3/29/07 (Thursday): We're in the home stretch now--we'll be leaving Tiger Creek Preserve on Monday morning, heading for Mag and Wiley's house. We'll stay there through Easter Sunday and leave for Michigan Easter Monday morning. The good folks here at the Preserve are throwing us a going away party tomorrow--a barbecue. We're sure going to miss everyone!

We were back in Orlando last week. We did a lot of work getting our house ready for sale. There's still some more to do (mostly yard work and touch-up painting). It was arduous, but hopefully we'll be rewarded with a little jingle in our pockets. We'll be in trouble if it doesn't sell fairly soon, because we now have a monthly payment to make on our new RV. We'll pay it off in full as soon as the house sells.

I've made an adjustment to my camera that I hope will solve the problem with the too-big pictures. Click on a couple of these and let me know if it's better.

Just before we left, I had a visit here at the Preserve with Dave Almquist, an entomologist. He's the one I've been doing the beetle project for. We had great fun looking at all the beetles I'd found (some of them rather rare). In the picture on the right, he's sifting sand in the area where he found a pygmy scarab beetle, in hopes of finding a female. He also took me and Dot out for a little bug hunting.


I found this cute black and white beetle on the inside of a paw paw bloom. The paw paw bushes are in bloom all over the preserve. They in the fall, they have an edible fruit.


I think this green guy is an anole, but Wiley calls them chameleons. Whatever--I think he looks sort of like Geico's ghecco! Cute!!











This is me and my friend, Dot, at Heron Pond. Did I mention that I'm really going to miss the people I've met here?! Wiley built the wood duck house (in the background) in his spare time.








We see gopher tortoises out on the trail all the time, but this one came right out into our parking lot in front of the office! I think he came to say goodbye to us.









I saved the best news for last! This is us at Leisure Time RV in Winter Garden, where we just picked up our new RV. The folks here were wonderful--we felt so pampered! And the RV was immaculate and in wonderful working order. It was a great experience overall, and I can recommend them without reservation.






We pulled the Prowler right up beside the new Brookside and walked back and forth unloading the old and moving into the new. It was tiring, but it was probably the easiest move I've ever made. It only took about 1-1/2 hours. Everything is more or less put away now--just some shelves to build and hooks to install. We love our new home! I'll post some pictures in the next blog when we have it all set up and pretty. It is a little taller than the Prowler was, but it's the same length. We had no trouble hauling it with the truck.

I hope to be able to do one more blog before we leave, and then we hit the road for Michigan! Our new employers (Betsie River Campground in Frankfort, Michigan) will be there in mid-April, and we start work May 1. We can go a week early to look around if we want to. We'll have almost 3 weeks to get there, and I hope to be able to blog about all our experiences on the road like I did on the trip to Maine. Stay tuned for Joyce and Wiley's Great Adventure Part III--coming soon to a computer near you!

P.S. I almost forgot--just for you Uncle Ed--here's the pic of Julie with the scrub jay on her head. Flattering, don't you thing?!

3/19/07 (Monday): We had a very nice weekend in Winter Park, and now we're back home in Tiger Creek. Mag and Wiley have sold their beach house (which was in pretty bad shape) to a neighbor who is restoring it. The family has many wonderful memories of the time they spent in the cottage, so we were eager to accept the neighbor's invitation to visit and see how he's fixing it up. It looks terrific--bright and sunny--and he's even using some of the same furniture. It has a very 50's feel.


Julie and John came to visit us in Winter Park on Saturday. We had lunch at Wiley's favorite Chinese buffet in Apopka and then went to see if we could scout up some scrub jays. I've always seen the scrub jays when we go to Lyonia, but we've always had to walk on the trail before they come out. This time, they met us right at the beginning of the trail! They were quite friendly and we enjoyed their antics. They'd fly onto our heads and shoulders without any fear!

After our trip to the park, we went into town to John's favorite Oriental grocery store. John is from Indonesia, and this is the closest place for them to buy Indonesian food. They're having a visit with their children and grandchildren next week, so they were stocking up. The store was fascinating--a huge variety of foods I've never seen before. This funny looking fruit is a durian. It's supposed to taste absolutely wonderful, but before you can put it in your mouth, you have to get past its horrible smell. I don't think I'm brave enough to try it.

On Sunday we went out for breakfast and did a little gardening.








