A Full-time Life

RAINY SEASON

LINKED TO SKYWATCH FRIDAY. Visit and click  on the links for skies from all over.

 

It's not always blue skies and sunshine here in Florida.  We've already had a little rain and even a  couple of lightening storms. 

Summer is the rainy season, but even then (at least last year, when we stayed until mid-July), the rain wasn't like what we were used to in Oregon.  Instead of a steady drizzle, a rainy day here usually means that it pours down in buckets for a few hours and then, often, the sun shines. 

 (The only all-day rainy day we've experienced to date was last year when, of course, we had out-of-town company.)

NO FUN AT ALL

LINKING TO 'SIGNS SIGNS' hosted by Lesley.  This is a continuation of this post about taking our boat through five river locks. 

Some signs just spoil all your fun.....

 

..... because really, if it hadn't told me not to, I would have jumped off the boat, shinnied up one of the lines and jumped between boats into this inviting water:

Yeah, right!!

BIRDS ALONG LAKE OKECHOBEE

Posted to World Bird Wednesday -- click on those links for your weekly world-wide birding expeditions.

 
 

Little Blue Heron and Great Blue Heron seem to be studiously ignoring each other.

Some more drive-by birding (well, boat-by) from our gulf to ocean boat trip last week.

 

LOCK-UP, LOCK-DOWN

LINKING TO THAT'S MY WORLD AND WATERY WEDNESDAY. 

Going through river locks was the most adventurous part of our cross-Florida boat trip last week.

There are three locks to go through on the Caloosahatchie and two on the St Lucie.  The locks control the depth of the Lake and allow water to flow into the two rivers.   These are our friends' two boats waiting for the lock to open.  Our boat is very similar to the one in front. 

 The boater radios the dockmaster who tells you which side -- port or starboard -- you will tie up to. Below are some people watching us from above as we lock up.   You can see the lines along the walls.

 

All five of these locks have lines hanging down to grab hold of.  Our friends said that on the Great Lakes, where they boat in the summer, you have to bring your own. 

 

It can be a little bit scary to bring the boat alongside the wall, especially if the wind is blowing and you have been assigned the side where the wind is blowing the "wrong way".   Usually we both just stand and hold on to a line in the front and back (fore and aft) of the boat.  But a couple of times  the wind was blowing fairly hard and the lockmaster said "someone" had to climb out on the bow and cleat the line (wrap the line around a cleat and take in or let out the slack).  The picture above is the "someone" who did that on our boat.  (I was just hoping that it wasn't the last picture I ever took of Bill.) 

Our boat does not have a walkaround on the outside, so this was not an easy thing at all when next to the lock wall.  (The picture's not great because I was holding on to the other line with one shaky hand while I took it with the other, but in front you can also see the water gushing in.)

The only other thing we had to worry about was that a couple of the locks are on an every-other hour schedule. It's a way to control the flow of water and limit the number of times it opens.  Through careful planning, we got to those locks in good time -- not too early, but we weren't worried about being late either. 

The only unplanned slowdown we had was at this railroad bridge just out of Stewart on our way back. 

Trains always have the right-of-way and we had to wait for two of them to go by before the bridge opened.  (The blue boat is just another of the several that were milling around waiting.)

 

 

WE'RE BACK!

Just got back from a 5 day, 250-mile boat trip and here are a few postcards we forgot to send.

 

These are morning shots from Loggerhead Marina at Stewart, where we stayed two nights.  Stewart is on the Atlantic Coast side of Florida, so we boated from Gulf to Ocean -- along the edge of huge Lake Okechobee.  It was a fine adventure.

We took the laptop with us, but it wasn't working very well.  If that had happened when we were in the RV, it would have felt as if I were missing my right arm -- but in the boat, I just didn't really care.  Being out in the fresh air all day, combined with the gentle rocking motion of the boat when we turned in for the evening after dinner  -- and beach brain prevailed.

 A wonderful trip -- but It's good to be back.

 

PECULIAR CRIMES -- bookish post for February (oops)

 Running a little late on my personal reading goal of trying to write about what I'm reading at least once a month.

 

  I've fallen in love with a new (to me) mystery series.  It is the Peculiar Crimes Unit series by Christopher Fowler.  The series is set in London and features Bryant and May, the Unit's senior (in both senses of the word) detectives. 

These are great police procedural mysteries but there is much more to them. 

 The books are well-researched and filled with great facts and trivia about the wonderful (and sometimes not so beautiful) City of London. 

In addition, the main characters are not kids -- in fact they are sometimes described as elderly.  But yet, they are bright and active.    What's not to like!

