Departure

 Today is a day of piles in the hall, cleaning the fridge, eating on paper plates, and packing the car. Not to mention all the Florida-specific tasks like placing DampRid (bagged granules that soak up moisture) in closets, and last-minute saran wrap over the toilets (discouraging evaporation and possible critters from pipes).

      This year we're also moving things away from the windows for the workmen to install new ones. In theory, all the windows in the complex will be replaced while we're gone, but we suspect the process will be slow and still be in the works when we return next winter. 

      We leave tomorrow morning. In a walk around the complex I gathered some good-bye images:

Some are just the oddnesses we have around here, like these discarded shells from a local bird or animal's lunch. 

We must have fresh-water mussels in the ponds?

 

 

Or plants that before in the north I've only seen growing in pots.

When I was a little girl in Virginia, my mother used to have these on a window sill. 

Evidence of what a dry winter it's been. Without a rainy summer, this tiny pond may well be gone by the time we get back. 

The bunnies were out - and convinced that sitting veery, veery still would make them invisible. 

A delicate gray heron of some kind.

A magnolia bloom whose days in the Florida sun seemed as short as my own.