One Last Hoorah

Rob and I went canoeing a few days ago. It's been a while, since he is always working these days. We both took a day off to go down the Santa Fe one last time before I leave town.

Unfortunately, it had been so long since we used the canoe that some large ants had moved in. A lot of them. Into both the front and the back of the boat, or as Rob insists I call them, the "bow" and "stern." I want to mention here that since I am not a pirate, I don't feel the need to use this fancy boat talk.

Anyway, we had to submerge the canoe for at least ten minutes to get rid of them all. 

But they were invincible! They floated toward shore in hordes and simply got out and began marching.

All those white dots in the above photo are ants. Here they are up close.

We didn't canoe very far -- just down to Blue Springs, where we canoed up a side spring run, and then back out and down to Ginnie Springs for some R & R. 

See the turtle (also known as a cooter)?

Rob demanded I take a photo of him.

A snake swam up to our canoe at Ginnie Springs and glared at me. It was kinda freaky, but I don't think the snake was a poisonous one. Still, who wants to be that close to any snake? It literally came up to the side of the canoe. Too close for me.

I'm in Europe right now, but wanted to finish this entry before I got back and became concerned with moving to D.C. (five days after my return). 

So this was my last Florida outing for the forseeable future.

Goodbye, river.

Goodbye, springs.

Goodbye, Florida.

More Crane Madness

Georgia and I went for a walk on Payne's Prairie this weekend. It was a blustery, miserable day, but tons of people were walking the La Chua trail because of the cranes.


Thousands of sandhill cranes have migrated down from northern parts to gather on the prairie (with native, non-migrating sandhills, which are a distinct but identical-looking subspecies) and eat insects, grubs, and frogs. They also spend a lot of time just standing around, talking to each other. If you click on this photo you can see a small fraction of the crowd that was there.


The photo also features two endangered whooping cranes, which hang out with the sandhills. There are only about thirty year-round whooping crane Florida residents -- and just 350 total wild whoopers in the wild. Of these, 68 of these migrate from Wisconsin to Florida every year (the juveniles with the guidance of the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership), and the rest fly from northwest Canada to winter on the Texas coast.

The noise of the crane conference was unbelievable. But my favorite part of the visit was watching the sandhills land. They're a strange combination of elegant and goofy. When they're coming down from a flight, they're stretched parallel to the ground, with their long legs stretched behind them. Then, about fifty feet above the ground, they lower their legs like landing gear. Multiple cranes flying next to each other do this almost in unison. Thus they approach the ground, looking extremely intent and somewhat fragile. It makes me smile every time.


The prairie looked stark and beautiful that day.

Of course, there are always some wet areas.


The other interesting thing that happened that day was that there was a huge water moccasin parked next to the trail. All these people kept warning us about it. Yet those same people stood ten feet away from the snake, taking photographs and loudly talking about it. The snake did not look happy.


Me, I took a photo and then walked past it unmolested, on the other side of the trail.

Fishing with John

I went out to Emily's farm this weekend to do some fishin'. It was uber-dry, since we're several years into a drought. (I think we're thirty-some inches below normal.)


That little pond in the background is the last wet area of a huge lake. John says it's a sinkhole that never dries up. That's where we caught a bunch of bottom feeders (catfish). People other than me ate them later.


Also! Genuine alligator faysays sighting! This turd is about the length of an adult finger. Who knew alligator poop was so white? The alligator that begat this one is rumored to be 10 feet long.


Here's a photo from closer up.


That day I also saw tons of sandhill cranes and even a whooping crane! Two sandhills are pictured below, stalking insects and grubs in the farm fields.


The whooping crane was flying away from me, and I didn't get a photo. Sandhill cranes have the most beautiful call. Then again, so do whooping cranes -- I heard one last year on the prairie.

Bike Ride

We've had amazing weather for weeks -- 80s and sunny as heck. I went with Kim on a bike ride on the Hawthorne Rail Trail the other day. It was so beautiful. I forgot my camera, but she brought her new iPhone (envy!), and sent me this photo. That dark blob on the right is my face. No one ever said phones have the best cameras in the world.


I'm going to take some photos of my plants and try to start blogging about gardening again soon. Happy New Year!

Catch of the Day

I went fishing this weekend. My friend Brandon and I went to Prairie Creek, which is along the Hawthorne Rail Trail. It's a dark creek that drains Newnan's Lake.


Actually, when I ride on the trail, this boardwalk is my turn-around point.


I caught a fish!!! It was a large catfish. I was very excited.


It doesn't look that big in this photo because Brandon has large feet. And it's flopping around.


We gave it to the dude who was fishing next to us. I don't eat fish and Brandon didn't want to skin it, although he said catfish are "good eatin'." I'll take his word for it. (He didn't catch anything.)

A Walk in a Creek & the Woods

A couple of weeks ago I went for a walk with a friend in the Sweetwater Preserve right at the southern city limits of Gainesville. The 125-acre property was recently acquired by Alachua County Forever, our awesome county land conservation program that I volunteer with.


We were going to walk on the trails, but as we stood looking at the creek I thought back to my childhood and thought maybe we could recreate the feeling of those endless hours watching turtles, crawdads, minnows, tadpoles, and frogs and searching for shark's teeth, arrowheads, and anything else of interest.

We took off our shoes, rolled up our jeans, and climbed down the least-eroded part of the bank into the creek.


The water was low, and we sloshed downstream in shin-deep water.


I hoped we'd see a snake. This is perfect water moccasin habitat. Not that I want to encounter a moccasin -- just see one.


But the creek was a disappointment. The banks were severely eroded.


