November 24, 2000
I'm sitting at the desk at the remote gate again, listening to the airboats playing out on Lake Arbuckle and watching a small lizard chasing bugs on the screen of the window behind me. With any luck at all I'll be able to include a picture of him. Reminds me of the gecko lizards that I lived with when I lived in Hawaii, but I really don't know one lizard from another.
Well, fun and games is the name of the day. On the left we're in the screen room with some of our fellow volunteers playing Mexican Train. A domino game that at first bored me silly, and then I saw that it was in fact a rather complicated strategy game, and while I sure haven't mastered it by any means, I am enjoying a winning streak that I'm sure won't last. This was the first time we rigged a light and sat outside in the evening without any trouble with bugs. Of course we also had a mosquito coil and several citronella candles burning. On the right are another couple of volunteers, and they're introducing us to the Highlands Hammock State Park. Now, a hammock on the west coast is one thing, in Florida it's another. On the west coast I'd take a nap in a hammock, but here a hammock is a forest/swamp area. And it so happens it's full of wildlife of all kinds. We've locked the bikes to the rack and were ready to go walking when a couple of carloads of teenagers stopped and piled out having all kinds of noisy good fun. First thing they asked was that we'd take a picture of them. Good trade for us! They were pretty orderly once on the trail and went a lot faster than we did, so we finally did see some of the local residents.
On the left is a spider. Yeah, that overexposed white thing in the middle of the picture. There are all kinds of technical reasons the picture isn't any better than it is, not the least of which was my reluctance to get any closer or put some kind of a white shirt (mine, probably) behind it for a backdrop. The spider is at least 2" long, with goodly sized legs to go with it. The web is naturally pretty strong, and they like to build their webs across trails. The owner of the bike shop where we bought our bikes is an avid mountain biker and has a couple of pictures where the spiders are on his face as a result of running into the web. They're non-poisonous, but if they ever did bite, they'd put a real wow on you. Banana spiders was what he called them. We called them "Sir!" On the right are some bright, really bright purple berries that some animal really likes as we find them in scat all over the place. Drives us both nuts to not know the names of the flora and fauna of the area, and we keep telling ourselves we're going to buy some books on one of our trips to town.
And here's what we really came looking for. The alligators and turtles. On the left, of course, is the alligator. What? You can't see it? Well, believe me, if it hadn't been for a sharp eyed young man who was enjoying the trail with his parents, we probably would have missed it as well. Dead center in the picture, looking off to the left, is a small alligator on a log. Covered with whatever plants stuck to it as it climbed onto the log. Impressive. Not only are they hard to spot, they camouflage themselves besides! And of course, the turtle in the picture on the right seems to match the leaves and "stuff" in the water pretty good too. And in spite of the fact that it's in the center of the picture, it's still hard to see. The frustration of taking these pictures sure has given me an increased appreciation for the animal shows we enjoy on TV, and the pictures we see in magazines.
And then there's the food shots. On the left is the couple we were biking with. One of the joy's of having to take the bikes someplace to go riding is that we can load the truck with all kinds of goodies to eat. And then there's the Thanksgiving dinner. Since most of us were going to be working on Thanksgiving day, we had our dinner on Tuesday. They were kind enough to let me say grace, and you can believe we prayed for the Florida election people who are also mostly volunteers. Potluck with most all the volunteer people and a few of the employees of the range. Great people and great food. What more could you ask for. Oh, well, some were complaining about the weather. The wind had come up a little, and it was pretty cool, but for the most part it was great to be eating Thanksgiving dinner outside for the first time in my life.
You know how it is when you have a neighbor with an ugly kid who is clumsy and does dumb things? And you wish you could laugh at the blunders because it really is funny, but you don't laugh because it would be unkind? Well, I think that must be one of the reasons God made armadillos. Near as I can tell they don't care if you laugh at them.
While I was pecking away here, I caught sight of an armadillo crossing the road behind me. I grabbed the camera and snuck (sneaked?) up as close as I dared, and because it was digging for food it kind of ignored me, but I was afraid of chasing it off, so I snapped the south end of a north bound animal just so I'd have at least one picture of it. Then as I tried to get closer, it turned and started sniffing around as it approached me, and I snapped the picture on the right. Then, of all things, it just kept coming! It ran right into my left boot! I tried to snap a picture of it, but one of the problems with digital cameras is they need processing time between shots. At least old ones like mine do, and I missed the shot of his snout smacking my boot. Of course, that did it, and off it went with that funny humping run they have. I made a fool of myself laughing so hard my eyes watered. What fun.
And when I got back to the gate house, the little lizard was on the screen again, and since the camera was turned on I stuck my finger up for reference and took a shot of it. I've got to quit wasting bandwidth on poor pictures. But if I did that, I'd hardly have any pictures to show!