Floralligator Breeze

On the way out of the refuge last Sunday, I was listening to a little Jimmy Buffett mix that Emma had made for me when my gatordar went off.

Sure enough, there was a six footer lounging in a creek just ahead. I inched the JEEP forward until I was just opposite the gator and shot a few still photos.

I wanted to try some video, without the rumbling of the JEEP's mighty 4 cylinder engine, so I took a chance and shut it off.

For some reason, that often spooks whatever critter I happen to be shooting from the JEEPblind.

This gator was in no mood to leave however, so I sat there awhile watching him, alternately shooting a little video or stills.

When I first turned off the JEEP, out of habit I turned the key so the CD player could continue to play Jimmy.

Without meaning to, I created a musical soundtrack to the video which, to me, seems pretty appropriate.

So, I'll share it with you and apologize to Jimmy for using a wee bit of his work without asking.

Consider it free advertising ... poor guy could use some cash.

I love this gator's toothy open maw. That's not the usual pose that I find them in, but it was a warm day and this guy might have been ventilating.

When I stepped out of the JEEP to try for a closer shot at a new angle, he turned in a flash and submerged. There was a culvert under the road nearby and I dashed over to it thinking that's where he was headed.

I was right, but the light wasn't right. The water was shallow and clear though, and it was pretty cool to stand on that culvert and watch all six feet of this gator slowly slip into the dark tube.

I think he feels at home down there.

Thank You Friends

Thank you all for the comments on Feather. I read them all ... more than once, and I'm not done.
I think I'll be revisiting that post for a while...
Your thoughts are a great comfort and just more evidence to me of the wonder of this new (hey, I remember black and white TV...so I still think of this as new) way of connecting with people.

The restraints of geography and location have fallen away to reveal friends in places you never could have known if not for the net.
And I do think of you as friends.

The combination of finally writing about her going and your heartfelt comments made all the difference yesterday.
I think I'm at that point where you start feeling less lonesome and more appreciative of the wonderful dog years Feather shared with us ... and you through this blog.

So ... I just wanted to thank all of you for being so generous with supporting comments yesterday.
Somehow, a thank you comment from me tacked on to the end of your words just didn't seem appropriate.

I thought I should just take a post to do so.

Thank you again, from the bottom of my heart.

Goodbye Sweet Girl

Feather, January 1996 to September 2009.



I have only owned one female dog in my life. Her name is Feather, and I lost her earlier this month.


If you have been reading Pure Florida for a long time, you might be saying, "Hey, wait a minute, what about Lady?"


Good point, but I did not choose Lady, she chose us, and she could have left as she came, suddenly, and without prior notice.
To me there is a difference. I met Lady late in her life and we did not experience that bonding known as puppyhood together.

I loved her, but I don't think I was in love with her ... not like Feather.
It is not the same, as picking out that little puppy from a bouncing pack of pups, which is how I came to "own" Feather.



While I was picking Feather out from the crowd, her brother, Flounder wandered over to chew on my hand, so one became two.

I have never regretted the decision to bring two pups home instead of just one. The two of them had a strong bond and were the best of pals.


They were insane for a few years as all Lab pups seem to be , even though, ... technically, Flounder and Feather were mutts not Labs, a cross between a purebred black lab Mom and a purebred golden retriever Dad. Flounder favored the sire, Feather favored the dam.

Feather put on some weight in her later years, and became pretty sedentary. As the years went by, it became harder to visualize her as the bouncy adolescent dog whose bad manners caused my 6 year old daughter Katie to shout, "GET DOWN YOU BASTARDS!"

That hysterically (to us) funny moment, has become legend in our family ... we don't swear much so we still can't figure out where she got that word from.




I think Flounder and Feather were usually on the same wavelength when it came to the day's chores.
I'm hoping he doesn't feel too lost without her guidance.

She was the patient one, willing to wait at a burrow for ages, waiting for something to appear. More than once, I've looked out the kitchen window to see her, haunches up, nose down and out of sight in a pocket gopher burrow, trying to ambush the little guy when he came up.

She never caught one as far as I know.

She calmed down after she passed ten human years and became the queen of the porch. Her job there was to keep the yard birds in the yard and off the porch.

She failed miserably at this, but we forgave her.

She loved the water and was the one who would actually retrieve stuff thrown into the pond, while Flounder would hang out on the bank and ambush her as she climbed ashore. She was definitely the Labbier of the two siblings.

She had the softest muzzle and I loved to bury my face in hers and feel all that soft velvety fur.

