Capturing a Moment
Trying to “capture a moment” is a lot like “saving time.” We frequently use these expressions but, honestly, neither can be done. The best we can hope for is the illusion of achievement. Photography is perhaps the best tool in this art of illusion. Pictures give us the sense of freezing moments in time and their evocative nature often succeeds in transporting us back in our memories and resurrecting “that feeling.”
There is a particular grove of oak trees at Myakka River State Park. It is pictured here. I yearn to capture the beauty of it with my camera and have taken countless pictures there. It is simply magnificent, no matter the time of year or the time of day. It seems particularly gorgeous in its spring glory. So I share this illusion with you, this moment of time captured in bits and bytes. Happy spring everyone. ☙
My Buddy
I have a new buddy…that’s him to the left. His name is Tango and he is a six-year-old Australian Shepherd. He came into my life in the most unexpected way. He’s a service dog and his primary job is to make me walk. I have two medical conditions that can benefit from vigorous walking therapy hypercoaguable blood–I can develop clots easily–and herniated and bulging spinal discs. When I asked my doctor if it might be good to have a service animal she was enthusiastic and agreed to authorize it.
So, the next question was: what kind of dog? Ideally I should walk 3-5 miles a day. So Yorkies were out of the running as were most other small dogs. I was drawn to Aussies and talked it over with a friend who has bred and shown dogs. She thought an Aussie — the right Aussie — would be great. She found a breeder in Orlando who was expecting a litter in the spring with summer placement of the puppies. That sounded ideal (I was thinking I wanted a puppy…not the smartest thought but that’s where I was). It was then that I began to learn about the world of breeding dogs. In this case the female dog was going to be inseminated with sperm from a top-notch Aussie who lives in California. I quickly realized we were talking about royalty and I can’t afford royalty.
But wait! Turns out this same breeder has a 6-year old Aussie, an obedience champion, fully trained and certified as a service dog–Tango! According to the breeder, Tango is “over it” when it comes to competition. He goes through the paces and does it all very well but … he’s tired of it. She had been looking “to place” him in a good home, a place where he could leave behind the pressures of competition. In a sense, retire. Well, I’m retired and looking for a service dog. A perfect match?
Well, yes, it is. Tango and I have a great time together and we are walking a lot. Each of us has lost weight since he arrived (which is a good thing) and there are times when I’ll take him out and say, “Okay, just a short walk.” but we end up walking much more than I expected. It is absolutely more fun to walk with a dog than it is to walk alone.
And he a great help with other things. My spinal problems can cause instability, especially upon bending. Tango gives a good assist in those situations. And he can pickup any item I tell him to.
When I learned last December that I had this hypercoaguable blood disorder I was a little low but life is funny. There’s that saying about a door shutting but a window will open. There is also the lovely expression, “When life hands you lemons make lemonade.” I love lemonade…and I really love Tango.☙
Spring in Florida … in January!
Well, some say the jury is still out on the Global Warming issue but here in Florida it is warm and it is spring. January is not yet gone and the azaleas in my subdivision are in bloom … about six weeks earlier than usual. I saw a report on the news the other evening about a small, seaside town in New Jersey that was devastated by Hurricane Sandy. The mayor is lobbying for regulations that will force all new buildings to be built about 10 feet off the ground. She has plenty of data to show that the seashore is eroding and any future storms will wreak the same havoc as Sandy so by her reckoning if people want to rebuild they should do so in a realistic manner. Could we please send this mayor to Congress?
Sir David Attenborough proclaimed recently that humans are a plague on the earth. I couldn’t agree more. There are too many of us and global warming is one result. It’s easy to get depressed about it all but that doesn’t help. I really don’t know what does help but for me it is hiking the beautiful land at Myakka River State Park. I find things, like this Century Oak tree. Well, I call it a Century Oak but that’s only because it looks like another oak that someone told me was a Century Oak. Perhaps we should just call it a Magnificent Oak and leave it at that.
