This juvie Five Lined Skink squiggled out from under a log that I was moving last weekend. In a state of Posting Partum depression due to a busy schedule, I snatched his blue butt up and forced him to pose for a few photos.
Only the young skinks have this fantastic blue tail. I think the general thought on the blue is that it distracts a predators attention to the least important end of the skink.
Better to lose a piece of my tail than a piece of my head.
Speaking of a skink's head ... isn't it magnificent?
... and those eyes ... wow!
They're huge.
This guy is just a youngster, but there are plenty of adults around PFHQ. A huge adult skink is living in my barn and when I open the door, he scurries away from whatever slinky, skinky, sneaky stuff he was up to ... sounding all the while like a much bigger animal. He makes enough of a scurrying noise that I at first thought it was a rat or an opossum roaming around under the workbench. Skinks are mostly ground lizards who move in swishy serpentine fashion. That seems to make them a lot noisier than other lizards when they are in motion.
The rains of the past two weeks have raised our little pond to the halfway mark ... something we have not seen for quite some time. Bear, in his short Labrador doggy existence, has never seen such a thing here at PFHQ, so he is just beside himself with the joy of wetness.
Yesterday, after a long weekend of mowing and hauling of branches, it was time for a Bear break. So, I grabbed the retriever water toy that has been dry for waaaay too long, and we headed down to the pond. Outgoing Bear. Arrival Bear.
Returning Bear
Here is a long view of the pond. The land slopes gently upward toward PFHQ from here. We are talking very gently ... this is Florida after all.
The little dock on the right side of this view was submerged beneath two feet of water in the Hurricane summer of 2004 when PFHQ received 16 inches of rain in a couple of days.
Back then, the Pond went all LAKEY on us and rose up like a giant amoeba to swallow trees, lawn, and driveway.
It was wonderful.
It's still wonderful in a pondy sort of way.
Below, a little video of Bear doing what Labs were born to do.
It has rained so frequently lately that I honestly don't remember the last sunny, rainless day. This rain has been tropical in it's intensity and volume also ... we're not talking about light showers. It rains in the day. It rains all night.
The pond is up. Buckets left outside are filling up. The soft top on the JEEP is old and the JEEP is filling up too. Roadside ditches are brimming and just itching to claim the road as their own. The frogs are celebrating. Critters are on the move due to high water levels ... I had to swerve to avoid a 3 foot gator last week on the way home from work. He made it. I made it too. The last of the house painting has been on hold for weeks due to daily rains and I'm pretty sure my decision to paint is what caused most of this rain.
Torrential rains have kept me from my photographic duties and to top it off, I have some internet issues at home, so bear with me. They updated my school issue laptop recently and in the process changed some settings which have caused me a few connection headaches since. Since we do not have administrative privileges on these county computers, I can not go in and fix things myself, which just adds to the delay in posting.
Obviously, I need to just get my own laptop and free myself from the "pain" of a school bureaucracy unit.
Speaking of pain, Mrs. FC hurt her knee doing something called, "Zumba" ... (Zumba? I thought she was Catholic) ... so, her mobility is limited right now. I have been busy there too.
It's a little perfect storm of events that are conspiring to make posting difficult. Just wanted y'all to know that the spotty posting is not a new policy, just a temporary glitch.
Remember the tiny Macrobrachium rosenbergii prawns that arrived in my classroom last March?
Remember how I took them home for the summer and installed them in my own recirculating aquaculture system?
Well, they have grown like crazy. The warm outside conditions of my tank is very much to their liking and a lot of molting and growing occurred this summer.
Coincidentally, 4 prawns that were left in the air conditioned classroom tank over the summer have grown only slightly.
If you look on the side of the submerged white bucket, you can see a BC (Blue Claw) Alpha Male prawn.
See? Right down there. This guy is huge. I'm not sure if my "shooting through water" shots do him justice, but he is pretty impressive in real life.
He is clinging to a 5 gallon bucket that holds the system pump. I think most people can picture a 5 gallon bucket, so it's a pretty good size reference. He is taking up a good portion of the side of that bucket. All of the shrimp are not this big, but all are "eating size" and I don't consider popcorn shrimp eating size, so ... well, you get the picture. They are BIG.
I Googled various descriptions of these and the closest hit was the potter wasp species who make tiny clay nests that resemble squat wine bottles from the 1700's.
These ain't those.
These remind me more of Greek amphorae jugs on an ancient shipwreck from the Mediterranean Sea.
