As you can clearly see, Joy and I were positively giddy to be back out on another Photo Safari this week!  Another gorgeous day, Another marvelous hike and I am calling this one, the Hike of Pleasant Surprises! 

Our last hike was a bit lackluster when it came to photos and this one more than made up for it.  We were happy snapping almost from the first moment that we arrived.  This particular hike was in the Oscar Scherer State Park.  We chose the Green Trail to start off with (although by the end we had also been on the Red Trail and the Yellow Trail - we tend to wander).  We chose the Green Trail arbitrarily but remembered that one headed toward an eagle's nest that we were aware of.  We were doubtful that we would actually see an eagle there - wrong time of year y'see.  But we were pleasantly surprised.  Joy spotted the male, standing strong and proud at the top of a very tall tree surveying his domain. I missed getting the photos, dang!  But Wow, eagle's never stop being impressive let me tell ya!   After he flew off (cursing us, no doubt, "no pictures, please!") we surveyed the nest (from afar of course!) and were delighted to learn that Mrs. Eagle was in residence!

​That picture, I got:

They were not the only birds we saw, of course.  I have a few other photos for you. But only a few.  I am not so good at capturing birds as it turns out.  But for the bird lovers among ya, here you go:

We continued merrily along what turned out to be a rather long  - about four hours and more than five miles - trek, and then there was the big surprise. I mean, Whoa! Surprise!  We were hiking a particularly tricky bit that is steeply sloped with loose rocks and thick roots that have broken through the surface of the soil and are ready to trip us up at every turn, so I was looking down rather than up.  So obviously, it was Joy who spotted him.  This guy:

Another eagle! This one, as Joy explained to me, was an adolescent, kind of a teenager eagle. He was magnificent!  And the best part. He stayed put!  We took a few photos, hike quietly closer, took a few more, hiked quietly closer and etc until we were literally directly underneath the branch that he was perched upon.  Wow!

We were so taken with this fellow that we took loads of photos. I cannot quite decide which is my favourite shot so, with apologies, here are several:

While we were taking these pictures, and without intending to, Joy and I were kind of blocking the narrow trail and out of the corner of our eyes, we saw two other hikers coming our way.   Naturally, we stepped back to let them by and instead, with smiles they tippy toed closer and whispered, "what are you seeing?"  I pointed and explained that it was an eagle! They both looked again as I gave them a verbal "map" (the dead tree to the left of the live pine, 2nd branch from the top, right side) and then when they spied him, their mouths dropped open, their eyes got very wide and their cellphones came up, clickclickclick~  

Their accents were of either the UK or perhaps Australia? (I say that with ignorance and apologies. With my less than perfect hearing and unfamiliarity, they sound very much the same to me)  These two gentlemen were so excited to see this magnificent creature!  I loved how quiet and respectful they were. Exactly the sort of fellow hikers we love to come across.  Joy told them a bit about the bird and they listened with fascination.  Eventually they passed by us and took other photos from yet another angle before moving on.  It was a terrific exchange :)

One of the funniest things we saw during the hike I had to blink a few times because I wasn't absolutely positive what I was seeing.  In the middle of the forest, without nothing but foresty sorts of things around it, appropros of nothing at all, was a wooden staircase.  I briefly wondered if I was hallucinating.  We came to a full stop.  "Jo, do you see that?" I asked.  "What the heck?" was her response so I knew it was really there.  Hilarious!  Why oh why oh why is there a staircase in the middle of the forest??  I have no idea at all, not one single clue.  

So hmmm, let's see, what else did we see?  There were a few flowers and some pretty trees:

We spent some time at the old train trestle. I'm not sure why that is so fascinating to us, but it never stops being  a draw.  As time goes by and nature reclaims it more and more, it changes and those changes are endlessly intriguing.  The Legacy Trail which is a very popular hiking/biking trail that now extends from Venice to Sarasota (and there are plans in place for extensions in both directions), runs right alongside the trestle which allowed for the photos of the bicycler through the railings.