Kermit’s Cousin on the Myakka Prairies
For the last couple of weeks I have been exploring the Park outside of the Park. This is mainly prairie land located east of the main entrance to Myakka River State Park. Since I normally drive in from the West side of the Park these areas had never really registered in my consciousness. Another deterrent was a seemingly endless road repair process that was ongoing just east of the Park entrance.
In my quest for pine lillies a few weeks back, however, I followed a lead to one of these eastern gates and began wandering around. I wouldn’t want to be out there in July but right now it is very sweet. Wildflowers are everywhere in the scrub, and the wild grasses are in full “bloom.” To those who say Florida doesn’t have a colorful Autumn I invite them to visit the Myakka prairies in the late day sun. It is an artist’s palette.
The tracks are mainly service roads but the pigs and other critters have made single tracks that lead off the roads and into the scrub. I was making my way through some of the scrub on Saturday, watching my step because the scrub roots are treacherous. From the corner of my eye I saw what I thought was a leaf falling… sideways. Whoa! Leaves do not “fall” sideways. I looked down and saw this guy. 
A lime-green frog! Very much the color of the scrub. He landed in a hole next to some burned scrub. Of course my camera did not have the right lens on it for this occasion but I did the best I could, absolutely certain Kermit’s cousin would take one hop and be gone.
But he didn’t. Turned out he was quite a poser but, alas, he had not chosen the best of stages. He was about 3 inches below me and there was debris everywhere. I kept snapping and clearing away…snapping and clearing away…snapping and clearing away.
He suffered this poor fool of a photographer very graciously. After doing the best I could with the wide-angle lens I reached into the kit for my macro lens. “This will do it,” I thought. “He’s out of here.”
But no! He hung around and soon I was on all fours. Well, make that all threes because one hand was holding the camera, trying to get into the right angle, feeling like a pretzel, hoping I wasn’t putting any appendage into an ant hill, and wondering if I would ever be able to extract myself. The best picture of the day would probably have been a picture of me taking a picture of the frog.
All turned out okay and here is the best shot I could get of this wonderful treasure. I believe he is a Squirrel Treefrog. Just another of the jewels at Myakka. ❧
God Bless the Garbage Collectors
I was hiking around in my favorite place yesterday. (That’s Myakka River State Park for those who are infrequent readers of my blog. ) I was heading down All-Weather Rd. at a fairly good clip, intent on getting to a trail that I had not visited in some time. I’m not sure why I looked down but perhaps the angel on the 
shoulder of this Rainbow Scarab Dung Beetle cried out because my big right foot was heading right towards him. He would have been a goner and I would have been the one who was truly crushed to have injured or killed such an incredible creature.
The Rainbow Scarab Dung Beetle is very aptly named. He does seem to have all the colors of the rainbow on him. He is certainly a scarab (the big horn and bright colors confirm that). And that is a big piece of dung that he is pushing around.
I quickly dropped my gear and got down to eye level with this critter. Have you ever seen such a thing? He certainly is the best dressed garbage collector I’ve ever seen. Dung beetles collect what most of us consider disgusting — excrement. They serve us all by collecting and using the dung of animals for food and as a 
repository for their eggs. In other words, they help make the dung go away. This one was a roller and I read that dung beetles can roll up to 10 times their weight. Other dung beetles pull their bounty and some are capable of pulling 1,141 times their own body weight: the equivalent of an average person pulling six double-decker buses full of people! What a creature! Humans have long been captivated by them. At least that’s what the reference sources say. There are even beetle dung derbies!
So, that’s what was happening at Myakka yesterday. Creatures going about their business, never realizing just how fantastic they are and never getting even a nod of recognition from most of us. So, I want everyone who reads this to look at this final dung beetle picture and say, with sincerity, “Thanks for cleaning up the s#!t.” You’ll feel better for having done so. 😉 ❧
Alice's WanderLand 