Things you may spot at DFW Airpot

I left Dallas Thursday on a direct flight back to Belize. It is good to be home.  I had some time to spare at DFW Airport before the flight left, so I had a walk around Concourse D, the international concourse.  They have commissioned some very nice public art for the airport and I discovered that Concourse D is the permanent home of some really cool floor medallions.  The medallions, which are large at 20 feet in diameter, were each designed by a different Texas artist.  I took photos of all the ones I saw on my nearly 2 mile walk along the concourse and back to my gate.  The lighting was a challenge - glaring and reflective, but I think you will be able to get the idea.

Not my favorite, but fun never-the-less.

Linda Guy.  "Dance! Don't Walk"  2005

It was so cool to watch this toddler stagger around this one, stopping to place its (boy or girl? - I couldn't tell) hand on each of the blue hands before running to the next one.  I imagine the mom was happy to have her child so entertained while burning off some of that crazy kid energy.

Viola Delgado - Untitled, 2005

Couldn't find the artist or any information.

I'm not sure what this one is and it is the only one I couldn't find any information on.  I can see all sort of images in it ranging from animal totems to cityscapes.  What do you see?

Not its real title, but  I thought "Onion Rings" was fitting.

Jane Helslander "Floating in Space, a Waltz" 2005

This was the most difficult one to photograph.  I hope you can see the mockingbird on the fruit tree.  The Northern Mockingbird is the state bird of Texas.

Billy Hassell.  "Early Morning Flight". 2005

 I found this one very calming.

Ted Kincaid, Untitled, 2005

A lot going on in this one.

Beatrice Lebreton.  "Celebration"  2005

I wish I had taken the time to explore all the airport orange-colored 3-letter designations in the yellow rectangles on this game board.  You are supposed to be be able to get to DFW in the center from lots of other places.  

Pamela Nelson.  "Destination Game". 2005

Fantastic and fantastical horses in 3 colors - gold, blue, and red.

Richard Zapata.  "The Highest Power". 2005

My favorite is this very peaceful depiction of a cypress swamp.

Arthello Beck.  "Cypress Trees". 2005

 I also saw this:

Wilma Lingle.  "Airport Bathroom Selfie" 2022

The DFW website shows 2 other floor medallions that I didn't find and it doesn't show one of the ones above.  I'll have to do more exploring next time.  Which will be pretty soon.  My procedure is scheduled for May 16. 

Spring Colors in Dallas

I'm in Dallas for a few days, enjoying the gorgeous spring weather in between medical appointments.  I always stay at a hotel next to Bachman Lake City Park.   I enjoy walking around the lake and the location is fairly convenient to the University of Texas Southwestern (UTSW) Medical Clinics, which I where I come for healthcare that is not available in Belize.  Healthwise, everything looks good, but I do have to come back for a procedure on my left eye.  The vision in that eye has deteriorated in the last 6 months to the point that it gets hard for me to read or use the computer unless I make the font pretty large.  And the left eye image conflicts with what I see in my right eye, so it pretty much makes me crazy!  Problem diagnosed now and a simple(-ish) solution, if eye surgery can ever be called simple.  I'll come back to Dallas for surgery  and hopefully can get it scheduled before the weather in Texas gets super hot!  A few photos below to share the beauty of spring in Dallas.

Can you see the turtles on the log?  I also saw some very large fish in the water.  This is the shallow end of the lake where the stream comes in.  I can almost see the turtles from the window in my hotel room.

Texas is known for its roadside primroses - here are lakeside primroses.

These colors look like autumn!  I think this is a Japanese maple.

Lakeside flag irises.

A closer view.

The weather has been delightful - cool at night and low 70sF (~22C) as the daytime high.  Still, I will be happy to get back home on Thursday.

Buzzy, Buzzy

One of the Gumbo Limbo trees is in full bloom.  Not a very impressive sight, but the sound was stunning - when I walked under it, sounded like I was in a beehive!

Later on, multitudes of birds will come to feast on the young fruits and, later still, the mature seeds.

Still Hung Up on Red

Back in January while walking the dogs along a path that passes through the site where a little eco resort used to be, I heard a vigorous tap, tap, tapping from up in a dead tree.  Searching in the tree canopy,  I was able to spot a flash of red and saw a lineated woodpecker busily working on what I thought might be a nest hole.  It was too obscured by foliage to get a photo, but you can see that the chips had been flying!

Wood chips on the ground.

I walk the dogs this way a couple of times a week and heard the woodpecker at work on several more occasions, with more chips collecting on the ground.  Then nothing - not another speck of wood, not a sound - until early March.  In March I saw and heard lineated woodpeckers making a grand commotion whenever I would pass by with one of the dogs.  I assumed they had an active nest and were busy with their young.  Finally on March 24th I saw this:

Two little woodpecker heads sticking out of the nest hole!