I guess that takes care of most  of the highlight of the Hike of Pleasant Surprises.  Well, with the exception of the Rando files.  There are almost always a few leftover things that don't fit into any of the other categories.  Here they are:

One never knows how a hike is going to turn out.  Could be good, could be meh, could be awful!  But not knowing, never stops us from heading out on the trails coz there is only one way to find out.  Perhaps we are brave, perhaps we are foolish,  it doesn't matter one bit.  We will be out there, regardless, come what may.  Thanks for coming along.

Wouldn't it be awesome to one day come along with us in person???  We would love that ;)

There you have it, a mailbox.  Specifically, our mailbox.  It is ordinary and functional and currently still sporting the solar twinkle lights that we dressed it up in around Christmas Time.  At this point, I suspect that the twinkle lights will just be permanent condition.

So, as I was saying, it's an ordinary mailbox and it does ordinary things.    When the mail arrives Monday though Saturday, somewhere between 2:30 and 5:30 pm, I wander on out and collect whatever is in there.  Usually it's a combination of promotions and ads, occasionally mixing things up with a bill or two.  Every once in awhile there is a card of some sort, celebrating Christmas or Birthdays, maybe a card that with Anniversary or Get Well wishes.  Even more rarely it's a "no particular reason" card which is, always, the best reason in the world.

I have come to know the sounds of the mail truck and much like Pavlov's dog, when I hear that sound, I immediately head down the driveway to collect whatever is in the box.  Even though the mail is rarely for me or in anyway fun, I am always a little excited about the possibilities. Even knowing perfectly well that much of the time it's innards go directly to the garbage can or recycle bin, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars, I still look forward to retrieving the days' mail.    

But as of this month, there are two days of the week where I am even more excited than usual to bring whatever our mail delivery person has left us.  Why?  Ok here's why:

This was what our mail person left us on the past Saturday:  Two bills, the City of Venice Magazine AND our newspaper.   Our Newspaper?   I find that so very odd!  Our Post office now manages the delivery of the local newspaper:  The Venice Gondolier.  What?

Have you ever even heard of that before?  I suppose it makes sense.  I mean the mail person delivers every day.  Even if there is not so much as a grocery store circular to stuff into our mailbox, our postal lady drives right by the house every day but Sunday.  So why not?  I guess.

There was an article in that very newspaper about a month ago, informing those of us who get an actual newspaper rather than just the online version, that due to the fact that the newspaper is unable to find people wiling to deliver the newspaper anymore,  that task would now be passed along to the US Post  Office.  Wow!  I am so old that I remember when kids delivered the mail!  Kids on foot towing wagons stacked with newspapers that were summarily tossed onto the lawn, into the flower gardens or the driveways of subscribers.  Some kids even had such good throwing arms that they were able to deliver their papers on their bikes!  Wow!  

Our last newspaper person was a full grown adult who delivered the papers from her car.  And that's fine.  She did a good job. The newspaper almost always arrived on time and in the right place!  But now, that too is a thing of the past.  Now the daily newspaper arrives with the daily mail.

I mean, I guess, that is creative problem solving right?  And it's not unprecedented after all.  If I ordered a subscription to an out of state newspaper, that would arrive in our mailbox.  So why not do the same thing with the local paper.  It arrives the same day as it normally would, just at a different time.  Sooooo no biggie.

Other than, I miss having a morning paper.  As it is, we've cut down from a daily paper to a twice a week paper.  We choose to not renew our subscription to the daily news which came out of Tampa, The Herald.  Most of the "news" we were already aware of either via online news, TV news, radio news or, if it was Super Important, we would be alerted through our cellphones.  Also the price kept going up while the quality of writing when down.  Am I the only person, by the way, who is annoyed by the poor, typing/spelling/grammar/punctuation/tense choice/ sentence structure/etc in any print publication anymore?  I find that I spend more time aggravated by those details than actually absorbing the article I am supposedly reading.

