Labor Day Paddling

I don't get to go canoeing nearly as often as I'd like. It is one of my favorite things to do. Today Big Daddy treated me and the little ones to a little canoe ride. Actually we took a vote and Big Daddy, he who is the (mostly) benevolent leader of our clan (and the one with veto power) consented. So off we went, under blue skies and fair and gentle winds. The Atlantic side of our island was most cooperative.

Since we've moved here I have really wanted to see a real live shark while canoeing or snorkeling. Before you think I'm out-of-my-ever-loving-mind, I only want to see a small shark, a baby one even, and one of the more docile species. A two or three foot nurse shark would suit me just fine. Today we were fortunate to have seen three sharks! None of them were more than 3 feet long.

We saw a swift little Bonnethead shark, and quite possibly a lemon shark pup, and also a juvenile black tip.

The following picture looks very similar to what we saw.


We also paddled to a little mangrove island and saw many cormorants roosting, a stripped and abandoned sailboat, and three white herons.

Of course we saw many fish!

Hot

Hot, Hot, Hot and Hot Fun In the Summertime - take your pick, I am humming them both today.

Just about an hour ago I was hanging my laundry out on my nifty clothes dryer. I was roasting. Even for this relatively quick chore I had on sunglasses, hat and sunscreen. I got curious. Just how hot is it? According to my thermometer it read 125 degrees F in the sun and 120 in the shade on my back porch. You might be saying to yourself, as I did, "That can't be right!" Well, same thermometer is reading my bedroom as 79, my living room as 81. Therefore, I concede to it's general accuracy. "We're talking Hot, Hot, Hot!" Still, I wouldn't trade my hot lot in life with any of you who weather four distinct seasons. I love to visit such places but I wouldn't want to live there! And you, dear reader, probably wouldn't want to live here - but you'd enjoy a visit, more than likely.


My Mom graced us with her presence from a few days before Mother's Day until today. We will miss her and I am sure she will enjoy a bit of peace and quiet. The Chaos and Mayhem of our home can be quite loud!


Adam and Flora were delighted to see a 2 foot nurse shark near the mangroves that border the little dock area at the end of our street. I will be happy to spot one myself one of these days.





One of these mornings
You're going to rise up singing
Then you'll spread your wings
And you'll take to the sky


"For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a commanding shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God. First, the Christians who have died will rise from their graves. Then, together with them, we who are still alive and remain on the earth will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Then we will be with the Lord forever."
-1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 NLT

Speaking of summer songs:
The classic song "Summertime" by George Gershwin is one of my all time favorite songs. Since becoming a Christian the lyrics of it take on a biblical meaning for me. I highlighted that above in posting a verse of the song lyrics and the coordinating Bible verse. I have never been especially fond of calling the Lord Daddy or Papa as many do nowadays, but that's a personal thing. Many people find it comforting, and He is after all, Our [Heavenly] Father. But in this song, it has always been a picture of God's Fatherhood to His children for me. Let that blow through the jasmine in your mind for awhile.

I am exhausted. Yesterday, Big Daddy and I did a 13 hour (round trip) drive to Tampa and back. While I enjoy driving and riding (and Drivin' n Cryin' 80's babies) it was too much for my 40 year old lower back. We didn't have enough time to break it up with and take some time to stretch our legs. Mama's on Advil today. There's a lesson in that.

It was the first time I have ever been across Alligator Alley, and I enjoyed the vast view of the Everglades. Out to the horizon on either side: saw-grass, cypress and the big Florida sky! I find the clouds in Florida as expressive and changeable as human faces. I wish I brought our camera. I did not find it the Alley as lonesome and ominous as many have described it to me. Anyway we came up with a few blog ideas, so hopefully they will turn up here soon.

Of course we saw many alligators. And tourists.

