Monday, December 12, 2011
Theodore, Too
Watching the Boat Parade
While watching the 40th Annual Fort Lauderdale Boat Parade, I looked down and found an unlikely observer;
I wonder what he made of all the noise...
.
I wonder what he made of all the noise...
.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
B.O.L.O.
A vile criminal is running loose around the bend. His crimes include trespass, theft, assault, and pooping in the shallow end of my pool.
Don't get suckered by his good looks. He'll spread your garbage around your yard, and then relieve himself all over your patio, preferably in your pool or jacuzzi.
Last night, he not only left a pretty good sized load, but a dead bird he found along the way. Charming.
Don't get suckered by his good looks. He'll spread your garbage around your yard, and then relieve himself all over your patio, preferably in your pool or jacuzzi.
Last night, he not only left a pretty good sized load, but a dead bird he found along the way. Charming.
Laundry Day
Friday was laundry day a the King-Cromartie House, one of the historic buildings in the Himmarshee Village.
It doesn't look like all the much, does it? So why all those washtubs?
If you're an apartment dweller, you have to walk it down to a laundry room, or haul it to a laundromat. But most of us toss a load into the machine when we run out of undies. Maybe we start the machine during dinner. It fills up, soaks everything, agitates them for a while, replaces the dirty soapy water with fresh, rinses everything, and then spins all the excess moisture.
We dump it into the dryer and fold it while watching the evening news. Time for a single load; maybe an hour and a half, more or less.
But back in the day, laundry was an all-day affair.
You'd have to heat the water on your wood or coal-burning stove, and pour it over your clothes in a washtub, pour in some lye, and agitate the mess with a plunger. Then you'd scrub them on a washboard. You know, those things sometimes used in folk music.
Then you'd transfer them into a washtub of plain water. Maybe you'd need to do this a couple of times to get the lye out, and believe me, you really want to get all the lye out.
Then you hang the clothes out to dry. Depending on the weather, the cloth, and how well you managed to squeeze all the weather, they'd be dry in a few hours.
And then you'd iron them, but that's a story for another time.
It doesn't look like all the much, does it? So why all those washtubs?
If you're an apartment dweller, you have to walk it down to a laundry room, or haul it to a laundromat. But most of us toss a load into the machine when we run out of undies. Maybe we start the machine during dinner. It fills up, soaks everything, agitates them for a while, replaces the dirty soapy water with fresh, rinses everything, and then spins all the excess moisture.
We dump it into the dryer and fold it while watching the evening news. Time for a single load; maybe an hour and a half, more or less.
But back in the day, laundry was an all-day affair.
You'd have to heat the water on your wood or coal-burning stove, and pour it over your clothes in a washtub, pour in some lye, and agitate the mess with a plunger. Then you'd scrub them on a washboard. You know, those things sometimes used in folk music.
Then you'd transfer them into a washtub of plain water. Maybe you'd need to do this a couple of times to get the lye out, and believe me, you really want to get all the lye out.
Then you hang the clothes out to dry. Depending on the weather, the cloth, and how well you managed to squeeze all the weather, they'd be dry in a few hours.
And then you'd iron them, but that's a story for another time.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Today's walk.
The best part about living 'round the Bend is that nature is right here with us. Here we are in the middle of downtown Fort Lauderdale, and we don't have to head off to some safari park. We just have to walk down the street.
Walking along Waverly Place, I suddenly heard a distinctive call from right above my head. And sure enough, there was a distinctive bird making it.
This is a Cooper's Hawk. They are much smaller than the Red Shouldered Hawks that also patrol the neighborhood. You'll sometimes see them perched on phone wires over the street, waiting for squirrels to bound across their path. He posed for some photos, and then he was gone quicker than I could see.
A little further up the block, a squirrel was making a ruckus. By the time I came into view, he had chased an interloper up a branch.
Basilisks are also know as "Jesus Lizards," because their webbed feet and powerful legs allow them to to actually run across the surface of water. But this guy was just avoiding the angry squirrel.
Speaking of webbed feet: ducklings!
These Muscovy ducks are still clinging to the cute stage. They were only a few yards from a little green heron:
Who, in turn, was only a few yards from a Night Heron:
It's not all birds and reptiles, though. This bandit was waiting for traffic to die down across from the police station.
Maybe he's planning a jail break.
Walking along Waverly Place, I suddenly heard a distinctive call from right above my head. And sure enough, there was a distinctive bird making it.
A little further up the block, a squirrel was making a ruckus. By the time I came into view, he had chased an interloper up a branch.
Basilisks are also know as "Jesus Lizards," because their webbed feet and powerful legs allow them to to actually run across the surface of water. But this guy was just avoiding the angry squirrel.
Speaking of webbed feet: ducklings!
These Muscovy ducks are still clinging to the cute stage. They were only a few yards from a little green heron:
Who, in turn, was only a few yards from a Night Heron:
It's not all birds and reptiles, though. This bandit was waiting for traffic to die down across from the police station.
Maybe he's planning a jail break.
Friday, June 3, 2011
Feeding Time
It's feeding time in the night heron colony, located in Sailboat Bend.
No, it's not pretty, but Junior seems happy enough.
So where did I snap this photo? Right out my front door, in downtown Fort Lauderdale.
No, it's not pretty, but Junior seems happy enough.