I'm pretty sure that when our ancient ancestors began making clay pots, the inspiration came from someone looking at nests like these and saying, "Heyyyyy, ... wait a minute ... what if ... yeah, I could do that ..."
Chime in if you know this species.
In other news, I tossed an entry into the latest Culinary Smackdown, "Battle Sandwich" competition.
Last June, when the vastness of summer unemployment stretched out endlessly before me, I took my classroom cornsnake "Stewie" home. Each summer, Stewie goes home and lives on my porch until late August signals the return to school.
This summer, Stewie found a spot where the duct tape securing the top to his aquarium was loose, and in no time so was Stewie. He has not returned and since PFHQ is snake heaven as far as habitat goes, I think it may be awhile before the one meter long Stewie shows up again. I miss him, but I'm actually happy for him also. He did a great job as snake ambassador in my room, but maybe it was time to just be a snake. I can relate.
In the meantime ...
My secret girlfriend, Sara N. Dippity, sent me a replacement ... just as school is about to fire up again. Meet "Newie". A few days ago, some student government kids were here at school helping the teachers get ready and they found this little ratsnake with his tail stuck in the building door.
So of course they sought me out. I am the critter go to guy at our school ... how weird is that?
"Mr. FC, Mr. FC! There's a baby ratsnake in the hall!"
We walked back down to the entrance door where Newie had his caboose smashed flat between the heavy metal doors and the threshold.
I opened the door and grabbed him for a look-see.
The door had flattened a section an inch or so from his tail tip, but he seemed frisky enough as he bit me again and again.
He got an A for effort, but his teeth are too tiny to do any harm so I ignored that while I inspected his injury.
It seemed far enough back that nothing vital had been injured, so I placed him in a small critter cage in my room.
The good news two days later, is that he seems to have recovered just fine. The flat area isn't flat anymore and he's full of snakey fiestyness as you can see in these pictures.
Last winter (brrrrr), Emma and I burned a small grassy area near the FFA hog pen.
We do this every year (LOOK here and here), because ... it's fun to burn stuff, it reduces the chances of a unplanned ground fire moving near the house, and it's great for maintaining some open meadow habitat here at PFHQ.
One of the wildflowers that really seems to appreciate this burning is Elephant's Foot, (Elephantopus elatus). It thrives in the meadow created by the annual burnings. In turn, a host of insects benefit from the blossoms of the elephant's foot. They must be pretty nectarlicious, because the place at mid-day is abuzz with moths, butterflies, bees, and beetles. My favorite butterfly, the Gulf Fritillary.
A bug's eye view of the meadow.
I am liberated when it comes to moths and butterfly ID by my simple appreciation of their architecture and beauty with no driving ambition to KNOW that bug.
(Yes, I know they are not true bugs ... calm down)
If they were fish ... then I would NEED to know who they were. As it is, I am content to marvel at them while occasionally actually learning who they are.
This one for instance is a "Really Big Butterfly". (Yes, I know this one.)
Don't even get me started on ID's for grasshoppers.
But ... I would like to know more about that brown object on this hopper's dorsal side.
Ideas?
Not everyone is here for nectar or pollen.
Conehead?
She's a girly girl.
Not a tiger beetle, but it should be.
Just look at those great stripes.
Skipper sipper?
Katydidish nymph with really long antennae.
Yet another hopper.
Elephant's Foot grows in almost any sunny unmowed area here at PFHQ, but it is most abundant in the little meadow area that we maintain by winter burns, just south of the now idle hog pen.
The video above is a slower, clearer drift along the bird dock at Atsenia Otie Key. A previous video showed us approaching the island with a wee bit of lightning in the background.
The final video is a grass level view through a wildflower meadow that was nothing but blackened ash after a control burn last winter.
The flowers you see are Elephants Foot. The video may not be pulse raising, but it does have a neat, surprise ending.
With any luck, I will have the still photos of the meadow visitors up on PF tomorrow.
Look at me, Master, see how attentive and almost angelic I am? How could you ever get aggravated with me?
I am completely focused on you, YOU, and only you. I am an obedience school graduate ... honors graduate, and I only exist to do your bidding and make you smile.
You say "Jump!", and I say "How ..."
... hey wait a minute ...
... Chickens? See them? M-U-S-T F-I-G-H-T U-R-G-E ...
Whew !
I'm okay ... just give me a minute ... what was I saying?
