Shrubs, Iguanas, and Volcano - OH MY! A Trip to Arenal

Wow it has been an eventful last month or two - in which I have not written much!  I'm a bit over due...so now I will finally fill y'all in with 3 posts on the last 2 months.  :)

About a month ago we went to a live volcano, Arenal, with the Sears family.  We drove together in a big mini bus and had a great time!  On the way there, we stopped at a cool place that had shaped shrubs and stuff.

Also, for lunch, we ate at this amazing place........there were iguanas all over!  Outside the little restaurant, the reptiles just sat around - around 15 of them!  They were really calm too, and not too scared of people.....

This last one is actually licking my toe!  I was trying to take a picture of him by my foot.....then he turned around and started nibbling my toe!  Definitely not shy.....just goes up and licks a stranger.  :)

.........................................

After the 3 hour drive, everyone was very excited to get there and see the volcano!

(Our hotel was 'Los Lagos')

  Our two 'cabin's were right next to each other, and pools just a few steps away across the little roadway.  We were literally at the base of the volcano.  The pools were hot springs heated by the volcano!  It was really awesome, and each of the many little pools were along a path, in little corners and under tropical trees........all of them were different temperatures so you could choose whatever you wanted.  Some of them were really cold.....others steaming, literally!  In two of the main big ones were water slides!  This one was especially fast, and had a dark tunnel at the end!

The four girls.... me, Annie, Annabel, and Michel.  :)

It was a great trip.

                 ~Caroline M.   <3 p="">

Hummingbirds - Article Review

Hummingbirds

by Caroline Meek

March 21, 2013

On the article from the La Paz Waterfall Gardens, Hummingbirds

and other sources.

“A flash of harmless lightning,

A mist of rainbow dyes,

The burnished sunbeams brightening

From flower to flower he flies.”

~John Bannister Tabb

The hummingbird is a bird loved by many.  It is hard not to be captivated by this ‘flying jewel’ when he whizzes through the air - just like lightning!  There are many things that make hummers unique and totally different from the rest of the bird population - this bird is almost unbelievable.  For the smallest bird on Earth, it certainly has a lot of character.  

One of the first things one would notice first about a hummingbird is its size.  From tip to tail, the largest hummingbird is merely 8 inches long, weighing in at about 20 grams (about the same as a new pencil) .  Even the babies of this species, called the Giant Hummingbirds, are larger than other types.  The smallest species, called the Bee Hummingbird of Cuba, is in fact almost as small as a bee.   With only 2.25 inches to its name, this species is not only the smallest bird, but also the smallest vertebrate!  It weighs only about 2.2 grams, no more than a U.S dime.  Just imagine.  It seems almost impossible that a creature that small can even exist!  The most common type, the Ruby-throated hummingbird, what most people are familiar with, is about 3 ½ inches - 3 grams.  Just for reference, it takes over 450 grams to make a single pound.  Another interesting fact: in some species, like the Ruby-throated hummers, the females can be about 20% larger than the males!  Males and females are usually told apart by the differences in their throat colors and tail feathers.

 In many hummingbirds, as much as 30% of their weight is in their flight muscles.  These muscles definitely deserve some extra concentration, for the flight of the hummers in mind-blowing.  With more range than any other aviary, the hummingbird is capable of flying forward, sideways, straight up and down - it can hover in one spot, fly backwards, and for short distances, even fly upside down!  Hummers are the only birds that can fly both forwards and backwards on their own power.  This incredible capability is due to the movement of their wings, a ball and socket joint, which can be rotated in a circle - 180 degrees in all directions.  In flight, hummingbirds do not flap up and down, but rather in an oval-like way.  When they are hovering, the motion resembles a figure-eight.  In this way, they not only get power from the down stroke, like other birds, but also from the push up.  Their wings seem very fragile, almost paper-thin really, but they are actually quite sturdy; they hold up under the immense pressure of the average 70 beats per minute.  If you can grasp this, in a dive, the translucent wings can go up to 200 per second!  The hummingbird can reach over 50 miles per hour, but the normal speed is ‘just’ 25 mph.  To keep up with this lightning fast wings, the heart pumps furiously.  A hummer’s heart rate can be as high as 1,260 beats per minute.  

