October 7, 2007

Just realized it's been over a month since I did the last update.  No wonder I had 283 pictures to play with before starting to write!

Always fun to be near but not involved in the really exciting stuff, like tornados and hurricanes.  In this case, one of our loyal Toll Collectors (the people you give your money to in order to gain access to the park), Peggy, happened to see this and captured it.  And she was kind enough to give us permission to post it here.  These pictures were taken on 9/18/07, and around the same time, one of the tram drivers (Bob) got to see a water spout offshore while he was driving.  We've had several water spouts as these small tornadoes are called when they touch down in the Gulf.  One actually started up a beach nearby and threw some beach umbrellas and chairs around--not hurting anybody--before it went away.

Big fish?  Naw, little 'gator.

Things like this make me glad I went to school!

'Gators have incredible crushing power in their jaws, but very little strength to keep them open, so it doesn't take much to keep their mouth shut.

This is an example of serendipity.  We'd not come out here to watch a small 'gator being caught and moved to a more suitable environment, but because we're always looking for a good time, we happened to spot the event.  We were pulling out of a parking lot and noticed what appeared to be a domed air vent there on the grassy knoll.  Except it was a small portable boom box, playing a tape of a 'gator mama calling its babies, so this little guy would come over to see what was going on, and the kid with the heavy duty fishing gear could snag it.

We'd gone for a ride to see a community called Ava Maria.  Catholic centered community with the Oratorium (large chapel) at the center of the community and the Ava Maria University across the street.  Small shops with condos above them and homes starting in the mid-$200,000 range.  One of the builders is Del Webb, so there's a golf course of course.  Been a work in progress for some seven years now and, well, we weren't impressed.  Highlight of the trip was the 'gator catching.

What happened to Slimy's pond?  Slimy is our resident alligator, and this is his pond, the only fresh water pond in the middle of Black Island (part of Lovers Key).  We've never seen the weeds and grasses so high around the pond.  Matt, our APM (Assistant Park Manager) said it was because of the drought we're having.  Usually, during the rainy season (summer), the pond will get high enough to drown out the weeds, making it easier to find Slimy.  We've seen him several times, so he's still there.  Just tougher to find him because we don't want to get so close to the edge we fall in, and the tall grass makes it tough to see much of the pond.

No matter where we are in the park, there's always some kind of wildlife lurking about.  The ubiquitous lizards are the most plentiful and, regardless of that fact, Barb will still be surprised by them when we're home.  Like this little guy on the faucet with his tail sticking up like a flagpole.

That #12 is "Barb's turtle nest."  At least it is to us.  It's the one where the ranger couldn't find any eggs and had designated it as a false crawl, but Barb kept digging and found eggs, making it an official nest.  The 12th one found this year.  We had a total of 19 for the year, with 18 of them producing hatchlings.  One got inundated by a high tide and didn't produce any turtles.

The excitement is because of the divot, or indentation there in the middle of the cage.  That means that last night the baby turtles hatched and took off into the Gulf.  We'll be there for sure in 72 hours when the nest will be excavated, so we can count the number of eggs, etc.

Virginia creeper has pretty red vines with purple berries.  Pretty to look at, fatal for humans to eat.  About the only berries/seeds Barb hasn't tasted, too.

The next picture shows an area where we're busily watering the newly planted trees and shrubs.  The shrub in this case is at the upper left corner of the picture, and I've parked the EZ-GO with the watering rig on it, and am going to make my way through that grass to the shrub to water it.

And that's what makes the "walking through the grass" significant.  After a little research, they really are not sandspurs as we thought.  But they are a bit prickly and are quite common where we water plants.  Sandspurs LOVE our sox, boots/shoe laces, and anything else they can grab, and that includes unsuspecting fingers and flesh in general, and, heavens, you really don't want to find one on the floor with your foot!  Barb has this special yell when she steps on one.  I don't even need to ask, I can tell by the sound that she's found another one.

After nearly every storm, we are treated to a rainbow.

The storms are brief.  Usually a lot more noise than anything else.  Well, except for interesting cloud patterns and colors.  The little bit of rain we've had has been welcome, but we've not had nearly enough.  Going to be a tough winter.

We were watering one morning and heard Mark call us.  What a guy!  He's our #1 exotic plant remover.  That means that he's seldom seen by park visitors because he's off in the jungle ripping up/poisoning invasive exotic plants like this Wild Balsam Apple he's made a huge pile of.  Then he'll spray the roots so they won't come back.

All three stages of the propagation process, and what the seeds actually look like.  It's a vine, and very prolific, much to Mark's dismay.

