Our Last Sight of Golden Beach...

 

..for a while...

 We postponed our journey north until I could negotiate stairs on my pins but now we're off, supposedly saying goodbye to temperatures in the 90s, high humidity and hurricanes. (Actually the temperature in western New York next week is projected to be - yes -  in the 90s. The difference being that it won't be in the 90s for too long and we might still get a frost.)  But staying on in Florida a bit longer gave us a chance to see the Royal Poinciana at the end of the road in all its summer glory.

Nothing quite like that up north and we won't be seeing palm trees for a while either. The other day I managed to hobble around the arboretum to see their selection. Prettiest is the Ponytail Palm.

And here's a European  Fan Palm - European?

And a Cuban Royal Palm

A Florida Thatch Palm

And a Bottle Palm - I wonder if its named after the shape of its trunk

And that's just some of them. They are exotic and romantic but palm trees are a pain in the neck to have in your garden - you have to keep picking up the dead fronds and trimming them is a complicated science. They can look sweet at Christmas though.

But exotic though they may be, with their palms and palmettos and creepers and live oaks and Spanish moss, Florida forests can't match the forests of the north in beauty. That's something I'm looking forward to.

Peace and Quiet At Last

 Dateline: Golden Beach, Florida

  It's frustrating, in my current largely incapacitated state, not to be able to make the most of that blissful Florida coastal time when a lot of the northern visitors have started to leave. Traffic is lighter, the beaches and restaurants are emptying a bit and it is lovely here, with the rainy season not quite started, hurricanes not yet on the way and the sea turtles starting to nest. Well I can enjoy it a bit. There's less gardening noise and even less building noise - although the new house on our street still hasn't been finished. The workers turn up sporadically, half-heartedly saw a few things and then hop off home. The house has a gleaming metal roof which looks terrifyingly hot - and when it rains it must be like living inside a steel drum. But metal roofs seem to be all the rage at the moment. It seems it's a very long time since the old house was knocked down and the new one started. Everyone hopes we'll soon lose the portaloo, the beeping reversing trucks and vans and cars parked all over the place and get our street back - until the next demolition that is. But it will never be the same again, with the new white edifice with its grand entrance and tiny window slits like some fortified castle, lording it over the smaller houses. Personally I saw nothing wrong with the old house - not to mention the beautiful tree which was sacrificed in the name of progress. But sadly it's happening everywhere on the Island.

And speaking of hopping, the other day, with my new-found freedom of using a walker instead of crutches, I managed to hop and shuffle from the car to the boardwalk at Caspersen beach. (Golden Beach doesn't have a boardwalk - you have to negotiate the sand dunes and I'm not quite ready for that.)

See what I mean by emptier?  Maybe I'll be able to get a swim in soon.

I Come Hopping Back.....

 Dateline, Golden Beach Florida

Thank you for your patience! If anyone is still out there, that is. Alas I have been out of action with a bad skiing accident (so much for our trip to Europe!) but I hope I'm now on the mend (graduating from hopping on crutches to shuffling behind a Zimmer frame - or walker to my American friends) and getting all too used to bring waited on hand and foot and ordering poor hubby about. He in turn has come up with magnificent gourmet meals and a show of patience that is  more than stoical. I am immobilised for a few weeks but at least not quivering in a basement in Mariupol, for which I fervently thank God.  While we were away the frangipani burst into bloom

though unfortunately the rest of the garden is a sad shadow of what it should be. There's been a drought for a few weeks and there's a vista of shrivelled annuals, depleted honeysuckle and a passion flower vine stripped by the fabled caterpillars I was mistakenly nurturing. And where exactly are all those butterflies? The electricity people came and chopped down a palm tree we didn't even know we had, so that's left a big gap. Frustratingly I won't be able to do anything about anything, probably till we're back in the autumn.

Anyway that's a quick progress report. More to come soon.

Florida Springs Forward

 Our white orchid tree...

.... has really outdone itself this year!

Who says Florida doesn't have seasons? The tree looked sad and scrubby all winter but it's suddenly burst out. Meanwhile the pink one in the front, which is supposed to bloom in winter, still looks sad and scrubby.