In order to compensate for the huge amount of energy being spent, the hummingbird must eat a lot.  And not only a lot, but also very frequently.  A hummingbird can actually starve to death in a matter of hours!   For this reason, they eat about 5-8 times an hour, each being at the most about a minute.  That’s like having a snack break every ten minutes!  The flowers hummingbirds visit have a few specific necessary qualifications.  First, they are always brightly colored, usually red.  Another ingenious thing is that they prefer the flowers to have no place to land.  This may seem strange, but the reason is simple - it cuts off competition from other birds, because the hummingbird is the only one that can hover!   The shape of the flower matters too - hummingbirds prefer flowers shaped like trumpets - long and tubular.  These thin flowers are easy for them to access - their bills are about as long as their bodies, although the length and shape varies for different species.  Their tongues happen to be twice as long as their bill!  Most tongues are about one or two inches long.  Flower nectar is not a hummer’s only food though.  In addition to the sugar, insects are consumed as a source of protein in order to build their muscles.  Hummingbirds take in at least their whole body weight each day to survive - 6,000 to 12,000 calories in all.   Territory is also extremely important.  Hummers have incredible memory (five times larger than that of a songbird), and can remember flowers they fed off of years ago, and also various sources along their paths of migration.  Every important flower in their territory is filed in their brains - they even remember how long it takes for the nectar to refill in certain flowers!  Hummingbird will defend their area fiercely, fighting birds larger than they, and also other birds of their own species, diving and sometimes even stabbing the other with their bills!  Some hummingbirds do migrate - many over extreme distances.  One of the most impressive is the course the Rufous Hummingbird takes from Alaska to Mexico, sometimes over 10,000 miles.   Also the Ruby throated - flying 500 miles over the Gulf of Mexico  - non-stop, without food or rest.

One very odd thing about the hummingbird is that they can often be found sleeping upside down!  This is because when they sleep, they perch on a branch and go into a state similar to hibernation, called torpor, where their heart slows considerable and they use much less energy.  Otherwise, they would starve during the night for lack of food for energy.  In the morning, everything goes back to the normal lightning fast pace, but in the night, their grasp on the branch is sometimes loosened, and they wake up in the morning upside down!

Did you know, that hummingbirds feet are very weak?  They cannot even walk; perching and a few short hops is all they can manage.  Also surprising, hummingbirds do not have a call; they just make small chirps and throat sounds.  Hummingbirds have long had a place in the fantasy world - numerous stories and legends have been told of them.  Perhaps the ancient people were also attracted to the magical sense of them, and how they were so unique and unlike any other creature.  Many of these relate the hummingbird to rainbows and the sun.  Some say the bird got its colors by flying through a rainbow.  A Mayan myth believes that the hummingbird is the sun come down to earth.  In whichever case, the hummingbird is always seen as mysterious and lovely; a symbol of good or healing.  It is interesting to see what people thought of them so long ago.

There are many species of hummingbirds - it is the bird with the second most species in the family - around 343.  For some reason, these birds are found exclusively in the American continents.  Only 16 species breed in the U.S. - most of them live in tropical places - such as Colombia and Ecuador, where there are many flowers and insects.  In Costa Rica, 57 species exist.  At the hummingbird garden in La Paz, Costa Rica, 26 of these can be seen - it is the largest hummingbird garden there.  I was amazed and glad to find this great article on the La Paz website!  It is a great article with almost all the information I needed to review the hummingbirds, which are a very broad subject.  To me, it also has a personal side to it; we have actually been to La Paz, and I have seen their Hummingbird garden - it is amazing!  You almost want to duck because the hummingbirds are whizzing by your head so fast.  And you can stand just a foot away from the feeder as the dart in and out.  One almost touched me!  I hope this has been an interesting article review  - I am just amazed at these birds and what they can do.  To me, all nature is unique in itself.  But the hummingbird is a thing that goes above and beyond.  It is absolutely astounding - it is like no other.

~Caroline Meek

Articles reviewed:

http://www.waterfallgardens.com/hummingbirds.php

http://howtoenjoyhummingbirds.com/

When Clouds Hide the Sun (A Bright Promise Undiscovered) - by Caroline Meek

When Clouds Hide the Sun  (A Bright Promise Undiscovered)
by Caroline Meek - 3/3/13

A shade of color, undetected,
before the light shines through.
A certain ray of light unseen
lurks in front of you.

Not all rainbows have bright colors,
and clouds can hide the sun.
But swift can come the realization
once the happening has begun.  

Before the reflection can be seen,
the waters must be found.
And often you can only find them
when you look up from this ground.

You have to look past this storm
to the faint outline of a star.
A gleaming beam of light that shows you
where to go and who you are.


................................................

What does this poem mean to you?? Are there any parallels that stick out?

Dr. Seuss Day!

Happy Dr. Seuss Day!  Today is that famous man's birthday - his real name is Theodor Seuss Geisel.   He published 46 children's books and many other poems and things.  Today, to remember him, I have decided to post some of the numerous and random quotes by him.  Some of them, which may seem senseless, also have more than the surface, and a deeper meaning.  So enjoy these quotes from Dr. Seuss!

