Florida, Oddly Enough

 

The jungle patiently awaits. It is shallow rooted and easily cleared but it springs back, quickly. Anything that isn't kept up will quickly be overtaken by vines and vegetation. I would be sorely tempted to explore the jungle all around my house if I were 50 years younger. Find a vine and swing through the trees. Yesterday morning, outside refreshingly cool, I wanted to check out the edge of the woods where the bobcat kittens have been spotted. I didn't expect to see them, they know what's up, but life is full of surprises, maybe I'd catch sight of an ear or a backend running away. A few years ago, a neighbor woke up early and opened her front door to find an adult bobcat lying in her flower bed. It is a very nice flower bed. The kittens were last seen crossing the road used by pedestrians and golf carts, mostly, to drink from the creek. It's been over a week since I've spotted them in the very early morning or at dusk. While looking around with my camera, and without Sandy, of course, I stepped into a deep patch of pine needles and sunk down about 4 inches. That concluded that. I wouldn't venture very far in there anyway, wearing sandals, because of snakes, but as you can hear in the background, we are near a highway, so this isn't a very large jungle; you couldn't get lost. Still, it does invite the imagination. During this poking about, a sound came in the distance, and as it got closer I really had to laugh, but didn't because it would ruin the video. If this doesn't sum up southwest Florida, I don't know what does. Of course there are the beach equations to be worked as well...

Walking back home I filmed the little creek that feeds into the larger creek that eventually becomes the Estero River that will empty into the gulf. This is the little creek where the bobcats drink and where the waterfowl feed. I wonder if they avoid the bigger creek because of alligators or if the sandy cypress knob edge is more paw friendly than the soggy grasses of the big creek. 

There was a beautiful tortoise eating leaves at Everglades Wonder Gardens recently. If you'd like to see a beautiful creature having lunch...

~Dorothy Dolores