A Full-time Life

IMPERIAL RIVER

FOR NATURE FOOTSTEPS:  WATERS.  (Disclaimer:  NOT my pictures -- I made this collage from images found on Flikr.)  I'm including the post because of a personal goal to do a blog post about every one of the natural areas around us that we visit. 

 

Last week, we went kayaking on the Imperial River near Bonita Beach.  (It's about 20 miles south of us, an easy little drive.)  

Just as I suspected might be the case, I was not able to manage kayak, paddle AND camera.  This was our first time in single kayaks. On our previous kayaking excurisons, we'd used tandems -- each of us with either our son and daughter-in-law  (a couple of times) or our grandson and granddaugher-in-law -- all four of them experts.  On this trip, Bill was very good with his kayak -- I should have given him the camera.  I need a lot more practice, but it is going to be fun working on this skill.

We didn't see any birds or wildlife, but we kayaked a lovely peaceful stretch of this beautiful river.  Someday, I hope to replace these borrowed pictures with ones of our own!  

MORNING REWARD

FOR SKYWATCH FRIDAY  -- go, click the links.  Smiles are guaranteed.  Thank you to the hosts

This was the reward for getting up a little early one day last week:   

 

It was breezy and a little cool by later in the morning, but it didn't matter, because before it even really began, we'd already had a perfect day!

 

SPIRIT OF PUNTA GORDA

THIS POST IS SHARED WITH SIGNS SIGNS.  Thanks as always to Lesley for hosting!  And  SHADOW SHOT SUNDAY II. The new Shadowy hosts are Magical Mystery Teacher, Rose (Chubskulit) and Gemma Wiseman.  Thank you lovely bloggers!    All four of these hosts have great blogs of their own besides hosting these great memes!

Here's what the bronze sign in front of this sculpture says:

 "Dedicated to the spirit of the people of Punta Gorda in the aftermath of Hurricane Charley

August 13, 2004.

The bent tree symbolizes the wind, which stopped our downtown clock at 4:29 pm.

Like the upright tree, the people stood tall."

Below is another picture of the sundial portion of the sculpture.  The artist has used darker colored tile to create a permanent shadow-line at 4:29.  (But we were there earlier in the day and you can see a real shadow too.)

Punta Gorda is 20 miles north-west of where we live in North Fort Myers.  The sculpture is along Harbor Walk in a lovely park/harbor area which has all been rebuilt since the Hurricane.  Charley happened before we started coming to this area and no serious storms have hit the area since then.  

BIRDS OF THE WEEK

FOR WORLD BIRD WEDNESDAY.  Thank you Springman!

It was an ordinary week at the Canal Cottage.  We had some fun time with friends and some routine days.  No big nature excursions, no purposeful bird watching.   But we don't have to look very hard around here to find birds that still seem exotic to us. 

 

 We spied this whole flock of Ibis from our boat -- just busy eating in an ordinary yard we passed by.  They acted sort of like a flock of chickens.  

Ibis are almost an urban bird here and we see them quite often, but never this many in one place.  Don't know what was so special about this lawn (there weren't any birds at all in the neighboring yards).  

On a short stop later in the week we spotted this handsome fellow:

The yellow-crowned night heron, was taking a boardwalk stroll with his shadow (in broad daylight obviously).  

This isn't a crop, I just got up close enough to get a better picture of his pretty face (and not much else).

On the same day, we saw this not-so- handsome fellow:

 

Step lively down below -- this vulture is looking for dinner... if you don't move, it might be you!

CRUISING TO LUNCH

Linking with other water lovers at  NATURE FOOTSTEPS:  WATERS.  

 

Our first Upriver Boat Club Lunch Cruise of the season was downriver to Cape Coral.  It was a post-card pretty day along the river.  At home, the morning started out a little breezy, but by the time we got underway it was a perfect day for boating.     After lunch, one friend who drove to the Cape (you can get there by car, if you must*) took pictures of all of us as we passed.  That's me in back of our boat taking pictures of Tom taking pictures of us......

