An 'Owling Good Time

Last night I porch sat with my lovely neighbors, Marlon and Yvette, and Cindy... along with big Nate. Randy and Mat and Scott were camping so Cindy was having a night off! The beer, wine and Captain Morgan was flowing and Yvette and I decided to do the Wacissa today.

We saw all sorts of wonderful birds including this Barred Owl who was swooping around the swimming hole, taking crawfish out of a fella's hand! There were jumping fish everywhere and lots of alligators! Yvette likes to take pictures and she brought her big Nikon. I am working with my Nikon coolpics while the Canon is at the shop...

Sunset over Three Rivers

Monday afternoon I tooled out to Three Rivers State Park to see what Peggy was up to. It was way too windy to paddle until dark, so we hiked and drank wine, ate dinner, chatted with the campground hosts, and took a night kayak paddle. I took a few photos. I thought I took photos of the boats but I can't find them. They must be Ninja; you can't see them. A cool thing happened today. Brian Rolek of the Auburn Choctawhatchee team added me as a friend to his Facebook so I signed up. I'm young again!!!

When I finish my semester work I will be going back over to the Choctawhatchee. I figure the ivory bills will have hatched their young and I can find a pair and a juvenile for my first photos! Peggy gave me an ivory bill tee-shirt, which I stuffed into my deck box on my last kayak trip in the Pelican when I got hot and just rediscovered it. She believes in manifesting and is working on a Pathfinder! So maybe the shirt will help. I have to get her a woodstork mug from The Lucky Lad's store. I figure my bird magnetism is pretty good as well and I just have to get motivated and get over there. But I really didn't want to tramp around in the study area. Stay tuned.

Lake Lafayette Kayak Trail

I took an eight mile trip around Lake Lafayette today in honor of opening day of the Piney Z/ Lake Lafayette Kayak Trail ceremony. This is a cypress swamp which holds the largest woodstork rookery in North Florida. It was a windy day but the ospreys were about although quite windblown as you can tell. I saw herons, anhingas, redwing blackbirds, wood ducks, storks, and hawks, as well.

How I Spent my Easter Vacation

I had a delightful visit with the parental units this past weekend. Nathan had a paper and a test due, as well as a heavy lifting job, so he stayed at home. Friday night was a great meal out and Sunday we went to Easter services, I took a kayak trip around Munyon Island, and we had Easter dinner, dressed up. Mom and I also went downtown to the Norton Gallery to see a Georgia O'Keefe exhibit on Saturday. They wouldn't let me take photos of that, though! Saturday night was Herman McRae's ribs. mmmmm... Today, before I left mom and I did the water aerobics class. I was tired! She did just fine and is stronger than ever! She also taught me a yarn- over knitting stitch I have been trying to understand and she gave me her table sewing machine.

I have been looking forward to a kayak trip to Munyon Island since the last time I tried to get there during low tide! Duh! This time high tide was at noon which was very convenient. I put in by the John D. MacArthur bridge (not an official launch, mind you) and zipped over to Munyon.

I took the yellow boat since it is very good with waves and is stable when being tossed about. However, on the inter coastal side I tried to beach and forgot about the powerboat waves. They broke over the stern of my boat and I almost swamped. The camera got a little damp. And uh, well, it still takes excellent photos, but I do now have a slight operations problem I haven't figured out how to correct!

At any rate, I traveled south around the Island and beached on the lee side which had no wave problems. Munyon is very interesting just in terms of its history. It once housed a hermit named Rodgers who lived in a tent in the late 1800's and caught turtles for a living. The island was sold to the Pitts family in 1892, who built a home and covered the island with fruit trees. Munyon bought it in 1901 and erected a hotel spa, The Hotel Hygeia. It burned in 1917 and was then only inhabited by critters. It was used as a dredging drop and the size of the island doubled. MacArthur then incorporated it into his park. It has footpaths all through it and a couple of picnic pavilions. Wild Florida in the midst of all that civilization!

Amazing Diving Dog!

I went out on the Wacissa tonight about five o'clock to enjoy the afternoon after a long day of yard work. Yesterday I painted the porch railing as well, so I was ready for a float! The pileated woodpeckers swarmed into Blue Spring about seven, as the sun was going down but I couldn't get a good picture so I'll put up Bijorn's photo from last week and one of a small heron fishing in the spring. The river was nearly empty tonight and I paddled upstream amidst the alligator grunts, at sundown.

Dad will like these pictures. Where are you dad? Are you back from the Caribbean?

Sunday morning sights

Nathan and I were sitting on the deck this morning discussing our day and we heard a familiar sound. We looked up to see these balloons! Good omen...

Mystery at Blue Spring

I was telling Peggy about a strange cement marker I saw at Blue Spring which we could not find on our most recent trip yesterday and so I thought I'd put up a photo of it. Be the first one on your block to tell us what it means!

Wacissa Friday

I took the afternoon off and met my paddling pal Peggy of Kayak Paddle Tales for a Wacissa trip. She was very happy to discover this old raccoon in the Blue Spring channel. We both snapped photos!

Down below Blue Spring we came to the eagle tree on our way back upstream. We found this eagle and another bird, which appeared to be a juvenile.

As we were coming back at the end of the afternoon, my bird magnetism started to work overtime and this wood stork swooped around our boats and nearly landed on top of us! A wood stork on the Wacissa...a first for both of us! Here he is in the foliage on the leeward bank.

We had to visit Bob The Tame Limpkin on our way downriver !

This is Peggy's giant strawberry treat! I was amazed at the size of it!


Of course, no trip on the Wacissa would be complete without encountering a runaway snowman enjoying the sunshine and warm weather in Florida!

Windy Saturday on The Wacissa

A Spring Image

WillFest 2007

St. Marks Wildlife Refuge

I found myself with an empty house yesterday after my parents went to Jacksonville after a lovely but brief visit and my son went to Pensacola for spring break. I decided to take a look at St. Marks. There were lots of alligators and birds. I also took a short trip on the Wacissa to see the sunset from the river and to see if I could see the eclipse from the water. It was too early though and I was chilly so I tooled back to the ranch for a look from my backyard.