12/28/06 (Thursday): Our great adventure (Part II) has really begun to take on momentum. This past week has been fantastic.

Last Thursday, I went out with the biologist and an intern to learn how to monitor scrub jays.

We went to a piece of property nearby that's owned by The Nature Conservancy, Saddleblanket Preserve. It's not open to the public yet because it's still in the process of being restored. Tiger Creek Preserve (where we're staying) is mostly a Sand Hill ecosystem, whereas Saddleblanket is a Scrub ecosystem. Scrub is Florida's version of a desert. Everyone thinks of Florida as being almost subtropical--green and moist with lots of vegetation. Scrub is dry with large patches of bare, white sand and scanty vegetation. In its own way, it's quite beautiful. And in my opinion, the scrub jays are the jewels of the scrub!

Scrub-Jays live only in Florida and only in the dry oak scrub. Oak scrub historically was maintained by lightning-caused fires that occurred about every ten to twenty years. Development, beginning in the 1950s, caused this ecosystem to be separated into islands of habitate surrounded by homes and orange groves, which prevented most scrub patches from burning regularly. As a result, most scrub in Florida is overgrown, and many scrubs have succeeded to oak hammocks or sand pine forests which are completely unsuitable for Scrub-Jays.

The Florida Scrub-Jay was classified in the early 1970's as a threatened species, but it's decline continued. By 1993, Florida Scrub-Jay populations had declined an estimated 90%, to about 10,000 individuals. Since then, further, severe declines have been documented in some Scrub-Jay populations in Brevard County and elsewhere. I feel very privileged to have seen as many as I saw this past week.

I'll be helping to study two families of jays. As recently as 1996, there were only 3 jays in this preserve, and they were not producing families. Then, a female jay who had been banded in another, nearby, preserve joined the 3 jays, and now they've separated into two families, both of which have produced young this year for the first time. The biologist has encouraged the birds to become accustomed to her to facilitate studying them. Although this is discouraged in general, it's necessary to study such an endangered creature. It was such a thrill to have them fly right up to us!

We went to Wiley's family on Friday to stay through Christmas. I met my friends Lucie and Elaine for lunch and had a good time catching up.

Then on Saturday, we met Troy for breakfast and then decided to go to Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. They have a wonderful drive through an area that was diked for mosquito control purposes. Now it attracts hundreds of birds. These coots were part of a huge raft of birds that seemed to be swimming shoulder-to-shoulder.

This kildeer was right beside the road. They've been known to pretend to be injured to draw predators away from their nest, but this one seemed perfectly calm and unconcerned with us and our truck!

These pretty creatures are hooded mergansers. My camera doesn't have much of a zoom lens, so you can see that we were quite close to these birds!Roseate spoonbills were formerly my favorite bird (now my favorite is the scrub jay). These pink beauties aren't close enough to show their oddly flattened bills.

Moor hens are another favorite bird of mine--their beaks look like they're made of red patent leather, and they swim with absurd feet that look like a chicken's!

Okay--no more bird pictures, I promise. But we also saw several alligators. This was a very large chap with an unusually long tail.

We drove home via a different route because we wanted to check out Haulover Canal. Wiley and his Dad have come here for years to fish, but we were surprised to see some changes they've made. There was a nice deck area where we saw some manatees. (You'll have to click on this picture and enlarge it to see this fellow--he's under the water and there's a little glare.)

There was also a scrub area that had a kiosk with a sign describing what scrub is, why it's endangered and how it's being managed with controlled burns. I think Troy thought I'd lost my mind when I walked to the edge of the parking lot and began calling scrub jays. And I think I was as surprised as he was when a couple of them actually appeared! I didn't have anything to reward them with, so they soon flew back into the bushes. It's quite magical! This beauty was a female. I know that because she put her head back and made a sound that only the females make--it sounds sort of like the clicking that the old tin frog toys made.

When we finally got home and told the tale of our adventures, the whole family decided we'd have to make a repeat trip so they can enjoy the adventure, too. On Christmas Eve, Wiley's father, niece and nephew and I decided we couldn't wait. I'd read about Lyonia Preserve near DeLand, and we decided to go see if we could whistle up some scrub jays there. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was, when the jays cooperated beautifully! More magic!!