I'm going to miss that.

On the day she died, I was concerned about her because she had been spending alot of time under the house. Over the summer Feather had experienced a few days where she could not stand. Even though she recovered from whatever it was, she was wobblier than before the incident.

That last morning only Flounder came from under the house when I banged the food can lid.

She did not come out for a meal and Feather NEVER missed a meal.

I worried that she might be too sore to get up, but told myself an old deaf dog just might have slept through the noise.

That afternoon was the Friday before Junior's 18th birthday. After I arrived home from work, I changed into some grubby jeans and went under the house on my belly to check on her.

I feared the worst, but was hoping that maybe she had just had another episode of sore hips or whatever it was that immobilized her a few months before.

I entered the crawlspace on my belly and slid through the dust, dog hair, cob webs, and sand for about 20 feet, and then I saw her.

She was curled up, and for a moment I allowed myself that glimmer of hope that she might just be sleeping. I scooched up to her and took her paw in my hand ... and there was no more denial.

She was gone.

A big sob began working it's way up.

" Feather, I can't cry and do this, not now." I actually said that aloud to no one and the sob went away.

I placed an arm around her gently and slowly began to back out on my belly, pulling my 96 pound dog behind me.

It took awhile.

Eventually, my feet hit daylight, and then my torso, and then Feather.

I wrapped her in a blanket and carried her out to our pet cemetery where a handful of very good dogs are buried. It's a pretty spot, shaded by the pine trees I planted when Feather and Flounder were just pups.



On Sunday, Junior's birthday, I secretly carved her marker while cooking Junior's birthday ribs. As I carved, I continuously peeked out the door to make sure neither Emma, Katie, or Junior surprised me with a visit to the barn.

I did not want to ruin such a happy day. What was done, was done.

The secret could stay with me a little while longer. The fact that both Flounder and Feather spent most of their time under the house and that the week and weekends were so busy made her absence not as obvious as you might think.

That helped with the deception.

Then Kate and Em both got sick during the week, so I kept the sad news inside a little longer. Then, it was Dad's birthday, and I didn't want to ruin that, so I held off telling the kids through a second weekend.

Yesterday, I told them all.

Then, I hopped in the JEEP and drove out into the 57,000 acre Lower Suwanee National Wildlife Refuge where I could be alone.

On the edge of a saltmarsh,with only the sound of the breeze rustling the spartina grass, I found that sob I had stifled under the house over a week earlier... and I set it free.

How To Call Owls

Apparently, if you whine loud enough, the owls will hear it and come to you.
Friday's post (whine alament) seems to have worked.

This Barred Owl showed up in the oak near my porch just as I was rushing out to a football game Friday night.
I was almost late already... as usual, but I had to stop and shoot a few shots of him to share with you.

I cut this video down to one pretty short clip, because after that initial head nod, he did nothing more than stare at me.

In a familiar refrain, we lost the football game, but Junior had a really good night, catching a beautiful long pass for a touchdown, catching a bunch of shorter first down passes, and power kicking (thank you years of soccer) both the kickoffs and the field goals.

Dad's birthday is today. We celebrated it with him yesterday over lasagna, salad, and garlic bread.

Oh, and one blackberry pie and one French silk pie.

He likes to say that no matter how full he is, there is always a desert shaped space left in his stomach after the main course is complete.

He filled it pretty well with a slice of each pie.

With his birthday complete, September, that month of too many birthdays is finally over.

Bring on October!

Whine

Here's a random skipper shot for you, because I'm not sure what I'm going to write about this morning ... if it goes badly, at least you will have a pretty little insect to admire.

Why this uncertainty?

Here's the dealio cats ... September has been a bit of a whirlwind. Every weekend ... well 3 of them at least, in September are family birthdays. Mom, Junior, and this weekend, Dad. These all involve trips over to St. Augustine for a day, which means the other weekend day is for catching up on all the things you usually try to get done during the week, but leave to the weekend, and still don't get done.

It makes for a full day on that one day.

The point is, I'm not getting wild much lately.

My kayak is covered in leaves and fallen grapes from the wild vines overhead. It has not seen the water in months.

My camera's memory card is waaaaaay too empty if you know what I mean. I really, really need some marshtime.

I didn't even make the last Culinary Smack down (sorry Heff).

On top of the September celebrations, I have started my Girl's Soccer Coach duties so now after the school teacher day is done. I spend a couple of hours trying to get my gaggle of girls into shape for the upcoming season. We are doing conditioning now, not real soccer practice, so I am more of a drill sergeant than soccer coach.

