Midnight Raiders

          The previous owners of our condo were an older Italian couple.

Another kind of spring planting

     With the arrival of May in our area of Florida, people by the beach are required to limit their outside light bulbs to red ones, and volunteers hit the sand at dawn. The turtles are coming.

          In May the sea turtles arrive to begin laying their eggs. The red light bulbs are necessary because they have a different wave length than ordinary bright white ones, which can distract the moms-to-be and later disorient their babies who should be working their way back to the ocean, not surging toward someone’s car port or swimming pool.

          The “egg volunteers” hit the beaches early in the morning, before the sun worshippers can unknowingly slam their beach chair

on top of a nest created the night before. Volunteers walk a mile-long section, often in pairs, scouting for new nests. Once they find one, they stake yellow tape around the area, and in some cases even place screens or cages over it to protect the eggs from armadillos, raccoons, or coyotes.

          We may now be back in Massachusetts, but yesterday as My Guy and I were hanging curtains, I wasn’t so sure of that. 

         

 Outside the window, I saw an unfamiliar object in our back yard.

          A friend said she’d had turtles come and lay eggs in the mulch next to her house, and after they hatched had gone outside with a bucket, to gather up the hatched babies in a bucket in order to transport them to a nearby swamp.

          Maybe I’d better check the garage for a bucket of my own. 

Rules are for the Birds

Our next-door neighbors here are good people.

Laura Ingalls Wilder has nothing on us

Remember that chapter in On The Banks of Plum Creek?  

"A cloud was over the sun. It was not like any cloud they had ever seen before. It was a cloud of something like snowflakes, but they were larger than snowflakes, and thin and glittering. Light shone through each flickering particle."  

Well. . .

They're Baaaack!

I remember in 1978 at our last house coming home at night after my 3 – 11 shift as a secretary in pediatrics at the hospital. With two young kids, these hours worked out well. I only went in two days a week, either Friday and Monday or Saturday and Sunday, which meant I only needed one of the teens in the neighborhood to sit a few hours until my husband got home from work.

          I was a little short on sleep those years, but that wasn’t the hard part about getting home late. Our trees and our house were under attack that year. To reach the front door I had to first travel under the giant maples in the front yard and then under our portico. Both were festooned like a steamer covered in bon voyage streamers, except these were sticky and ended in a creepy caterpillar and they were impossible to see in the dark so I ended up a bit festooned myself.

          The gypsy moths had arrived and they were on everything.

          Our weapon of choice was masking tape and Vaseline, the plan being that the creepers wouldn’t get past the barrier to nest and eat the leaves up.

It worked pretty well except the trees didn’t appreciate the tape either and we lost a few anyway.

        

 So it was not good news when I looked out the window and saw this.

        

 

  

 And when I looked above the clematis and saw this.

       

  

 And even when I looked down on the bedroom floor and  - you guessed it.

         

And the battle goes on.

     At the last Town Meeting we passed a warrant item allowing chickens in suburban yards, a ruling apparently embraced with enthusiasm.

Public Service Announcement

     It's not often I have a chance to use this blog for good rather than just blowing off steam.
     (The fact that it's a slow news day here could be a factor, too, so maybe I'm not all that altruistic after all.)

    Anyway, one of my favorite bloggers, Henny,  at Henny Penny Lane  included some helpful advice in her comment about my !!!TICK!!! adventure and I'm quoting it verbatim:

"One easy way to remove a tick that is buried and biting is to rub a little liquid hand soap on the tick and wait a few seconds, and the tick will easily come off."

     I haven't tried it yet, but anyone who spends the amount of time she does in her garden knows what she's talking about.

Livestock and Projects

      I glanced over the kitchen sink last night and saw movement below the window.

An ounce of prevention

When my kids were younger, I came home from running an errand one day and went upstairs to where an unusual amount of noise was emanating from my bedroom. 

We're Surrounded

     We live in what is classified as suburbia, outside of a small city that’s 20 minutes away.

Building a Better Mousetrap

          And for once, I’m not speaking in metaphors. 

Tucking In

The usual signs of winter are appearing again.

Fuzzy Things

In his prime, our now-departed – and deeply missed - cat Satchel was a hefty guy. Even as a kitten he stood taller than most cats, and he definitely outweighed the little Scottie dog that he’d chase back up the street from time to time. 

She's Leaving Home

           Don’t get me wrong. I do love our house and where it sits at the end of  a short dead-end road conveniently located right near the center of our small town. There are times, however when living here can be a bit of a challenge.

Random Monday

I learned two things while in bed last night.

No. Elevate your mind, please.

Housing Development

According to Wikipedia, cluster housing is the grouping of residential properties on a development site in order to use the extra land as open space or recreation. 

Oh Possum!

After a reference to possums by the animal control officer who visited us the other day, I got curious and did a little research.

Sad Eyes II

  

   As you may recall, our neighborhood had a small issue yesterday. A cat has been wandering around for a few days, bedraggled and shy, wearing a flea collar

Sad Eyes

After a week of vacation followed by three days filled with obligations, I had promised myself that today would be set aside to work on my long-neglected book.

So There!

You may recall a previous post

( Waiting for the Other Shoe)

about our efforts for the past ten years to finally enjoy a harvest – however small - from our peach tree.