Okay--so I lied about no more bird pictures. But you have to admit these are some pretty wild pictures, and the family is quite photogenic. It's hard to believe how curious these birds are. Anyone would think we were feeding them peanuts (their favorite food)! Of course, that's not allowed (for very good reason) except for trained researchers. Katelyn doesn't look like she's sure whether she wants to befriend this fellow!

We had a really nice time with family over Christmas. Santa was good to us and visiting with family was great. We hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas and that you'll continue on our great adventure with us in the new year. Peace!

12/23/06 (Saturday): Just a quick post tonight to provide the recipe Julie wanted. I'll post again after Christmas--we're having a great time! Here's the recipe. It originally came from the internet and made some changes that I consider an improvement.

Farmhouse Soup Mix in a Jar

1/2 lb. ground turkey (optional)
2 tablespoons dried minced onion
2 tablespoons dried parsley flakes
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon lemon pepper
2 tablespoons beef bouillon flakes
1/2 cup quick cook barley
1/2 cup dried split peas
1/2 cup rice, uncooked (do not use instant)
1/2 cup dry lentils
1/2 cup alphabet pasta, uncooked
1 cup flavored spiral, macaroni, uncooked

Using a funnel, layer all of the ingredients except the macaroni in a 1-quat jar, alternating the colors attractively.

Fill rest of jar with the spiral macaroni that is placed in a baggie. Seal the jar.

Attach the following instructions on a gift tag:

Farmhouse Soup:

If using the ground turkey, fry it until thoroughly cooked
Contents of jar
3 quarts water (add more if needed as it cooks)
2 stalks chopped celery,
2 sliced carrots
1 cup shredded cabbage
2 cups diced tomatoes

Put all ingredients into a stockpot over medium low heat. Cover and simmer about 1 hour, or until vegetables are tender. Add macaroni last 15 minutes of cooking.

12/20/06 (Wednesday): Ho Ho Ho! Wiley and I wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous New Year. We've been enjoying our great adventure so much that we've been ignoring our blog. I hope you'll all forgive once you've read this (probably very lengthy) post.

The way you know Christmas is coming in this part of the world is that they start picking the citrus. It's been very interesting to see the trees all loaded down with ripening oranges. If you look very closely in this orange grove (click on the picture to enlarge it), you'll see some turkeys running fast to escape my truck! We see a lot of wildlife in this area. Do you suppose these oranges are the "pot of gold" at the end of this rainbow?!














Shortly after the grapefruit and oranges started getting ripe, we began seeing trucks parked beside the groves and ladders leaning against the trees. Most of the citrus is picked by migrants from Mexico. It looks like a pleasant job--the weather is nice right now and there are very few bugs--but I'm sure the bags hung from their shoulders get heavy and the days are long for very little pay. I chatted for a bit with this worker (with my very basic Spanish). He seemed happy to take a break and was quite friendly with me.

After the pickers empty their bags into the tubs (like the one in the picture), the tubs are emptied into large crates. Eventually, a small vehicle called a "goat" empties the tubs into crates (or sometimes directly into a truck). The trucks are on all the roads lately, and the oranges and grapefruit that fall out of them lie rotting on the sides of most of the local roads. This truck was stopped at a little diner where we stopped for breakfast one morning.

The trucks are mostly bound for orange juice processing plants. Most Florida orange are juice oranges, while most California oranges are eating oranges. We've seen the trucks parked at several of the local processing plants.

At the plant, the oranges are sorted and washed and taken into the plant on conveyor belts. We took this picture at a plant right beside Rt. 17. This particular conveyor belt appeared to be taking freshly washed oranges and grapefruits out of a building and they were dropping into trucks. That seems like the reverse of the process for juice oranges, so it may have been a packing plant for fresh fruit. We stood and watched this process through the fence for a while because it was interesting to see it up so close.


