My little homey

Moldy driveways. Is this something only Floridians get to experience? Although it looks much darker when wet, you can clearly see the before and after of Don's power washing. Four hours of his life was well spent.Four hours is a long time to wait for a driveway to be cleaned so that we can do something fun, but the weather was beautiful and the kids played outside.
My favorite grass is the muhly grass, which I didn't do such a good job of photographing below. I need to get 3 or 4 more of these plants - they are beautiful.And apparently somewhere along the way, Grant learned some interesting poses?!!? When I asked him to smile, he crouched to the ground, put his fingers up and gave a sly grin! What in the world?! I was both surprised and amused. Too funny. He has either inherited some of cousin Ben's charming humor or "Dance and Sing" day at school is putting a strong emphasis on hip, hop. My little homey...

A Day with Dad (Papa, actually)

The kids have created a play area in the woods behind their fort that reminds me of when I was growing up and my friends and I or Kevin and I would play "in the trees" in our yard all day long. For the most part, they just like to decorate it. And other than the logs they are using for chairs and tables, most of it is toys just scattered about. To me it looks like junk in the woods but to them each place has it's own place and use. Even the umbrella hanging in the tree... I guess.

There is a small pine tree there that they decided looks like the Charlie Brown Christmas tree so on a day off of school with Don, they chose to decorate it.

First, they took a hike to collect the decorations...Next came the decorating - mostly leaves and pine cones that Don hole punched and threaded.The end result. Hard to notice in these photos but they adorned it with fall leaves and pine cones. They are holding Snoopy and Spike (one of Snoopy's brothers) - my old stuffed animals - to represent the Peanuts gang.

Butterfly Rescue

The other day a blur of orange caught my eye as I was passing by a window. I looked up and saw a monarch beating its wings between the glass and the screen, trapped inside. A closer look revealed that it had hatched from a chrysalis that you can see hanging here. There was slight opening between the screen and the wall - big enough for a caterpillar to get in but too small for a butterfly to get out.Olivia helped me capture the butterfly and release it outside. It sat there awhile, probably a bit dazed and confused and tired. I was pretty happy to see a successful hatching. I have planted Milkweed outside and each year the monarchs gobble it down, lay eggs and hatch caterpillars. Twice we have found chrysalis' attached to various parts of our house and twice they have died. Here is our first success, that we know of...

Fay who?

Cabin fever is setting in as we have been trapped indoors for a few days now with Tropical Fay spitting and blowing all over us. For the most part, this has felt like any other rain storm for us. We lucked out a bit by having the eye pass right over us so we didn't get as much rain or wind as some of our unfortunate statewide neighbors... 30" in Melbourne!
We did lose power last night and had a tree go down, but no big deal, it was dead already and needed to get it out. We were just happy that we don't have to deal with putting up shutters anymore!!So, we enjoyed playing games, reading books and watching the ridiculous weather reporters play out the drama on TV... I'm including an email quote - from a good friend/former colleague of mine from Palm Bay who went through the worst of it - about the reporters... "One reporter was sitting in a canoe, expounding on the necessity of the canoe so he could wave his arms and show us the flooded street in front of him. Just then, three kids came running by, splashing him as they ran by in the ankle-deep water. It was obvious that the canoe was sitting firmly on the ground beneath it. I thought I would cry, I was laughing so hard!" It is strange the need they feel to make it more dramatic than it is... the real news is riveting enough.

The kids played on the computer...Baked cookies...This is the Florida version of a snow storm except that we can't make snowmen or go skiing. The kids love going out in it though and spent a good part of the day playing in the warm rain.A dragonfly waiting for the rain to stop... (you probably need to click on this pic to see it)A puddle party...unfortunatley somehow I managed to film this on super fast speed but you get the idea...

Moonflower

or Flor D'Luna as Carlos Santana says... great song by the way. I planted this moonflower vine (Ipomoea alba) early this spring to wrap around a triangle trellis that my parents gave me. It is related to the morning glory but some call it an evening glory because these flowers only open... in the evening!... and by morning they shrivel up. The fluted flowers grow 5-6 inches across and are a pure, alabaster white. As if the flower isn't pretty enough, it also has a fabulous fragrance with the primary purpose to attract moths. All this and it is easy to care for - once it was established, I haven't had to do a thing to it. Sorry northerners, this one is for Florida only.
According to Grant there is a "seastar in the middle" - click on the photo for a better view of it.A not-so-good picture of the trellis (or flower), will have to retake this one...