I'm no stranger to the teenage girl mind, having raised a few and taught a few thousand over the years, but the role of coach is a new one to me.

It's not that different from teaching (except you get a cool whistle) as far as the motivational and communication skills involved ... that part doesn't worry me so much. It's more the knowledge of the game and a lot more experience watching soccer than playing it.

I have found some excellent web sites and I bought a great book, "How To Coach A Soccer Team", so I'm doing lots of research. Plus, someday soon, Junior is going to take me out on the pitch and tutor me (whip my butt) in soccer.

Yesterday a covey of girls from the TV Productions class came to videotape an interview with the new girl's soccer team coach.

When they asked me why I became a coach, I said, "So I could get a cool whistle and skip faculty meetings."

I think that clip airs on the Friday morning show at school today, so y'all let me know if their are any teaching openings in your area.

I might need to be looking.

Air Potato ... Florida's Kudzu

This is air potato, an exotic vine from Asia. I liken it to Kudzu, because it has that ability to engulf disturbed areas and smother native plants with it's rapid growth.

Unlike Kudzu, air potato has no redeeming qualities ... Kudzu does have a few .

Airtaters are a member of the yam family, but the taters are bitter and according to IFAS, possibly poisonous. Each little tuber ... these are born aloft on the vine, not in the ground, can start a new plant. This makes removal pretty tricky, because if you miss one, you start over again. Around Florida, communities organize "Air Potato Pulls" where volunteers head out on a Saturday and try to strip the vile beast from some natural area it has invaded.

The air taters in the picture are from a little Air Potato Pull my Mom and I conducted one morning recently. We were walking around with Bear when I noticed that air potato had crept over the fence from the house behind hers. It was intermingling itself with the well behaved Confederate Jasmine that covered the fence, so herbicides were out of the question.

We spent a pleasant hour in the shade talking and stripping air tater vine from the fence.

It didn't seem like work at all.

Perhaps air potatoes do have one good use, besides inspiring quality time with your Mom ...

They make pretty good ammo.

What?

When I was a kid, there was a big clump of air potato vines growing at my Papa's house and generally throughout the neighborhood. One day, my cousins and I were there at our grandparents, when we wandered down by the street near Papa's garage.

About that time some boys from the neighborhood walked by, words were exchanged as boys often do ... girls too these days, sigh.

Then someone picked up an air tater.

... And they threw it.

At us.

Well, allllrriiigggght!

We probably set back the control of air potato a few years by tossing the viable tubers near and far, but no one back then ever worried about the spread of exotics.

I don't recall how many air taters were thrown that day, but I do know they sting when they hit you. In my memory, it was an epic battle, although in reality it was probably more of a skirmish. And when it ended, it ended. A draw as I recall, with no 9mm's being drawn, no drive-by shooting later in the day.

It may be a bit nostalgic, but it seems pretty harmless now. Some air taters tossed between two different tribes who met on the trail ...

Wordless Wednesday: Scratchin' That Itch

Hot Thoughts

Last winter, Emma and I control burned this open grassy area, just south of the pig pen/garden area. There were alot of deadfall oak branches in the area at the time and these we piled high to burn in the spot above.
Obviously, it's been a good year for grasses and wildflowers, look at the growth above. Everything in the photo above was burned by Emma and I, but only the pile of branches supported a sustained fire.
Our controlled burns are rapidly moving grass fires that sweep over the designated area quickly, leaving the ground beneath relatively cool.

The fire ring makes me wonder just what changes took place in that soil due to the log fire. I've heard people say that fires sterilize the soil, and I can buy that for a short period of time after the fire, but ... "Life will find a way" and all that. I can't see fire sterilizing soil so much that essentially nothing grows in the spot most of a year later.
Seeing the fire ring so barren after a grass blade's dream of a summer, makes me wonder just what does the fire do to the soil?
Does it change the chemistry of the soil so much that even tough as nails scrub plants won't reseed it?

It's a burning question I have.

These asters (?) are blooming now in the big fall flush of wildflowers. They grow happily in soil that is barely more than beach sand in some places and they seem to appreciate the controlled burns we do.

Now here's the result of a good controlled burn. These are the ribs I barbequed for Junior's birthday Sunday.
Yes, they tasted just as good as they look. Moist with a carmelized coating, tender, but not mushy.

My hotrod of a truck supporting a hot load of datil peppers. I have enough peppers for my personal use so I'm saving peppers for seed at this point.

