foster that feeling of a town deserted.

     
    

As there are changes, new restaurants and upscale stores added to the downtown, there has been some removing of the colonial styled wooden windows and  new plate glass windows have started to show up. 

just for the fun of it and as an example of what I mean by elegance,  I threw in a photo a window in a Convent in Salvador. 

(Promised) Arts and Crafts of Minas Gerais – Tiradentes part 3

 
This area is know for its wood carved furniture and decorative items.
   
there are many items carved from wood then painted in bright colors.  the dolls above are made with heads from wood and skirts from paper Mache.  The motifs repeat over and over but the quality of the artwork and the pricing varies by a wide margin.  
   I  have seen these in most towns of Brasil that I have visited but I think they are actually made here.  These young ladies where made of ceramics, but there were also a few carved from wood.  It is amazing to me the variations in expressions that you see, haughty, gentle dreamer or flirty – the details front and back that create these moods are amazing.
   
    

A few weeks back The Friday Shoot out Gang’s theme was yard ornaments…. at that moment I didn’t have anything to post.  Now look at what is possible to have in your yard or on your porch!  and all in one place.  Aren’t they the best?
     
is a small town very close Tiradentes there were many very unusual things, statues made of bottle caps, kites of Paper Mache, 
bottle caps   paper Mache kites.

My Town Friday Shoot-out / Incongruous

incongruous definition in·con·gru·ous (in käŋ′groo əs, -kän′-) adjective not congruous; specif., lacking harmony or agreement; incompatible having inconsistent or inharmonious parts, elements, etc. not corresponding to what is right, proper, or reasonable; unsuitable; inappropriate.

This complete past week I have been in Salvador in the State of Bahia, Brasil. Today I travel home, returning to Rio and to Nova Friburgo on Saturday morning. I did not bring my computer but am using Camillo's. I find myself handicapped by this, I count on my external drive and my photo archives to bring you some photos that represent our topics when not at home or the world is not right.

Yes I cheat, all the photos I use in the shoot-out are mine but often not taken the week of the topic. After all we can't always count on sunny skies when we shoot 'outdoor food' or a family gathering when it is time to 'relax' at the local park.

To tell the real truth, I have been uncomfortable with this topic. My purpose, as I have explained at other times; my purpose in taking photos and showing them on this blog has been to convince myself of what beauty exists in Brasil. To show this topic would be to show the discordance, the inharmonious parts of Brasil that I find so uncomfortable. To walk on the street in one of the riches barrios in Rio, Ipanema, to step around the beggar sleeping wrapped in an old cardboard box, to stop and take a photo of this unpleasant site is just not within my comfort zone.

This week I have talked of the blight in the cities and the garbage on the street - these incongruous sites - so at odds with the beauty of the oceans, the clear blue of the sky and the beauty of the shoreline and the mountains - but I've not taken any photos of garbage on the beach, I just don't want to save this on disc.

Yesterday I walked north from the hotel with my little camera and the idea of taking photos of a couple of things I had seen from the bus the day before. I'd seen a house facing the sea - let me show you -

I only took this one photo. While taking the photo a woman stopped on the other side of the street and started to jester and yell at me. What was she saying? I think she was frightened and concerned that I was using my camera out on the street. I was less than a block from a walled army base. My back was to the ocean and it was empty of people, the sidewalk two hundred yards each direction was empty. I had felt safe, now I was filled with fear - what signs of danger was I missing?

I walked back to the hotel, looking over my shoulder every time I heard footsteps behind me. I got back to the hotel and ate a complete bag of chips....Damn, regression. I hate this feeling of fear of my surroundings. I had felt this way back 6 years ago when I first arrived and thought myself past it. I hate this feeling of the world being out of balance, of not being as I thought it, the feeling that I am incongruous - out of place in this country. I was proud that I had been out walking each day, not hiding in the hotel and now I will need to talk myself out of these feeling of fear again.

Brasil a country of contrasts; of religion and of deities; of the super rich and of grinding poverty; of the top private education and of those unable to read or to count; the mountains of granite and the mounds of garbage - incongruous in the sum of its parts -

("Jesus Christ is the Lord" - unknown art work intent)