I don't mean the occasional booboo.  That's understandable and even expected. I am talking about every single magazine, newspaper, newsletter and online article that I read lately has errors.  Sometimes really big errors, such as getting the name completely wrong of the person about whom the article is written!  ARGH!  Are there no proof readers anymore? Or is the prevailing attitude, "eh, it's close enough, you know what I meant'.   ??     Infuriating.  

At any rate, if I am going to be aggravated while reading the news, not just about the story it self but the actual writing of the story, perhaps it's better if we keep it down to twice a week instead of every day, I suppose.  Which is why we now just get the local paper which, as I said, only publishes twice a week.

Also, if you are going to be stuck reading ads, it's kind of nice to only read local ads.   You know, things that actually directly impact my life and Tim's.    (and everyone else in V

I'm starting to adapt to getting the newspaper later in the day.  Now I am reading it just before starting dinner most  of the time.  Not bad, not bad.  And this week,  I saved Saturday's newspaper to read until Sunday.  That was a treat, reading the Sunday Funnies on SUNDAY just like we used to do in the olden days.

I feel bad for the mail carriers tho. Just one dang more thing for them to have to keep track of.  At least they don't end up having to deliver those gigantic catalogues nowadays.  Remember those?  Sears, Roebuck and Montgomery Ward catalogues were enormous!  And in some places that  I've lived, the mail carriers were on foot, lugging many many pounds of delivery in large leather shoulder bags.  I cannot begin to imagine how heavy those were.  At least here our mail delivery people drive mail trucks!

And in any case, I'm sure either option is certainly better than the really olden days in the west when the mail arrived via pony express tucked inside a saddle bag and carried by a fast moving, fast thinking fella that hoped he wasn't going to be beset by bandits or bad weather, that his horse wouldn't draw up lame, and that he and the mail would arrive in one piece each time he set out to do his route.

My mother's mother grew up on Little Deer Isle off the coast of Maine and their mail arrived by boat, when it finally arrived.  Obviously in bad storms and wicked winter weather whatever boat dropped the mail off was delayed a bit.   When the cod were running or the lobster traps needed to be pulled, whoever piloted that boat was probably running a little late on those days too.  And the mail might be a wee bit damp and smell a might fishy when you finally got it also.

As I think on it, having our newspaper arrive by mail truck is a fine idea.  Don't know why they didn't think of it before ;)

Earlier this week, Joy and I packed up our stuff and headed out to one of our favourite hiking spots, T. Mawbry Carlton Jr. Memorial Reserve.  Long name. We just usually refer to it as Carlton.   One name. Sort of like Cher.   It's an amazing and beautiful place with more than 100 miles of trails.  I'm sure we have been on most of them at one time or another (and definitely gotten turned around out there a time or two)

It was a gorgeous day, beautiful cloudless sky so blue that the green of the trees against it paled in comparison.  It was a wee bit chilly when we started out and only began to warm up a bit as we were leaving.  Absolutely perfect.

And yet, neither of us got many pictures.   So while it was intended to be one of our Photo Safari outings, instead it  turned out to be more of a hike with cameras. A totally different sort of thing.  Which is perfectly fine, by the way.  It happens.  It was just a surprise.    Normally we are snapping away like mad but this time. Not so much.   A whole lot of hiking, very little clicking.  Still had a great time, got some terrific exercise and we always enjoy the opportunity to spend time together.  But as far as pictures go, kind of a bust.

There were a few, of course!

In fact, at one of the very first trail intersections, as we were deciding which way to go, first we peered down the trail to the right, the trail up ahead and then the trail to the left. Hmmmmm.  As we stood there debating some very large and healthy looking wild hogs crossed the trail to the left.  Ok we are not going that way....so we turned right instead.  Joy actually got a picture of our piggy pals:  ​

I know you cannot  tell from this phots as there is nothing to measure them against, but trust me when I say that they were of good size.  

We continued on, twisting and turning with the trails and randomly choosing to go left, right or straight as we went  along, quietly talking, pointing things out to each other and occasionally taking a photo or two.

