11/20/06 (Monday): Is anybody out there?! I haven't seen any comments for a while. Maybe you've all given up on me.

We're doing fine. I got my cast off (yay!) and am going to physical therapy. There's not much pain, but it's very weak and it hurts to put any pressure on it. Hopefully I'll recover full use quickly. I'm very impatient (now that's a news flash!), and there's so much I want to do here that I haven't been able to do yet.

Wiley went fossil hunting again last week with Adam (our boss) and a visitor from Australia. I think we've created some more avid fossil hunters! I can't wait until I can paddle a canoe again so I can go. I love the Peace River. Plus we want to paddle Tiger Creek and Patrick Creek here in the Preserve.

I head out for Michigan early Wednesday morning. Mark and Heather are visiting, too, so we'll have a full house. I can't wait to visit with my grandkids again! Wiley is going to stay with his folks.

The eagles nests I've been monitoring are both occupied now, and I'm thoroughly enjoying checking on them. I think they're incubating eggs now, because there's always one bird on the nest. This morning I saw them switch off--one eagle flew in with a stick and settled on the nest and then the other one flew off. I tried to get a picture, but the nests are just too far away. Audubon has a really neat site if you'd like to visit and get an idea of what I'm doing: http://www.audubonofflorida.org/friendsoftheeagle/cam.html

Leave me some comments and let me know I've not just talking to myself!

11/14/06 (Wednesday): I'm typing with both hands! My cast came off Monday. It was really sore at first, but it's already getting better. I have a brace to wear when I'm working or sleeping, but I keep it off when I'm being quiet inside.

As promised, today I'm going to talk a little about our great adventure here at Tiger Creek Preserve on the Lake Wales Ridge of Florida. I'll also show you some pictures I took while Wiley's family was here last weekend.

The Preserve is located on the Lake Wales Ridge, which is high ground that runs down the center of Florida. A couple of million years ago, most of FL was underwater, and there was just a chain of islands. When the ice age lowered the water level and the peninsula of Florida reappeared, the islands became the Lake Wales Ridge. Because the plants and animals had been isolated so long, they're very different from anything now found in the area. Because the ground is so high, it was planted in lots of orange groves and cattle ranches sprawled over the area. Eventually, lots of homes were built. So very little of the unique ecosystem still exists. Much of what does remain has not been allowed to have natural fires, so it has grown up in scrubby forests, which are not good for the low-growing herbaceous plants and uniquely adapted animals. The Nature Conservancy is trying to restore this unique habitat with fire and by controlling invasive plants and animals.

Wiley and I are helping out here in many ways, including trail clearing, getting rid of invasive plants, maintaining tools and equipment, cleaning the barn and office, and monitoring the eagles. I also work four days a week in the office for a couple of hours. It hardly feels like work--we've always done this sort of thing for fun! We're especially enjoying riding around in the all-terrain vehicles.

The closest town is Frostproof. We took this picture at sunset just as the lights in town were coming on. It has a population of about 3,000 and sits between two pristine lakes, Reedy and Clinch. Frostproof is the hub of the citrus industry in Florida, with both growers (Ben Hill Griffin, Inc. and The Latt Maxcy Corporation) and juice processors (Cargill Juice). We do our banking and grocery shopping there.
There are also lots of parks and nature preserves in the area that we're looking forward to visiting.

Last week Wiley's family visited. We had a blast. Cathy and the kids slept in a tent next to the camper and Mag and Wiley slept in the camper. It was a full house!














We went to the beach (New Smyrna) and Wiley and his nephew did some metal detecting (I think they came away with less than 50 cents, but they had fun!). It's possible to find treasure from old Spanish shipwrecks on the beaches in this area.














The next day, Wiley and Cathy and a co-worker of ours, Laura, went fossil hunting on the Peace River. Mag, Wiley and I toured Frostproof and Lake Wales and had lunch at a nice little 50's diner.















This afternoon I'm going out to monitor the eagles' nests with a visitor to the Preserve. Yesterday both nests were occupied for the first time. I'll try to get a picture for you--it's my favorite job ever! Stay tuned!

11/8/06 (Wednesday): Hi. It's me. Want me to catch you up on Phase II of our great adventure? Okay--here goes. Today will bring us up to date, and hopefully I won't have any more computer problems (or blogger problems--they're updating the site and have been down a lot this past week). Here goes nothing! (I didn't understand that phrase as a kid, and I still don't!)

Our first weekend here in our new home was spectacular. We took a hike on a trail in the Lake Wales Ridge State Forest, Arbuckle section. It's a loop trail that's over 20 miles long, but we only hiked about 3 miles. On the way to the park, in an orange grove, we saw our first whooping crane! This might not be a big whoop (excuse the pun) for the non birders among you, but it's the equivalent of winning the lottery to a birder!