... and below right, Tom taking pictures of  .... well, you can figure it out!    

On the bottom left are our friends Don and Patty, whose boat is almost exactly like ours, with our friends Connie and Dave in the back.  With us is our friend Jerry.    We had a flotilla of five boats and several people who drove***.  

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*** (Which is much faster but much less scenic.)   Thanks to Tom for most of the pictures.

BLOOMING WHERE THEY'RE PLANTED

FOR FRIDAY FLOWERS  (Note:  It's really called Floral Friday, but I'd already put in the link -- I'll get it right next time!)  and   RUBY TUESDAY**

We saw this flowery fence in Arizona on our Fall roadtrip.  It was in front of a small park-model RV out in the middle of the desert someplace where we stayed overnight.      You know that the person who planted these really loves flowers.  Because  It takes work to grow them in that arid climate.

 

**Thank you to Nick who hosts Friday Flowers.   

And thank you to Magical Mystery Teacher and Gemma Wiseman, the (fairly) new hosts of Ruby Tuesday.  

As always click the links on the highlighted pages and visit great photoblog sites from the world over.

GOLDEN GLOBE IN A BRIGHT BLUE SKY

 SKYWATCH FRIDAY   Visit our hosts and the  wonderful blogs and click the links on Skywatch for a tour of the world's skies.

 

The other day we saw a golden globe glowing against a backdrop of  bright blue sky.

 

 

 In fact, we saw several:

 

 

  (Just somebody's backyard grapefruit tree on another beautiful winter day in North Fort Myers.)

WETLANDS

FOR NATURE NOTES and SIGNS SIGNS.   Mosaic and pictures from our archives, taken at various area wetlands and swamps.  Explanatory signs are at Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary.

 The history of wetlands in our part of Florida is well documented by explanatory signs along the Boardwalk at Corkscrew Swamp and Audubon Center.

(I think that the first sentence in the sign on the left is probably supposed to say "I take a dim view.....)  

It's the 21st Century now, but some people are still as afraid of swamps as this early explorer was in the 1700s.

 

 

 

 

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Not so very long ago, most of us still thought of wetlands as wasted space. Draining so that they could be used for farmland or development was encouraged nationally.

     

 

 

 

 

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But now, most of us have at least reached the third stage:  Understanding how important the swamps and wetlands are.                     
      

 But we can't take things for granted... in Florida or anywhere else.  The fourth stage would be to take the action necessary to continue to protect and preserve what remains of these vital ... and beautiful ... areas.

              

WINTER AS IT IS IN FLORIDA

FOR OUR WORLD

It was cold last week in Our World.  OK, OK cold for this part of Florida, not for Winter where many of you are.     It really did reach freezing temperatures on a few nights.  But the local farm where we buy strawberries didn't lose any of their crop, so we are still enjoying fresh berries in mid-winter.    And we bought delicious local citrus last week too.    

During our "cold spell", we were happy just to hang around home because (as many of you guessed) we were a little tired after our busy time with company the weekend before last. (We were so happy that the weather was beautiful while they were here... THAT was perfect timing!

We're rested up now and ready for the warm and sunny winter weather that is supposed to be on its way again.  And we're looking forward to getting out there again to enjoy more of our area's beautiful outdoors.  

JUST WATER PLEASE

This collage of local waters is linked to NATURE FOOTSTEPS: WATER and  MOSAIC MONDAY.  Thank you to the hosts of both these memes.

 

  

We love living and traveling near the water, as everybody probably already knows since so many of our posts are about it! 

Most of last week's posts featured the Estero River.  Here are six more of our favorite watery places, also located very short distances away from our "cottage" on the canal.

It's no wonder we are happy to be here!

 

Top row:  Upriver Canal (the one we live on); Charlotte Harbor from Matlachea; Orange River

Bottom row:  San Carlo Bay (walking across Ft. Myers Beach bridge); Caloosahatchie River; Orange River (manatee viewing area).