AHA!  It's a day off, and we've gone out to a tiny island in the canal we live on.  On the way we had to take lots of pictures of birds we already have lots of, but I've got to include this "artistic" shot Barb took of an Ibis feather.  The Ibis had been hiding in the mangrove and, as we went by, it took off, leaving this reminder.

We've made it to the island, and I've scrambled up the shelf made by the tides.  Barb's decided she'll go shelling while I poke around to see what I can see up here.  Apparently shelf climbing isn't on her agenda today.

As you can see, the trail isn't all that well used, and that fire pit isn't either - thank goodness!  The island is probably about 50 feet across, and about 75 feet long, and home to lots of stickery plants, like this Prickly Pear Cactus.

A view of Black Island from the island.  We've taken several shots of the island from the Black Island Trail.  Another shot of the fire pit.  There are several reasons we're out here.  Rumor has it that there have been some Calusa artifacts found on this island and Barb's convinced there's some special shells that are hiding someplace here.

About the only "artifact" I found was this left over crab claw in the fire pit.  Oh, and a couple of very old beer cans.  Hardly Calusa artifacts.  The "trail" has so many ways I can hurt myself it's not even funny.  That's one big Spanish Bayonet I'm standing next to as I stare at the Prickly Pear Cactus that's about to bloom.

The Spanish Bayonet will usually max out at about 4' in height.  I'm about 5'10 when I'm standing up straight and not trying to take a self-portrait while avoiding being skewered by the stickers.  One big healthy specimen.

About the only "special" shell Barb found was this one with a root growing through it.  It's still there.  Didn't come home with us.  It's been exposed on that shelf I scampered (naw, I just crawled) up to get on top of the island.

Hey, the one-and-only special shell deserves more than one picture, doesn't it?  I got done with my exploring before Barb got done shelling (big surprise), so I paddled around while I waited.  Dang canoe doesn't have a horn I can honk to let her know I'm ready to leave.  And even if it did, I'm way too smart to be using it for that!

Barb got her shoes soaking wet getting back aboard, and is letting them drain a bit before grabbing her paddle and helping out.  Farewell, little island of disappointment.

Back home again, you can see the little "ramp" I cobbled together to get the canoe up and down the bank when the tide is out.  Better shelling with the tide out, so that's when we visited the island.  And then I'm doing what I usually do after any exertion, like hauling the canoe up the launching ramp!  Is this a great lifestyle or what?  I'm really gonna miss this beat up old canoe when we finally leave here the end of January.

The big day arrived.  And it rained.  But as sunset was nearing, it quit and another couple joined us for the excavation of "Barb's" nest.  Dang.  One little egg didn't even hatch.  Ranger Robert doing the duty while Karen and Dennis (local people) and I watch.

You know the routine.  Toss all the egg shells into the shaker box for sorting and counting later while listening to the thunder and watching for any lightening.  There are two decent little storms off shore that we're watching, but the prevailing wind seems to be keeping them out there.  For now, at least.

Barb gets in on the action, and looky there!  A twofer!  So, one of several things happened here.  Either we're extremely lucky and a second turtle came up and laid eggs right next to "ours", or she dug one nest, covered it up and dug a second, or she paid a second visit.  The consensus is that she dug both nests in a single visit.  But that would explain why it was originally thought this was a false crawl.  The sand didn't look like typical nesting activity.  At any rate, we were happy to find it, as most the staff had never seen this kind of nesting activity.

"Barb's" nest wasn't the only one excavated this evening, and the one prior had a couple of little guys that didn't quite make it.

OOPS!  X-rated pictures!  Don't let the kids watch!  Or maybe, if you're like us, you want them to watch at least a little bit so they'll be aware of how the species continues.  Yup, my bride of 37 years (tomorrow) caught some lizard love-making.  Well, not sure about the love part, but they were mating anyway.

You know, sometimes the mundane thing changes and it surprises when it does.  Like this "trail" we're on heading out to our watering task.  Today the light was different, the weeds along side the trail seemed different, and even the recently mowed trail seemed different.  So Barb hopped out and went back to take a picture of it.  Then later in the day she found this lizard (remember I said they were everywhere?) in her "garden" showing off for the ladies.  That orange neck extension pops in and out and she's lucky she caught it.  Called a dewlap.  Like the long thingy hanging down on a moose's neck.

Rough day at the beach.  Not for us, but for the beach.  Lots of wind been blowing for a couple days, and the sand gets washed out and this mud gets exposed.  It's not really mud, it's more like soft clay.  Funny stuff, and only on one little section of the beach.  Barb had gone out to see if the storm had brought any new shells in.  It hadn't.