Something about being an angel as I recall ... yes, that was it, you know I' m a good boy and you can count on me to be at your beck and call, perfectly obedient, and adoring.
Just look at me ... it's written all over my face.
Ladies and Gentlemen, Do not be fooled by that sweet exterior or the canine chattering above.
Oh sure it's true about 98.5% of the time, but that other 1.5% ... good golly, it's as if he's channeling Marley.
I show you the very short video clip below just to set the scene for the last Marleyesque episode Bear had.
Excuse the junk, we have been painting the house and all the porch clutter and paint stuff is stacked in the back "yard".
Go ahead and watch it (again) and I will explain Bear's most recent 1.5% episode.
A few days ago, Tropical Depression # 4 or 5 slid past in the Gulf, which was wonderful as it brought fresh breezes and sheets of heavy rain.
I loves me some heavy rain.
Anyway, it was during a particularly heavy band of tropical rain that Bear and I stepped out on to the porch. I did not leash him as is my habit.
The rain was coming down so heavy, I thought it would keep him on the porch while we enjoyed the downpour. Yes, I know he's a lab and that rain is water, but usually he is content to remain on the porch if it's really coming down.
At some point, I had the bright idea to walk around the L-shaped porch to the back side.
Everything was fine until we neared the back steps and there were the 3 veteran free ranging roosters.
His ears went up. I commanded, "LEAVE IT!"
For a moment, he hesitated.
I moved forward, quickly reaching for that red collar.
He cleared all 3 steps and hit the grass running as the roosters scattered like shrapnel.
At this point, I was still optimistic that he would respond and return ... he hasn't had a chicken relapse in a very long time ... and I had the camera on to film the rain for y'all, so I shot that clip above.
The reason it's so short is ... he did NOT return promptly.
In fact it was a caninopoultristiccatastrophy in the making, so I set the camera down on a bucket of paint and plunged out into the rain.
In about two seconds I was completely drenched.
Bear managed to catch a rooster who promptly played dead ... or fainted. I don't really know which.
We ran around and around in this driving rain, me yelling, him playfully staying 20 feet ahead of me with the rooster flopping in his massive jaws.
At some point, he stopped to rearrange the rooster and it dashed into heavy brush.
Bear paused on the edge of the thick grapevine tangle and I raced towards him.
Even as I closed the gap between us I saw him lift his head and inhale deeply of some scent that was even more tantalizing than rooster ... deer? the girl dog next door?
Whatever it was, he was off like a shot again.
To shorten this story just a bit ... For the next 15 minutes, I ran through my woods, the neighbor's woods, through an overgrown vineyard, and a defunct plant nursery littered with fence wire, pots, and other debris ... all in a driving rain and yelling the whole time ... except when I was desperately gasping for air.
It was all a game for him and his obedient 98.5% brain shut down so that the 1.5% Medulla Marleyonglata organ could take control.
Somewhere past the defunct nursery and deep in someone else's woods, he paused and seemed to come to his senses.
I stopped with about 20 feet between us ... dreading the sudden bolting that I fully expected. I crouched and tried to call him, but my voice was shot.
Somehow I croaked out, "Touch" ... which is his command to come nuzzle my hand for a training treat.
He came.
I grabbed his collar, leading him through the woods and back to PFHQ.
Back at the house, soaked, tired, and ... just a little bit angry, I put him in time out and put some distance between us. For his protection.
A little while later, after a hot shower and some dry clothes improved my outlook on things, I commuted his sentence from solitary confinement to rolling on the rug and hugging.
I can only be mad at him for about 1.5% of the time and that time was up.
This extremely cold winter had me running my datil pepper seedlings in and out of the house back in January and February.
OUT for sun - IF it was warm enough - IN for warmth at night and many days too - then OUT for sun - In for ... well, you get the idea.
It all paid off though. Even though the cold and my own bumbling cost me some baby datils, the plants who survived are thriving.
The proof is in the photo above.
We made a triple-size batch of datil pepper relish a few days ago.
I seeded 55 datil peppers to get 2.5 cups of whole peppers ... and yes, I wore gloves for that job!
Once bitten, twice shy ... if you know what I mean.
I saved the seeds by the way and will offer them again this winter when it's closer to seed starting time.
In other news ...
Junior has an apartment and a job! It all fell together for him in the last week so we are moving things from here to there and are in an even bigger state of disarray around here than normal.
I have to go back to work Monday. Nuff said.