... Okay, it's a dormant 1982 GMC S15 pickup truck ... not a hot rod, but it IS toting a hot load.

Prairie Chickens

My free rangers love the lush grasses in the area I control burned last year.

Long Claw: The Sword of Jon Snow ... Nerf Talon, The Sword of Junior

It's a birthday weekend here at Pure Florida Head Quarters. My baby boy is 18.


How suweeeeet is that?


Very.





He wanted a small birthday dinner (his dinner was not small) at Chili's in St. Augustine with his grandparents, family, and a few friends so we spent Saturday in the ancient city.





Lest you think us weirder than you already do, let me explain him just a little bit.


He's not all muscle and handsomnicity.


He has a brain too and he is a voracious reader ... mostly of two genres ... Star Wars (yes, there are books that carry the saga on) and sword and sorcery series.


That last one is important in understanding some of these photos.


The story goes like this ...


...Sweet Emma loves tales of dragons, magic, and good vs evil swordy sagas. Her grandmother is given that information a few years ago and randomly picks out the first book of a series by George R. R. Martin.


Emma loves it.


She tries to interest Junior, but at the time he is Star Wars fixated. He resists.


Later, he tries it.


He loves it.


The two of them devour each book in the series and introduce their friends to it.


Now they are all crazy about this saga, even though the author's habit of killing off characters you thought were "safe" drives them all crazy.


Often they will get a text from a friend who is reading one of the books.


They usually go like this, " Arrrrghhhh! I can't believe So and So just got killed!"



Now they are all impatiently waiting for the author to publish the next book in the series.





It's pretty funny to watch.





So, if you think about it, one of the common threads running through both the Star Wars sagas and the"A Game Of Thrones" saga, is the sword.





Junior is a sword nut. He has movie quality light sabers, wooden martial arts swords, and real steel swords stashed about his room.


He and his buddy Jonathon are often outside whacking at each other with the wooden swords or carefully choreographing swordplay for one of their classic homemade videos.


So this birthday party is loaded with swords, but we are not all insane.


We just believe in giving folks what they want for their birthday.





Okay, enough of that ... let's look at the party pics back at his Grandparent's house.

I love this shot of my girls being ... so girly. Are they aware they are at a party and the guest of honor is holding up a present he just opened?


Maybe ... heehee.

And get the classic sisterly "Are you nuts?" look that Em is giving Kate in that shot ... meanwhile Birthday boy is totally stoked with the Nerf Sword he just unwrapped.
He got 3 of those so he and his pals can battle each other.


Here he is with the grand prize gift, the one from all of us. A full scale replica of a favorite character's sword, Longclaw, the sword of Jon Snow. I have to admit it is pretty cool and it came with a neat wall plaque/holder for me to mount in his room.

I think Mom and Dad were bemused by his swordy gifts. Mom gave the best material gift of all ... A full batch of Toll House Cookies. Junior is being stingy with them, but I will remind him that in January she will make me a birthday batch and I have a long memory.

Friends in the balcony, Jonathon and Laura.

Yes, of course we took Bear along. His Grandmother is completely smitten with him and I am under orders not to come without him.

Today, I am BBQing some ribs in his honor.

I still can't believe he's 18.

Wasn't it just yesterday that I wrote this?

Seems like it.

Random Pondage

The buttonbush down at the pond puddle are quite tired of blooming, thank you very much. They have settled down to the more serious business of seed making, but the suitors still come.


No way the dragonflies are taking a break. We live, we eat, we fly, we mate ... sometimes at the same time.
My brother told me that recently he watched a dragonfly zip up to an orb weaver's web and hover about an inch from the spider.

Intrigued by this odd standoff, he stood still ...watching, ... half expecting the dragon to bumble into the net and become spider chow.
He said the dragon continued to hover, his huge eyes twitching as he studied the spider only a flyleg in front of him.
Suddenly, the dragon lunged forward, snatched the spider from it's web, and took off with it's prize!
I had no idea they they did that kind of gutsy stuff.

Never A Dull Moment ... Except In Faculty Meetings

I should have known yesterday was going to be an interesting day when I overheard this conversation in the hallway, before school began.



"Honey, where ARE your pants? Those are your underwear ... who dressed you today?"



The TMH (Trainable Mentally Handicapped) teacher was leaning over , gently questioning one of her charges about the undergarments he was wearing as outergarments. She wasn't scolding the Down's Syndrome child. Her tone was caring and motherly as she attempted to get to the bottom of the missing pants mystery.