Got some kite surfers enjoying the extra excitement of wind and waves.  Beach totally deserted other than these 5 or 6 surfers.  They were really having a ball.  Go ripping along and then catch a wave just right and up they'd go.  One of them getting as high as 20' before gently coming back down.  At least it looked like they came down gently.  Looked like a lot of work to me.

Rainbows and pelicans.  Actually, we see more pelicans than we do rainbows.  If you look carefully, you can see that it's a double rainbow with the faint larger one to the left of the brighter one.

We can't determine if that sable palm was killed by the Virginia creeper or if the creeper just took advantage of a dead sable palm.  Either way, it's about the most fully covered tree we've ever seen.

We're watering some wild coffee that was planted by the "Watch for Wild Coffee" sign.  Well, I'm not actually watering, I'm punching in another waypoint on my GPS.  The plan was to pinpoint every one of the 135 plants we're currently watering three times a week so that whoever replaces us will know where they all are.  We have plants in four distinct locations around the trail and, even though we were involved in planting them all and even though there are yellow tags fluttering in the breeze on most of them, we still miss one once in a while.  Turned out to be a futile effort, as the software I have for that GPS unit won't zoom in far enough to provide the separation I needed for individual identification.  Oh, well, nothing ventured nothing gained.

One of our most favorite trees in the whole park.  It's a Gumbo Limbo, also known as a Tourist Tree because the bark is always red and peeling, and the next hurricane we get here might knock it totally in the canal.  The canal has undercut it so much it's already leaning into it.  They're slightly salt tolerant, but not enough to survive being dunked into the canal any more than it already is.  I particularly like the sensuous way its limbs grow.  Makes me think of the trees JRR Tolkien wrote about in "Lord of the Rings".

A few random shots of the area we water.  We love the "newness" of the Seagrape leaves--they're so shiny they look waxed.  Mostly to jog our memories after we leave this wonderful place.  Funny.... we've got over 90 days before we leave, and in some ways we're starting to get ready.  Strange behavior for a couple of happy wanderers who've seldom stayed anyplace longer than a few months in the last eight years.

The trimming of trees and shrubs is a continuous process here, and the trimmings go on a burn pile, waiting for the weather to be just right.  Well, it finally got "just right" and you can see the results here.  The park manager, Mike Hensley, is the fellow who's lighting the pile.  Any wonder why we like working here?

That's the island we paddled to, from the Black Island nature trail.  And an Erect Dayflower--it blooms for one day--how fortunate we caught it.

A bunch of those unknown wildflowers, and then yet another delicate flower known as a Climbing Butterfly Pea.  We first saw this wildflower in the Florida Panhandle at the Suwannee River State Park.  We were pleasantly surprised to find several vines here at Lovers Key this year.

I flat refuse to quit taking pictures of the Roseate Spoonbills.  I'm eventually going to get one I'm proud of.

On the way to the beach with a new volunteer couple (we're not alone anymore!) to watch the sunset, and we capture a small storm offshore.  This is an amazing place.

Turned out to be a great night for watching a sunset...... and a storm offshore.

OOPS!  More x-rated pictures!  This is a Palmetto Walking Stick.  The much smaller male will spend most the season riding around on the female's back we've read.  They're a nocturnal bug and we didn't see that it was really two bugs, until Barb got real close, and then she thought it was a mama with a baby on its back.  Only after we took these pictures did we realize what was really going on.  This place is a "thrill-a-day" place for sure.

Gee, you'd think that all we do is watch the sunset, huh.  Barb's "shelling bike" with a towel, backpack, camera case on the seat, and bags of shells on the ground.  No wonder it's a maintenance headache.  The steering head bearings are shot, but she can still steer so we're going to wait until we're out of this salty environment to replace them.  Poor bike gets blown over by the wind sometimes as well, and that doesn't help it any, but after all these years of either living on the salt water or just in the weather, we can't complain.

These pictures pretty much sum up our current lifestyle.  That boot means we're "out in the field" which in our case means watering, and Barb's found the largest mushroom she's seen in a while.  Not as big as the ones she likes in the Pacific Northwest, but still pretty big.  The second picture is of the flock of birds near the end of the sandbar--Barb's shelling again.  That sandbar is growing, and if it continues in this direction, pretty soon she'll be able to walk to Mexico during a low tide.

An olive shell alongside its burrow and some sea pork which is fairly common here.  It comes in white, pink, yellow, purple, green, or red rubbery lumps.  Sea pork resembles salt pork in appearance, but, apparently, not in flavor (we didn't taste, but our trusty book, Florida's Living Beaches, says so).  It is a tunicate (a marine type species) and is an acquired taste appreciated by tulip snails, stingrays, and sea turtles.