We heard more birds than we captured.  They were either zooming far too quickly, were hiding up in the leaves/fronds/sprills, or we just simply couldn't find them~!  Dang birds.  Here are a few of the ones we did capture:  (some photos are mine, the really good ones are Joys)

Most of my pictures this time 'round turned out to be of trees.  Sometimes they show their best selves in colour, other times in black'n'white.  I don't suppose there is one absolutely "right" way to present a photo.   It's probably one of those things that is so subjective it's impossible to say what is truly correct.  And nowadays, I have the option of leaving or removing colour with just the touch of a few buttons. (what an amazing thing!)  Either way,  I had fun playing around with them in editing and I'll let you decide which you prefer:

Got a few flowers and one thing I'm putting in the flower category even though it clearly isn't:

And that's about it!  Not even a rando file today, sorry.  There it is, the sum total proof that instead of a Photo Safari, we merely did a nice hike in the forest with our cameras.  

It was absolutely lovely just more or less, photo-less.  We wish ourselves better luck next time!

Well Happy Valentine's Day to you!  Originally  this was just going to be a bit of this'n'that and then I realized that today is Valentine's Day!  And my first thought was dang, I will need to save this post for another day and write a different one for Vee Day!  And then I changed my mind.  I bet I can tie the two ideas together and salvage this post.  So here we go!

1.  We had a visitor last Friday! (Left to right is Carol, me and then Joy)  And on this day of hearts and flowers:  I love my family, both the near part and the far part : )  Our cousin Carol from Michigan was visiting and  thank goodness, she and Joy and I were able to get together for lunch.  I hadn't seen Carol in at least 4 years, Joy probably much the same, so we had a lot to catch up on!  We managed to find a neato place to meet (I've written about it before - Snook Haven) have lunch and then gab yak chat giggle schmooze for about 3 hours!  Mercy!   It was awesome to see her again and to exchange family updates.  The time absolutely flew by!

It's a funny thing but  having not seen each other in four years didn't impact our ability to jump right back into the fray one single bit.  It was as if we had gotten together a week or so ago.  I would say that it's a family thing (and it is) but it's not just that.  I also have that kind of connection with other people to whom I am in no way related.  Not a lot of other people, but some and it is always delightful when it happens.  I just love it!  There are no awkward silences or moments of confusion (what on earth are they talking about ?) at all.  It's like putting on a jacket you haven't worn in awhile but every time you wear it, you feel good.  And then wonder why you don't wear it more often!

Thanks for taking the time Carol and by the way, Thanks for Lunch.  Our treat next time!

2.  Tim (the man I adore, my Valentine Every Year) painted the project room!  It looks so great!  And it feels so good to know that we are one step closer to finished.   Do you want a quick look?  I mean the room isn't done, but it is definitely feeling a lot more like a room and less like a construction site.  And before you say anything, yes we chose that colour on purpose and yes we love it.  At  any rate, here is one quick little peekie.  It's amazing to me how much difference it makes just having the colour on the wall!  Obviously when it's completely finished I will post pictures :)
​

3.  I love our crazy weather!  Sunday was super windy!  The temperature dropped and the wind picked up.  Tim and I of course had to go down to the jetty to check things out. Of course!  We were wet and salty by the time we were done.  Just getting the pictures was very tricky, I had to keep wiping the wet off the camera lens, the wind was blowing my hair into my face and in absolutely truth, Tim had to stand behind me holding on to me to keep me from blowing over the edge and into the water.  Seriously!  

But I was laughing like a mad woman the entire time. It wasn't scary, it was exciting and kind of funny.  The pictures aren't great but I did the best I could and you can, at the very least, tell what I was taking a picture of, so that must count for something.

I felt so badly for the poor seabirds who, no matter how hard they tried, were just kind of hanging in midair, not making any headway at all, no matter how hard they tried.  But I had a blast doing two things I love: hanging out by the water and taking pictures!