She is an angel/mother/teacher combination to the kids in her class and a woman of great patience. The children in her class deal with extreme physical and mental challenges each day, but they are the sweetest group of kids on campus.

I wandered back to my room chuckling over that exchange and dove into a day of teaching.

Near the end of 5th period, the maintenance guy showed up requesting a net ... there was a bat in the gym.
I grabbed a nice insect collecting net with a cloth bag from my store room and warned him about touching the bat.

He took off for the gym, but reappeared in about ten minutes.

"That was quick", I said as I took the net from him.
"Oh some kid, grabbed the bat off the wall and took it outside." he replied.
I stopped in my tracks.
"What kid?
"Oh, John Doe"
"He held the bat in his hands?
"Yup, ... jumped up and scooped it off the gym wall and then took it outside."

I told the maintenance guy to stop by the nurse's office and give her the boy's name.

About 20 minutes later, the nurse showed up at my classroom door.

"If I watch your class, can you go catch that bat? The gym teacher knows where it is and we need to send if off for rabies testing"

I smiled ...
"Sure. Have fun with my most challenging class of the day."

"Challenging" sounds so much better than "worse".


I grabbed the bug net and stopped by the JEEP for a pair of work gloves. Then off to the gym.

When I got to the gym, the poor bat was clinging to the red brick exterior wall about a foot off the ground.

I gently nudged him into the net, shook him down to the bottom of the bag, gave it a twist, and ziptied the neck of the bag to keep him inside.
Then the bat and I rode over the health department.

At this point, the bat is toast.
It's not his fault of course. If the kid had just left it alone, it could have been netted after school and released.
Now it has a date with the lab to have it's brain examined for the rabies virus.
When I arived at the Environmental Services portion of the health department, the one employee on hand, an elderly lady, had a tupperware container ready for the bat.

"Oh, ... he's alive? Usually we receive dead animals for this testing."
"Yes maam, he's alive and we are not going to put him in that box and just let him slowly suffocate. Will it mess up the testing protocols if he is frozen?
There was an upright freezer in the workroom where we were standing.
"No, we freeze raccoon heads when they come in for testing on Friday and the lab is closed until Monday."

"Okay, I'm going to transfer him to your plastic container and then place him in the freezer. It's the most humane thing we can do right now. He'll just slow down, go to sleep, and pass away peacefully."

"Do you want me to help?"
"No, that's okay, I've got this."
She sighed a big sigh of relief and went off to her desk.

I undid the ziptie, untwisted the net bag, and placed the plastic container upside down over the bat, slipping the top under it to capture him.

"Sorry dude."
I placed the container in the freezer and shut the door.

The bat will be tested, but the health department says that almost every single suspect bat that comes in, is positive for rabies. The kid and his parents will be anxiously awaiting word of the test results, because that will determine if the boy gets the series of shots required after rabies exposure.
Had we not captured the bat, he would have had to begin the shots just to be sure.

Remember this story?

That one was heart breaking.

So, I'm doing some bat education around the school, getting teachers to remind kids to leave the campus wildlife alone, and to call me ... preferably during my most "challenging" class if something needs relocating.

Yup, I'd rather deal with a rabid bat any day of the week...

Of Muffins and Bamboo

That's about half of the 900+ mini-muffins the Southern Sisters Team baked for the Ride To Provide, a local motorcycle charity event last weekend.
Let's see, they baked blueberry, carrotcake, cinnamon, praline, lemon, and one or two other muffin varieties for the bikers.
It was a great success and the girls made some good future business contacts as they served breakfast.



Look at Baby Boo now! That was Sunday, he's even taller now. I am just in awe of this plant.

After some of you mentioned trenching the culms to propagate bamboo, I thought I had missed the boat on REALLY increasing my timber bamboo plantation.

Then, Sunday as I stripped branches from the culms I was saving to dry as timber, I found deep green culms at the bottom of the pile that had been shaded and kept moist due to that location.

I figured there was nothing to lose but a few extra pieces of bamboo, so I cut them into pieces with 2 nodes and green branches.

These soaked in the aquaculture tank for two days to fully rehydrate and yesterday I trenched them in the rain as the sun set.

We shall see.

CUT AWAY FROM YOURSELF!

How many times have I said that to my students during dissection labs? I sliced my pinkie pretty good and the nurse went all hyper bandaging it up. I judge all cuts by the one the finger to the left took a few years ago out in the Gulf of Florida, so I didn't think this one was such a big deal.