Cold Water

When we lived for a short time in wild, wonderful West Virginia, the little farmhouse we rented in the country had well water. In the middle of the summer when I would mow the yard, I stopped to use the outside spigot and hose to fill a glass of water. The water would be so cold it would make the glass fog. Very refreshing. Down here the water is never cold. Which isn't surprising when you realize it's piped in a hundred miles from the mainland, and the pipes are mostly above ground in the Caribbean heat. When I was a girl doing my “outdoor education” week in a camp in the mountains and forests of California, we had to take cold showers, there was no hot water. It was freezing! Summer before last Big Daddy nearly killed me when he took me on an 8 mile hike at a state park. On our way back we headed straight for the spring which is 72 degrees year round, and we peeled off our shoes and packs and jumped right it! It was delicious. Down here, though, you could bathe using the “cold” water only, and I’ll bet you wouldn’t even muster a goose pimple! Even the beach water is warm because it is so shallow. It’s odd, but I don’t mind.

The Highwaymen of Florida

Landscapes by Harold Newton

There is a group of artists here in Florida known as The Highwaymen, or The Indian River School. You can read more about them here and here.
I think their story is worth reading and their work is amazing. Check it out. There will be a show and a mini-festival of their work beginning August 1st in Mt. Dora, Florida. Details here.

Love Letter to Florida

I am humbled, awed and amazed by God’s goodness and favor toward me. I’ll tell you why, it’s simply this, because God moved me here to the Southern most tip of the great state of Florida and the continental USA, and I love it. I was driving Flora to her horseback riding lessons, viewing vast expanse of the Atlantic Ocean on the one side of me, and the Gulf of Mexico on the other and thanking God. The colors of the sea were aqua and emerald, depending on the depth, the sunlight, and weather or not there was sand or sea grass below. Here and there the vast expanse of ocean was broken up by a small mangrove island or a sail boat. Otherwise there was only ocean on either side, shimmering on and on towards a faraway horizon that was yet another shade of blue. How did it happen that He allowed us by His Providential Hand (and His ministry purpose for us) to come to such a paradise? I feel so blessed. Humbled. And something akin to survivor’s guilt.

Now you will have to pardon me while I brag about Florida. I think that all of Florida, despite the palmetto bugs, mosquitoes, fire ants, strip malls, cookie-cutter subdivisions, etc., is a bit of paradise on earth. I have loved and appreciated the beauty of the various places I’ve lived: Pennsylvania, Northern California, West Virginia. I’ve been awed by the places I visited while traveling across the country twice when I was younger. Florida, though, holds a special place near and dear to my heart. I hated her at first. I wanted to get back “to my city by the Bay” when I first moved here frome there. My old best friend T (who was not impressed with Florida) once told me the reason I liked it so much was because I had good things happen here, chiefly meeting and falling in love with Big Daddy. Of course her point has merit. I know where and when I fell in love with Florida, though. It was when I first began canoeing down the Wekiva river as a teen. I felt my heart softening towards her though a couple of years before that. Sometime during my misspent youth I was trying, along with a friend, to see some punk rock rated R flick *. Of course, my friend was able to purchase her ticket and get in to the rated R movie without a hitch. I was flatly turned down and had to buy a ticket for the movie Cross Creek which was also playing. Turns out Cross Creek was a great movie, a real jewel, and though I probably denied it then, I loved it. The Florida background of the movie is as important a “character” in that movie as the actual main characters were, in my opinion, much in the way that the musical score and soundtrack is essential to Cameron Crow’s movies. Sometime after that, I acquainted myself with Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’ writings and was smitten with both her work and the Florida locales that are so predominant in her works.

Back to the first time I canoed Wekiva - I was impressed. I was enthralled. It’s a mostly shady trip - huge oaks dripping with Spanish Moss make a canopy over the river. Banana spiders spin their large webs overhead, doing their natural pest control thing. There are cranes, turtles, fish, and on rare occasions, a small alligator or water moccasin. One can expend all the energy that is necessary to maneuver one’s canoe upstream on a warm (or hot!) Florida day and then refresh oneself at the end of the run by dipping into the cool blue-greenness of the Wekiva Springs. Then it’s all easy gliding back downstream to Wekiva Marina. It’s a lovely and easy run by which to initiate yourself with canoeing. As I began to visit, canoe, hike and swim the local springs, state parks and beaches of Florida I came to love and appreciate my adopted home state more and more. And there is still so much of this state that I have not yet seen. I hope to explore my new locale and truly occupy and enjoy the life and time the Lord has given me here, and fulfill whatever His purposes are in this time and place!

*By the way, as best as I recall it was Surf Nazis Must Die, but internet movie database tells me that it came out in 1987, which does not fit my time line.