Then we headed home. After we cleaned the office we headed out to check my beetle traps. We hit the mother lode of beetles this time! It had rained while we were gone, and apparently that brings them up (they live in the sand). Ten of our 13 traps had beetles in them; many of the traps had more than one! The trap consists of a deli container buried in the sand up to its rim. The lid has a slit cut in it with a hole in the center. You push the lid down into the container and it forms a funnel. The bait cup is suspended over the trap with a wire stuck into the sand. The bait consists of dung (I'm using hog dung), molasses and yeast. So far, I've found Peltotrupes profundes (very rare), geotrupes (not as rare, never found here in Polk County before), and pygmy scarab beetles (also very rare). If you'd like to see pictures of these beautiful beetles, check out www.bugguide.net. You can search the site for the beetles I named above. The entomologist who got me started on this project is coming to the Preserve this week. I'm excited to be able to give him so many rare beetles!

That's it for another week. Stay tuned!

3/13/07 (Tuesday): I hope everyone hasn't given up on me! We've been very busy with listing our house for sale, helping Wiley's parents clean out their garage (so that we can store some of our stuff there), and in general winding down our stay in Florida and getting ready for our trip to Michigan. I can't believe we leave in two weeks!

I've also been busy preparing a presentation for our FL Trail Association meeting last Thursday. It should have been quite easy, but I kept losing the pictures and had to re-do it 3 times! As soon as I figure out how to do it, I'm going to try putting a link to it here.

Last weekend we had a visit from Fran and Richard, who were fellow workampers with us in Maine. They brought their huge motor home and parked it here. We had a great visit, the highlight of which was our visit to Bok Tower. Bok Tower is in Lake Wales, about 10 miles from here. It was built by Edward Bok, the editor of the Ladies Home Journal. In addition to the beautiful tower with its carillon bells, it has beautiful gardens and is a bird sanctuary. We were fortunate enough to visit during a fesitval and heard several concerts. That's Fran and Richard in front of the gates.


The gardens were just gorgeous.









There were fountains and gazebos and winding paths. We had beautiful weather, too.








We especially enjoyed a little room on a pond. The back wall was all glass. The birds (like this cardinal) and animals couldn't see us but we could see them quite well.




These nun's orchids were breathtaking.











They had ranunculus in many different colors. This yellow one looks so sunny and bright.







This swan looks very peaceful and lovely, but you should have seen it go after Richard's shoes! Vicious!!







Today, a co-worker took me and another volunteer to a preserve near here to see baby great horned owls. We found the nest, but the babies must have been asleep. We couldn't see them. Wiley and I will go back and check them out at sunset when they should be active. While we were walking in the preserve, we saw this moth on the ground. I've never seen anything like it! It looks like a piece of Native American pottery! I'm going to try to get it identified.

Tomorrow I'm monitoring scrub jays (probably for the last time). We're done peanut training them and will now attempt to band them before the nesting season begins. I'm going to miss them!

Our eagle families are growing up. They're about ready to fledge (fly away). I hope I'm still here to see that.

Tomorrow we leave right after work. I'm taking Wiley Sr. and Mag to Mayo Clinic for Wiley's annual check-up. Then we're going to meet Julie and John for lunch on Friday. The weekend will be devoted to emptying our attic and moving our stuff into the newly cleaned garage.

We're expecting delivery of our RV on 3/23. We'll transfer our belongings from the Prowler to the new RV on the lot and then come back here until 3/31, which is our last day. We've got our route to Michigan planned.

I hope everyone has a great week, and I'll blog again soon!

2/14/07 (Wednesday): Happy Valentine's Day! I'm way behind in my blogging, so I'll just jump right in. We're having a great time, as usual, both at work and on our days off.

We spent last weekend with Wiley's folks. We celebrated our anniversary, his parents' anniversary and my birthday with a meal at a Mexican restaurant that's a Winter Park landmark. People have written with markers on every available surface. There was a group there drinking margueritas and making bets on things like who'd stand up from a particular table next and whether the next person in the door would be a man or a woman!

Katelyn's Girl Scout troop sold cookies over the weekend. I'm already done with my first box. Those things should be outlawed--they're way too good!






On Sunday, my mother-in-law treated me and Katelyn to a cruise on the Winter Park lakes. It's a cool way to spend an hour. The little pontoon boats cruise around three lakes that are connected by canals and you get to view the wildlife and see lots of neat mansions. The college that I graduated from (Rollins) is on Lake Virginia and I got to see it from an angle I'd never seen before.












I've been doing a lot of work in the office lately, organizing supply cabinets and setting up databases, so it was a pleasure to go out eagle watching today. We have two nests that are active and three that are not. There are 2 eaglets on one nest and I think there are eggs in the other.

That's it for this time. Peace!

