Gopher Tortoise

During a trip to Sanibel Island , Florida in July I saw this gopher tortoise grazing along the grassy strip between the paved bike path and the road. Several people had stopped to observe him (her) and one person was attempting to use his bike as a barricade to keep it from wandering out into the road. I doubt it would have done that anyway, because it was clearly there to eat and there was no grass in the road. The interesting thing about this creature to me was it was biting off grass with a vengeance and the ripping grass blades made the same sound they do when a cow is grazing. It was completely unperturbed by the crowd that gathered around it. I suppose it was used to being on display.
Gopher tortoises eat grass, legumes, fruits and other assorted plant materials. The younger ones eat more legumes, probably to increase the protein needed for growth. A typical gopher tortoise needs about 4 acres of territory and may dig several burrows. The burrow may be as long as 48 feet and 3 feet deep. The burrow protects the tortoise from fire, heat , and cold, and predators. They share their burrows with up to 360 different animals (not all at once!). They spend most of their time in the burrow and are solitary except during mating season. They reach sexual maturity at 12-15 years and some reports claim they can live 100 years. (Others say 40 years.)

Rainbow in Back Yard

Late yesterday afternoon we had a rainbow in our back yard. This is a poor picture, but I hope you can make out the outline of it. It goes from the lowest leaves on the oak on the left, over the gazebo and seems to touch the oak in the foreground.
This is the second time I have seen a rainbow in the back yard. The other time it was brighter and in a slightly different place.
Amazing!A special gift, even as on the coast people are waiting for Hurricane Issac.

Shell Flower Creations

While we were at Sanibel Island one day we went to the Community Center and found a group of people making crafts from shells. Some of the items were so exquisite that I would never even consider trying to make them myself (click here to get an idea). Bill Jordan is a real artist, with extreme patience.

 But I was able to make  a passable flower from periwinkle shells. It helped that they had oodles of shells in all colors already sorted to choose from. There are lots of these shells on Sanibel and almost any beach I ever visited but the key is having enough shells so you can choose the size and color you need to make a flower that looks at least somewhat like a flower. The shells need to be all about the same size and color (except for the ones that stand up in the center.)  The center yellow part is ground up shells colored yellow. The flowers are put together with hot glue (use a melt pot to keep from getting too much and having glue string everywhere.) It was fun and the people were all so helpful and interesting.

Here is a real expert working.

Sanibel Island in July

Sanibel Island is a special place to me.  Sometimes I just have to relax and let the joy of it seep in.

 Below is a sample of the shells we found in July. There seemed to be an extra number of small beautiful shells. One day there were a lot of fighting conchs (the orange larger shell on the bottom left), but for the most part the shells were smaller, but maybe more interesting for being smaller. See that piece of Junonia on the left side just above the green thing and 2 cones? Hannah found several pieces, but a whole shell for her is still elusive.

If you want to see a whole Junonia, and learn more about it , you can look here.

Wow!!! I'm Famous!

Well, not exactly. On a recent trip to Florida to visit my favorite shelling place (Sanibel Island) I met my favorite blogger on the beach. She writes the blog I Love Shelling. I have been reading her blog almost daily for more than a year. Her blog is about (what else) shelling on Sanibel, and especially during the winter, I get my sunshine fix from her blog. She came up and started talking to Hannah, EJ, and me and then put our pictures on her blog. The rig you see in the background of the picture of us (scan down a bit) is the one doing the dredging to deepen the inlet between Sanibel and Captiva known as Blind Pass. A giant sandbar had built up out in the water so that the inlet had slowed to an almost trickle. The inlet feeds the waters of Ding Darling Wildlife Preserve and other connecting natural areas. These areas are a favorite birding place for wading and shore birds and almost anytime you can see groups of pink spoonbills feeding there, occasionally you can see Flamingoes. All kinds of herons and ibis are there as well.

Seaham England

 After being home for a month from a trip to England I am finally getting back to my blog to post a few pictures and  remember some special highlights of the trip. Seaham is a small town in the northeast of England  on the North Sea. The reason we went there was to try to find sea glass, and there was certainly plenty of it to be found. An artist who makes jewelry from the glass met us there and showed us around. (Her work can be seen here.)

The above picture shows smaller pebbles and pieces of rounded glass that are plentiful on the beach

 This pile of pebbles gives a good idea of the assortment of rocks on the beach. I have never seen so many different kinds of rocks in one place. I cannot imagine how so many different and beautiful rocks all came to be in one place. In fact, I found the rocks so attractive that I had a hard time keeping my mind on the glass hunting. (And I collected too many rocks to bring home with me. They proved to be quite an added weight to haul around for the next 2 weeks.)

Sea cave on the beach at Seaham
There are several caves along the beach and they are interesting and made me think what a great place to play pirates!

The glass factory that began over 200 years ago at Seaham  made glass  of all different colors for about 100 years. For a hundred years broken, imperfect, and leftover glass was simply tossed into the sea.The sea rolled and tossed the glass and turned it into frosted gems that lie on the beach today. There are all colors of glass, but clear or white is the most common, followed by shades of light green, the color of old canning jars.  Laws were passed that governed what the various colored bottles were used for. Cobalt was used to store poisons, acid was put in bright red or orange bottles. Ink was sold in bright green, purple, and yellow.

A long view of the beach at Seaham

 This is a view of the harbor where barges were being loaded with recyclables at the time we were there. It was a very busy working place, besides being beautiful

Lyme Regis in England

 We stayed at the Kersbrook B&B in Lyme Regis and it had a thatched roof. Some of the thatched roofs I saw had some kind of mesh or wire laid on top of the thatch, but ours did not. I wondered if the mesh was to keep birds off, but really have no other explanation. The tiny garden behind the B&B was wonderful.
The hills are very steep coming up from the harbor, and almost anywhere you go you will be going straight up or down. When we arrived and had to walk up to our B&B, I thought I would never be able to make it dragging that heavy rock filled suitcase. Each time after that it was easier. I suspect it may have gotten easier  because I had a better idea of how far it was and also because I was not dragging those rocks!

This is a picture of the harbor at Lyme Regis with the boats, all so picturesque. We had walked around sightseeing and then went to lunch for about an hour. When we came out what we saw in in the picture below. The harbor wall in both pictures is called The Cobb and was made famous by Jane Austen's book Persuasion. The aquarium is the building on the seaward side of the wall in the third picture.

The boats were all sitting on the bottom and there was NO water. I was pretty startled. The man who ran the aquarium laughed and started telling people that we came from a place that had no tides. They have 12-16 foot tides (whereas the Gulf has 2-3 foot tides) and this is a daily occurrence there. A boat had tried to come into the harbor while the tide was too low and got stuck in the shallow water. A tractor drove out to the harbor entrance and pulled it in. All rock bottom, it seems.