A Snowbird's Life Through the Lens
Life on my own, on the Nature Coast of of Florida, and beyond…
I hadn’t heard of the Paint Mines before, but what an interesting place to hike and explore. Climbing on the rocks is prohibited, but you are free to wander through the crevasses to better see and touch the rocks. 
Where some water pooled you really saw the color in the water, so Jo scooped some up yes, it felt like clay. An amazing resource for people thousands of years ago…
I’ve suspected a conspiracy for quite a while now. Since I bought my house in Florida in 2005. We hadn’t owned the house long, and were just visiting every other month for the first three years, but we quickly were talked into getting a ‘bug guy’, because ‘if you don’t have termites now you will eventually.’ Not wanting to arrive at the house and find that it was occupied by hordes of bugs, we signed on. But the thing of it is, we never saw a bug. Not in my house, and not here in the mobile either. Nope. Not until the actual bug guy paid a visit, and then there would be a dead palmetto bug lying in a corner, or under a table, immediately after the bug guy put in an appearance. I suspected he planted those things to ensure that you would keep paying the bill.
Lately I have been patting myself on the back for finally signing on with a bug guy for this place, prompted by my plan to head out of here for an extended trip to somewhere. And on the two occasions that he has paid me a visit I have spotted a palmetto bug shortly after each visit. The last time he was here I informed him of my suspicions and he pretended to be amused. I told him that I find those darned bugs to be so creepy that I usually leave them lying in state for a couple of days, just to be sure it’s really dead before I go to scoop it up and it leaps into action. I think he rolled his eyes, but he assured me that if it’s lying on it’s back you can be sure it’s dead. He LIED!
I thought these monkeys were adorable when I was watching them scamper around their enclosure in person. Their faces were so cute, but it wasn’t until I looked at my pictures that I realized that they were wearing hearts on their noses. I honestly don’t think that I had ever noticed them before.
I had noticed these black and white monkeys before, who wouldn’t with such dramatic markings? 
And then we came to this orange monkey, which again I don’t think I had noticed before. I think the color distracted me from noticing that extremely long tail. 
Maybe they cluster the most entertaining of the animals at the zoo together, or maybe it’s a coincidence, but the penguins were next as we walked. Their area was so cool and inviting looking. We got there as a keeper opened a door and walked out calling “Come on penguins,” and a line of penguins marched out of the building and joined some that were already out. They were quite entertaining, the one playing with the rubber ducky really caught my eye.
I’m usually on my own when I’m out somewhere hoping to take some pictures. And that has it’s advantages since I hardly ever plan these excursions in advance. But it is also nice to be out with friends, seeing things through their eyes as well as my own. I’m pretty sure that’s why I felt like I was seeing some of these animals for the first time. A day out with friends is so much more of a treat these days than ever before. I feel guilty for wanting to get back to normal, I don’t want to rush things and then regret it. But a day out with friends is good for the soul.
I love orangutans, I’ve said it before. The babies especially, for obvious reasons. They weren’t very active when we were there on Tuesday. This little guy was hanging on the underside of a rope ladder beside his mother. It made for challenging shots, and I had hoped to stop by their area again before we went home but we didn’t get the chance. Thanks to Lightroom there are a few usable ones.
I hope I get to visit the San Diego Zoo again one of these days. That’s where I saw orangutan newborns in preemie diapers playing in the nursery. I fell in love on the spot and it stuck with me all these years…
It was the moon that got me out bright and early on Sunday morning. Not a full moon, or a blue moon, or a blood moon, just an ordinary crescent moon. It was shining so clearly in the dark sky at 4 AM, and I thought of all the times I got up to let the dogs out and spotted a nice moon in a clear sky and got out my tripod and camera to try to take pictures, but they hardly ever turned out. So I resisted the urge. But it was still shining out there at 6 AM, and the sky was still just as clear, so off I went. I’m glad I got a picture of the moon because a pretty sunrise to go with it might have been nice, but that didn’t happen. It just got light out with no fan fare whatsoever.
And I must be feeling like a rebel because I’m breaking the rules by posting this picture this morning. Our camera club leader, Jeff, says that he ‘isn’t good enough’ to take a picture that doesn’t need to be cropped. I wonder if he has any idea how seriously I take his comments, taking them to heart like they are written in stone, when he may have just tossed off a comment with hardly any thought. At any rate I force myself to crop my photos and yes, I can see that it does make it a better photo. Not this photo though. I can’t crop it without losing the moon, and the moon was the entire reason I was standing on the bridge at 6:15 AM waiting for something more to happen. Or I might crop it and post the cropped version and erase half of what I wrote here. Or I could go back to bed…
I’m not such a rebel after all…
Florida’s beaches have been reopened, and that makes me happy because a quick trip to Green Key Beach for the sunset was easy enough to do. But I have this nagging feeling of guilt for being ready to get back to normal. Several of my closest friends are very concerned about a rush to normalcy, and with very good reason. Boredom on my part doesn’t seem like much of a counterpoint to their worries. But I went to the beach anyhow, and the closest I came to anyone was this night heron. I don’t know who was more surprised, him or me.
These birds are usually hard to see in the shrubbery, not standing beside you all of a sudden after you went back to the car for bug spray. I had walked to the farthest end of the beach where it meets shrubbery to get this shot and then retreated for bug spray. 
Between high tide and the landscaping that has been done to this beach in the last year positioning yourself for a nice angle on the sunset was a challenge. The no-see-ums didn’t seem to be phased by my bug spray, and people were clustered closer together to watch the sunset at the other end of the beach, so I headed for home as soon as the sun disappeared. Somehow the days pass…