Armadillo Attack

Caught red handed! A Nine Banded Armadillo. These little buggers have been digging up our yard on a regular basis lately. Not having lived with armadillos before, we weren't 100% sure that they were to blame... until last night. Don heard them grubbing around while he was grilling. They could have cared less that we were there, right next to them with our camera and flash light. Shooing them had no effect either. Apparently they have poor eyesight and hearing but can sniff out an insect 8 inches underground. And they make a huge mess of your yard while doing it.

A little research online turned up some interesting information including armadillo recipes. But of course! Why didn't I think of eating them?!?! Here are some we could try...

• BBQ Armadillo
• Armadillo meatballs
• Mexican Armadillo Casserole
• and even Mu Shu Armadillo and for desert, Armadillo Pie!

If food prices continue to rise, we just might consider it but until then, since the yard has survived and healed itself after each attack, we will just try to coexist. Our grubs are their grubs.

And more birds

In addition to wrens we have cardinals nesting in our yard. Each spring (although it's only our second here) we see Papa Cardinal come to the feeder with his young. They are a lot of fun to watch because the babies shake fervently just before the father feeds them a seed. They aren't as shy as the wrens so we can watch them up close.
I should give props to the feeder... it is a hand me down from my parents. I think it has been around since 1972 when we first moved to Virginia. I adore it.


Ornithologically, it's been a bit of a change living here compared to south Florida. I do miss the flocks of VERY loud parrots that would occasionally fly by but I think I prefer the owls that hoot all night long.

Blueberry Picking

Blueberry season is arriving in Gainesville. There are lots of u-pick farms around but most crops don't fully ripen until late May or early June. However, some have varieties that come on line in mid-May and SouthMoon is one of them. Unfortunately that variety peaked the previous weekend so pickings were slim. And by slim, I mean S-L-I-M. We still had fun and even found a local blueberry festival down the road. And by local, I mean L-O-C-A-L.... complete with a rebel flag t-shirt vendor. Don got bit by the blueberry bug and bought two plants so we can attempt our own crop next year. We have a few wild blueberry plants in our woods but it will be nice to have some big yummy ones. Now whether we can grow them or not, we'll have to see.

It's a quaint, organic farm with lots of bushes...
The end result....

Fly, be free

Our baby wrens flew the coop and we missed it!!! How is that possible?! (See Bouncing Baby Birds). I felt so bad for stressing the parents out by stalking them that I decided to lie low for awhile... I guess it was too long. I even checked for what I thought would be the inevitable dead runt that got booted out of the nest, but nothing. The nest is quite high off the ground and doesn't look disturbed by a predator. I did some research and I've learned they can be out of the nest in as little as two weeks. It appears the parents decided to speed-raise their young and get them out of the nest before I came back.

Bouncing Baby Birds

Our baby wrens hatched! (see New Neighbors post). I'm not sure when... I checked today and this is what I saw so I am guessing they started hatching over the last few days. They are tiny little balls of gray feathers with closed eyes. I didn't want to linger too long in case mom and dad were near but I was there long enough for them to start peeping for food. As soon as I stepped back the parents approached with food but they were none too pleased that I was there. Neither of them would approach the nest. Eventually one of them was brave enough (probably the female) so I snapped my photo of the feeding and then let them be.
In this photo, one baby has it's mouth open at the front of the nest, beak pointing up.


Here, one baby sprawled over the rest. If you look closely, you can see the whole bird. The beak is lined in yellow.


You can clearly see a wing and legs here.
Feeding time. I think it is a cricket.

Dazzling Daylillies

In our continuing pursuit of yard beautification, our nice neighbors, Peg and Russ Hall, gave us some daylillies a couple months ago. Olivia and I planted them not knowing what colors we would see when they bloomed. So far we have yellow, maroon and orange. They are beautiful and have been blooming every day for nearly a month.

New Neighbors!

We have Carolina Wrens nesting in a hanging basket on our deck. I'm so excited, I feel like an expectant mom myself! I spied the nest sometime around April 12. On April 17, Olivia and I peeked in and saw eggs - 5 of them! We've spent the last few weeks watching the male bird bring insects to the mother bird as she sits on her eggs. Olivia, Grant and I did some web research and found out the following about our newest nesting neighbors:

• Wrens will mate for life
• Eat insects and spiders
• They are territorial and will continue to nest in the area
• The male will feed the female while she nests
  
• Olivia's favorite: The male begins to build nests in several locations until the female chooses her favorite. She will help him finish building it.
  

Nest (note piece of Easter grass)..............................
Eggs.......................................

Mama Wren.....................................