The first one of the series that I read was plucked from the North Fort Myers Library new book shelf during my bi-weekly treasure hunt.   I made a mental note to add the series to my (ever-growing) To-Be-Read list.  The next time I went back, I found another of the series right in the same spot.  I figured this was a sign, so after I'd returned that one, I started searching the back shelves for the earlier books. 

Arthur Bryant and John May were hired as new (and very young) detectives for The Peculiar Crimes Unit, which  was formed during the London Blitz.  The purpose of the Unit was  to deal with street crimes that were occuring with greater frequency at that time.  The Unit freed regular police staff as it investigated what were understatedly referred to as 'peculiar crimes'.  It has continued through the years under various overseers.

Arthur Bryant is a genuinely eccentric character who knows the history of London inside and out (he moonlights as a walking-tour guide).  Bryant's  head is filled with facts, which may seem to be distracting, but often prove of huge help.  He works on instinct and has a stable of community characters on whom he depends on for their insights and he often uses them in ways that are not quite according to police procedure. 

John May, his partner of many years, is more a by-the-books detective.  He believes in doing the detail work and he and his staff do it.  But he works very well with -- and deeply respects -- his unusual partner.  Together and with their staff (each of whom is eccentric in his or her own way) they make a great team.

I love the characters in this series and even though the books can be  grisly, I often laugh out loud while I'm reading.   I haven't even finished the whole list yet, but I am already hoping that Mr Fowler is at home writing a new one right now! 

One caveat:  if you start this series, I recommend doing as I say not as I did and beginning at the beginning.  I caught on really quickly (as with most mystery series, enough background is repeated so that the books make sense as stand-alones), but in one case, because I started in the middle, there was a continuing case that I read the end of before I read the beginning.

   

 Our pictures show some of the London peculiarities that Arthur Bryant knows intimately and which feature in some of the ones I've read:  The British Museum,  London pubs, and the undeground subway(the Tube) .  All places that we visited and  wished we had more time to get to know!

 

Here is the list of books (so far, I hope) in order of publication:

Full Dark House

The Water Room

Seventy-Seven Clocks

Ten-Second Staircase

White Corridor

Victoria Vanishes

Bryant and May On the Loose

Bryant and May Off the Rails

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WISH I'D SAID THAT - SATURDAY a week later

 Like just about everyone else, even as we go about our daily lives,  we are still thinking about the people of Japan.

 

It was hard for me to blog last week because I so desperately wanted to say something about the horrifying earthquake and tsunami, but couldn't figure out how.   

There are many talented writers out there in blogland and here are links to just two of my favorites who, through both words and pictures, did a beautiful job of expressing how they felt right after the news hit.    They are different from each other, but both posts are worth reading and rereading (which is why I wanted to link to them). 

BARB AT LIVE AND LEARN whose post is called "Thoughts of Hope."

SPRINGMAN AT PINE RIVER REVIEW  who honors the Japanese culture and, of course, also expresses sorrow and hope.

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My picture is a Night-Blooming Cactus taken here at Upriver last Spring (I think April or May).  It is framed using Picnik photo editor.

 

 

EVENING ON THE DOCK, UPRIVER

 

WEEKEND REFLECTIONS while enjoying early evening on our dock.

Visit James and the links on his lovely meme for more reflections, not all including a glass of wine.

 

       

Necessary equipment for happy hour on the dock:    glass of wine and camera.

 

This white ibis decided to drop by to see what we were doing.

     

 

 

 

 

 

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 Ibis are pretty common birds here, but they still seem quite exotic to us.

It's always magical when the moon shines in a bright blue sky.

A lovely evening at Upriver.

 

 

 

BEYOND HOPE

This is a Flashback post to a few years ago when we traveled through Idaho on our way from visiting family in the Northwest to spending the winter somewhere warmer and drier.

Thanks to Lesley at Signs Signs, we now have a spot to put our signs, which we've been collecting over quite a few years of RV traveling. 

 

Beyond Hope sounds dire -- but actually it was the name of a very nice RV resort just outside of (beyond) the tiny town of Hope Idaho, near Pend Orielle Lake. 

 

It really was a very pretty spot -- there were  deer, rabbits and wild turkeys all over.  This one decided to take a rest just outside of where our RV was parked.  The resort had a very nice restaurant on site, plus views of the lovely Lake. 

 

 

BOSQUE BIRDS (Flashback to New Mexico)

World Bird Wednesday  and Skywatch Friday...because I have no wonderful new sky pictures this week.

