The ibises

Last week we went biking on Sanibel Island with a group from our park. We rode in single file on the bike trails of the island. Every once in awhile I noticed that I was lagging far behind the person ahead of me. Too much time spent looking upward. I guess it could have been worse - I could have crashed into the person ahead of me while looking into the treetops.

It was an enjoyable ride, but I didn't get a chance to take nearly as many photos as I would have if it had just been me and my husband biking along. One thing that I wished I'd been able to photograph was a bunch of ibises that I saw feeding in a canal. Well I made up for it this week at Corkscrew Swamp Santuary. I took lots of ibis photos...

















ibis

A nice ending

We looked out the window a few minutes ago to see a beautifully colored sky after a rainy, cold day. I almost didn't bother bringing out the camera, because my sunset photos never seem to come close to showing the natural beauty. This photo didn't accurately capture the colors that we saw, but I think it's pretty just the same.

Life in a Lettuce Lake

We spent the morning at Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary - a great place for nature lovers (& salad lovers)...

Chocolate mice

Well, it's almost that time of year - tea time. Each year the ladies in our Bible study group host a tea for all of the ladies in our park. We have it at the club house and usually about 200 ladies attend. Each woman in our group makes or bakes their very fanciest finger foods and it always turns out to be quite an impressive feast.

Three years ago I made 100 chocolate mice (photo above) and the ladies still talk about them. I even gave "mice-making" lessons a week later. The bodies are cherries (with stems) dipped in melted chocolate, the heads are hershey kisses, almond slivers for ears and gel frosting for the eyes. I'm sure that someone with actual talent could make them look even cuter.

Windblown

Freckle belly

The big brown "freckles" on Pup2's tummy reappear each year while we're here in Florida. When we return home to Lake Gaston, they fade away. I guess she does more sunbathing down here than she does at our house in the woods in North Carolina.


chihuahua

Society finches cuddling

Wouldn't the world would be a better place if we were more like society finches?





Society finches love to crowd together in a nest at night. Instead, I gave them this fuzzy tent, so they don't make more little society finches. But last week an egg appeared. I assumed that it would get bumped out of the tent long before it hatched, and I was right. The next morning I found it broken on the cage floor. So far they haven't tried again.


society finches

Party conversation

We attended a party at our neighbors house tonight and met a couple who were visiting from Wisconsin. They mentioned that they would be in Florida for a couple of months, but needed to get back to Wisconsin by April, to get the bird houses ready before the purple martins return. In my opinion, this is how to make a great first impression!

Breakfast of champions

This photo of our pups really shows the difference in their personalities (and appetites). Pup1 (in the background) waits patiently for her breakfast. Pup2 is not patient!

Alligators of the Everglades

Here are some more photos from our trip to the the Everglades last Friday. We saw 136 alligators that day, so as you might expect, I came home with quite a few alligator photos.





There were warnings posted "Stay at least 15 feet away from alligators". Impossible to do when the alligators were in the road (above photo) and the road is only about 10 feet wide and stepping (or in our case, biking) off the other side of the road might land us right on another alligator.





We saw lots of babies, like the one in the above photo. The photo below is Alligator #52. He was the biggest one that we saw - looked like he'd just eaten a small child.

Don Pedro Island

I love Don Pedro Island! It's a small island off the west coast of Florida, accessible only by ferry or boat. We just spent three days there - I am fortunate enough to have a sister who is fortunate enough to own a home there. It's a nature lover's paradise - beautiful beaches, lots of birds and not many people. We walk along the beach everyday, zip along the sandy roads in a golf cart and eat the most delicious fresh fish meals, thanks to my brother-in-law. Did I mention that I love it there?





Our turtles at Lake Gaston don't look like this!





Foraging for breakfast...





Got one!

The Everglades

We spent the day in the Everglades National Park at Shark Valley. About 75 miles from here but well worth the drive. We had visited there last year, took the tram ride around the 15 mile loop, walked up the observation tower, saw tons of alligators and birds and absolutely loved it. This year we skipped the tram ride and rode our bikes around the loop instead, which was definitely a better way to view the wildlife. We counted 136 alligators. We didn't count the birds - just admired and photographed them (a lot).

