Close Encounter with Automeris IO Moth Caterpillar?

This afternoon while waiting for my doggie, Taco, to "take care of his business" I decided to pluck a few bromeliad type plants to propogate a few more.  I managed to get two or three planted without any problems.  When I reached to grab one last piece to transplant I immediately felt a very strong, nasty stinging sensation on top of my left hand.  I searched the plant and quickly discovered a brightly colored large caterpillar.  The critter (seen attached photo of the culprit) was definitely very pretty, but I knew it was also very deadly!  One of my fears of Costa Rica had come true.  I had been careful thus far to avoid the multitude of scorpions, spiders, and other unknown insects successfully, but today my luck came to an end.

Several months ago I had read about the beautiful, but toxic caterpillars of Costa Rica.  I had promised myself that I would carefully avoid any encounters with these beautiful critters at all cost.  I had read about how caterpillar stings could easily disable a person for one or two days....much worse damage than any old nasty scorpion bite.

Immediately after being bitten I headed back to the house to scour the Internet for advice on how to minimize the effects of the toxins.  The first thing I did was grab a few pieces of tape to apply repeatedly over the area that had been stung.  Supposedly, this would help remove the stingers.  Next, I washed the area with soap and water.  I then headed for the freezer for an ice pack that was applied for 20 minutes or so.   The last step was to make a paste of baking soda and water and liberally apply over the area.

Fortunately, I survived the sting, however, a large vase we had purchased a couple of years ago became collateral damage of my close encounter with nature.  My hubby had been cleaning floors and had moved the vase near the front door while I was outside getting stung.  As I hurriedly opened the front door to seek relief from my potential fatal wound, the vase fell over and broke into a hundred pieces.

At least I have survived and lived to fell about my first war wound with one of Mother Nature's beautiful, but deadly Costa Rican creatures.

Interesting Facts About Costa Rica

http://thecostaricanews.com/interesting-costa-rica-facts/16916

The above link has a whole list of interesting facts about Costa Rica.  I soon realized that there were a whole bunch of insects here, but I never would have imagined that 750,000 or so different types of critters!

Shifting Patterns

There have been many adjustments made since we moved to Costa Rica.  Most of the changes have infinitely improved our lives.  For example, the lack of fast food restaurants, processed foods, and high cost of meat have encouraged us to consume a lot more fresh fruits and vegetables, which are abundant and cheap.
Another wonderful new, cost effective shopping option is to call a taxi to deliver items from town that we may have forgotten buy at the store.  Just yesterday I was getting ready to prepare some chicken and realized I needed a specific ingredient to coat the chicken in before cooking it.  I called up our trusty taxi driver and within 15 minutes he had dispatched the ingredient from the supermarket with only a $3.00 delivery fee.   Now that is what I call "sweet!"  In my former life I would have been trying to figure out some other recipe or find and alternative ingredient for the meal.
I have really learned to rely on the Internet to find innovative and wonderful new recipes to try incorporating all the local produce and products.  Due to the nice cool evenings in Atenas, I often prepare vegetable based soups for us for supper.
My dad and I are also excited to discover that we can easily grow tomatillos, serranos, and even peas.  Okay, so our first bounty of peas has only yielded about 20 or so pea pods, but it is a start.  We also have Jamaica plants doing really well and we hope they will soon start blooming so we can dry the flowers to make one of our favorite drinks, jamaica tea served very cold with just a hint of sweetness.

Birds, Bees, and Butterflies

Birds, Bees, and Butterflies

One of the blessings of living in Costa Rica is the extensive variety of birds.  I think I read somewhere that there are approximately 825 species of birds throughout the country.  Unfortunately, some of those birds have "bird brains" when it comes to figuring out how to avoid flying into windows at full speed.  In the last week alone, three yellow mountain warblers (at least that is what I think they are) have banged into our windows and landed feet up on our tile floor.  Thankfully, all three just endured foggy brain syndrome, and intense migraines from the hit each one of them took.  I picked each one up and massaged them back to their senses.  I have attached pictures of two of the victims of dangerous flight patterns.

My husband suffers from arthiritis in his hands (at least that is the excuse I have heard used for not finishing planting a dozen plants we bought over a month ago).  Our trusty, multi-talented friend,  Julio, suggested trying bee stings to help relieve the symptoms since he claims the bee stings did miracles for his arthiritis.  Yesterday afternoon Julio showed up with a bag of live bees to perform the treatment on my hubby's hand.  Before the experiment began, I asked my hubby if he was allergic to bees to which he flippantly responded, "don't know, but I guess we will find out soon."  I then proceeded to verify that his life insurance policy was paid up and got the telephone number for the ambulance from Julio's trusty assistant, a local handyman!  After the first bee was extracted from the bag and left his stinger in one of the knuckles, a small area of redness appeared around the sting area.  I asked Julio if the area looked normal after a sting.  He said "si" and Dr Handyman chimed in his second expert opinion of "si" as well.  Ok, now I felt so much better!  The next morning my hubby woke up with swollen knuckles and had a dizzy and nausea spell, which he immediately attributed to the bees.  We applied some ice to his knuckles, and it seems like he is going to live even though we have to wait a week to see if the stings actually relieve the arthiritis.

One of my favorite daily routines is to go outside and see how all of our flowers and plants are growing.  We have an abundance of butterlies of all varieties visit the zinnias and lantana plants daily.  I spent just a few minutes taking the attached pictures of some of the beauties from our yard.

One of our neighbors needed help making cookies the other day so I volunteered to go help.  After we sampled the cookies we went to walk around her patio.  We saw some branches being rustled around below us.  Upon further inspection we noticed a bunch of white faced monkeys bouncing from limb to limb.  Wow!  Speaking of baked goods, I am over the moon to have found a new stand at our local Friday market that sells fresh baked bagels!  Life is good.