Keith's Panamanian Travel Ramble

Hello again from beautiful Panama,

We awoke today to the nicest day so far on our trip.  Now that’s not to say that the weather as been bad but today was just a little better.  The low flying billowing white cumulus clouds that have chased each other in a never-ending race to the Pacific were gone and they stayed gone for the day.  The temperature is up a bit, probably to the high 20sC and the constant breezes were more gentle than normal.

Our neighbor, Brent, has asked me to take a few pictures of his still in progress but almost finished Panamanian rehab, to be used on the Panama Canada Realty website (check out the link at the bottom of the right column of this page under Businesses we Support) as a rental so we headed over to the neat little white house, about five minutes from where we are staying.  The inside is not quite finished and Brent will be back here in March to actually use the house for the first time.  Here are a couple of shots of the outside.  If you are looking for a place to stay…

On the way home, we drove down a side road and found a magnificent example of what looks to me to be an“old money” estate.  The property was large and the house massive.  I would characterize the style of the house as a kind of Mediterranean Tudor.  The expansive gardens were manicured to a tee and nothing seemed out-of-place.  Now this is my idea of a nice little summer cabin!  What do you think?

When we got home this afternoon, there was a scrap going on at our humming-bird feeder.  There was an empty feeder here outside our dining room window and we have trying varying combinations of sweet stuff and water to attract the humming-birds.  They don’t like pancake syrup and water!  Now they know it is here as you see them coming to check it out but after a quick taste they leave.  It’s like they think that if there are people around the house, the feeder should be full.  Each visit is accompanied by a chirp, as they leave as if to thank us for filling the feeder.  Finally, we found out that the magic combination is one part sugar to four parts water and you have to warm the water to make sure all the sugar dissolves.  Picky, picky!  So once we had the right formulation, more hummingbirds came and they would stay longer.  But back to the scrap.  There is one bird, the smallest one, who seems to think the feeder is his own private domain.  He will allow only one other bird to feed with him, maybe he is trying to impress his girlfriend.  He keeps a close eye on the feeder and when another bird comes too close, he puts the run on them.  It’s funny to see the caution the other birds exercise when they approach the feeder to be sure the feisty little one is not around to give them trouble.