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Bugs in Cuernavaca

20 April 2008 – 9:22 am
Grasshopper on the screen

I haven’t written a lot about bugs since we arrived in Cuernavaca, but the time has come.  But I have taken some pictures of a few of the many-legged friends that we’ve made since moving here.  These aren’t necessarily the most common bugs, but simply a few I’ve tried to photograph.

Of course, it’s not easy to take pictures of bugs with a cheap camera (actually, we got our camera for free - who’s complaining?), so the photos aren’t usually great quality.  A few I didn’t bother to upload at all.

Some bugs we have here are familiar in Canada too… such as potato bugs (woodlice), crickets, centipedes, snails and ants.  Of course, some of the ants here are supersized.  There’s grasshoppers, spiders and moths.  Some may be in Canada too, but were new to me.

The scorpion and the ant

One well known blight of Cuernavaca is the scorpion.  There are various kinds, some more venomous than others, and we’ve seen more than one kind in our house.  Here’s one fellow, and you can get an idea how big he is as compared to the ant (this is an average-sized ant, not a super-sized one).

Thankfully, we’ve only seen a few of these in our house.

In our last newsletter, I wrote a little about our adventures with scorpions and black widow spiders.

A black widow spider in our yard

 At one point we had quite a few black widows in our yard (and some in our house!) (when was that?  Oh yes, shortly before we called the exterminator!).  We’re thankful to the Lord that so far our kids were never stung or bitten, in spite of the fact that they play all over that yard quite a bit.

I got quite a few pictures of the black widows, but this one is my favourite.  You can see the tell-tale red "hourglass" on her belly.  They also usually have red on top.  We’ve gotten so we’re better able to recognize their webs, so that helps a lot.

And of course you won’t forget the vinegrillo that I came across - I haven’t seen many more of those.

Don’t get the impression that we’ve been constantly overrun by bugs.  Some of these we only saw once or twice.  But the safer bugs have provided hours of entertainment!  ;)  And if you wear your shoes and don’t stick your hand in dark corners, you’ll probably be fine.

Anyway, check out our little Bugs of Cuernavaca album.  If you think you know what one is, leave a comment!

Edit: Oops! Sorry, the photo album was password protected. It should be working now - try again!

And here’s just one more for the blog - this bug appears to be admiring himself in the bug-mirror…

Bug mirror

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By Jim | Posted in Mexico | Also tagged , , , , , , | Comments (0)

School Spring Party

14 March 2008 – 11:28 am

Here are a few shots of the spring party that Hannah and Nathanael had at Colegio del Bosque today - the last day of school before the spring break.

(Note: this is a fairly short video, but a fairly large file, so it may take a while to buffer on your computer).

 
icon for podpress  Spring party [1:56m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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By Jim | Posted in Family, Video Blogs | Also tagged | Comments (0)

Look out our windows (part 3)

18 March 2007 – 8:55 am

The windows of our house basically face out into our garden, so today you should be able to get a pretty good idea what it looks like.  Starting in our kitchen here, you can see our lime tree and some plants to the right, and our van and trailer to the left (covered over, you can’t really see them well).  Of course, with such a high window you can’t see most of the plants on the ground.  Just for the record, the curtains and blinds you see belong to our landlords.

Kitchen window

The other kitchen window

To the left you can see our other kitchen window, which doesn’t have a very inspiring view - just a wall.  But I included it to be fair.  If you look out at an angle, you can see a little more greenery.  Nice inspiring view while we do the dishes, don’t you agree?  Maybe we should paint a mural on there.

Moving on to the living room, we have a big window/sliding door combo dealy.  Basically, you can see our driveway.  Hannah and Nathanael’s scooters are backed up against the trailer.

Living room window and door

Living room window, view 2

To the right there is a more typical view out the window, since we’re often sitting on the couch.  Hey, if you’re going to look out our windows, you might as well have a good look, right?

Ok, finally we get to the master bedroom.  Those are vines you see in the middle (not sure how many of them are actually alive).

You can also see various other plants and flowers, the tall thing on the right grows chilies, and in the middle is a little lime tree.  Right outside the window is a raised terrace (is that what you call it?  "Terrace" makes it sound so fancy!).

Bedroom window

If you want a better view, click on the pictures above to see the full sized version in our Photo Gallery.  Except the second kitchen window - I didn’t bother with that one.  Just use the drop down menu on the top right to make the picture even bigger.

And remember, this is part of a series.  Look out our language school windows here, and the windows in the building where our church meets here.

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By Jim | Posted in Mexico | Also tagged | Comments (0)

Look out our windows (part 2)

23 February 2007 – 6:55 pm


This is part two of our series that started with the view out of our school windows.  Today you can have a look out of the windows at our church.  Excuse the use of the word “church” - I’m not talking about an official church building, but only the building where our local group of believers meets.  I think it’s actually a business of some sort during the week.

Now the view during the service is actually not that fantastic.  Far away to the left are the windows you see at the top.  You can see about as much as I can.  And the windows on the right are large, and run along the length of building, but they’re high up and we’re on a hill. So all I can see is the sky or these trees you see on the right.  I have no idea how tall those trees are, because I can never see the bottom of them.

Now to be fair, if you move around the room you can get a better view.  Go up some stairs and look out the window, and instead of sky you can see what’s in the photo below.  That’s a little more hopeful, isn’t it?  Click on it to see a close-up view in our Photo Gallery (you know how to do that, right?  Just click the “size” menu on the top right and choose the biggest size).

Church window

Finally, I’m going to cheat - this isn’t a window, but if you go outside the door and look out in the same direction, you get the view below.  Beautiful!  Click on it to get a better view.  Too bad I can only see those two trees most of the time…

Outside the church

I’m linking to Amanda’s continuing series that inspired these posts one more time, since she said we should all share.  :)

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By Jim | Posted in Mexico | Also tagged | Comments (2)

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