Have a great Wednesday. I feel like this could be humpday for my cold too.

Yes!

Little Shop Of Horrors? Hey, What IS This?

THIS is growing in my fallow FFA pig pen and there is no way that is a fellow native.

What is it?
I don't have time to search it up this morning and a cold has sapped my urge to do much of anything, so I call on the wisdom of blogopolis.

It looks sinister and when I get home today, those seed filled pods and the rest of the plant are going to a little barbeque ...

Walking My Master ... A Post By Bear

WOOF MORNING!
This is Bear ... surprise!
FC is busy outside rinsing the mud off his feet after our walk (does he not have a tongue?) so I'm doing this morning's post. He walks me every morning, usually before dawn, but it being the weekend and all, I let him sleep til about 7ish.

I told him no photos of me doing my business and for once he obeyed me.
Soooo, our second stop was the clump of tall palmettos near the driveway, a place of delicious scents ... armadillo, snake, wood rat, cottontail ... it's a nose buffet.
Well, maybe not if you're human. I keep forgetting your sense of smell is so puny ... no offense.

The bunny was here ... trust me.

FC took this picture of his feet (What the Sirius was he thinking?) Wait, ... he was checking out the rainwater diversion he digs each year at hurricane time. It rained all day yesterday, I think he was curious about how it was working.
Also in that picture is the 20 foot long lead he puts on me when we walk.
It helps me to focus ... sometimes I lose my concentration when I see a chicken (tremble,slobber) or a cat (slobber,slobber) or Lady, the pretty white lab girl from next door (tremble, slobber, tremble, slobber ad infinitum... )
FC talks of something called an invisible fence ... huh? I just smile and lick his hand when he brings this up ... his fences are in such bad shape they are mostly invisible anyway.


I did a little driveway excavating too, but FC tugged on the leash so off we went.

I stopped to listen to the resurrection fern. They said they were pretty happy about all the rain. They felt good to be all green and plumped up again. I figured if they liked water so much, I'd give them a little more ... hope they like yellow.

I didn't do the water above ... last night's rain was still hanging around.

At the pond, I led FC out onto the dock to survey the "pond". I've only been on Earth for a year and a half, so I've never seen the pond full, but FC swears to me that this dock was underwater in 2004.

Sigh ...

After the dock, I pulled FC into the shallow wetland he calls a pond. He was barefoot so there was none of that annoying, "No Bear, No Bear, stop, stop, STOP!" stuff he yells when he's wearing shoes.
There were amazing smells here. The deer had been lying in the dog fennels and they dripped with ungulate odor.

I chuffed and breathed deep.

Intoxicating.

We waded a bit and then I led FC up the pond slope on the trail we and the deer always use. I didn't run him since he was barefoot and there is some smilax over the crest.

Wuss ...

The grasses around the pond are rich and lush after a wet summer. I feel quite Serengetish up here in the tall grass.

FC's post-pond feet. He seems preoccupied with them today doesn't he? If he had better fur, none of that mud would have touched his skin.

Naked apes... can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em.

You dogs know what I'm talking about.

It wasn't long before FC was limping with a smilax thorn in his heel. Honestly, how can you expect to have tough pads if you wear shoes to work?

Ridiculous expectation in my canine opinion.

FC's not much for the bricks and mortar church scene, but it being Sunday, we stopped at a REAL crystal cathedral to give thanks for being on such a quirky, yet liveable planet ... and for time with each other.

After church, we found this deer jawbone which scared me at first. (AFTER FC MADE IT JUMP AT ME! HE'S BAD, LET ME TELL YA')

After he quit cutting the fool, I picked it up and carried it for awhile, but honestly, all the flavor was gone, so I dropped it somewhere on the way back to the house.

Along the trail back to the house, a fungus was celebrating yet another GATOR victory yesterday.

Home sweet home.

This is where I picked up the pace. Every morning walk ends with a treat. He keeps them in the closet under the stairs ... in case you are ever visiting and want to get me one.

Almost there. I can smell the chewie calling my name.

Turn the knob, turn the knob! I get kind of excited at this point in the walk. The chewies are only a few feet down the hall behind this door.

FC said to apologize for the grimey door. He's almost ready to stain and paint the house and he's gonna clean it thoroughly before he does.

Excuses, excuses ...

YES! My favorite part of the walk! I love me some chewies!

Hope you enjoyed coming along while I walked FC.

He may be a bit wacky sometimes, but he IS trainable.

Wishing you good smells and wagging tails,

BEAR