Rainy rain

Florida, and after some delay, it seems that the rains have finally begun.

Invest 96

Invest 96 is currently moving through the Gulf. According to  Weather Underground it has the potential for "tropical development". Here that meant all night rain and, before dawn, frogs, cicada and numerous other wonderfully bizarre sounding creatures singing their little hearts out. This morning the front of our swamp house on stilts is toe deep in water. Florida is in the sub-tropics but today is humid enough, misty steamy and gray enough that, combined with the magic of euphoric recall, it feels like one of my favorite rainy season days in Costa Rica.

It began clear and sunny, a great day for a hike, so we decided to go to the Gandoca-Manzanillo National Wildlife Refuge on the Caribbean, our goal being a certain secluded beach at the south end of the reserve. We biked to the trail head and launched on what turned out to be a grueling trek on coastal jungle paths. We had to backtrack a couple of times when trails died in impassable ravines and, once out of that fray, we slogged for miles up and down a gutted logging road that rain had reduced to bogs of mud and impossible slicks of red clay. Very slow going. Finally, after a testy little discussion on the merits of reaching the beach, we took a break on a pile of hand-milled teak slabs protruding from the vegetation. It seemed to be the site of an old manual sawmill. After lunching on mosquito, peanut butter and banana sandwiches in the gray afternoon light we, at least partially, returned to our senses and agreed that time had run out. Just after we started back it began to drizzle.

Cicada preparing to sing

By the time we got to our crappy rental bikes it was nearly twilight. Halfway back to Puerto Viejo it began raining.Then it got dark. Then the rain turned into a first class tropical downpour. The closer we got to town the harder it fell and the more crowded the road became. A few miles out, it was a circus of slow moving trucks and fast moving cars weaving through bicycles and buzzing mopeds carrying two, sometimes three people. Like us, they were dodging the trucks and cars while also weaving around hand carts and pedestrians hurrying through the rain. Everything and everyone was soaked and steamy. Luckily, headlights from passing vehicles illuminated the potholes and pools of water as well as those of us on foot and bicycle. It was so overwhelming that finally there was nothing to do but surrender to the exotic, insular, dangerous beauty of the storm. Then it was actually fun being a part of it. Of course, it helped that we made it back to the hostel alive.

As for Florida, I think we are finally acclimated. The temperature is in the 80s and it feels a bit cool. Barky isn't too happy today. It's the damn fireworks. People are still setting them off. Poor guy. He's a wreck.

Feliz Cumpleaños Frida Kahlo,104

In honor of the 104th anniversary of the birth of the very excellent surrealist painter Frida Kahlo, I hope you will enjoy this video montage of her work.

Frida Kahlo, July 6, 1907 – July 13, 1954

Gracias siempre, mi amiga.

Battle Royale

Frida Kahlo savoring a peanut in her favorite palm tree.

The Great Peanut War of 2011 is currently raging here in our tiny dead end hamlet along Alligator Creek. I suppose it's my fault. After we settled in I started sprinkling peanuts around the base of the pineapple palm for Frida Kahlo and, at first, all was good. She came, ate a few and tucked the rest around the yard for later. Diego Rivera showed up shortly after I started putting out a seed mix designed to attract red-headed birds. No surprise. Squirrels love sunflower seeds. Then, of course, the very passionate Leon Trotsky made his appearance. A couple of days later we worried that he had died in a fall from the porch after a failed assault on a bag of peanuts. I'd foolishly left them by an open (screened) window. Since then we've watch him fall several times more, once after attempting to hurl himself through a screenless (closed) window. Perhaps another assault on my peanut stash, now in the laundry room, but who can know the mind of a squirrel? That time we heard his little claws scratching the glass as he slid down and into the bushes. Another time he miscalculated a leap after a rival and again launched himself into the bushes. He is a tough little dude.

Most recently the notorious clowns Larry, Moe and Curly joined the show. Now all five chase each other up and down the porch screens, drain pipes, over the roof, along electric wires, through the trees and around the yard but Frida Kahlo pays no mind. She comes when there are new peanuts under the pineapple palm, chooses one, licks it all over then scampers off to stash it in its own, unique secret hiding place. I don't know if she remembers where she puts everything but she repeats the ritual until all the peanuts are tucked safely away. As for the jokers? They are too busy fighting to notice.


Diego Rivera, Leon Trotsky, Larry, Moe and Curly at it again.

Lemon Bay outtakes

I have a thing for

mirrors on the ground

Yes,

that is where I found it.

You expect me to believe that?

And that is were I left it. Anyway...

I also have a thing for the letter H, aka h,

legacy of an acid trip in my 20s.

so I thought the Lemon Bay Cemetery

was pretty cool. It even provides moorage

for the H. H. Bill Anger.

Cranky cockroach

Barkie says Happy Belated Winter Solstice to the Southern Hemisphere!!!

Thanks Bob for reminding me about our planet's southern hemisphere where yesterday, as we in the north enjoyed the first day of summer, he observed the first cold day of winter.

