The Hydrangea - Santa Elena Cloud Forest

The beautiful petals of Hydrangea. Everything flora, fauna and rodent here is extra large including uber-sized Hydrangea petals and blooms scattered along the hillsides on the road up to the Santa Elena Reserve.

(Spot the Hydrangea bush above, on the left side of picture, in the crevice between the bushes bordering the picture and the tree in the forefront. The bush midway up, in front of a fence post)

You know when I returned home, I had to capture the memory ... cut off my small sized hydrangea flower, dried it, and displayed it on a shelf in our bathroom (just like the ones we spotted at the Common Cup in Santa Elena in 2013).

A year and a half later, in the spring, now settled in our new home city, my 5 year old sees a dead Hydrangea bloom tumbling curbside in the wind and she wants to pick it up and bring it home. My first thought being no its wet and dirty, but then I recalled our dried hydrangea flower in the bathroom and the ones we spotted in Costa Rica and understood. I realized this moment is implanted in her memory. So we picked them up and brought them home.

Bird on a wire - Santa Elena, Costa Rica

Look at the beak on this bird - long and pointy for reaching and sucking the nectar out of deep flora crevices in the cloud forest! The paintings below, the first one, a humming bird with the same long beak, were on the wall in the W.C. at our favourite cafe in Santa Elena, Common Cup.