4.   We also went up to the National Cemetery on Sunday to "visit" my dad, who we also love and miss terribly.  Oddly, it's not a sad place at all. Well of course I'm sad that my dad is gone, but he was so proud of his Military Service and I know he is happy to be surrounded by his brothers and sisters at arms. 

It's beautiful there and when we leave there, we always take with us a sense of peace.  I know some folks may find it ghoulish but I often take photos when we visit. There are beautiful trees and fake lakes with gentle hills and winding pathways. The birds do not care one single bit if a body of water was created by man or nature and there are always plenty of birds around.  So here are a few photos that I took:

5.  There's no photo to accompany it but just as a statement of Valentine's Fact, since we are talking about heart shaped things,  I love my husband, my children, their spouses (who I consider to be my bonus children) my sister and her children and my friends.  I think that pretty much covers things for today. 

So I guess that's mostly it. You are now officially caught up on the dribs and drabs, odds and ends, flotsam and jetsam, bits and bobs of what's been happening around here  AND got a Happy Valentine's Day tie in as well.

What's new with you?

​Oh! And Hope you are having a Happy Valentine's Day too!  Hugs

Did you notice it yet?  Do you see what's missing in the picture?  I mean, I am well aware that it's not a very good picture but still it should be fairly apparent.  Figure it out yet?  It's the orthotic!  It's gone!  I no longer live in Velcro Heck!  I had an Orthopedic appointment on Wednesday and they said that the healing is coming along so very well that I no longer need to use that doggone thing!  Actually she said, "keep doing whatever you are doing coz it's working".  I said, "I hear you saying 'eat more ice cream'"   And then she laughed and told me I could stop wearing that doggone thing.  I never know what to call it.  A brace?  A stablizer? An orthotic device?  A portable torture chamber?  

Whatever it's actual name is, while I know it was essential to healing, it felt like a prison. Now, I feel liberated!  Though, while I am over joyed to not have that dratted thing to deal with 24/7 anymore, (and it truly was all day and night every day except while I was in the shower)  there were some causalities.  Sadly,  several of my blouses were seriously damaged.   It turns out velcro does not only stick to itself. It also sticks to some other fabrics and then it sort of eats the fabric or something. I don't know.  All I know is that several tops that I really used to like now looks as if they went multiple rounds with the champ.   Ratz.  But on the other hand, I'm free, I'm free, I'm free!  yay!

But not 100% yet. Drat.  My arm is puny and wan and wizened and weak.  Furthermore my ability to move that arm is severely limited.  I have to use my left arm to scratch my nose for heaven's sakes!  And now there is only one way to fix that.  Physical Therapy.  And lots of it.  You see the position of my arm in this photo?  That's pretty much all I can do with it right now.  Right angle and full stop.  The goal here is to achieve a full range of motion and to get my strength back.  And I'm sure that eventually, I will.  

I am a compliant patient and a motivated one too.  I am fully aware of the meaning of the saying, "Short term pain equals long term gain".  I am mentally prepared for some discomfort.  That's the term that they use.  Discomfort.   The word pain carries some negative connotations y'see.  And I know I will have daily homework assignments.

I had my first PT appointment yesterday.  Everyone was very nice. It was interesting. I learned a lot and I have three exercises to do which I will absolutely do.  And it was kind of  a surprise to me when I asked my therapist how many times a day should I do the exercises and she said, "times a day?  Gosh if you do them at all I will be happy".  Wow there's a low bar.

To each  her own I suppose.  We all make our choices.   But my plan is to do the work.  I want my life back.  I am to be physically as close to what I used to be as possible. And this is the only way for me to get there.  To my version of normal, I mean.  There's the goal for ya!

But it's gonna be rough and I know it.  I also know I can do this.  I will not be at my absolute best in the interim though and I suppose, that is part of the price I pay.  The rest is an actual price tag and even with insurance, it ain't cheap.  Dang.  But worth it!  Still by the end of the first day, I was cranky and frazzled and I hurt in so many places that I admit, I was not my absolute best version of myself.  And I guess this is just how I will be for awhile.  I will try very hard to grin and bear it, but occasionally, there might be a little snappy - barky sneaking in there. I will attempt to keep it to a minimum.

