BUT…BUT
It’s hard to leave paradise in the backyard! Two days after the duck’s birth, dry down in the creek brought in so many species. Our tiny yard is 500 feet from AIA and 600 yards from an active train track (complete with horns blowing) yet it is more like a nature preserve.
Okay! Teeth done. We will be gone in April… but first we need to test our rig with bikes on back and the canoe smartly mounted on top. An ingenious design of Cork’s to get the 80-pound vessel up and down by ourselves, 9 feet above our heads and NOT using a ladder!
We think we can…
So off to Fish Eating Creek, an hour and half drive and a world away to springtime in the cypress bottom lands of Lake Okeechobee. At this riverside camp we unknowingly parked our rig under a moss-draped red shouldered hawks nest with 2 large hungry chicks. The female adult was delivering meals all day long to her voracious feathered monsters. We finally figured out she was feeding them yummy wood duck ducklings!
Meanwhile back at home OUR wood duck family had 14 eggs incubating in the nesting box with the female sitting on them for 29 days straight. Time to get back home. We never miss the fledglings’ flop down to earth!
With a camera inside the nesting box giving us “Duck TV”, and live viewing on the back patio, 20 friends and neighbors gathered for the event. On April 28 eleven babies jumped down to their cooing Mom, instantly disappeared into the brush and won’t be seen for a month, but by then a few will be missing. We too have hawks, crows, snakes, snapping turtles, otters and coyotes all salivating for duckling dinner!
At the ripe age of 69 the realization dawns that attention deficit disorder is creeping in. It is impossible to make a plan and stick to it… so easily distracted, hard to say no to the fun events, invitations, good friends to play with. Our New Year’s resolution had us mark the calendar to GET OUT OF TOWN (Stuart, FL) in our new 1988 camper van by March, 2016.
Not so! Necessity dictated that we go to Bogota, Colombia for extensive, affordable dental work first. We saved thousands of bucks and the work was all done in three weeks. Thankfully, our lovingly masterful dentist,
Dr Luis, performed miracles… (Corky called him a madman with a drill) but he gave us young teeth again! Hugs and smiles to him forever.
As luck would have it, a few weeks before we went to Colombia SA, Cork took 12 customers out for a sail. Colombians visiting Florida. Now vise versa, they showed us the best time in Bogota and we will definitely go back. Next time with hiking boots. A beautiful country with beautiful family and friends.
