Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Colorful Visitors and the Winds

In my first post from El Valle I was talking about the strong winds we get well last night they were so strong that they blew off part of the roof and this morning the winds have not let up so it should be an interesting day. Below is a few pictures I took the other day while enjoying my morning coffee on our porch. These colorful visitors were all around one of our orange tree's.




Sunday, January 18, 2015

Plant life in El Valle and Our New Home.

Hi everyone.
 I was talking in the last post about how lush the plant life is here in El Valle and it has to be seen to be believed. Below is a picture of a dead and live tree both covered in orchids, ferns, mosses and bromeliads planted by mother nature.


If I had to describe our rented house in one word it would be HUGE. It is 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms a sunroom, large open kitchen and a living room, dining area of about 30 feet by 24  feet with 18 foot ceilings. It has a dining table that seats 12 people and a bar that would seat 5 people. Below are a few pictures.




There are 3 covered porches with the largest being about 20x30 feet. The breeze blows through the 56 windows that are opened each morning and closed each night. It feels strange to have all our windows open each day because living in Canada you were lucky to have your windows open 7 times a year because it was either too cold or too hot. Here the weather is great and we are loving every bit of it.

Monday, January 5, 2015

Happy New Year and A New Life in El Valle, Panama

HAPPY YEARS EVERYONE
 My Partner Gregg and I have now officially retired and moved to El Valle, Panama.
Never again will we have to endure a Canadian winter. Here in El Valle, Panama we have 2 seasons wet and dry. The average daily temperature is about 27 and the night time temperatures average 22 and it is like this year round. The one thing that is really different is the winds we get here are crazy. Last night they were blowing so hard they were blowing furniture across the patio. The town of EL Valle is in the crater of a dormant volcano. It is the second biggest inhabited crater in the world. Located about 2 1/2 hours from Panama City at an elevation of about 600 meters and with a population of 5,000 this tropical wonder has to be seen to be believed. The town is surrounded by lush green mountains and there is vegetation everywhere you look. Every tree that you look at is covered with orchids, bromeliads and ferns planted by mother nature.
This year my blog will have lots of pictures from here and some tatting here and there.

This is the view that we get to look at each morning as we have our breakfast on one of the covered patio's. Below is a scan of the snowflakes that I made and gave to friends this Christmas. This is a Celtic Snowflake and the pattern is from Ruth Perry. Thank you Ruth these made impressive gifts for my friends and they loved them.