2/6/07 (Tuesday): It's been another great week here in the back of beyond. I can't believe how fast the time flies. We had a pretty typical day today. We usually get up around 6 or 6:30 (Wiley gets up earlier than me) and have a leisurely breakfast and watch the news on TV. Then I go into the office (no one comes in until 9 AM, so I have the place to myself). I check my email and handle any personal business over the phone. On Mondays and Tuesdays Wiley and I work on projects together in the morning--trail maintenance, painting, running errands, cleaning the shop, or whatever we're asked to do. We have an early lunch together in the RV and then I go into the office to relieve the office manager from 12:00 to 2:00 and Wiley finishes up any projects we started. On Wednesdays and Thursdays, Wiley does more of the same kind of maintenance projects and I monitor eagles and scrub jays in the morning and work in the office in the afternoon. We usually quit by 2:00 or 3:00. We clean the office after hours on Thursday night when we're going to Winter Park for the weekend or on Saturday morning when we're staying home. In our spare time, we like to explore the local area, hike the trails, fish (Wiley), relax and read on the patio (me), canoe on the Peace River or some local creeks and go to the beach (Vero Beach is the closest). In the near future, we hope to go to Ft. Myers for a long weekend, visit the Bok Tower Gardens. We also hope that some of our friends will come visit us here. It's a great life--we both feel very relaxed and happy.

Last weekend we stayed home and ran errands, cleaned the RV and took a short hike at a nearby preserve called Hickory Scrub. It's a small preserve, but it's quite beautiful scrub and some of the wildflowers and rare plants were in bloom. We also saw an eagle. Wiley looks like he's asleep on his feet in this picture, but he really was having a good time. This is pretty typical scrub habitat--lots of snow white sand and low-growing herbaceous plants. You're pretty likely to see scrub jays, gopher tortoises, indigo snakes and a variety of rare animals that are endemic to this inhospitable terrain.

Most of the plants are not impressive looking, but very rare. This scrub rosemary smells wonderful!







The scrub bay smells good, too. It's similar to the bay leaves used in Italian cooking. (I told my niece it was a spaghetti bush!)







This little pink flower is no bigger than a dime, but looks just like a hibiscus! I'm not sure what it's called--Wiley says the seed is like a cockleburr.







This little bird's nest (about the size of an apple) was hung from some reeds near a little lake.







Today we decided to change our new RV order to a different model. It looks much the same, but weighs a little less and has some features that we like better. Now we're hoping that we'll get it in time to head off to our next assignment in Michigan on April 1! Keep your fingers crossed for us.

Stay tuned for more of our continuing adventure next week!

1/31/07 (Wednesday): We had a really nice weekend in Winter Park with Wiley's family. I had routine doctor's appointments on Friday and Monday, and we had an appointment with the realtor on Saturday. We've listed the house for sale! We were quite pleased with the price the realtor thinks we can get for it. We have some concern that our current tenant might not cooperate with allowing us to show the house, but we came up with some incentives that we hope will ensure his cooperation. And even if he makes trouble for us, his lease runs out in April.

Mag's computer bit the dust on Saturday, so we've ordered a new one for her. It's amazing how dependent we've all become on computers, isn't it? Who would ever have thought that even we senior citizens would find them necessary parts of our everyday life?!

On Sunday we went back to Lyonia Preserve (where we saw the scrub jays on Christmas Eve) so that Mag could have the same experience.




















We had a great time on a cool, gray day!

Today I went out with my friend, Dot, to monitor the eagles' nests on the Preserve. We now have 4 nests, but we've never seen any activity on one of them (the new one that I discovered). One of the nests has two young, one has two adults who probably have either eggs or young because they stay close to the nest. One of the nests that had two adults who seemed to be incubating eggs has not had eagles on it my past four visits, although Wiley saw two adults on the nest yesterday. We're hoping they didn't lose their eggs/young. We should be seeing young by now. We've also seen two juveniles near one of the nests. You can tell they're juveniles because they don't have white heads or tails yet. They're very big and have the characteristic big yellow bill.

Here's a picture I took today. This adult was quite visible, and when it flew away, we were very surprised to see another adult in the nest. Usually you see only one on the nest and maybe another nearby.

Remember the pictures of lupine that I posted from Maine in early spring? Imagine my surprise when Dot told me she'd seen some on the trail! We went to have a look, and sure enough, there's a lot of it. It's early this year--the weather has been so warm.

That's all for today. Have a great week!

1/25/07 (Thursday): I just got an email from Julie. She's having trouble posting comments. She gets a java script error. The website has recently changed to a new format, but I've been using it all along (in beta version). I'd appreciate it if a couple of you would try posting a comment. I know that Uncle Ed posted one recently. Let me know if you're having any trouble.

