Miami side trip..The Everglades

Maybe Flipper, had something to do with my long interest in visiting the Everglades.

It was the endless sea of grass, the willow groves, air boats, animals, hardwood hammocks (where that mahogany furniture my mother polished came from), and the adventure, that were all exotic and fascinating to a young girl watching a playful dolphin from the other side of the world.

Watching a turtle lay her eggs in our front yard

We got a real treat this morning.....Chester and I were out in the front yard, I was checking the mail while he checked out an odd sight over by the trees.

It was a momma turtle very busy laying her eggs.

I pulled Chester away, ran inside for the camera and made a fast general statement to all inside, that they should come out and see what Chester had found!

She had picked a spot of lawn where the soil is sandy and moist, had dug two side by side holes with her back feet. Looking at those messy Magnolia leaves which are about 5-6 inches long, will give you an idea of her size.

As each egg dropped she tapped it down with her foot, rested a bit then laid another. I watched four eggs arrive and drop into the left hole.

It took her about ten minutes to cover the eggs, this is a look into the hole on the right...I am guessing there are at least four in there too.

She then slowly covered the holes with a sweep of her feet. Tapping down each layer of dirt




And the cover-up...almost impossible to see.

A wider view.

She wasted no time once finished and headed off. We followed her journey back towards the creek across the road. We hoped she would head for the grassy slope.

But no, she went for the bridge.

Where she came across an obstacle.
.

But found a high spot and was able to slip below.

and kept walking.

The bridge goes for a while and getting back down to the creek would be difficult from the end, so we gave a bit of a helping hand. We picked her up (she was heavy!) and relocated her to the grassy spot not far from the creek.

Down she went and headed off in the direction of the water.

After watching all this I went to the Internet to do a bit of research. Mainly aiming to find out how long the egg gestation would be. I found a lot of information, and a lot of similar stories. Mostly people who were surprised to see a turtle laying eggs out in the open, on a lawn, down driveways etc...many articles mentioned that within hours most nests are raided by crows, raccoons or armadillos....we have all three of those. As I was reading that I looked out at "our" nest and saw a crow pecking at the soil....horrors!!! The nest is now covered with chicken wire, (hopefully protected from hungry wildlife) which we will remove closer to hatching.

Gestation is normally 60 days. In cooler climates the baby turtles may remain in the nest over winter and emerge in the spring.

So 60 days from now we will be watching - (I'll be in NZ then, so will miss it :-( - but will have my boys checking the nest daily).

Hurricanes and oil don't mix

The media has made sure that we won't forget that today is the beginning of hurricane season.
Recent articles have covered it all: evacuation routes, what to take to a shelter, maps to shelters, lists of what to buy, lists of lists and more lists. They have even issued a chart to plot the track of all the storms that they are predicting......

The latest frenzy being added to the pot is the oil. Our little corner of the world has to take this oil leak very seriously, and they have. When the oil arrives the impact to our local economy will be huge.
Our shorelines have a new addition now - the brightly coloured oil boom. They are all over the place, ready and waiting for the oil to arrive. Gulf Coast residents have taken the task to heart and "homemade" oil boom production has boomed!! Local efforts to collect hair from salons and barbers have netted huge amounts of pantyhose boom stuffing. (they don't work BP has announced) The community efforts and enthusiasm is what counts and the boom stuffing parties continue to draw crowds.

Some time soon a hurricane will arrive and the oil will reach places well beyond the shorelines. A storm surge destroys, Islands are wiped out, cities and homes are flooded, now add oil to the mix!

In the meantime, life carries on!

A World of Food

Years ago when living in Atlanta one of our favourite food destinations was the Buford Farmers Market. We used to drive an hour across town to shop and soak up the atmosphere, a noisy bustling, and fascinating place.

Once you step through the door you know you are not in your typical Atlanta supermarket......the sights, colours and smells and languages all hit you at once.

On our recent Spring break trip we took a little detour to the market.

The vast fruit & veg section is first, followed by dried fruits and nuts, then the bakery and endless aisles of refrigerated items.
Next up is the meat section, where the meat cuts are designed for the Asian customers. Moving on you come to the fish market where there is an endless selection of the freshest seafood, with a very busy team of guys cleaning and cutting up any order.

Every aisle is interesting to me, there are cones and balls of brown sugar, flakes of coconut floating in drinks, dried squid and little fishes, and preserved duck eggs. The Japanese food is fun to see, with lots of pretty packages and more than a few mystery items.

Eventually you come to aisles of Indian foods, followed by Arabic and European sections. There is an aisle of teas from around the world where I looked for Greek Apple tea for a friend. I didn't see any, it was like looking for a needle in a haystack.

The delicious cakes, Russian ice cream and all the cookies* tempted my sweet tooth, but we ended up in the hot/cold takeout food section where we picked out boxed lunches.

At the exit we picked up a bag of hot little egg shaped Mexican street food treats -kind of like a pancake batter with a soft center.

With our cooler/chili bin loaded with mangoes, some fresh squid we would cook for dinner, and tiny Japanese drinks we continued on the road.

* My daily Eiffel Tower