So far I've just included three of the photos - a Wood Stork, a Purple Gallinule and the crow that stole my peanut butter sandwich from my bike basket while we were on the observation tower.











birding

Lana

I have hand raised a number of gouldian finch babies and they have grown up to be wonderful, friendly little pets. Even after they are weaned and move into the aviary, they often fly to me and land on my shoulder or head when I enter the aviary. Lana, the white breasted gouldian finch in the above photo, was not one of my hand-fed babies, but she's a friendly little girl just the same. In the aviary she would often fly to me to play with my hair or shoelace. Unfortunately in our Florida winter home there is no aviary and the birds have to spend a couple of months in large cages. My tame birds are allowed out of their cage every evening because they readily hop onto my hand and let me put them in their cage when it's bed time.


Lately Lana has indicated that she really wants to come out and hang with us. Anytime we walk near her cage she hangs on the cage bars and chats with us. So, last night I opened up the cage to give her the chance to come out for a visit (hoping that her cage mates didn't all decide to hop out with her). When I opened the cage door she took a couple of tentative short flights around my head, then back into the cage. After awhile she came out for some real exercize, flew around with my tame gouldian finch, Daytona, and ended up hopping into his cage with him. As I expected, she didn't readily hop onto my hand to be transferred back to her own cage - I needed to dim the lights and grab her from the perch. Didn't seem to bother her though - tonight she came out and we went throught the whole routine again.

Pillow talk

Pup1 loves pillows and blankies - and she knows some comfy padding when she sees it...

Toy Story

Pup2 loves toys! Yard sales are full of these little stuffed animals for 25 cents or less. And I guess it's a sign of our age that we often comment on how many stuffed animals children have these days (we only had one stuffed animal each when I was a kid, yada, yada, yada). But that doesn't stop me from buying dozens of these a year for our 5 year old puppy-child. The above photo shows her at a yard sale picking out some toys for herself.

I've tried a few systems for keeping her daily toy selection "fresh". Here's a game that was a lot of fun (for both of us) for awhile. Each night when she went to bed in her crate, I would put gather up her three toys du jour, hide them in my secret hiding place, bring out three different toys and hide them around the house. Then she would get up the next morning and run around like a crazy pup looking for the new toys. Each day was like Christmas for her. Well, all good things come to an end, and this game ended when our impatient little pup refused to wait until the next morning for her toy hunt. One night she went to bed, gave me enough time to hide the new toys, then whined until I let her back out of her crate. Of course, once she found her fresh toys, there was no getting her back into bed for awhile.



Time for a new game (photo below). Now I keep a pile of toys in my closet and each morning she jumps in and chooses her three toys for the day. Much contemplation and careful thought go into her decision each morning. She knows that once she brings out three toys, the closet door gets closed.

Rocking turtle

When I saw this turle, it reminded me of an exercize that our yoga teacher uses to torture us. Lying on our stomachs, we lift our legs up,bend at the knees, grab our ankles and with our back arched, rock back and forth. With his hard shell, my guess is that this guy can rock back and forth with much less discomfort.

The Lady With the Alligator Purse

Remember this cute book?
Well we didn't see the lady or the purse, but we did see our first alligator of the season. And a full-blown sighting it was! Most of the time we just see the eyes and snout sticking out of the water, but this guy (probably 7 or 8 feet long) wasn't afraid to show off his big leathery body and appeared to be enjoying the sunshine.

Palm sounds

A couple of years ago, our neighbors wanted to get rid of a couple of palm trees. I can't remember why they no longer wanted them, but we were happy to take them off their hands. Our little south-facing patio was in full sun most of the day and more shade was just what we craved.

As we expected, the new palm trees have pleasantly shaded our patio. What we didn't anticipate was the beautiful sounds that the palm fronds make when they blow in the breeze. It's just so pleasant! And today we had the added bonus of a serenading mockingbird.





This photo (above) is one of our beautiful sunrises. One of my New Year's resolutions is to get up in time to see them.

Missing the worms

Last year I made a promise to my husband that when we made our next annual trip to Florida, I would bring fewer pets. Of course, I did not mean the pups, so this meant selling or giving away some of my gouldian finches. And although I did sell a few and give away more than a few, I don't think my flock population decreased at all due to the summer baby boom. So, just like last year, the rear third of our minivan was filled with bird cages.


But this year, in a half-hearted attempt to "travel light", I didn't bring my mealworm colony. And I miss them. So does Liz, our little back porch pet lizard. Last year I tossed her mealworms & she would gobble them up. Liz of this year is smaller than Liz of last year and probably could use a mealworm feast once in awhile.





And when I baked an apple pie today, I thought of the worms - they love apple leftovers. If they were here, I would have given them this pile of peels & cores and by tomorrow, only the seeds would remain.

Goldilox & the three pets

This little chair was too big..





but this little chair





and this little chair





were just right!