Signs of Spring

The mango tree has blossomed, is still blossoming, produced so many blossoms we caught birds nibbling on them and yet the tree is still full of little mango fruits.

The jasmine is blossoming and the warm night air, clear and calm and full of bright, sharp, glittering stars smells like a Persian garden.

The green parrots are back, as are the ibis, the hawks and the vultures. And the blacksnake. And the toads which have been clinging to the glass doors of the lanai and driving the cats crazy with frustration.

All of the doors and windows have been open for over a month now, at least the ones with screens to keep the bugs out and the cats in. Somehow, the occasional lizard still manages to find its way in, though.

The bulldozer arrived bright and early and spent three hours scraping the topsoil off half the open field across the road in preparation for someone building a house there.

There's been an active For Sale sign on that field for a few months now. I can't tell if someone bought the whole field and intends to build on half of it or if only half of it sold. I'm sure it's zoned for two lots. In either case, a house on that site will severely cramp available parking for next Hallowe'en. But that's still several seasons (Spring, High, Summer, Rainy and Fall, at least) away for now.

This Is Why We Support Local Businesses

Here's a product no chain store will ever offer.

Evan's Neighborhood Pizza presents: the $45 Everglades Pizza!

Yes, those are the frog's legs
sticking out over the edge.

Complete with swamp cabbage, frog's legs, alligator/wild boar sausage and python toppings with cheese on a marinara base.

Designed for locals and adventurous tourists, Evan sells one or two a month despite needing 24 hours notice.

The only sad part is he uses imported python meat instead of creating a market and giving hunters another reason to help curtail our local invasive Burmese snakes.

Down here, we laugh at your Hawaiian, your deep dish, your chicken Alfredo and barbecue pizzas. Next time you come down for a visit, man up and order a pie.

Eat it, Papa John!

Miscellanea: Fauna, Aquatic, Aerial and Terrestrial

It looks like the Mohawk Reef has become a magnet for whale sharks. A second one was spotted there just this past week. It's also become a magnet for just about every other fish within twenty miles.

And it seemed the great turtle egg-laying season from earlier this year might have been compromised by Tropical Storm Debby and Hurricane Isaac but, then again, maybe not.

The sulphur butterflies are all over the yard, about the same size and color as the new lemons on the lemon tree. A few viceroys and some others I haven't been able to identify yet are also hanging about.

  

   

The abundance of lizards would seem to indicate that the Cuban Tree Frogs have not overwhelmed our little ecological niche.

And then, of course, there is the cat who has become sleek and fat and demanding, training us to her extremely large vocabulary of grunts, whistles, chirps and mewls as she explains that her food dish needs topping off and her water bowl requires freshening and the door needs to be held open right now while she decides whether to sit on the cushioned chair outside under the oak or remain sprawled on the living room carpet.

Monsoons and Their Consequences

The height of Rainy Season is well and truly here. Pretty much every day is the same now. Sun and bright blue skies in the morning, clouding up from noon on, and drenching downpours with thunder and lightning in the afternoon and evening with the clouds breaking somewhat around sunset. The timing can vary by a couple of hours either way but once the process starts the sequence stays the same.

Last year the town came down our street and reworked the swale alongside the road . . . right up to, but not including our property. They tore up the old grass, retrenched the ditch, laid new culverts under driveways and then re-sodded the whole thing. Stopping at our property line meant not creating a way for our swale to drain into the improved ditch only ten feet away.

Now, every day, we get a four foot wide (though admittedly very shallow) puddle across the foot of the driveway and a temporary moat around the property and a low section in the back becomes a qualified wetlands trysting place for the (immigrant) frogs bellowing all night long. Fortunately (or maybe not), our bedrock is porous limestone and all the water drains down and disappears within hours. I say "maybe not" because all that water seeping through tends to dissolve the limestone, creating caverns which, if the overlying rock is thin enough, cave in on themselves making a sinkhole, although there's only been one in the entire county according to the local sinkhole map which is over twenty years old. Anyway, our area is more prone to subsidence than collapse sinkholes.

It is highly unlikely we will ever realy face a sinkhole, although noe impossible. This is one of the few places in the country where you can get insurance coverage for the earth swallowing up your property.

The Cuban Invasion

It came to my attention this morning, thanks to the regular short environmental piece on my local NPR station, that the large frogs that jump onto our window screens in the dark of night with a heavy thump and clunk reminiscent of someone trying to break in might be Cuban Tree Frogs, an invasive species that eats literally anything it can fit in its mouth including (but not limited to) insects, native frogs, lizards, other Cuban Tree Frogs and even baby birds(!).

The Department of Wildlife Ecology & Conservation of the University of Florida wants us to report and kill (sorry, "humanely euthanize") the invaders with benzocaine in a bag in the freezer.

I'll need to do a little more research to make sure our frogs are really Cuban Tree Frogs and not the besieged local good guys but, based on the size alone, I'm pretty sure we're under attack.