Vaxed to the Max, Toe Troubles, Coqui Caviar

[Note: This is another blog based on my weekly emails to my family on the mainland.]

4/16/22

Aloha Everybody --

Well, our weather this week was kind of yucky at times, but no blizzards or tornadoes like parts of the mainland. We are definitely back in our rainy pattern, not just afternoon showers, but cloudy and misty for good chunks of the day.  My solar system is sucking air, but I've got a big enough surplus from past months that I'm not really too upset.

On Wednesday we both got our 2nd Pfizer boosters. No great reaction this time, though Karen had a bit of a sore arm, and I felt puny on Thursday afternoon, with some joint aches for a couple of hours Thursday night. The latest large-scale research shows that the effectiveness of 2nd boosters for totally preventing Covid drops to normally boosted levels after just 3-4 weeks, but that the increased protection against a severe case continues longer.  I'm fine with that.  The remote possibility of a bad reaction to the vaccine is much, much, less than having bad consequences of getting Covid.  Anyway, we're now set for our trip, though Azerbaijan still requires a negative PCR test result 72 hours before arrival, so we'll have to do that right before we leave.  

Fortunately we're not leaving right away, because a week ago Thursday Karen hurt her foot when some cans fell out of our garage storage closet and targeted her toes. One toe seems to have lost part of the nail, and both it and the one next to it have cuts that she's taking great care not to get infected. She's much better now, but it has meant she had to skip golf this week, as well as our morning walks.  She was still able to make use of the pool, though, and we managed to do a light workout at PF despite her toe and my vaccine wonkiness. Looks like another week or more for her to get functioning again, and probably longer for the nail to grow back.

Mom, Dad & Caviar

The wet weather has been a boon for the coqui frogs.  I caught 15 this week, a number of them female.  Although the females don't sing and therefore aren't obnoxiously loud, they are very good to catch because each one can produce 25-30 eggs every two weeks. After a female finds a male and lays her eggs, she takes off and the male broods them.  They hatch in just a few weeks and then the juveniles are on their own,  reaching sexual maturity in about 9 months. As I said, the females find the males, zeroing in on their calls.  The ones I caught were in the process of doing just that, but it turned out not to be the kind of romantic evening they were looking for.  At maturity the females are much larger than the males and often their swollen egg sacs are visible on their sides.  One night this week I grabbed both a male coqui and the eggs ("Coqui Caviar") he was guarding -- the first clutch of eggs I've found because they're usually well hidden in small holes and in leaf litter.

Finally, this was an historic week for the town, because on Wednesday the inter-island cruise ship resumed its weekly stops -- first time it has been in port in 2+ years. The merchants love it, of course, and I do too because it's not only picturesque it also helps me keep track of what day it is!

Ok, off for our usual Saturday morning routine.  Hang in there.