  

This post is shared WITH WORLD BIRD WEDNESDAY. and SKYWATCH FRIDAY.   Some of these pictures will be old stuff for those who have been following our Full-Time Life for a while.  But they were posted way before we ever heard about Springman's wonderful WBW meme.  Go visit it to watch birds all over the world.

 

I think it's worth a repeat, because we love remembering this special place. 

And because  -- for all you birders out there -- if you ever have the chance to go to New Mexico in the Fall, you really should try to visit beautiful Bosque Del Apache.  The flyover of the snow geese and sandhill cranes is simply amazing. 

 

 

 

 

FLOWER FIX

 

 

                                                       

A recent visit to the local garden center was a great way to get a flower fix for the week.

 

(It's a good thing there's no charge for looking and taking pictures.)

We don't have space for outdoor plants here -- and pretty much the only way I can keep houseplants alive is through pictures like this one.

 

 

Spring flowers here in Florida are far more flamboyant than those we'd see if we were in Oregon (where we did do some gardening years ago).

 

 

    

The quieter spring flowers -- violets, primroses, even daffodils and tulips -- don't grow here and we miss them.  The potted African violets reminded me of the little purple ones that used to grow wild in our Oregon yard (and still do at our kids' place).

 

 

THIS POST IS LINKED TO TODAY'S FLOWERS. 

 

 



FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH?

Lesley, whose main blog is called 'Southern Ontario Discovered', hosts 'SIGNS SIGNS' every Thursday.  Join in if you have sign pictures in your files  -- or just go look at the links.  It's another way to picture the world. 

     This guy is supposed to represent Ponce de Leon, who searched for the Fountain of Youth and found Florida instead.  We saw this in St Augustine at some kind of tourist trap that we just drove by.  

We too have searched for the Fountain of Youth. 

In fact, in addition to staying in St Augustine, we've stayed right at the Fountain of Youth in California.

 

Neither of these places made us any younger, but we had a great time at both!

 Here is a link to our early post about the other Fountain of Youth.  It's close to Salvation Mountain, which we've posted about a couple of times.

 

LOCAL EAGLE

WORLD BIRD WEDNESDAY is hosted weekly by Springman at Pine River Review.  Go do some bird watching.

 

Our local eagles live west of us off Bayshore, the street we travel every time we drive out of our RV Park.   I have to force myself not to look if I'm driving .. when Bill does, I'm craning my neck out the window every time we pass

One day last week, one of them was out and we had time to stop for a while.

(The trees are in an undeveloped area next to a church, so most days there is ample room to park.)

There's a nest in an adjacent tree, but the babies weren't posing.

We'll visit again.

A BALANCE GAME

  Linked to Ruby Tuesday hosted by Mary the Teach. 

Amateur photographer,

Amateur blogger,

Amateur birder,

but  ..... (wait for it)

 

 I AM A PROFESSIONAL PENGUIN!

 

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I'm not even this good at most of the balance games on our Wii system -- but it's a start.   

This is my Mii not in her penguin costume. 

Not a bad likeness of the original. 

 

     ™ Nintendo of America Inc.

FILTERED SKIES

 SHARING THIS POST WITH SKYWATCH FRIDAY and WEEKEND REFLECTIONS, both great places to spend some weekend hours.

  

Here are some various shades of our beautiful Florida skies filtered through the trees.

Of course, it's even better when the reflection of the sky is even bluer than the original.

 

 

A PURPLE HOUSE

FOR SIGNS SIGNS, LESLEY'S THURSDAY MEME

Sometimes, a sign can be very useful in explaining something you would never have been able to figure out without reading it.

 

This was not one of those times.

 

 

(We saw this house on Sullivan Street in Punta Gorda, FL. -- it was a Sunday and there was nobody around to ask for further information.)

 

BIRDS OF LAKE OKECHOBEE

WORLD BIRD WEDNESDAY and (bottom picture) WATERY WEDNESDAY

 

We saw these woodstorks along with the accompanying egret on the Okee Tente Recreation area near the mouth of the Kissimee River (on the North side of Lake Okechobee).  (And aren't all those names just so much fun to say.)  We were out on a recent weekend exploring the area.  (I refuse to call it going on a Sunday Drive, because that's what my grandparents did -- and they were old!)

The egret was sticking so close to the stork that at first I thought I was seeing an adult with a juvenile.  But it is always fun to see more than one bird species at time, so we weren't really disappointed.

 

We walked along the area for a short while and must have seen over 100 storks.

And quite a few other species as well. 

Apparently it was THE place to go for Sunday lunch.  

 

Below are a a couple of Black Vultures, brown pelicans (with their very blue beaks) and one of the storks over to the right.)