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We stopped in Sarasota last week on our way back from a shopping trip to Tampa. It's a pretty City! Even the office/condo blocks are nice to look at.
The blue of the buildings figuratively reflects both sky and water and there's an actual reflection of trees in the wall of the center office building.
Sharing with James' WEEKEND REFLECTIONS.
Morning sunbeam
Clear blue sky
Sparkling stars in the water
Magic.
For SKYWATCH FRIDAY. Thank you to Yogi and the host team.
We drove to Tampa last week to shop at a certain store with a famous yellow and blue SIGN. All kinds of people were there. We even saw these guys hanging out in the parking lot. I guess their road manager was inside doing the shopping for them.
The whole little trailer seemed like a kind of traveling sign-board for the local artist who created it, but to make sure this post qualifies for Lesley's wonderful SIGNS SIGNS meme, here's the well-known store logo.
We are in the middle of a cottage kitchen renovation project and the Tampa Ikea store is the closest one to Fort Myers.
Thank you to Lesley for hosting this meme.
For Wild Bird Wednesday and Nature Notes
Our neighborhood eaglets have left the nest. Hope and Honor hatched the week of New Year's Day. Both flew to neighboring trees within a couple hours of each other yesterday (Monday) morning.
I wasn't out early enough to see their very first flights, but was there early in the afternoon.
Hope (or maybe it was Honor) was perched in this tree about 90 yards from the nest. She (or maybe he; nobody knows for sure) seemed to be a little hesitant to take off again. Other watchers said she'd been there for a couple of hours.
She would spread those magnificent wings and fly to the end of the branch. Once she flew up and bumped her head on the little branch above. And then, as her adoring audience watched, she sort-of tiptoed out to the end of the branch and ... just flew away. Clear across the pasture and into the neighboring woodsy area.
You can go to the Southwest Florida Eagles Facebook page or the many YouTube links to see wonderful photos and videos that others -- with better cameras and faster reaction times -- have taken. But I watched her first long flight and wanted to share a little of the awe-inspiring moment.
Here are the eaglets one week ago yesterday. At that stage, they were practicing to fly by "branching"...kind of flapping up to the branches above the nest and then exercising their wings while sitting there.
On that day, I saw both Ozzie and Harriet (the parents) perched on nearby trees as they watched the nestlings learn. Yesterday, I saw one of them drop off a fish lunch (the other eaglet had returned to the nest). The parents will continue to bring food to the nest for about a week and the newly-fledged eagles will return for food every once in a while as they learn to make their own living out in the great wide world.
Thank you to STEWART for hosting WILD BIRD WEDNESDAY and to MICHELLE for NATURE NOTES. Click the links! You'll be glad you did.
Three boats temporarily docked at Fort Myers City Yacht Basin last Thursday:
The NINA, the PINTA, and the ...
OH!ZONE (?) :
The Nina and the Pinta are replicas of the caravels Columbus sailed in when he discovered the new world. The boats, which are billed as touring museums, are docked at Fort Myers for a week. The Nina is said to be the most historically accurate replica of a Columbus ship ever built. (You can read more about the ships by linking here.) I don't know why there is no replica of the Santa Maria.
The Oh!Zone (our boat) is not a replica...it's just a well-used, well-loved boat. It was at the dock to get fuel. Sadly, a commodity today's boats need an awful lot of. We were on a short trip with the UpRiver Boat Club.
Thank you to the crew at OUR WORLD TUESDAY. Click the links and enjoy the best virtual travel on the web!
Sharing some eerie scenery and creepy creatures from here in the swampland with SCENIC WEEKENDS and CAMERA CRITTERS.
Cypress knees look like strange little swamp people .
Gotta have an alligator or two....hey, it's Florida!
Cormorants in the swamp have startled me more often than alligators have ...the noise they make when they flap those wings can make you jump, since you hear it before you see the birds.
We ran across a herd of feral hogs at Six Mile Cypress Swamp. They're an invasive species and are found on farm lands in this area as well. A ranger said that they will be "relocated" because the rampaging animals tear up and destroy habitat that is needed by native species.
What big eyes you have, gator!
Last week we visited the winter training grounds of the Hermann Royal Lipizzan Stallions in Myakka City (the next county over from where we are). It was lovely to watch as they practiced performing in front of crowds. Originally bred as warhorses, the stallions are taught to work with people and each other. But they still perform some of the war-like maneuvers that their ancestors used in fighting.
The stallions train in Florida for five months out of the year and then they are on tour the rest of the year all over the United States and Canada. The mares and retired horses live at their Florida headquarters all year long.
Lipizzan horses were originally bred for the exclusive use of the Hapsburgs, the Royal Family of Austria. During World War II, the line was saved from probable extinction when they were smuggled from behind enemy lines. United States' General Patton was instrumental in providing safe haven for the horses. One of those smuggling out the horses was their trainer and breeder Colonel Herrmann. He and his son subsequently brought some of the horses to the United States. The lady in the pictures above is a granddaughter and the owner of the Hermann troop.