And a little later that morning when walking dog number 2, I saw a little woodpecker on the other side of the tree.  So there are at least two woodpecker chicks, maybe three.

Search for the spot of the red crest.

They are not easy to see with the phone camera images when they are up so high, but they made lots of noise and some odd almost purring sounds.  They looked ready to leave the nest and sure enough, there was no sign of them after that day.  I think I saw them as they were getting ready to fly.   It was a real treat to see that the parents had successfully raised their young.

In other red news, the tomatoes are coming in fast and furious.  The bags are keeping would-be tomato eaters away long enough for the fruits to ripen on the vine.  There is nothing like a just picked ripe tomato with a little sprinkle of salt.

Tomatoes and salad greens fresh from the garden.

Too many tomatoes to eat, so I made some quick sauce that I will freeze for later.  

Two pints of tomato sauce.  

More red-on-the-wing in the form of a butterly.

Finally, a variable cattleheart butterfly sat still long enough for me to get a decent shot of it.  Look at those ruby red spots along its body.

And the final bit of red for today's post is the flower of the prickly pear cactus.  Some species of Opuntia develop fruits that are large enough to eat, but ours don't get much past this stage.  The hummingbirds and butterflies love this flower.

Prickly pear flower

That's all the red for now.  Wishing you a colorful day.

Bilimbi Jam

The bilimbi fruits are coming ripe fast and furious off our one little tree.  They are an unusual fruit - very tart and acidic like a pickle straight off the tree - with a delightfully crisp texture when raw.  I have been adding them to fish and chicken dishes where they provide some bright flavor similar to a squeeze of line or lemon.  Still, the bilimbis keep coming faster than we can eat them.  I looked up lots of recipes on line, mostly from recipe blogs of Goan and Keralan Indians.  The easiest recipe that would use the backlog of fruits is jam, so jam I made.  

The harvest.

Cut open, you can see the resemblance to carambola, aka starfruit. although the five lobes aren't ridged like starfruit.

Crispy, juice-filled flesh.

All together the harvest yielded a little more than 6 cups of sliced fruit.

The 2 quart measuring cup is three-quarters full.  The fruit smells of sliced green apples.

The recipes I saw all called for pre-boiling the fruit and discarding the water before boiling with sugar and water and a cinnamon stick for about 25 minutes.

The little cinnamon stick added tons of flavor.

I decided to use the immersion blender to make it smoother, but I did not strain it.

Four small jars of bilimbi jam.

The jam is really tasty!  It would go very well with a cheese plate or even served with lamb or duck.  More of a condiment than a sandwich jam, although I would happily spread it on toast.  In a few days, when we have some strong sunshine,  I will try making dried, salted wedges that are used in lots of Indian cuisines.

In other news, Dennis is able to do more and more and is feeling very well - so yay!  We had unusual late season cold front come through and the sea is frothing with energy from the strong winds that continue to blow.  The rainfall from the cold front gave us a respite from watering the vegetable garden - so also yay!

Red and Round

The Saharan Dust that others have blogged about (here, here, and here) has reached this hemisphere, making the sunrises very hazy and sunsets intense.  At least we don't have the muddy rain that fell in Spain, France, and England.

Sunrise on this cloudless but hazy morning.

It is hot (86F, 30C) and humid (74%) and the tomatoes are loving it!  Dennis tracked down seeds from plants bred to be heat and drought tolerant, about 15 varieties in all.  We got them set out in the garden a while back.  They are growing well, with no signs so far of nematodes, white flies, or leaf curl virus that were problems last year.

The tomato plants are staked and as soon as the fruits start showing any signs of color, I put mesh bags on them to protect them from the birds.

So far, the bags are doing their job.

First harvest - 2 Champions on the left and 2 Bella Rosa on the right.

We've already tried the first Bella Rosa and it was quite tasty.  More on tonight's menu.  Other varieties are larger.  My favorite - Black Krim - is one of the larger ones and will be some weeks yet before we see any fruits on it.

In other news, Dennis is doing well, but needs at least another week of minimal activity.  As you might imagine, his definition of minimal is not as stringent as mine, but he is being as good as he can be.  To avoid confusion - Dennis is not in the Red and Round category.  ;-)

Encouraging Road Trip

Dennis had an encouraging visit with his angiologist today in Dangriga.  He is healing nicely with just one more week off his feet before he can gradually ease back in to greater participation in daily life.  Blood work was improved, so there is an excellent possibility for preventative treatments in 3 to 4 months.  Still some issues that need followup; anemia  being the primary one.  With lighter hearts, we were able to enjoy the road trip home.  