"This funny little thing that Tim showed me recently keeps popping into my head.  Perhaps you already saw it too. But just in case you did not:

"Saw my own shadow and now I have six more weeks of being a hot mess".  LOL  That'll be me until I finish up this Physical Therapy.  Which ought to be about ten weeks from now.  Let's synchronize watches.  Ten weeks from today and Mark!

Meanwhile, have a wonderful weekend!  Hugs all 'round.  Well one armed hugs. I can't do two right now.

I guess this is the tale of two pans.  That sounds silly.  But essentially, that is the situation here.

The pan on the bottom is kind of an orangey colour.   That is the old pan.  The one of top is a black and silver pan.  That would be the new pan.  Both of them are touted as being "non-stick" which is a good thing. 

The orangey one was called a "copper" pan when we bought it which was on a whim.  I don't recall if it was Big Lots or Walmart or Target but it certainly wasn't anywhere high end.   It was nearly seven years ago so I can be forgiven if I don't remember all of the salient details, I think.

I do know that we were not out specifically looking for a new pan but, at the time, we were hearing a lot about the relative awesomeness of "copper" cookware and the fact that this one was nonstick definitely was an allure.  It must have been very reasonably priced.  And clearly we were in need of a nonstick pan because we bought it.   And immediately it went into regular use.

Tim is the eggman.  That is to say that when eggs are going to be fried or scrambled or made into omelets, he's the guys.  When he makes eggs they always come out fluffy and perfect and delicious.  I just stand back, admire, happily eat the eggs and eventually clean the pan.  As I am not the Omelet Master, I cannot speak as to whether or not this copper pan is or is not the Bees Knees when it comes the actual cooking of the eggs but as the dish washer I can tell you that my favourite part about the old copper pan was how easy it was to clean.  Zippity do dah and done.  Love it.

And then one day I noticed that it was getting harder and harder to clean this non-stick pan.  The eggs still tasted great but the cleaning up of it was definitely less than delightful.  The Non-stick Pan had become a Mostly Stick pan.  And that is not good.  There were no scratches, no chips, the surface at least appeared to be just as pristine as ever, but the cleaning up was definitely different in a bad way.

Apparently I crabbed about it just long enough because recently a package arrived on the doorstep that, once opened, revealed a new nonstick pan!  The black and silver one.  The sides are higher, the handle is longer and it has a silicone grip.  The best part of course being the non-stick-ness of it all.  Hurrah.  Peace once again settles upon the sink of our household.

Nonstick cookware! What an absolutely genius idea!  It was created back in 1954 by French engineer, Marc Grigoire at his wife's suggestion.  Brilliant!  The product didn't hit US shelves until in the mid 1960's but I suspect that my mother was the first person in line to buy it.  My mother loved anything that made any household chore easier.  Frozen TV Dinners  - Yes!  Instant mashed potatoes - You betcha!  Toaster Ovens - of course!  And non-stick pans - Absolutely!  My mother, bless her, had many many talents and was a wonderful person but she was not remotely interested in food in any capacity.  Not shopping for it, cooking it, serving it or eating it.  So it was done with as little muss or fuss possible.    Consequently, I honestly do not recall a time in my childhood when there weren't non-stick pans in our kitchen.

And if you have nonstick pans you also have the proper tool right?  Because otherwise it will scratch the coating and you will have teflon in your food!  That is not a good thing at all!  Well ti be perfectly truthful, sometimes proper tools were used in our house and sometimes they were not.  I've probably ingested enough teflon in my life that germs should just slide right out of my body.   I suppose  it was not a big  deal because if the pan got too scratched up, she would throw it out and buy a new one.  They weren't particularly expensive.