The other marker of spring is the huge crowd heading for the beaches. This is the busiest time for traffic, for tourists ambling across the road without looking, for columns and columns of cyclists doing the Florida thing. The beach car parks were already overflowing just after dawn this morning (the clocks went forward last week and it's pitch black in the mornings) and the gazebos had all been nabbed, presumably by people having breakfast. It's a time when year-round residents put on a superior expression and retreat to their air-conditioned houses, keeping their heads down until the tourists all go home again.

But meanwhile, an ethical dilemma. I was pleased to see what I believe is a gulf fritillary caterpillar on my new passion vine.

Nice, I thought, that we're doing our bit for the butterfly population. Well, where there was one, there are now at least ten, all chomping away. He obviously told his friends, "C'mon lads, suckers in Golden Beach!" The poor plant is sacrificing itself  for a greater good. I've decided to grit my teeth and let nature take its course - but there jolly well better be some butterflies.

We will miss developments over the next month. Because yes, at last, we're actually going back to Blighty. It's been a long time and I feel my old stamping-grounds may be much changed. So watch this space...

Winter's Back!

 Bleak and blustery at the beach this morning. 

Although there was a warm wind blowing, it seemed ominous - I suspected it would soon turn cold, which it did.  Adding to the atmosphere a flock of black birds tried to fight their way against the wind.      I'm not sure what this is but it's been there a while, so it wasn't blown in this time.

  The Farmers' Market was cancelled, the car show, to hubby's sorrow, was cancelled and the phone kept ringing with severe thunderstorm warnings, which in fact failed to materialise. A tornado threatened in the morning also failed to materialise, for which I wasn't too sorry. The rain bucketed down - a relief after several very dry weeks.

  It's interesting how the weather changes here - from hot in the morning to - they say, down to 40 degrees F tonight, so I've had to cover the planters again. It will be a shock for the plants - the Confederate jasmine's been blooming for a couple of weeks.

And just the other day we were riding again in Deer Prairie Creek Reserve, mopping our brows, dry sandy dust blowing in our faces. The horses were OK as they'd just been clipped. Yes, even in Florida, their winter coats sprout and need attention and they have to wear rugs at night.  

   Evidently we'd missed some excitement.

 Special it might have been but I'm not sure how succesful the hunt was. Some people who rode earlier said they'd seen three of the blighters still very much alive and kicking.  And busy churning up the ground again. Going later in the heat of the day we saw very little in the way of wildlife - a black snake slithering out of our way,  a couple of kayakers on the Myakka River, which was too high for the alligators to bask on the banks. Someone suggested they'd opened some gates somewhere to get ready for the rain. But we did see some gorgeous birds overhead, swallow-tailed kites, probably on their way north.

Sadly this isn't my photo.  

And then driving home from the park this bucolic scene.

Cattle grazing peacefully. Florida isn't all golf courses and gated communities. Yet.

Ospreys (Don't) Go Shopping

 A little light relief in these crazy times - I was coming out of Publix supermarket the other day when I heard a loud and frenetic cheeping. I looked up and there - right in the car park was an osprey nest atop a long pole, no doubt specially erected for them. Funny that I'd been there so many times and never seen it before.

The birds didn't seem to care about the cars, the traffic jams to get out of the exit,  the shoppers trundling their trolleys. They could look smugly down their noses at them - they don't need to queue up at the fish counter with the earthbound hoi polloi.  Actually the ospreys here think they own the place. They long ago set up residence atop the Cathedral conning tower - sorry, I mean spire - which is about as high and safe a place any.

And here are some at one of the marinas.

I've seen them fishing in the Gulf - always too quick to catch a photo and having a leisurely breakfast perched on telegraph poles - or utility poles as they call them here.

 Note the fish tail to the left. And we're always coming across crabs in the road that they've dropped. You've got to hand it to them.  The world has gone mad but for the ospreys life goes on. 

I Heart Golden Beach

 Appropriate for the day, here's another of those beach shell designs, created by person(s) unknown for our delectation.

At least I assume so - unless they're some secret code or the beach equivalent of prehistoric cave paintings.

Publix supermarket is a mass of red balloons and boxes of lurid red and pink synthetic-looking cupcakes. I'm still puzzled about the fact that Valentine's Day in America is not the exclusive domain of lovers  - no - people send Valentines to their grandchildren, nieces and nephews, classmates, in fact every Tom Dick and Harry they can think of, along with sweets and goodies. Maybe this is all a strategy by gift and card manufacturers. I think it rather takes the romance out of it but perhaps that's just me.

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