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A Day in the Yard

by Terry Sovil

Fortunate? I think so. Life in the corporate world in Minneapolis followed by more corporate work in Los Angeles makes my time in Manzanillo cherished. I haven't been here a full year so my big city corporate pace in trying to get a new business going hasn't slowed too much. Still the culture here seems to enforce some down time every day.

There is so much here to see and appreciate. The diving is some of the best I've seen anywhere plus the plants, the birds, the iguanas, crabs, trees, butterflies, toads, lizards, bugs and the timeless ocean. I'm fortunate to be next to an empty lot to the north and a huge empty area to the east. There are critters aplenty.

My fascination wasn't so great with scorpions. The empty lots seemed to feed a steady stream of visitors that crept indoors. A serious DIY fumigation program helped fix that in short order but we did see a huge variety of scorpions in terms of size and color. We learned a lot about scorpions. Interesting in their own way but something about them makes me want to shake my shoes and clothing with regularity.

We have seen a huge variety of animals including stray dogs. For some reason the strays seem to fight the local, resident packs at night; creating what sounds like a horrific dog war on the streets of Privada Los Naranjos. In the morning when I open the big gate there are usually piles of reminders strewn in the drive and the sidewalk. While not pleasant at least I'm out cleaning the streets and helping the folks get to the church next door without stepping in doggie land mines.

Just to take a breather I pulled the camera out today and kept it close at hand. It was a good and rewarding day as we had our share of special guests. I did get some night-time photos of a raccoon that visited. They didn't turn out well but the raccoon was pretty entertaining to watch. I growled at it and it growled back. Not sure that's a good sign.

A horse came wandering in to eat the grass. It was a beautiful, well-maintained horse with a good weight, unsure of the sex. I liked the horse and was hoping it would stick around so I could name it RANDY, but RANDY got spooked and ran away before I could get him a carrot or anything.

We have new hummingbird feeders and they are beginning to attract some of those fascinating little creatures that can hover. We see black and green iguanas with great regularity. I've found they are on the move most days around 3 pm. There were 3 in the yard shortly after RANDY, the horse, left.

There was a woodpecker in a coconut palm most concerned with a black iguana that crawled into its hole. The woodpecker finally won that battle and got his home back. We have a hybrid black/green iguana that seems to live in the handle of the wheelbarrow and in close proximity to it. It made some interesting photos for sure. The ants here come in large numbers and sometimes their night time missions create small ant super highways that actually wear away vegetation and leave a nice path to and from their destinations. It is awesome to watch them on the march.

We have several coconut palms and they always seem to be sprouting and creating new coconuts that have to be cut down before they fall and create havoc with a windshield or someone's head. But the blooms attract insects including those big black wasps that like the sweet nectar. Fascinating to watch them grow and mature.

Manzanillo residents are some of the most fortunate people around. Stop and enjoy what you might otherwise miss. We remember moments, not days.