So where did I snap this photo? Right out my front door, in downtown Fort Lauderdale.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Song for the Season
June 1 marks the beginning of Hurricane Season, and there's no better way to mark the day than with Jimmy Buffet's Trying to Reason with Hurricane Season.
FloridaWill was trying to capture "the Keys vibe," but some of the shots are just downstream of The Bend.
I'll be posting some survival tips, having weathered a few bad storms.
FloridaWill was trying to capture "the Keys vibe," but some of the shots are just downstream of The Bend.
I'll be posting some survival tips, having weathered a few bad storms.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Basking Invader
The extreme cold snaps we had this past winter killed off a lot of invasive fauna, but not all.
Spotted this guy sunning himself along the New River a few days ago-
He's impressive to look at, but he's also a destructive pest. He and all his progeny - and there will be progeny - will burrow along the sea wall, eventually causing it to collapse. They also stink worse than Muscovy ducks, and are associated with spreading salmonella.
Spotted this guy sunning himself along the New River a few days ago-
He's impressive to look at, but he's also a destructive pest. He and all his progeny - and there will be progeny - will burrow along the sea wall, eventually causing it to collapse. They also stink worse than Muscovy ducks, and are associated with spreading salmonella.
Duckling Watch
It's spring, which means ducklings. Yes, even if they are Muscovy ducklings. They're cute until they start to fledge.
Mama Cooley and her brood was caught on camera last week:
Here they are again on Memorial Day -
While all looks well, if you count up the ducklings, she's down one. This inexorable decline in number will continue. And morbid as it may be, we'll be keeping watch around the bend.
Time will tell if she's as successful as Mama Argyle, who got half her brood to fledge.
Of course, they aren't so cuddly at this adolescent age.
So why are they called Muscovy ducks? "Muscovy" means "of Moscow," and yet these birds are not from Russian, they are native to South and Central America. It's actually a bastardization of its latin name, cairina moschata, which means "the musky one from Cairo." Yes, even in 1793, when the thing was first classified, they got its homeland wrong.
But they got the musk part right; you can always tell when a Muscovy duck has been hanging around.
BTW, despite their patch color, these are all pure-breed ducks. The species has always had that patchwork look to them.
Mama Cooley and her brood was caught on camera last week:
Here they are again on Memorial Day -
While all looks well, if you count up the ducklings, she's down one. This inexorable decline in number will continue. And morbid as it may be, we'll be keeping watch around the bend.
Time will tell if she's as successful as Mama Argyle, who got half her brood to fledge.
Of course, they aren't so cuddly at this adolescent age.
So why are they called Muscovy ducks? "Muscovy" means "of Moscow," and yet these birds are not from Russian, they are native to South and Central America. It's actually a bastardization of its latin name, cairina moschata, which means "the musky one from Cairo." Yes, even in 1793, when the thing was first classified, they got its homeland wrong.
But they got the musk part right; you can always tell when a Muscovy duck has been hanging around.
BTW, despite their patch color, these are all pure-breed ducks. The species has always had that patchwork look to them.
Bird Watch: Spot Breasted Oriole
A Beginning
I've been blogging for several years. In fact, I have an insane number of blogs, and ultimately, it seems the only way to bring things under control is to start again.
There's a photo blog, the vent-my-spleen blog, a gluten-free lifestyle blog (that never took off), a blog a friend started that now consists entirely of three posts by me, a family genealogy blog, and an arts blog.
ACK! Too much!
So we'll be combining a few of them; I won't actually be closing the other blogs - there's some good stuff in them. But I'll be focusing on my arts blog, and this one.
The name of the blog is inspired by where I'm now living, Fort Lauderdale's Sailboat Bend neighborhood. But this isn't a neighborhood blog (despite the address which would seem to say otherwise). I'm not doing neighborhood news or gossip. I'm not that connected. Or interested.
It is an interesting place, with lots of interesting stuff, and I will share photos and impressions from time to time. There will be essays. There will be poems. I warn you, they will probably be just awful poems, tawdry things that rhyme. And there will be stories; all of the stories will be true, although I will be making most of them up.
You see, being "round the bend" is more a state of mind than a matter of geography. Some say it means you've gone crazy; others more diplomatically say "mentally irregular." My own take is that one has gotten away from the crowd and stepped out of view for a moment, going around a bend in the river of life.
That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.
There's a photo blog, the vent-my-spleen blog, a gluten-free lifestyle blog (that never took off), a blog a friend started that now consists entirely of three posts by me, a family genealogy blog, and an arts blog.
ACK! Too much!
So we'll be combining a few of them; I won't actually be closing the other blogs - there's some good stuff in them. But I'll be focusing on my arts blog, and this one.
The name of the blog is inspired by where I'm now living, Fort Lauderdale's Sailboat Bend neighborhood. But this isn't a neighborhood blog (despite the address which would seem to say otherwise). I'm not doing neighborhood news or gossip. I'm not that connected. Or interested.
It is an interesting place, with lots of interesting stuff, and I will share photos and impressions from time to time. There will be essays. There will be poems. I warn you, they will probably be just awful poems, tawdry things that rhyme. And there will be stories; all of the stories will be true, although I will be making most of them up.
You see, being "round the bend" is more a state of mind than a matter of geography. Some say it means you've gone crazy; others more diplomatically say "mentally irregular." My own take is that one has gotten away from the crowd and stepped out of view for a moment, going around a bend in the river of life.
That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.
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