Barkie says...

...barkbark barkbarkbark...

Barkie says Happy Summer Solstice!!!

.. bark bark barkbarkbark....
That is all.

.

Home wanted --- signed the Mourning Doves

A pair of Mourning Doves are deciding whether or not they can make a home with us. They spent several hours yesterday afternoon trying to find an opening in the front screen so they could check out the porch. Seems Mourning Doves prefer building their nests under roofs rather than in trees. It's not our house so we can't start nailing up dove condos everywhere but, after reading up on them, we decided we'd see about setting out a nesting box on the unscreened side porch and leave the rest up to them.

I did not know until today that the Mourning Dove is a very close relative to the Passenger Pigeon, a bird which, sadly, was hunted into extinction by stupid, greedy cruel Americans at the beginning of the 1900s. You are in luck. I do not have the will this morning to detail their dastardly methods but I will say that if karma means business about that eye for an eye thing, let it be an eye for every eye these fucktards closed.

Martha, the last Passenger Pigeon, died alone in a zoo on September 1, 1914.

Anyway, the Mourning Doves have a lovely song and I hope we can work something out so they stay.

The day in pictures

Gone with the wave

You looking at me looking at you.

Me looking at you looking at me.

It rained in the afternoon

so Frida Kahlo the Squirrel
took shelter on the porch.

As soon as it stopped

she made her exit across
the screen, house left.

That is all.

Time lapse with Swami

Swami, how I love ya, how I love ya, my dear ol' Swami...

As I mentioned the other day, we are still settling in but on Saturday M. Lee had to make an emergency trip to Oregon. His dad is in the hospital. (He's getting better.) Swami and I stayed here to hold down the tent. We're doing okay but it's weird being in Florida, especially at a time like this, so far from family and friends, familiar places. Alone. Well, the two of us but even Swami thinks so and he's generally up for anything. Don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining. I'm grateful to be anywhere. In the morning we sit on the deck, Swami and I. I have coffee and my laptop and he enjoys the trees, squirrels and birds. When it starts heating up, we close the windows and doors and put on the air. It's nice.

This afternoon I went to the beach. South Venice has community access to the gulf and a private ferry to shuttle people across the ICW so today I checked it out. While sitting in the sand looking out at the sea, a guy stopped and pointed out the turtle tracks leading from the water to the tree line. I hadn't really noticed them. Unfortunately, it's not emphasized here but this area is critical nesting habitat for sea turtles, especially the loggerheads. He claimed to have seen one that was about four or five feet long earlier today. I only hope to be so lucky.

Ibis lunching in the surf

They come at night and dig their nests deep into the dunes just above the high water mark. They've been doing it every spring for a million years and now they're are endangered. We are idiots! We're wrecking it for everyone, including ourselves. I hope the turtles have a good year. Very few hatchings make it even in the best of times.

It's twilight now, voices drifting in the window from across Alligator creek. Swami and I are tucked in, he in his little boat, me with my laptop, sketchbook and ebook. I'm reading Bangkok Tattoo, book two of a trilogy by John Burdett. It's written from the perspective of a Buddhist police detective son of a whore and set in Bangkok's red light district..

Later. It's past midnight. Swami is long asleep. I am tired. I woke up at 4 am. Morning seems like a year ago.

Venice update and happy hummingbird story

"A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people." --- Thomas Mann

(Even doing this nothing little blog post ended up being unwieldy and time consuming. I think I must be, above all, a puzzle person.)

Upon arrival the locals rushed to check us out.

We're back in Florida. We've been here for a few days but have mostly spent the time getting settled, which we are now, more or less. We rented a little house on Alligator Creek which is part of Florida's 8,000 miles of shoreline. Like a lot of places on the ICW (Intracoastal Waterway), the house next door has a great dock on open water, big fish swimming around the pilings. Ours does not. All there is, or all that's left of whatever there was, is a creaky lopsided walkway that deadends in the mangroves and is slowing sinking into the shallow, murky water. If there ever was a dock at the end, it has completely vanished. As it stands, it would be absurd trying to launch even a canoe from it. No big deal. The mangroves are better off without us mucking it up. The fish and birds aren't the ones leaving trash in water. What's extra cool is that at night I can hear the discrete splash of critters (alligators?) slipping into the creek. Never heard anything like that before. Plus the house is great. Very comfy.

Home sweet temporary home

Plus this neighborhood just happens to have a private beach on the gulf. Residents are shuttled across the ICU on a tiny private ferry which makes the crossing every half hour throughout the day. We haven't done that yet but we did walk down to the beach from Nokomis last fall just to check it out. The best part is that it's a turtle nesting beach, mainly loggerheads. Of course, there's not much to see but it's not about us, is it? I just hope they survive human encroachment. But this stretch of coast is pretty mellow.

Anyway, here's a feel good video for your viewing pleasure. Falconers think they've got it going on but check out this fellow. And if you like the video be sure and read the full follow-up kandwarf posts in the description. Very cool.