April 30, 2007 - Lovers Key

Better get this done today or it'll be way over a month since the last update, eh?

Briefly, what we've been up to is just "normal" life for a volunteer here at Lovers Key.  We do our work and we play a lot.  The work is in exchange for the site and utilities, and each site is required to work 32 hours per week.  So, Ron our neighbor who is single, gets to put in 32 hours every week by himself.  The rest of us who are couples, theoretically work 16 hours each.  I say "theoretically" because in fact, for example, Elmer and I may be on a project and want to finish it up even if we do have our hours in already, so we'll continue to work while Barb and Ann may do things at home making life easier for us guys, or they may hit the beach to reduce the shell population down there.  In our case, at the end of a work day I'll usually drop Barb off at the motorhome on my way back to the shop to clean up the EZ-GO (type of golf cart) and put tools away.  While I'm there I may get involved in something going on, and thus put in more hours than she will for the day.  Works good for us and good for the park as well.  All the volunteers we talk to about hours do about the same thing, and most of us work more than our 32 hours per week.  Not out of obligation, but because we want to.  Stuff needs doing, and we're here and we may as well do it.

All that means is that working and playing uses up most our time, and sorting, culling, enhancing, cropping, and resizing pictures sort of takes a back seat.  We have at least one camera with us just about all the time, and whatever strikes our fancy as being something we'd like to remember when the time comes for us to "retire" from this lifestyle, gets a picture.  It's not at all uncommon for us to have several hundred pictures in various files here on the computer waiting for attention.

But enough whining, on with the show!

This first picture is one of those once in a lifetime shots.  It's a Florida squirrel.  There are really quite a few of these little critters running around (this one happens to be a female--see the pearls?), but they are very difficult to get a picture of.  Matter of fact, I'll confess that a friend actually sent it to me because try as I might, I've never been able to actually get a picture of one.

We were on our way to Shark Valley and stopped by the Big Cypress Swamp visitor center.  There's a boardwalk (boards are made of recycled plastic bottles) along a canal, and the canal is full of alligators, fish, and birds.  This little guy (Green Tree Frog) popped up from between the boards, and if I'd reduced the size to "normal" for the website, he'd be too small to appreciate.

I'll include some shots of the 'gators there at the Visitor Center in the slide show later, where I've put the gator shots from here in Shark Valley.

These ferns were on the road where we walked a bit while waiting for the tram to take us on the 15 mile trip around the Shark Valley Preserve.  I found the anomaly of that one frond sticking straight up and many times longer than any of its mates to be interesting.  By the way, the reason this is called "Shark Valley" is because it's part of the drainage for the Shark River, and it's between some "hills," thus, a valley.  The "hills" in this area are probably anywhere from 8 to 18 inches high.

The "rock" this sign is talking about is simply limestone that's been broken up by the dredge that built the road.  Don't know for sure if it was one of those "walking" dredges we saw on display at Collier-Seminole State Park or not.

The young man narrating our trip on the tram was full of interesting factoids about where we were.  At this stop, he took some of the "gunk" from the water (marsh), and demonstrated how it acted like a sponge holding the water.  He broke pieces of it off so we could feel and smell it.  It did not leave any residue on our hands and smelled like freshly tilled earth.  It's a type of algae.

We're in the dry season, so wildlife is concentrated and the alligators do not act very territorial, and they're all over the place near the roadway where the water is deep enough for them to swim.  At every culvert, there are alligators and some mothers with young ones they're protecting as well.

Here he's holding some different kind of algae that provides food for all kinds of little critters.  You can see how flat the terrain really is, but where there's more than grass and water, the land is actually a few inches higher and thus supports more vegetation.  There are actually hardwood trees growing on that "hammock" to the left and also off in the distance.  Alligator trails leading from one pond to another are easy to see at this time of year as well.

Sort of in the middle of the ride, we stopped at an observation tower.  Great views from the top and real easy to get up to.  Those yellow-shirted people are a bunch of school kids eating their lunch and trying to keep some pesky crows from taking it from them!  And even a scruffy thistle deserves it's picture taken when it's all by itself.

These "lumps" are some of that limestone I was talking about earlier that were called "rocks" on that signpost.  And that's not just another shot of a 'gator, it's a mama with her baby on her back.

See?  There's the baby on mama's back all blown up big for you.  Fascinating creatures, we think.

There's also a board walk through one of the hammocks near the entrance to the park.  And the slide show of lots of 'gators we saw this particular day is here.

One of our favorite highways in all the country is Hwy 41, the "Tamiami Trail," that runs from Tampa to Miami.  It goes south from Tampa until about Naples and then goes east to Miami.  On the section going East and West, it's easy to see the canal left by the dredge that built up the roadbed, and it's full of all kinds of wonderful swamp/wild life.  Birds galore, all kinds of 'gators, and lots of different plants.  To go to and from Shark Valley, we drove this road, and on the way home we had to stop to take pictures of some of the air plants because they were in bloom everywhere and were huge!

Two lane road through here, and getting stuck behind a slow poke can be problematic for someone other than us.  We truly enjoy the view.  It's particularly fun in the Road Abode because we can see so much more as we're sitting up higher.

Our next adventure out of the park was a trip to Rookery Bay Preserve, about 35 miles from "home".  Most the exhibits were geared toward teaching our children about sea life, but we still enjoyed the day.  We were obviously impressed by the Oarfish.  My questions are: "If the fish is 'swimming' in a vertical position, which is its leading edge?  Then why are its eyes located in a 'normal' position?  Where is its air bladder that allows it to ascend and descend, and if along the backbone like in a regular fish, how can it maintain its vertical position?"  Mostly, I want to know why it is that the more I learn about stuff the more questions I have about stuff!!

Apparently manatees are tracked using a radio transmitter attached to the tail section of their bodies, and this is what it looks like.  We've never seen one on a manatee, but then we've only been watching them for two years now.  Except for the lack of scars on its back, (caused by a boat - most all manatees we've seen have them) this is a pretty good representation of the animals. 

The Preserve had several live tanks, and I was particularly interested in this one with the snook in it.  They're reportedly an excellent tasting fish, and a great fighter besides.  I've only caught one small one, but it was fun, and I'm really looking forward to catching some legal ones this summer when they come into the canals in larger numbers.

I was going to climb in the sub and have Barb take my picture but, frankly, I was afraid I'd have trouble climbing out!  As it was, I was laughing too hard watching Barb climb out to even get a usable picture of the event!  Looked like a fun toy to go poking around under water with.

A redheaded woman with a red rat snake.  What fun!  She had a nice PowerPoint presentation about Florida snakes, and then brought out this fine specimen for show and tell and touching.  Complete with hand sanitizer for use before and after petting the snake.

Wonderful rocking chairs!  This area is used for story telling, and there are several tapes available by pushing appropriate buttons back there on the "porch".

Bugs love to chew on Barb, but she was safe from this one.  So far, mosquitoes haven't been a problem for us at Lovers Key, but the no-see-ums are a constant  nuisance mornings and evenings.

Woodpeckers as a group, are quite polite.  If you knock on their door, they'll nearly always come greet you if they're home.  And this beautiful Pilliated woodpecker was and did.

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