A gorgeous lightening whelk, probably male from its dark color.  You can barely see its "foot" peeking out from under the large end which is actually the back of the shell when it's moving along the bottom.  See those little white "sticks" poking up from the sand in picture on the right?

Well, there's a better view of them, and if you know what they are, let us know, OK?  Don't seem to bother the Olive shell critters any, as they crawl along making their funny tracks.

Nice big Lightening Whelk sticking up like that just has to be alive.  Sure enough.  That black you can see around the shell is its foot.

Large, dead sand dollar, then a fighting conch busily sucking the life out of some hapless victim.

Better view of "dinner" and somehow this sea star (no longer called "starfish" because they're not fish) got flipped over on its back.  Barb, of course, flipped it back over, below.

Not sure what's up with its curly "toes"--probably didn't like being turned upright.  Ranger Amy is briefing her crowd (which includes a couple of our new live-in volunteers and neighbors) regarding what they're about to do.

More instructions and some good "Q&A" before heading out into Big Carlos Pass for the "wading" expedition.  Big Carlos Pass is one of the main connectors between Estero Bay and the Gulf.  We refer to this part of the Park as the "North Beach."

Our new neighbors, Jerry and Judy.  Hard working fun loving folks.  This is their first volunteer stint anywhere, and they're making themselves welcome for sure.  Then it's off to find what there is to find living in the pass.

Dump your find into the box, then take some of it into these little viewing gadgets.  They have magnifying lenses both on top and on the side, so you get a good view of what you've captured.

"I'll show you mine if you'll show me yours."  Fun for all ages.

Somebody pointing at something, and then it's time for the handouts.  Barb tells me Amy did a great job, everybody had fun, and learned a lot in the process.  I listened just yesterday as Barb was telling somebody about what lived in the grass just off the beach.

Barb's gone shelling again, and we think maybe somebody picked up that shell and put it over the limb.  That young pelican was trying to take a nap, and Barb got real close to him as she walks out on the sandbar leading to Cancun.

Pelican took off finally, but the fellow from Ohio enjoying his book stayed right where he was.  Never can tell what you'll find out there on that sand bar.

Poor little octopus was going to dry out and die if Barb hadn't found it.  She took it back to the water, and it jetted off quickly without even telling her thank you.

We'd never seen flowers growing on the nicker bean before.  Amazing what we've seen because we stayed for the summer.  We're looking forward to seeing what becomes of the flowers. Do they turn into the seed pods we like with the shiny green seeds that eventually turn grey when they mature?

Railroad vines.  Perhaps called that because they take off straight (more or less) across the landscape.  We both love the color of these "beach morning glories." They help (along with the sea oats) in forming dunes, so we try to keep from running over them as much as possible.

A close-up of the flowers, though not to the standard our friend Dean Kennedy, but still gives you an idea of how pretty they are.

HA!  Tony's out for a stroll.......trimming our grass for us.

That's Tony Tortoise (a play on Tony Curtis . . .  aughhhhh!), the gopher tortoise.  A bit camera shy, and crashes into the cat trap on his way home.  So lemme see now.  That makes "Blacky" the Black Racer snake, "Harry" the Marsh Rabbit, "Tony" the Gopher Tortoise, and "Lizzy" who is any lizard who happens to be in the way of whatever Barb is doing.  We've been here too long.  Getting to know the neighbors way to well.........

A Golden Rat Snake slithering up a sea grape tree, and another Gopher Tortoise.  This one blocking the road.

It wouldn't stop for a portrait, so I interrupted its trip long enough for a quick shot, and then it was back to business.  With us going reeeaaaallll sssllllooooow down the road behind it.

Home at last and none the worse for wear.  Is this a great lifestyle or what???

I'm standing by one of several artesian wells on the property, wondering how long it would take to fill a 55 gallon garbage can at that speed.  And could I rig some kind of cutoff valve so it could be filling the garbage can while we're watering.  If so, we can water the plants with "free" water, saving the park lots of money.  This well is located about the same distance from where we're watering as the fire hydrant we're currently using, so the fuel cost would be about the same.

TAA DAA!!!  What a day for the hardback guys!  This is a healthy example of an adult box turtle.  Not all that common around here, but still native to the area from what we've been told.

Bottom and top.  Beautiful patterns, eh?  The "Thrill a Day" program is still going strong, after nearly a year parked in the same spot.  Amazing.  Never thought it would have been possible.

We close with a shot sent to us by some thoughtful friends Bill and Diane who were touring Washington D.C., and saw this beautiful display of shells and thought of Barb and her love of them.  Thanks!!  "Jewels from the Sea" is what it's called.  Apt title.

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