• “Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.”

• “You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.”

• “Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.”

• “Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.”

• “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.”

• “Why fit in when you were born to stand out?”

• “Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!”

• “If things start happening, don't worry, don't stew, just go right along and you'll start happening too.”

• “Today was good. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one.”

• “Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before! What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas...perhaps...means a little bit more!”

• “They say I'm old-fashioned, and live in the past, but sometimes I think progress progresses too fast!”

• “When beetles fight these battles in a bottle with their paddles and the bottle's on a poodle and the poodle's eating noodles......they call this a muddle puddle tweetle poodle beetle noodle bottle paddle battle.”

• “Be awesome! Be a book nut!”

• “ASAP. Whatever that means. It must mean, 'Act swiftly awesome pacyderm!”

• “Think and wonder, wonder and think.”

• “I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees. I speak for the trees for the trees have no tongues.”

• “There's no limit to how much you'll know, depending how far beyond zebra you go.”

• “The storm starts, when the drops start dropping

When the drops stop dropping then the storm starts stopping.”

• “Poor empty pants

With nobody inside them.”

• “If you'd never been born, then you might be an Isn't!

An Isn't has no fun at all. No, he disn't.”

• “How did it get so late so soon? It's night before it's afternoon. December is here before it's June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?”

• “Words and pictures are yin and yang. Married, they produce a progeny more interesting than either parent.”

• “Just tell yourself, Duckie, you're real quite lucky.”

• “My alphabet starts with this letter called yuzz. It s the letter I use to spell yuzz a ma tuzz. You ll be sort of surprised what there is to be found once you go beyond Z and start poking around ”

• “I do not like green eggs and ham I do not like them Sam-I-Am.”

• “It all began with a shoe on the wall. A shoe on the wall shouldn't be there at all.”

• “Horton, the kangaroo has sent Vlad!'

Vlad? I know two Vlads. One is a cute little bunny that brings me cookies. The other is bad Vlad. Which Vlad?'
Which one do you think?'
Bad Vlad?'
Good call.” 

• “You have to be a speedy reader because there’s so so much to read.”

• “I meant what I said and I said what I meant.”

• “To the world you may be one person; but to one person you may be the world.”

• “My shoe is off. My foot is cold. I have a bird I like to hold.”

• “Gray day. Everything is gray. I watch. But nothing moves today.”

• “It is better to know how to learn than to know.”

• “I said, "I do not fear those pants with nobody inside them." I said, and said, and said those words. I said them but I lied them. ”

• “You can find magic

wherever you look.
Sit back and relax,
all you need is a book.” 

• “And what would you do if you met a jibboo?”

• “My trouble was I had a mind but I couldn't make it up!”

• “This book is to be read in bed.”

• “We're all a little weird, and when we find someone who's weirdness is comparable with each others weirdness. We fall in a mutual weirdness and we call it love!”

• “I box in yellow Gox box socks.”

• “Teeth are always in style.”

• “If I were invited to a dinner party with my characters, I wouldn't show up.”

• “The more you read, the more things you will know.”

• “The words in this book are all phooey. When you say them, your lips will make slips and back flips and your tongue may end up in Saint Looey!”

• “Through three cheese trees three free fleas flew. While these fleas flew, freezy breeze blew. Freezy breeze made these three trees freeze. Freezy trees made these trees' cheese freeze. That's what made these three free fleas sneeze.”

• “The news just came in from the County of Keck

That a very small bug by the name of Van Vleck
Is yawning so wide you can look down his neck.
This may not seem very important, I know, but it
Is, so I'm bothering telling you so.” 

• “Sometimes you will never know the value of something,until it becomes a memory.”

• • “FICTION IS MY ADDICTION!!”

• “Fill your house with stacks of books, in all the crannies and all the nooks.”

• “Now, the Star-Belly Sneetches had bellies with stars. The Plain-Belly Sneetches had none upon thars.”

• “Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.”

• “Today I shall behave, as if this is the day I will be remembered.”

• “Remember me and smile, for it's better to forget than to remember me and cry.”

I hope these made you smile. Celebrate Read Across America Day Today!!!!!

Books are AWESOME!!

~Caroline Meek

Papaya - the Toucan Can! A Trip to La Paz

What can the Toucan do?  The Toucan can.....eat a bucket load of papaya.  The Toucan can......dump that same papaya (in digested form) on the head of some poor person who only entered that cage to observe the Toucan, not to be immersed in it.  In short, the Toucan can ruin a good hoodie.  Or at least get it pretty nasty.