We're painting the offices today. I was supposed to go watch scrub jays, but it's rainy and cold (for Florida, anyhow) today, and I doubt that we'll be going. Those jays are pretty smart--I think they're home watching TV on a day like this!

We'll be in Winter Park tomorrow through Monday. We have all kinds of appointments set up (medical, insurance, real estate). We're hoping for a nice day Sunday so we can have an adventure with the family.

I had a gorgeous picture of a mature eagle sitting on the edge of one of the nests I'm monitoring. I downloaded it from the binoculars, but I've lost it somehow. Darn!

1/21/07 (Sunday): My cousin, Candy, passed away Saturday morning. She was 51 years old. She was a lovely woman and I will never forget how kind she was to my father after my mother passed away. She will be mourned, but her life will be celebrated. God speed, Candy.

Last weekend, our friend, Troy, paid us a visit. He camped at a nearby campground (Lake Arbuckle) the first night and at Lake Kissimmee State Park for two more nights. He and I went out on the ATV looking for an eagle's nest I'd heard about, but we never did find it. I found it after he left, and it did have an eagle on it! (Sorry, Troy!) It was fun anyhow. We went to Lake Kissimmee after work the next day looking for him and ran into some FTA friends (Barbara, Catherine, Lou and Rachael and some others). We've invited them to come see us here at the Preserve. We'll give you the grand tour, guys!

I've been taking a new friend, Dot, on my eagle monitoring trips. She's a great friend of The Nature Conservancy and a dedicated hiker (6 days a week she's out here hiking our trail!). That's how I met her. This Thursday, I took her scrub jay monitoring with me for the first time. We had a grand time! All but one of the jays (in two families) came out to see us. They're so pretty and curious--it's hard not to try to make pets of them. They're very endangered, though, and it's sobering to think that if we don't save their endangered scrub habitat this beautiful creature could disappear forever.

This weekend we went to the RV show in Tampa and we bought a new RV!!! We're really excited. It wasn't a snap decision. We've been to see our financial advisor and considered all the ramifications, and the time seems right. We're going to put our house on the market, too. Although our tenants have worked out okay, their lease is up at the end of March, and we still have some of our belongings stored in the attic. We are committed to our new lifestyle and ready for this change! If and when we ever get tired of living in our RV, we will buy or rent a place. It's exciting and kind of scary at the same time, like all changes, but we believe the time is right to make the change now.

We've bought a 2007 Brookside from Sunnybrook, which is one of the three manufacturers we liked most. It's about the same size as the one we're in now (28.5 feet long), but it has a slide out in the bedroom as well as the living room, which gives us a little more space.
There's also more storage space underneath. We'll be able to pull it with our truck, which was a big consideration for us.



It has a large picture window (you can see it behind the two chairs) and solid wood cabinets throughout. The counters are Corian, and it has upgraded carpeting and tile. I'm not crazy about the upholstery on the couch, but it's a real Hide-A-Bed, and very comfortable (the fold-out bed in our current living room is not very comfortable for company). We like the light colored wood and neutral colors a lot, too.




We'll pick it up in mid-February. We traded in the Prowler. Didn't get as much for it as we'd hoped, but we didn't want the hassle of trying to sell it. This way, we just pull the Prowler up next to the Brookside and transfer all our belongings right in the parking lot of the RV dealer!


That's it for another blog--got to go make some dinner.

1/18/07 (Thursday): As promised, I'm going to try to catch everyone up on our happy, busy life.

We spent last weekend with Wiley's parents. On Friday, his mother and I did a little shopping. On Saturday, we picked strawberries at a local strawberry patch.

The picking is fun, but the eating is even better! Strawberries are at their best when warmed by the sun and eaten with a light sprinkling of the sandy soil they grow in. Yum!

We went to the Black Hammock Restaurant for a great seafood lunch. This place has been around for many years. It's right on Lake Jesup.





Of course, while we were so close, Wiley had to get in a little fishing. This pelican was very interested in what he might catch and kept up a vigil from a nearby perch.


When we got home, we made a delicious strawberry pie with the bounty of our labors. Also some homemade strawberry ice cream. Somehow I don't think our labors burned up nearly as many calories as we took in!






On Sunday, we drove out to Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge again in hopes that Wiley's folks would have as good a time as we'd had a few weekends before. The birds were not quite as plentiful this time (and there were no scrub jays), but there were lots of manatees. We had a great picnic lunch, too.
As I mentioned in my last post, we've made some exciting decisions recently. I'm turning 62 next month and will start receiving Social Security benefits. Our investments are doing better than we expected, so we've decided to buy a newer RV. We want to sell the one we have to someone who wants it for short vacations, because it was not built to withstand the rigors of full-time living. We're going to the RV show in Tampa this weekend. We'll probably wait and buy a used rig, but sometimes there are some very good deals at the RV show, and we know exactly what we want.