At some point, some smarty britches found a way to make non-stick pans also less likely to be scratched up.  Another brilliant move.  I think we've all seen the late night commercials with the nonstick cookware that can be scratched, hammered, pummeled and blown up without any harm coming to the pan.  Our new pan is not one of those.  The instructions very specifically say to use silicone, nylon, bamboo or wood tools.  Ok we can do that.  They also say not to use any aerosol cooking sprays .  Both Fine and Dandy.  It even specifies to never use it over high heat!  Okay we can do that too.  It is, apparently, dishwasher safe but honestly, since nothing sticks to it, clean up is so easy that I'm not going to take up room in the dishwasher with it. 

It's maiden voyage was this past weekend.  The eggs came out perfectly and I barely had to expend a single calories worth of energy cleaning it so it's all good.  The old nonstick pan is dead.  Long live the new non-stick pan!

On Monday, Joy, Bob, me and the monopod, headed out for a Photo Safari!  It was a gorgeous day, as you can see from the photo above.  It felt so good to be back out in the forest on the trails.  We chose a small local preserve, Curry Creek, for our first time back out.  It had been awhile and I will admit to feeling a wee bit insecure about it all.

 And not just about traversing uneven ground! (which I'm told is very normal after a fall).  I knew that even with the monopod (and thank goodness for it!) I would be a little limited in what pictures I could capture.  And that's fine.  As (I believe) Clint Eastwood once said (as a character in a film)  "It's a wise man (or in this case woman) who knows his limitations".  I am very well versed in my limitations.  So rather than fight it, I planned to focus on botanical shots.  They tend to not move around very much.  I am good with that :)  I'm calling this Photo Safari the Mostly Botanical Hike for that reason.  

But it wasn't ONLY botanicals (and I'm sure you are relieved to hear that!) In fact, one of my very first photos that day was of birds!  Bob was the one who spied them up in a tree off trail.  I was reluctant to even try at first.  Birds and other living creatures, rarely hold still.   And birds in trees are especially hard to capture because trees are not tidy and neat!  There are branches and leaves or sprills  pointed in all sorts of different directions, getting in the way of the shot and by the time you have yourself (and the camera) correctly positioned, birds are notorious for choosing that moment to take flight once again.  I strongly suspect that they wait, giggling all the while, intentionally avoiding the camera.

I can't say as I blame them. We are, for all intents and purposes, paparazzi's in their lives. Uninvited and intrusive. I would feel bad for them except I really want those shots!  LOL  (Probably what other paparazzi's say)  At any rate, here they are:

Here and there I managed to get a few other birds.  It was a surprise to me for sure!  But I probably missed as many (or more) than I captured.  Joy, on the other hand, got some real beauties~  Her photography is amazing.   Here are mine:

This particular preserve has two sides and one is only accessible over a creek (I assume it's the actual Curry Creek).  There is no bridge and it's too wide to jump so usually we can only go to the other side when the water level is very low or during the deepest part of winter (our dry season) when most of the water has dried up.  But on this particular day, someone else had taken fallen pine branches and built a kind of causeway across.  It wasn't fool proof, as it was a little slippery, a little uneven and bumpy from the stacks and layers of branches and in some places more than a little wet. I had a moment of hesitation, concerned about possibly falling (again!) but I don't want to live in fear and the phrase, "What's life without risk" ran through my little punkin' head, so I took I deep breath and very carefully walked (successfully) across! Yay!  

​Here is Joy traversing the pine branch bridge across the creek.   Perhaps you can see that it's a bit muddy and boggy and very wet if you do not step carefully enough.  By the way, I did not step carefully enough.  Came home with wet shoes and filthy socks :)  heh

The balance of my photos are just botannicals. I say "just" as if they weren't important to me.  That's not at all true.  I adore flowers and all green growing things.   I will try to find the ones that are the best of the lot so I don't inundate you with pictures :)

Thus ends the Mostly Botanicals Hike.  I'm sure that we will get out there and now that I am feeling a little more secure about not tripping and falling on wet things or over tree roots or rocks, or injuring someone else with my monopod, we will get brave and do longer, more interesting and photogenic photo Safari's.  

​Hope you enjoyed!