There is only one wild migratory flock of whooping cranes in the world. It migrates from Wood Buffalo National Park in Canada to Aransas National Wildlife Refuge in Texas. In the 1950s, there were fewer than 20 birds left. The bird we saw was almost certainly part of a nonmigratory flock that scientists are trying to reintroduce in Florida. There had been whooping cranes in FL until the 1930's, but they had all disappeared thanks to habitat destruction mostly. In the early 1990's, scientists decided to try putting whooping crane eggs in sand hill cranes nests to see if they could successfully raise their cousins. The eggs were obtained from captive birds. The crane we saw (the white one) is with its surrogate parents who are sand hill cranes. We could see a transmitter and bands on its legs. Very exciting!

We expected the hike itself to be anticlimatic, but it turned out to be great fun, too.

The trail runs on a high (by FL standards, anyhow) ridge along Reedy Creek, which eventually flows into Lake Arbuckle.



We had another unusual bird sighting--this barred owl was out in the daytime.





This is typical sand hill terrain--sparsely treed, flat and dry. It's amazing how many plants and animals have adapted to life in these harsh conditions.









This bee had chosen a very attractive flower to feed on. I don't know what kind of flower it is.













Just me and my cast here, having a good time!













Beautyberry is one of my favorite native plants. The gorgeous lavendar color rivals any flowers, don't you think?











I believe this might be a gulf fritillary, but I'm not sure. Katelyn--do you have a butterfly identification book? Help out Aunt Joyce, here, would you?












We turned around and hiked back when we reached this old truck out in the middle of nowhere. There were probably lots of hopes and dreams connected with this truck when it was shiny and new!

That's all for now, folks. We'll be spending lots of time with Wiley's family in the coming weeks. Marguerite has some health challenges and we hope to be there for her as she has been there for so many people. The whole gang is coming to visit next weekend. We hope to get in some fossil hunting on the Peace River with them, and of course we'll give them the grand tour on an ATV! I get my cast off next Monday (Yay)! I'll chat with you again soon. Peace be with you!

11/1/o6 (Wednesday): Can you believe it's November already?! We're settling in nicely and getting a routine going. I love being able to spend so much time with Wiley. We're pretty much setting our own schedule. There's a lot of flexibility. A list of tasks is posted on the barn door and we pick what we want to do each day. Yesterday we did some trail maintenance in the morning and then I spent all afternoon in the office because the office manager needed an afternoon off. Wiley finished up the trail work by himself.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I want to bring the blog up to date before I go any further. Today I'll give you the treasure story I promised you! We decided to take a drive out Rt. 60 to Vero Beach, which is our closest beach. It was kind of drizzly out and the road was under construction, but it was very rural and pretty and there was almost no traffic. Vero beach is a cute little town. It looked old, but I don't know much about its history. We'll have to do a little exploring there.

We headed north on A1A with the vague idea of going to Sebastian Inlet State Park, but we got sidetracked by a sign for the McLarty Treasure Museum.

This is a small but fascinating museum run by the state. It's located on the site of the 1715 Spanish Plate Fleet survivor's and salvaging camp. From the 1500's through the 1700's, Spain dug a bunch of silver and some gold out of the mountains in Mexico and South America and sent it across the Atlantic in wooden sailing vessels. The outgoing and incoming ships would meet every summer in Cuba. they also carried treasures from the Orient gathered by the fleet that had been shipped across the Pacific to Mexico and other places they'd traveled, plus the personal treasures of their wealthy passengers. Spain had warships and forts to protect this shipping traffic, but hurricanes wrecked many ships.

One of the largest disasters occurred in 1715, when a storm sunk that year's fleet on the shoals between Sebastian and Fort Pierce. About 1500 people survived and came ashore. They set up a camp and began salvage operations with the help of the Ais Indians and, eventually, the Spanish in St. Augustine. But conditions were very harsh and many died. Less than half of the treasure cargo reached Spain. The wreck was rediscovered in 1928 and some historical artifacts were recovered in the 1940's. Then, in the 1950's, a hurricane revealed the site where the museum is now located. Divers and beachcombers have been retrieving treasure ever since. The finds are truly stunning! If you ever get the chance, it's worth a visit. Wiley is looking forward to going back with his metal detector!

There's also a nice little nature trail. Here are some pics of the interesting "treasures" I saw on my walk. This plant is called "bloodberry."




Black racer (?) on rocks by beach.
















The white-flowered plant growing among the sea grapes is called "devil's potato." It had a very pleasant fragrance. I don't know the reason for the awful name--maybe its root looks like a potato but is inedible.









That's it for another day--my wrist gets fatigued if I type too long. Tomorrow's blog will be the last of the catch-up ones. I'll talk about a rare sighting we made while hiking the Lake Arbuckle trail. Happy trails to you!