May 1, 2007 - Lovers Key
To keep you from thinking all we do is run around enjoying the area around us, I have some pictures in a folder called "home" that will give you an idea about what we're doing when we're not out having fun.
Uh, well, you see.......it's like this. Every year they've been here, Elmer and Ann put on a bar-b-q before they leave, and since our yard (along with Ron's) is on the canal, and we have room for a couple of picnic tables, and we have a fire ring and firewood, we share hosting duties. So, see? We do other things besides run around. We party at home!
In the left photo are our fellow volunteers from Canada--Brian and Jane (left, repeat volunteers) and Frank and Flo (newbies this year). Next picture is Dawn on the bench, Ranger Amy gathering some liquid refreshment from one of several coolers, and Elmer using the canoe as a staging platform for the hamburgers and hot dogs. I scabbed together a "trial" windbreak for my broiler and Elmer is using it with his new broiler, and you can see the EZ-GO parked there that was used to haul stuff from their place across the dirt road to ours, and above that is the Coleman lantern so he can see what he's doing. What a feed!! The burgers were so good I had three of them and could hardly waddle afterward.
L to R is Ann, then Lisa and Barb. Lisa is the park manager's wife, and I think this is the first time I've been able to capture her picture. The pink/orange hat belongs to Jerry, the red shirt is on Ron, and Ranger Amy just sitting down. Jerry and his wife Sue are "day volunteers." They have a condo they live in during the winter and they come in to help us a couple days a week. I have a whole bunch of pictures of them replacing some bumpers on the floats at the boat ramp. What a fun job that was! Barb and I got to help them one day, but they'd been at it for some time before we got to play in the boat with them. That's Sue at the edge of the picture and Dawn's head in the corner.
Next shot is Jerry, then Mike (the manager), Dixie, Mike's dog, between them, Ron, Amy and Roger. Roger and Dawn are live-in volunteers and usually work in the shop. In their other lives, Roger has a Corvette shop in Ohio.
Jerry and Sue are good workers and since he has done just about everything there is to do in the construction industry, they get all kinds of jobs around the park. The one we worked on with them was replacing the rub-rails on the floats at the boat ramp. They'd worked on them for several days, but needed help getting the park's Jon boat to the dock. It lives over at Mike's house, sitting in the canal tied to his float. So Elmer & Ann, Barb & Dave, and Jerry & Sue took the dump truck over to the float, hauled the boat out of the water and into it, and dropped it off at the boat ramp. Then while we were working (Elmer & Ann wandered off to finish a project someplace else), we needed something or other from the shop, and Barb caught a Snowy Egret checking things out, and then........aw, shucks, I'll just let you see for yourself here. Oh, yeah. The Sheriff wasn't after us. Just some kind of exercise, landing in the field nearby.
About the only addition here is in the picture on the right. Catherine works in the office and wears a uniform like a Ranger, but I don't know if she's called a Ranger or not. Anyway, she's an avid fisherman, and came complete with live shrimp. The fish weren't biting, but that didn't deter her from trying anyway. She did, however, have an encounter with a Black Racer (big, black snake) which slithered under her chair as she was fishing; no problem, Catherine has no fear of snakes.
Along side the small log with its end toward us is a 1" copper pipe and inside the pipe is a length of hose. The pipe is probably a foot long or so. Donated by Frank, it gives the fire some pretty colors as you can see in the next shot. We've used it several times and it keeps on putting out the blue/green flames.
There now. See? It's not all party time. Sometimes we go to the beach to watch the sunsets.
One day I was fishing behind the Road Abode and spotted this miniature boat following these folks in the canoe. A small radio-controlled powerboat, it turned out. Well, as you know, we don't allow powerboats in the canals because of all the manatee in here, but I figured that this one probably wasn't a problem.
Here's proof we don't have to leave home to watch wildlife. Lizards are like bunnies. There's lots of them, they reproduce rapidly, and lots of critters eat them. We have a Black Racer (snake) that lives in the sable palms behind the coach which I'm sure eats them, and I know for sure the crows do, but Barb and I were surprised to see a Cardinal (yes, that pretty red and black bird) eating one!
All the rangers have tours they give, some have multiple tours. This is Ranger Robert giving his birding tour. His "group" this time consisted of his supervisors, his peers, and us volunteers. Talk about stress!
In the picture on the left is Mark (a part-time ranger and specialist on exotic plants and the removal of same), Ranger Mike, and the assistant manager Matt.
Then on the tram bridge, we have Catherine-from-the-office, Ranger Mike, Mark, Robert with his back to the camera, Park Services Specialist Brie (our volunteer coordinator and liaison with the community at large), and Ann with her ever present red jacket.
Robert did a great job in spite of a few jabs from his peers. He really knows his birds and really enjoys sharing his knowledge with others.
Next, it was Ranger Randy's turn. His "tour" was on fishing in the park. Now, do you think I had fun at his presentation? I've mentioned the multi-talented Randy in the past. He's the native Floridian who's also an excellent chef. Even after fishing these canals as much as I have, I've still got a lot to learn, and, thanks to Randy, I'm learning more. He's promised to take me out in his dad's boat to do some "real" fishing later this summer. I truly do want to nail a good sized Tarpon before we leave.