Bear went to St. Augustine yesterday and thrilled his grandparents to no end. He is like a magic happy drug ... without any bad effects ... except for the whole addiction thing.
My college roomie, Dave, and his wife, Tami, have been down for a few days overseeing the construction start of their log home.
They are as excited as two kids on Christmas Eve, so it was fun to hang with them yesterday evening and today.
... which explains the lateness of this Friday post.
We slowed to let the wild turkey family cross in front of us last week and this indecisive bird stayed behind while everybody else zipped across the street.
Lots of turkey babies this year, although they are not really babies anymore. They are almost as big as their parents, but still hanging out as a family.
I know this is a turkey of a post, but I put my energy into a foody post over at PureFloridaFood.
If you like Cuban food, you might just wanna slide over there. I like it so much I'm making it again today in honor of Emma being home from college for a few days.
If you are a frigate bird, it's time to soar on up into the warming air. Somewhere below, a fish has a date with your beak.
Captain D.
After a full day of fishing with my pal, Captain Denny Voyles, we cruised by the dock at Atsenia Otie Key to look at the birds. Denny is not a birder, but he was pumped up about all the neat birds using the dock as a roost. So, beneath a gathering storm, we zipped over to Atsenia Otie and made a few drifts along the dock ... bird watching.
Line up of the usual suspects.
Fish rustlers.
Diversity dock.
Even more diversity dockage.
This dock was built years ago when a developer was going to carve Atsenia Otie into a "boat access only" subdivision.
Lucky for the birds, the fish, the farm raised Cedar Key clams, you, and I , ... the Nature Conservancy and the US Fish and Wildlife Service rescued the island.
It's ours now and forever.
In the meantime, the T-shaped dock has become a haven for the birds, who don't care if it is a little weather beaten and rustic.
The main reason Denny wanted to go to the bird dock was " this tiny little tern" that had shown up there lately.
He even used the word "cute" when describing it.
It terned out to be least terns that he was so excited about.
I READ YOUR COMMENTS AND DECIDED TO UPLOAD THIS VIDEO, EVEN THOUGH IT GOES BLURRY ONCE OR TWICE AS THE CAMERA ADJUSTS TO MY MOVEMENT.
SOME OF YOU WERE CURIOUS ABOUT HOW CLOSE I WAS.
I STAYED OUT OF HIS STRIKE ZONE AS I CIRCLED HIM FOR THE MOVIE AND STILL PICS ... AND I USED A LONG PINE BRANCH TO SCOOTCH HIM OFF THE ROAD AFTER THE PHOTO SESSION.
MY ADVICE FOR YOU IS TO GIVE EVERY VENOMOUS OR UNKNOWN SNAKE ABOUT TEN FEET AT THE MINIMUM, AND THEN ENJOY THE ENCOUNTER.
GOING CLOSER IS A PERSONAL DECISION AND NOT ENCOURAGED HERE AT PF.
HAVING SAID THAT, I OBVIOUSLY GO CLOSER FOR PHOTOS, OR TO SLIDE A SNAKE OFF THE ROAD BEFORE THE NEXT, AND MAYBE NOT SO FRIENDLY, TRUCK COMES ALONG.
I DO NOT ADVISE THAT (KEVIN EXCLUDED) AS A GENERAL POLICY.
WE ALL MAKE DECISIONS ABOUT RISK.
SOME OF YOU ACTUALLY FLY ON AIRPLANES ... SHUDDER.
I PREFER TAKING CHANCES WITH A TOOTHY, SPIKEY, OR VENOMOUS CRITTER TO BE QUITE HONEST.
ENJOY THE VIDEO.
Oh great ... I was almost across this dirt road and in the safety of the tall grass ... and here comes FC.
I just know he's going to mess with me.
I will glare at him. Maybe he will go away.
Nope. The glare is not working. I will raise my head in a threat display. That should do it. I'll just let him know I am aware of him and am ready.
Okay, he's pushing this thing so he gets the whole cottonmouth display and a view of my fangs.
I've gone through my list and he's working up to the grand finale. Better back off FC!
See these fangs! Yeah, buddy, I'm hissing at you.
That's right! I'm packing. Don't get any closer. Just because I keep them folded back doesn't mean I can't poke 'em in you in a heartbeat.
Ever hear of a switchblade?
Ever hear of one loaded with venom?
Well, that's more like it. Now leave me alone and let me slide off this road.