You may be wondering why I sound like an expert of the amazing abilities on the Toucan.  Could it possibly be that I have some experience in this field?  Maybe.  Last Saturday, we went to LaPaz - a beautiful waterfall park, with a butterfly garden and much, much, more........

Our trip started with a 2 hour ride up the mountains in 2 vans full of most of the 1st trimester students from ILE (the Spanish school).  In a car full of talking and lots of fun, Annie and I worked on friendship bracelets, talked to our neighbors, and I even tried to read a bit of the Hunger Games in Spanish.  Didn't get very far.  About an hour into it, we all stopped at a little restaurant that had a bathroom and a beautiful garden across the road.  We were served some great bread and an incredible strawberry shake!!  We got about 15 minutes to explore the little area and stretch our legs.  A part of the trail went down out of the garden into the trees that were right there and went in a little arc till it came back into the open - the trees were amazing!!  There was this huge plant......with giant leaves that stretched way over my head - probably like 15 feet tall?!  Back in the garden, after going up the very steep (not to mention slightly wet) and narrow trail, we were all a little cold, because the air was significantly different - colder and cleaner - up so high.  Luckily I had brought along my hoodie.  :)  We found this huge plant with leaves that were almost 4 feet long!  Then we got back on the bus for another 45 minutes.

First stop was the bird cages - bright little birds that flitted around almost too fast to be seen, to big turkey-like ones that perch on the railing or right on the walkway.  You were in the cage with them - among them - it was awesome!  At first it was a bit misty, and even rained a bit, but eventually it all cleared up.  There was this one small turquoise bird that I saw a ways away that was just beautiful.  After walking around for a bit, we went through the gate and chains that hung down to the ground to keep the birds in.  A little section right off the open area was the toucan cage.  I just love toucans!  They are so bright, and their big beaks are amazing!  Anyway, the trainer there would call them and they would come down and sit right on our arm!  Or head.  :)

 

I know that you might be thinking that you know what I'm about to say happened next.  Nope.  Wrong.  Next, we safely left the toucan cage without any mishap, except a few times we got a scare by realizing we were standing directly under a branch on which a toucan or two perched heavily over our heads.  We walked a while on the beautiful path, till we came to the Butterfly house.  We had come here once 10 years ago when we were here before (most of the rest is new), and it is incredible.

You are surrounded by butterflies of all different colors and sizes. They soar above you, and sometimes even land on your head or arm!!  There are little feeding bowls all around that they all come to......it was amazing.

Next - probably my favorites.  The Hummingbirds.  It literally felt like they were almost touching you as they zoomed right past your ear!  I could hear them making little chirping sounds, and even felt the wind a few times as they rushed by.   My instinct was to duck every time one went past - for fear of getting poked!  But they of course never collided with anything.  

I could stand two feet away from the feeders, and within seconds hummingbirds would be fluttering by the feeder, darting in and out, or just sitting on the edge.   Here are some more pictures, along with some interesting facts on those amazing birds!!!!

 

We also got to see some oxen, and the little kids go to ride in the cart for a bit!  Then we entered the woods on a trail that went to the waterfalls - a lot of stairs.  The waterfalls were amazing too.  Have you ever stared at a waterfall for at least 15 seconds, then looked at the surrounding cliffs?  If you ever do, you experience the optical illusion that the cliffs is shifting upwards!!  It is so weird!  We walked over trails that soaked our shoes, and on bridges than went over the rivers that came from the falls.  At one point, there was a place where the river ran straight off the cliff into another waterfall, and we saw it from the top!  I love waterfalls.  

After catching the van back to the front of the 'park', everyone split up to wander around and look at various things - we revisited the Toucan cage.  

Sadly, I was the last one out of the cage after we had watched them for a few minutes - the moment I had shut the gate behind me one of those beautiful birds dropped its lunch on me.  :P  Yuck.

Anyway, La Paz was amazing!  I loved all the different animals, and especially the beautiful waterfalls.  It is incredible all the differences each part and place of the Earth has, and how it can vary so much!!  Here are some more pictures.

beautiful flowers!!!!!!!!!!

hello parrot!

an albino squirrel!

there was a frog cage - with poisonous frogs.  Also some frog eggs just sitting on a leaf!

macaws

the oxen

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Missing everyone!

                 ~Caroline Meek

Racing Clouds - by Caroline

Racing Clouds
by Caroline (9/30/12)

Racing clouds,
Racing wind,
Chasing waves,
and then-
Gliding glass,
Roaring noise,
Spraying splash,
then still-
No noise,
No splash,
All still,
And all glass.
But we keep
chasing waves,
racing wind,
and racing clouds,
flying free,
till the end.