The story behind Barb's colorful fingers is a good one. Our task for the morning was to paint some "No Fishing" signs on one side of the tram bridge. There's a walkway on one side of the bridge, and we try hard to keep people on the painted walkway. Part of that effort is in having the walkway painted red and part of it is to put "No Fishing Between 9 & 5" signs on the other side of the bridge. Those are the hours the tram is running, and we really don't like running over people. It was a little windy (which kept the no-see-ums at bay--always a very good thing) and the stencils were made out of a discarded cardboard box that was hard to hold. We'd tried masking tape, but it wasn't reliable, we used newspaper taped to the cardboard and tried to hold that, but the wind made that impractical. I finally told Barb that one of us would have to hold the cardboard stencils and the other would have to spray the paint. She got the brilliant idea that if she taped her fingers, then she wouldn't get any paint on them. And she was right. Just didn't take into account who was doing the painting and the wind factor as well. Nice idea, just didn't work too well. We've all done it, eh?
No treat is as good as having an old friend stop by for a visit. Bill Mast and I have been friends since about 1988 or so and have we had some fun in the past! He's the one who re-kindled my love of competitive shooting, and we both love the outdoors. He, along with our good friend Steve Pribnow, have been hunting together several times, and the list goes on and on. He and his wife have a condo that's just been built nearby, so he'd come down to visit his dad who lives in Ft. Myers and check out the new condo too. Barb and I were lucky enough to steal him for a bit one afternoon and give him a quick tour of the park.
OOPS! How'd this picture of us working sneak in here? That's me following Elmer down the road as we're trimming/edging the grass. What a job! Elmer didn't wear long pants so he got rock chips all over his legs. I wore long pants so I nearly died from the heat. Barb wore shorts and ran the blower and took pictures and I think she's obviously the smart one in the group. Ann had dislocated a toe the night before, so she had to stay home and fold brochures.
Know what this is? It's a dummy! Or rather, a decoy. Trying to let the birds know it's OK to nest in this area. Now the fun thing is that Sue (of Jerry and Sue - the boat ramp people) saw it one day, thought it was a real one, and got all excited. She told some other volunteers about it and they went to the beach to see it as well. Seems there were three of them (decoys). What fun we all had when at the bar-b-q, Sue happened to mention it, and was told about the decoys. Sue took it like a trooper and laughed at herself with the rest of us.
Since the decoy's are behind the string barrier with signs asking people to stay away, Sue couldn't have "zoomed in" like this and seen that it was a fake. We really enjoyed the two of them and went to dinner with them a couple of times.
An osprey nest at sunrise. Barb and I love sunrises just as much, if not more, than sunsets. In my case, it's the excitement and anticipation of what the day will bring. The joy of being finished with the darkness of night. The freshness of the air, regardless of the season. The stirring of wildlife as they begin their day of finding something to eat and defending their territory.
On Easter Sunday, we were asked to help collect tolls at the North Gate which is usually only on the honor system. $1 each (7 yrs old and up) into an envelope and into the slot in the steel box. Precious little honor left, I'm afraid. But by simply being there, providing change when needed, the revenue soars for this gate, and we felt good about being able to help from 9AM to 1PM. We'd gone to church on Saturday night like we usually do, so we didn't miss out on the Easter service.
I have no idea of the name of these morning glory's, but I'm sure Barb knows (yep, it's a Moon Morning Glory).
The North Gate is a bit remote, so the park provides these portable toilets for the public. They get trashed, tipped over, and just generally abused to varying degrees. While I'm not into doing the contractor's work for them, I do like to make sure they're usable for the public, and if not I'll call the office and they can stir up the contractor to have things taken care of.
Yeah, Barb caught me once again, testing the facilities to make sure they're suitable for the public. She's been taking pictures of me coming out of portable toilets for more than 36 years now. You'd think I'd get used to it, wouldn't you? Or at least I'd be able to remember she does that, and take the camera in there with me? Naw, not me, I'm afraid.
HA! Looks like some more work pictures in this batch. The "Fearless Foursome" or "Daggone Overachievers" are at it again. The park had some real nice signs made up, giving the visitors all kinds of neat information, and we needed to stick 'em in the ground on the Black Island Nature Trail.
Of course, the signs needed to be so high, which means the hole needs to be this deep, and to check it all out we actually measured things! Elmer drives the auger-tractor and I sort of help aim the bit and steady it while it's drilling the hole. It's old like us, and a little shaky if you know what I mean.
We have a bunch of gopher tortoise living in the park and a sure sign of a nest, or burrow, is the scattered sand. One look at the hole, and you know it's got to belong to a gopher tortoise because it's shaped exactly like the tortoise.
A couple more signs, this one of the Gumbo Limbo. Love the comparison with tourists. See that rock around the base of the sign? Well, now that Barb and I are here alone, we do jobs like putting these rocks around the signs. Along with other fun stuff I'll tell you about later.
"Slimy" is our own alligator. On Black Island, just a little off the nature trail, is this smallish fresh water pond, and that's where Slimy lives. He got the name because the pond will have this scum on the surface once in a while and when he comes up slowly, he gets covered with it. We suspect he's a male because in the Spring he'll disappear for a while, but always comes back. The pond doesn't have any fish in it any more that we can see, but we do see an abundance of feathers around the edge of the pond. Nobody has seen anything happen, but we all suspect that Slimy pretty much lives on birds.
Yup, these could be his next dinner.