Tiny pieces of broken glass were embedded in the sand. Trash snagged in exposed tree roots. It was depressing. And the thing is, you could tell that glass and trash wasn't dumped there. It had washed there from upstream. (More on this later.)

The only life -- the only life -- we saw was an invasive nine-banded armadillo. No snakes. No minnows. No tadpoles. No turtles. No birds!!

Disheartened, we decided to try the woods. We climbed out of the water and went walking barefoot on the trails.


And guess what we saw?


Nothing. No life. Except, of course, nine-banded armadillos. The best part of the walk was the autumn color.


So, what gives?

Gainesville is covered by a network of creeks, many of which have been paved or built over. One of my best friends is the creeks coordinator for the city. She told me that the remainder are so polluted that they can't be saved. Evidently, our sewage treatment plant dumps treated wastewater into the creeks. This water is full of nutrients, which suck all the oxygen out of the water, starving plants and animals. This is totally legal.

Gainesville's stormwater, on the other hand, is not treated. Anything on the streets, sidewalks, etc., that gets washed or dumped or thrown or blown into storm drains goes straight into our creeks.

I still remember the day my creek died. I was about ten. I grew up playing in Hogtown Creek in a less-developed part of my neighborhood. One day, we noticed houses were being built along the creek. The development was to be called "Mill Pond." There was no pond, as far as I know. What there was was a clear, healthy, life-filled creek. And they built right up to the edge of that creek.

One weekend a friend and I rode bikes down there to spend a few hours catching minnows and tadpoles, and the creek stank. The water was filled with green slime, and the sand along the edges was orange. There were no animals, no fish, no invertebrates. I tried going back a few times, but nothing ever changed. I figure that development company threw some new lawns out, applied a bunch of fertilizer, and whatever was extra just washed into the creek, killing everything that was there.

When I wrote the city about how sad my recent visit to Sweetwater Creek made me, I was advised to wash my hands after playing in my hometown's creeks. Apparently, I could catch any number of feces-related diseases.

Sometimes, a walk in the woods isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Austin

The trip to Austin was fun.

We ate lots of delicious Tex-Mex cuisine.



We visited old friends. One of Rayne's friends collects, grows, and sells cacti and other succulents. He had multiple greenhouses filled with the most amazing plants! Of course, the only time I nearly tripped was in the cactus greenhouse.






We wandered around some shopping areas. My favorite store was called Uncommon Objects, and was the coolest antique store I've ever been in. Each area of the store presented a perfectly arranged tableau.



Austin has loads of unique, progressive shops, like this one, that sells all environmentally friendly products for the home. We saw their products (paper towels, toilet paper, and hand soap) in nearby restaurants.

We also went to Barton Springs, the famous (and gigantic) spring in the middle of the city. Actually, the spring area was created by the systematic damming of the Colorado River, so it's actually a spring run that's been cemented in. We went swimming -- in November! The water is sixty-some degrees. It felt wonderful.



On another day, in a different part of the park (and river), we went canoeing (actually, it's a reservoir called Lady Bird Lake that was created by another dam). By this point the shutter button had fallen off my camera (I'm hard on these things!), so I didn't take photos. But it was a magnificent day. We paddled in the late afternoon light up the river, toward the downtown skyline. We saw the new, "green" city hall, and slid under a bridge right as a freight train went by.

The rumors are true: Austin is a pretty cool place. (I'll get a new button for my camera soon.)

Summer, We Hardly Knew Ye

OK, I admit I'm only a little sorry summer is over. I was tired of sleeping in my living room -- especially because I recently bought new, soft sheets that I wanted to enjoy on my bed -- and there is nothing I despise more than roaches, which thrive in the heat and humidity. Plus I'm tired of wearing the same thing all the time and I want to start riding my bike to work more, which I refuse to do from about June to September.

But it is a little bittersweet to say goodbye to fresh Silver Queen corn on the cob, field peas, and boiled peanuts, not to mention a quiet college town (the students came back at the end of August).

That said, the past couple of weeks have brought us beautiful weather here. Some kind of cool breeze floated down from Canada, bringing with it clear, crisp skies and mild temperatures (the 70s). As a final farewell to summer, this weekend I went with Rayne to the Ichetucknee Springs State Park, at the north end of the river. It was idyllic. I wasn't in a great mood when we got there, but by the time we left I felt completely, utterly, blissfully happy. Not to sound hokey, but I think there's something really healing in those waters, and I don't mean the nutrient-fed algae.

After we were done swimming, we sat on the ground near the spring, enjoying the sunlight filtering through the trees and the hypnotizing turquoise of the water. I idly noticed a slight rustling in the nearby erosion-exposed, leaf-covered roots of tree on the shoreline. Curious, I kept watching, eventually seeing a snake slide silently into the water. S/he swam rapidly along the bottom toward the spring run. It was so cool! I've only ever seen a snake swim at the surface of water. Two bass chased it, either trying to scare it away or catch scraps from its meals. It was about four feet long and skinny, with dark-gray or brown blotches all down its body. I think it was either a brown water snake or midland water snake.

Back, with Gills

I have returned from my trip to the U.S. Virgin Islands.


I visited my friend Alex, who lives on St. Thomas. She is a scuba instructor and got me my open-water certification!

Scuba diving is amazing. Breathing underwater and coming close to all of these otherwise inaccessible plants and animals is indescribably cool.

We also went snorkeling about three different times, once after we took a kayak out in a bay on a beautiful day.






It's unbelievably beautiful there.



Then I left. :(


Thanks, Alex and Ed!