The silver-maned beauty was my favorite -- he's actually quite a young horse. Mature Lipizzan's manes look whiter.
Here is a link to the Hermann page for the History of these horses.
This post is linked to MOSAIC MONDAY and OUR WORLD TUESDAY. Thank you as always to the generous hosts for providing this sharing opportunity.
We saw a "unicorn" (really a slightly-the-worst-for-wear Mountain Goat) while on this wonderfully scenic Jeep ride with our son a few years ago.
Below are a few more members of the large herd:
More Colorado memories from a few years ago for Misty's CAMERA CRITTERS.
More mountain memories for SCENIC WEEKENDS. This Friday Flashback is to the beautiful state of Colorado (practically synonomous with the word "mountain"). Our youngest son and daughter-in-law live in this beautiful place and we love visiting!!
On this visit, Geoff took us four-wheeling up Webster Pass ( somewhere up above Denver).
Fields of beautiful wildflowers were blooming where the snow had only recently melted.
Oh -- and did I mention that these pictures were taken in August? Early spring up in these mountains!
Thanks to Gemma for hosting Scenic Weekends. (Visit the links for a virtual tour of beautiful spots around the world.)
TO: Family, Friends in Faraway Places, and Fellow Skywatchers
Having a lovely time.
Wish you were here.
Skywatch Friday. (Thank you to Yogi, Sylvia, and Sandy, the hosting team. Visit their blogs and other links at SWF...you'll be glad you did.)
(Spotted along Bayshore Road in North Fort Myers.)
Things around the house you don't really need any more?
Just put out a sign. Somebody probably can use what you're tired of.
Linked to SIGNS SIGNS (of course). Thank you LESLEY.
This sign was on the other side of the driveway. (We THINK they were selling tools and stuff, but you never know for sure.)
Spotted on a canal near Martin Marina in Clewiston.
I didn't do anything to these pictures except crop them. It's the same water, the same bird, and the same stop on my walk. It's funny how the light changed the color of the water over just a few minutes.
The Hooded Merganser was a new bird for me,
so he gets the honor of being linked to WILD BIRD WEDNESDAY. Thank you Stewart.
We also saw a lot of the usual (but beautiful) suspects on our boat trip along the river. I posted some of them here yesterday.
Sharing with MOSAIC MONDAY and OUR WORLD.
It was chilly, chilly, chilly on our boat trip up the Caloosahatchie...we were wearing socks and caps pulled down over our ears. (Somewhere around sixty with wind on the water is wintery for Floridians.)
Birds in trees along the shore were about the only thing that enticed me to stand up to take pictures. (The night heron in the bottom right picture was in a canal where we stopped for fuel.)
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It warmed up as we neared Lake Okechobee, which made us all happy. The pictures below show "Little Man", the eccentric (to say the least) dockmaster at Martin Marina, where we were staying.
Anyone who can tie a boat with a perfect marine knot without even bending over has my respect and can be as eccentric as he chooses to be!
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FOR: OUR WORLD TUESDAY.
We are going boating this week. Hoping for good weather and hoping to bring back good pictures!
The boat directly below is ours. This was taken back at the beginning of the season, right after we got here.
Bill was tying it up at our dock after bringing it home (out of summer storage). Our friend Don is in the boat. He's always there to help!
The boats below are NOT our boats. But they're a considerable step up from the "not our boat" that I posted about last week.
Whenever we're docked in a marina, it is like living in the middle of a boat show. It's fun to look at the boats (big and little) and talk to the boaters. And the names are often quite creative and amusing.
These boats were docked at Cape Harbor, where we stayed a couple of days last month.
This time we are going to a Marina in Clewiston which is on Lake Okechobee.
I hope the name of this boat describes our trip!
Thank you to the hosts of OUR WORLD.
This is a FullTime-Life Friday Flashback for Gemma's SCENIC WEEKENDS. By this time of year, here on the flatlands, I start to miss elevation a little bit. So I went searching the archives for some hills and mountains. I spied them on the horizon in this photo of floathouses moored along the Willamette Slough. When I took it we were on our way to go camping on Oregon's Sauvie Island.
Sauvie Island in the Columbia River near Portland was one of our favorite summer and fall getaway places when we lived in Oregon. This large island (over 25,000 acres) lies only about 10 miles from downtown Portland, but always seemed like an entirely different world. (Click on the blue link for more information from Wiki.)
Portland, Oregon's largest city, is about 100 miles away from where we used to live.
We watched Columbia River barge traffic from our camper window.
When we used to visit, there was only the one campground and I think there might be some B&B type lodging, but no chain hotels, restaurants, or grocery stores. It's mostly rural and, especially since it's so close, very popular with outdoor recreation enthusiasts from the City.
The Island is one of many favorite spots that we haven't visited for several years. Maybe next summer. (So many scenic places.....)