Waiting....

I don't know who's more excited, me or Caroline.

Moon Myth

http://news.yahoo.com/who-knew/huge-moon-26885908.html

 I hope this works.  Just found this interesting.

Just Waiting

Can't sleep.  Just waiting...

Our Latest Experience with Animal Husbandry

A couple of days ago, I noticed one of our chickens was behaving a little strange.  Upon closer inspection I found that poor little Rosetta's bum was extremely distended (I won't gross you out with pictures).  So, of course, off I go to research what her malady could be...thank goodness for the internet.  She was egg bound and it was life threatening.  I couldn't justify a visit to the vet (not even for sweet Rosetta) and looked up home remedies.  I brought her in and gave her a warm bath for 20 minutes, followed by rest on a heating pad to help relax her.  She spent most of the day in a tote under the watchful eyes of Caroline, Lili, and Tater.  According to most of the sites I visited, this might need to be done several times to really work.  Another option was lubricating the internal area with olive oil.  And if this didn't work, the egg would need to be carefully broken and hopefully expelled without injury to internal organs.
Well, the soak didn't work and Brett decided to skip the lubricating step.  Our surgical tools included a cordless drill, latex gloves, seringe, and tweezers.  I held Rosetta wrapped in a towel with her head under my arm.  Holding her tail feathers out of the way, we could see the egg in the vent hole.  Brett drilled a hole in the egg, used the seringe to get rid of the egg contents, and the tweezers to get the egg shell out.  All said and done, Rosetta is quickly recovering with her chicken pals out in the yard foraging and scratching.

Long Awaited Luna Moth

For those that don't know the story behind this post...Caroline and I rescued an injured female luna moth a few months ago.  She was wet due to the rain we had had and one of her wings was broken.  Caroline ID'd the moth as a female and when we returned from errands she had moved to the door frame and laid a couple of eggs.  In researching the moths, we found out that the giant silk moths when mature only live about 5-10 days, and in that time they mate, lay eggs, and die.   They don't even eat.  So, we looked up the "approved" method of harvesting the eggs and put her in the paper bag, folded the top over and went on our vacation to FL.  Upon our return we found that the eggs had hatched and many of the tiny caterpillars had already escaped to their doom (the bag was on top of the frig and the escapees had crawled into the freezer-they were that tiny).  Anyway, about twenty were still hanging about in the bag; we put them in an old fish tank and began the chore of collecting black walnut leaves (their preferred food) every day.  Our only source for these leaves was my father-in-laws tree and let me tell you, these little buggers can eat!  For the month it took them to get to cocoon stage, my in laws tree's lower branches are bare; it got to the point we had to use pole loppers to get the leaves.  Only 7 caterpillars cocooned and 5 have hatched at this point.  The following pictures chronicle our experience.

Heat Wave Happenings

While this heat wave has been great for the electricity providers, people up here are not well prepared.  They don't drink enough water and are suffering from the effects of heat exhaustion and even worse, heat stroke.  Meanwhile, Caroline and I have been doing our outside chores in the early am and then hitting the local swimming hole in the afternoons.  We may be turning into brown prunes, but the spring fed pond keeps us cool.  My gardens don't seem any worse for the heat and are doing surprisingly well; especially the day lilies.

Flowers for My Dear Friend that Needs Some Cheering Up

Vacation 2011

Time goes by so quickly.  It is now Wednesday (hump day as they say) and when you can see the end of the tunnel disappoint starts to set in.  We have been having such a wonderful time.  There is nothing more wonderful than hanging out with old friends and everything is the same.  Very comfortable.  Caroline pulled some strings and will be going on an "official" turtle patrol tomorrow morning.  We have been fishing, beaching, and going to the pool at the condo place were we are staying.  I have come to realise that I truly want to be in Fernandina and will be working towards the goal of getting back here as often as possible.  I like the person I am here; life seems easier and the ocean is were I need to be.  But...change takes time and like I said goals will be set to achieve that end.  The following are some of the many pictures I've been able to take.

our unit was in the corner (straight ahead in this shot) and had a nice large porch looking towards the ocean.  We also had use of this nice swimming pool, a good alternative for a quick dip as opposed to gathering all the beach gear and trundling off to the sand.

Caroline was an absolute fish and swam any opportunity she could.

Caroline, Daddy, and Eli making a sandman.

Eli was very tolerant of having a 6 year old idolizing his 11 year old self.

Sunset...the impact of them was obscured by the smoke from all the wildfires inland.  The smoke would blow in in the morning and if we were lucky the prevailing ocean breezes would blow the smoke away enough to clear things out for the afternoon.

Caroline and Eli at Fort Clinch.

Caroline inspecting the work the restoration mason has done.

Caroline got ahold of the camera.  This is her self portrait.

Nesting Wilson's Plover.

Sunset on the Amelia River Side of the island.

First time out fishing.  Caroline caught 13 little spots, Brett caught 3 various types, Clif, Eli, and Chris were skunked.

Next days fishing took us to the ocean side of the island.  Here we see Chris crying to Clif about not having caught any fish and it just wasn't fair.

Clif relaying poor Chris's saddness.  Brett seems very concerned.

Brown pelican

Obviously Brett didn't stop fishing.  He caught 5 whiting.  Caroline is examining the fish.

Osprey with it's catch

Sunrise on morning of turtle patrol

Caroline ready to go

Mama deer nursing her still spotted fawn on the dunes.

We found a logger head nest and proceeded to mark it.  Here Rhonda is showing Caroline the whole process.

Happy laughing gull strutting it's stuff waiting around for shrimp heads or non guarded bait.

Happy and Sad

Caroline and I found this Luna moth bedraggled and wet in the lawn yesterday.  With all the rain we have had, she was really struggling with a broken wing as well as being soggy.  In the past month we have had a grand array of the giant silk moths and have learned a lot about them.  This one is a female and we could tell by her fat abdomen and smaller, less "fluffy" antennae.  We brought onto the front porch under the overhang out of the direct weather.  I was not as difficult as I thought it would be to convince my nature loving daughter the moth would be safer outside and left alone.  Thank you Auntie Cheryl for all your lessons regarding wild critters.  Anyway, her wings dried and she moved to the molding around the front door and laid two eggs.  Back again to the computer for research and found out that if you put the moth (which only live at most two weeks once hatched from their cocoon) in a brown paper bag she may lay more eggs and we would this way be able to raise them and try to help perpetuate them.

As you can see she is holding her wing up and can't fly.  The green wing under her were found the day before by the mail box, just the wing and no body.  It just so happened to be on the little shelf drying out when we put the live moth there to dry as well.

So, before moving the moth to the bag, Caroline took some pictures.  They came out great for a 6 year old taking pictures.

It's Been Awhile

I can't remember what this little lily type plant is, but it was planted three years ago and this is it's first blooming in my garden.  Very petite plant with the blooms similar to the much larger Turks cap lily

May Blooms - Trillium

Daffy

Caroline thought Boston might like a bike ride.

Humphry

Woody

Humphry yelling at an interloper

Cecropia moth we watched emerge; we purchased the chrysalis at the Garden show earlier this year.

Window boxes I built are up and the gardens mulched.

What we do on Memorial Day...line up the chickens, I think Caroline was teaching them to salute.

We have a window in the house that really attracts moths and we recently found this Polymethus.  It is in the same giant silk moth family as the Cecropia (above) and the luna moth.

A few days after the Poly, we found this one which turns out to be a Blinded Sphinx.