August 23, 2011. I'm a novice birder, so I don't have great confidence in my bird identification skills (especially birds I have never seen before), and I have no one here to confirm my id, but I think we have a flock of Sooty-headed Bulbuls that visit the grounds of our apartment compound. This is a video I took on August 20, 2011. The video quality is not great, but you can hear the Bulbuls. The yellow-orange vent was easily visible thanks to my snazzy new binoculars. I wish there was a Birding by Ear CD for Birds of Indonesia.
Monday, August 22, 2011
Batik
August 23, 2011. This blogging seems pretty easy. It is Tuesday, August 23, 2011, although the blog has it as August 22. I've met a tailor here. Her name is Yana. She made Mark some shirts out of hand made batik. Here he is with some pretty tropical plants.
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| Mark in Batik |
First Blog
August 23, 2011. I'm just not loving the concept of Facebook so I'm considering a blog, although I'm not sold on this idea either. I still like to write letters and send them by mail, but to be perfectly honest, it's been a while (years) since I've written any letters.
When you start a blog you have to come up with a name for it, but I think you can change it. I first named this Motorcycle for Five. A small project I have is to make some drawings of a motorcycle for five. I've made a note to do this and a quick sketch in my little notepad.
Motorcycles and scooters are everywhere in Jakarta. The drivers are fearless. Many people have written and commented on this type of transportation; I am not the first. I do like to pass my time in the BlueBird taxis by watching the people on motorcycles. The most people I've seen on one motorcycle so far is five (I'm sure other people who have lived here longer have seen more). Starting from the front: younger boy, man, older girl, and a woman with a baby in a cloth slung around her shoulder.
As I was thinking about the Motorcycle for Five, I also thought of my traumatic experience yesterday involving a cicak and an alternative title for this blog: Toasted Cicak is for the Ants. (In Bahasa Indonesia c is pronounced ch, so cicak sounds like chee-chack.) Cicaks are house lizards and I love them.
Sunday morning, Mark had made some toast and I had done some of the dishes before we moved to the living room to eat breakfast. I found a small ant crawling on me, not unlike the ones I've seen in the kitchen helping to keep things tidy. I then found a few more ants on me, so now I feel like I have ants crawling all over me, but I really only found three. Mark found an ant on his plate and proceeded to find several crawling on him.
I went to the kitchen to investigate the source. I discovered a trail of ants going to the toaster and Mark, who had followed me into the kitchen, tracked the source of the trail to a corner on the kitchen counter. I don't mind these ants because they are very small and don't bite (unlike the ones that swarmed me as I climbed over a fence post down by the creek at Uncle Ossie's), but I also don't approve of large ant parties on the kitchen counter.
I banged as many ants as I could out of the toaster. We wiped up the ants still running around on the counter. Mark plugged their hole with some paper towel (a method that was proven successful in Rockville). To take care of the rest of the ants that were still in the toaster, Mark put it in a plastic bag and put it in the freezer. We decided that we should solve this problem like we did in South Africa and buy an airtight plastic box to store the toaster when not in use.
Yesterday I was going to the store and took the toaster out of the freezer to get the measurements for the box I was hoping to buy. I tapped the side of the toaster to bang out any frozen ants and took a knife to get that stubborn piece of toast trapped in the toaster. I broke the piece of stuck toast in two and then turned the toaster upside-down to shake it out. Much to my horror, it didn't look like a piece of toast; it looked more like a tail. I shook the second part out and my nauseating suspicions were confirmed when I saw the body of the cicak. It was frozen. The eyes were no longer there (thanks to the ants?). I was not a happy camper. I got it cleaned up and took out the trash and texted Mark. I don't like the thought of our little house lizards (and this one was not so little) being toasted.
Mark did say his toast tasted a little funny on Sunday.
Bottom line: I think that the ants were after the toasted cicak and not necessarily the crumbs in the toaster. If they had just been a bit more sneaky and taken care of the cicak without us noticing, I think everyone involved would have been happier (except for the cicak, of course).
When you start a blog you have to come up with a name for it, but I think you can change it. I first named this Motorcycle for Five. A small project I have is to make some drawings of a motorcycle for five. I've made a note to do this and a quick sketch in my little notepad.
Motorcycles and scooters are everywhere in Jakarta. The drivers are fearless. Many people have written and commented on this type of transportation; I am not the first. I do like to pass my time in the BlueBird taxis by watching the people on motorcycles. The most people I've seen on one motorcycle so far is five (I'm sure other people who have lived here longer have seen more). Starting from the front: younger boy, man, older girl, and a woman with a baby in a cloth slung around her shoulder.
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| Motorcycle for Five - Sketch 1 |
As I was thinking about the Motorcycle for Five, I also thought of my traumatic experience yesterday involving a cicak and an alternative title for this blog: Toasted Cicak is for the Ants. (In Bahasa Indonesia c is pronounced ch, so cicak sounds like chee-chack.) Cicaks are house lizards and I love them.
Sunday morning, Mark had made some toast and I had done some of the dishes before we moved to the living room to eat breakfast. I found a small ant crawling on me, not unlike the ones I've seen in the kitchen helping to keep things tidy. I then found a few more ants on me, so now I feel like I have ants crawling all over me, but I really only found three. Mark found an ant on his plate and proceeded to find several crawling on him.
I went to the kitchen to investigate the source. I discovered a trail of ants going to the toaster and Mark, who had followed me into the kitchen, tracked the source of the trail to a corner on the kitchen counter. I don't mind these ants because they are very small and don't bite (unlike the ones that swarmed me as I climbed over a fence post down by the creek at Uncle Ossie's), but I also don't approve of large ant parties on the kitchen counter.
I banged as many ants as I could out of the toaster. We wiped up the ants still running around on the counter. Mark plugged their hole with some paper towel (a method that was proven successful in Rockville). To take care of the rest of the ants that were still in the toaster, Mark put it in a plastic bag and put it in the freezer. We decided that we should solve this problem like we did in South Africa and buy an airtight plastic box to store the toaster when not in use.
Yesterday I was going to the store and took the toaster out of the freezer to get the measurements for the box I was hoping to buy. I tapped the side of the toaster to bang out any frozen ants and took a knife to get that stubborn piece of toast trapped in the toaster. I broke the piece of stuck toast in two and then turned the toaster upside-down to shake it out. Much to my horror, it didn't look like a piece of toast; it looked more like a tail. I shook the second part out and my nauseating suspicions were confirmed when I saw the body of the cicak. It was frozen. The eyes were no longer there (thanks to the ants?). I was not a happy camper. I got it cleaned up and took out the trash and texted Mark. I don't like the thought of our little house lizards (and this one was not so little) being toasted.
Mark did say his toast tasted a little funny on Sunday.
Bottom line: I think that the ants were after the toasted cicak and not necessarily the crumbs in the toaster. If they had just been a bit more sneaky and taken care of the cicak without us noticing, I think everyone involved would have been happier (except for the cicak, of course).