We had hired a driver to take us from Independence (traveling from our home to Independence by boat) to Dangriga.  Upon leaving the doctor's office we noticed the gorgeous day.  I snapped the photos below from the van window as we made our way home.  

Citrus farm on the left.

More orange trees with Maya Mountains in the background.

Bougainvillea. 

Roadside vegetation.

Wish I knew what that plant with the fluffy pink flowers is.

Stann Creek.

Mayan village with beautiful plantings.

Hey look!  Another citrus farm with the Maya Mountains in the background.

Very tacky tourist trap, but with beautiful plantings.

More plantings in another Mayan village.

I think these are crepe myrtle trees blooming.

We left at 7am and got back home a little before 1pm.  Good to be home again, even after only a half day away.  

A Fraught Week

We are back at home after a harrowing week that involved emergency first aid and admission of Dennis to the Belize Healthcare Partners (BHCP) private hospital for 3 nights.  I will spare you the details, but here are the highlights. We had to get Dennis to a vascular surgeon/angiologist.  I should say THE vascular surgeon/angiologist because there is only one in all of Belize.  Many of the doctors in Belize are Cuban trained and are excellent; the angiologist is no exception.  Dennis and I flew up to Belize City as soon the angiologist was available - did I mention that this happened over a long holiday weekend?  Fortunately my emergency first aid held tight for the 2 days before she was back in the country.

Waiting our turn to take off.

Dennis saw the angiologist and she, having seen only 1 case of this particular condition back when she was a resident in Cuba, got him stabilized in her office and scheduled for admission at the same facility.  Which was a good thing, because she would not allow him to sit up at all for the next 24 hours and then only sit in bed with feet up for the next 2 days.  Once he was admitted, I had to fly back home to take care of the dogs and get someone to care for them for the next days before flying back up to Belize City first thing in the morning.

Quick flight back home for me the same day.

Barnie and Clove are guard dogs, and while they are sweet and loving with us, they tend to attack strangers or people they have taken a dislike to.  Fortunately one of our workers gets on well with the dogs and he was able to walk and feed them when I flew back up to Belize City.

Dennis got great care at BHCP.  The only complaint either of us has is the minimal level of communication, but I suppose that is the case in most hospitals.  At any rate, he was discharged with followup appointments with 3 different specialists because of confounding conditions that need to be addressed.  We came home by road, since I was unsure if Dennis could manage the steps to board the plane.  It was an enjoyable trip with a very personable and caring driver.  

Behind the sugar cane truck on the George Price Highway.

The first followup appointment is with the angiologist, who will assess Dennis's progress and determine if he needs further treatment, either from her or in the US where additional procedures may be available.  We only have to go to Dangriga, a 2 hour trip,  for that appointment, since she has clinic days at the public hospital there.  Much easier than going to Belize City, which would likely involve an overnight stay.

For now, we are home enjoying the company of Barnie and Clove and observing the flora and fauna of our paradise.

Adult yellow crowned hight heron.

Shell ginger.

The Coral Tree Cafe

The coral tree (Erythrina fusca) is in full bloom right now, and it is a busy place!  All the birds, from the small hummingbirds to the large Montezuma oropendolas seem to love it.  Even the insectivorous woodpeckers are drawn to it to feast on the flies, bees, and wasps that adore the flowers.  Here is the view of it from our back veranda.

This particular tree has orange flowers.

About 5 years ago, when the tree was only about 15 feet tall, and surrounded by taller, weedier trees, one of our workers pointed it out to me.  I had no idea it was there because it had never bloomed.  

It has a full canopy with lots of room to grow even more.  That's it behind the small banana plants.  You can see the tomatoes in our raised beds, plus some coconut palms.

So we cleared its competitors away to give it some space.  Two years later, it had a few blossoms, the next year it had more, and now, well - just look at it!  

Multi-trunked tree.

Fortunately, it can tolerate a high water table of brackish water, which is what we have here - most of our vegetables are in raised beds to keep their roots  happier.

A few spent blossoms on the ground.

I don't have a good photo of the inflorescence on the tree - they are way too high - but I do have a close-up of a single fallen blossom.

A very complex structure.  I think some insects get trapped in it.  

Hummingbirds swarm the tree in the early morning hours and then later on other birds come.  No photos of the woodpeckers or brown jays, but I did get some shots of Montezuma Oropendolas.

That's a Montezuma Oropendola in the center of the image with the blue patch on its face.

And here it is showing off its yellow tail.

Larger than an American crow, smaller than a raven, these oropendolas are the largest member of the New World Blackbird family.

For a few more weeks yet, the birds will feast at the Coral Tree Cafe.