We're also considering putting our house on the market. Our tenants' lease is up at the end of March and the housing market in our area has not declined as much as in some parts of the country. We haven't made a final decision about this yet, but we've definitely decided that the full-time RV lifestyle is for us. We still have some stuff stored in our attic and we rented the house partially furnished, so it would be nice to get that taken care of while we're living nearby.

I just got word that my cousin, Candi, is in the hospital in very serious condition. She's just 51 years old. I hope everyone will hold her in their thoughts.

I'll post something next week about our adventures at the RV show. Keep those comments coming!

1/17/07 (Wednesday): Not much time for a big post today, but I just had to share this picture (taken with my new digital photo binoculars--thanks Darcie and Chris) of my newly hatched eaglets! This is the first time I've seen two on the nest. There was only one last week.

I'll post more soon. We've got lots of news. We're in the market for a newer RV. We're probably going to sell the house soon. More on all that later. Stay tuned!

1/10/07 (Wednesday): Wow--time just flies when you're having fun! Happy 2007 everyone! We're still having a blast out here in the back of beyond. Weekend before last we went to the Brevard Zoo and hiked the beautiful hiking trail here in the preserve. Both were lots of fun. Here area some pictures from the zoo.

Each animal's area had been decorated for Christmas. It took me a few minutes to see what was hung up with these stockings!








I call this shot "mackaw love"--they were facing head to tail and grooming one another. Cute!


This bird was in the aviary--the birds fly free and the people are in the cage. I think it's a kuckaburro (spelling?) from Austrailia.

We also enjoyed a kayak ride through the zoo exhibits led by one of the docents. It made it seem more like we were on a safari than in the zoo.






We realized that we'd been to lots of different places hiking and sightseeing, but we hadn't hike the 6-1/2 mile trail in our own preserve. So we took a morning and hiked it. It's a beautiful trail. We didn't see much wildlife, but their tracks were everywhere. We saw the prints of turkey, deer, feral hog, raccoon, possum, rabbit and many other animals. Here are some shots from our hike.

Here's Wiley in some scrubby oaks. I think they're probably fairly old oaks, but the nutrients are so few and there's so little rain that they don't grow very big.










This is some very typical scenery here in sand hill country. There's almost no topsoil, just white sand. I don't know how grass manages to grow here, much less trees! I've heard prairie land described as "big sky" country. This part of the world seems to me to have very big skies.








I thought this gnarled old tree made a very "artsy" picture.

Last weekend we had a BBQ at the boss's house for the incoming fire crew. There are four young people (three guys and a gal) who will be helping with the prescribed burns. One of the guys is an excellent cook. He prepared oysters in several different ways (including oysters Rockefeller) and mussels. We also had BBQ chicken. I made potato salad. It was great fun. We sat on the deck and had a fire (which it was way too hot for, but it kept some of the mosquitos at bay). What a super bunch of people we work with!

On Sunday we sent canoeing on Reedy Creek with two of our co-workers. My wrist and thumb held up just fine. It was much more fun than physical therapy, and probably more of a workout! The creek wound around through fairly high sandy bluffs. We didn't see any alligators or turtles, which seemed odd, but we did see a feral hog (and heard two more grunting in the underbrush). We had a picnic on the banks. Great fun.

Afterwards, Wiley and I went out in one of the ATV's to poke around and explore the preserve. We hoped to find an eagle's nest just off our property that someone had mentioned to us. We did find a nest (didn't see any eagles on it), but as it turns out, it wasn't the one we were looking for. We accidentally discovered a new nest on Preserve property! This is very exciting to everyone here. I'll now be including it when I monitor the other two nests.

Today I did my eagle monitoring. I've been taking Dot, a friend we met hiking here on the preserve, with me on these monitoring trips. What a thrill for both of us to find that our first eaglet has hatched! We actually saw one of the parents feeding it -- we could see the head, back and one wing of the little one. I'm still playing with my new digital photo binoculars. When I perfect my technique and manage to take a clear picture, I'll post one of my eagle families.

I've noticed recently that when I click on one of the pictures posted on my blog, it's too big to fit on the screen. Have any of you noticed that? I think it must be the new blogger.com. Maybe next time I'll choose a smaller posting size and see if that helps. I welcome your comments.

Tomorrow is scrub jay monitoring day. Also, we're having a luncheon to say goodbye to the intern who's leaving us at the end of this week. So, goodbye for now from a couple of happy campers!