There's a Florida's Natural Orange Juice Processing plant on Rt. 27 very near us. They're processing juice right now, and the smell is quite nice--very sweet. They have a visitor's center and gift shop across the street from the plant which we visited. There's a very informative museum about this history of oranges and orange juice processing in Florida. There were posters describing how oranges are processed into juice. This is an extractor that reams out the inside of the orange.






In addition to the interesting orange industry, Wiley and I have been touring the area to see the small towns and check out the parks and hiking trails. Frostproof (our closest town) bills itself as "The Friendly City," and it really is. But I think it also has some residents with a great sense of humor. This "plane crash" at the mailbox of one house just outside town is ample evidence of that!


We drove back roads all the way to Avon Park and then Sebring, stopping to look at whatever caught our fancy along the way. We're definitely planning to go back and explore Arbuckle Creek some more--maybe even with our canoe. It was a very typical deep south creek, with its shores lined with cypress hung with Spanish moss. We could almost feel the eyes of the alligators sizing us up for lunch. Even though there was not much traffic, we gave these turkeys the right of way. They just kept running down the road ahead of us, not even trying to fly!



The little town of Avon Park was all decked out for Christmas. I'm not sure what cows have to do with Christmas (or Avon Park, for that matter), but they were really cute decorations. I poked around in a couple little shops while Wiley went metal detecting by the lake. There are lots of lakes in this area, and most of them have parks on their shores. They're very pleasant places to take a picnic lunch and a good book and just relax.


This tropical looking lake with two palm trees growing right in the water has an unpronounceable Indian name that means "Walk-in-Water."

We've also driven to the Peace River (about an hour from here) and went canoeing and fossil hunting. I was surprised at how well my wrist and thumb did with loading the canoe onto the truck and paddling it.

We put up a tiny Christmas tree in the trailer and hung a garland and some lights from the patio awning. They're very festive! I made Christmas presents for our Nature Conservancy friends--the ingredients for Farmhouse Soup layered in a decorated jar with the recipe attached.



That's all for tonight--I'm tired, and I have to get up early tomorrow for a physical therapy appointment. Then I'm going to "work." The assignment for tomorrow is to go with the biologist and monitor the scrub jays. Have I mentioned lately that I love my live?!

Have a wonderful holiday!

12/4/06 (Monday): Lots to report today, so I'll get right to it. Thanksgiving was not so great this year, although in retrospect there's a lot to be thankful for. I had a reunion with my two sons and their families in Michigan and Wiley went to his family's home. When I arrived on Wednesday, my granddaughter, Claire (4 months old), was slightly feverish and fussy. By the next morning (Thanksgiving), she was being rushed to the emergency room with a very high fever. We came awfully close to losing her. She had a urinary tract infection that went to her kidneys and became sepsis. Thank goodness Mark and Heather were there with me to care for Anna, Margo, Hudson and Austin. Poor Kristin stayed at the hospital the whole time, sleeping in the crib with Margo! Tom spent his days at the hospital and came home to help with the girls at night. We had corn dogs for Thanksgiving dinner! We had the Thanksgiving dinner that Kristin had mostly prepared ahead of time on Friday. It was a gourmet feast! We were truly thankful that everything came out okay and Claire came home on Monday.

Wiley's mother had her surgery last week. She's a real trouper--you can't keep a good woman down! There was no cancer in the sentinel node, so she'll have some radiation and that should be that.

We've accepted a summer Workamper position at Betsie Creek Campground near Sleeping Bear Dunes State Park. We're really excited about this position. It's about a 4-hour drive from my Michigan grandchildren and a mile from Lake Michigan. There's supposed to be good fishing, boating, hiking and quaint villages. Here's a link to the campground's website. http://www.michcampgrounds.com/betsieriver. Our duties will be much the same as they were in Maine.

My wrist and thumb are coming along well. I have an orthopaedist appointment today and physical therapy on Tuesday and Thursday.

Work here is going extremely well. We love everything we do! My favorite thing is monitoring the eagle nests. They're incubating now. This picture isn't very clear, but I see them quite clearly through the binoculars! Last night, coming home from our weekend in Winter Park, we saw two foxes in the driveway. We've seen deers, rabbits, feral hogs and lots of birds. I love my life!

That's it for now. Have