Yellow pears, romas and black krim

We live in a pretty dense neighborhood with lots of trees, but we’ve stubbornly been trying to grow tomatoes. Last year when we moved in mid-season we got a husky cherry red and a patio. They started out not looking great, we put them in too small of pots, and they never did much. The patio tomato tasted no better than ones from the grocery store.

This year we got bigger pots and started earlier, but the plants have still had a terrible time of it, getting blown over by wind, gangly branches growing too tall and weak and breaking off outside of their cages, so we’ve been bringing in a lot of green fruit. But, we’ve gotten several batches of wonderful roasted tomatoes now. And it turns out that the mystery heirloom is a black krim (the one in the picture is pretty much ready to be eaten).

Mike found a dying cicada outside our house this week.

When we arrived at Fort De Soto on a morning at the end of August, there was a thunderstorm blowing over. It wasn’t right on top of us, but you don’t want to be on the beach when lightning may strike, so we waited in the pickup for several minutes until the storm had passed. I had hoped to go swimming, but the water was churned up and covered in floating pieces of sea weed, so I just walked along at the edge of the surf. Mike had the NEX and took all of the pictures, and processed them for the blog.

The sky was still dark and dramatic even though the lightning was over. This is looking towards the Sunshine Skyway bridge that crosses the mouth of Tampa Bay.

Looking the other direction was a lovely rainbow

At another section of beach, the other side of the rainbow was also visible

beach sunflower

there were many brown pelicans near the shore. Here is one of them

Perhaps this is a willet

ruddy turnstone

Two pictures by Mike at Sawgrass Lake Park in July.

water hyacinth

juvenile tricolored heron

The springs of this park are actually in the Suwannee River, so there is no run, just a swirling on the river surface. The parking area, down a one lane dirt lane, is in a beautiful old forest. It looks like the spot is most popular as a swimming hole, for while there is a hiking and biking trail, it did not take long for the path to become overgrown and blocked by blown down trees. Many ticks found us as we walked, the day after O’Leno, through the grasses. The trail stays near the river on one side of the loop, and crosses through various ages of forests, with some fairly recent pine plantings on the way back.

the banks on this part of the Suwannee are worn limestone, with a few steep approaches and sandy bends

mushrooms growing on a tree in the older part of the forest

not a spider

perhaps an assassin bug

unknown beetles munching on flowers

duskywings, Mike’s

trumpet vine, Mike’s

wild petunia

we think this is a six-lined racerunner, Mike’s

Mike did the processing of the photos.

In the afternoon after Alligator Lake we went to O’Leno State Park.

I had on the 10-22mm, so here are my scenery shots.

Mike took the creature shots, and processed the photos.

This aligator lazily entered the water and swam around us in Ogden Lake, one of the places that the water from the Sante Fe surfaces.

This might be a southern toad. Or it might not.

Where the Santa Fe River first goes underground, there is a slow circular current which rotates the logs that the turtles sun on. One of the logs in the deep shade had a large alligator hanging with the turtles.

We watched this wasp (Thread-waisted Wasp family?) carry a caterpillar several times its size near where we were watching the turtles. It set the caterpillar down and then began hunting around in the sand. And hunted some more. Finally, the wasp uncovered its hole and hauled the caterpillar into the darkness.

Meanwhile, I spotted a large mosquito on Mike and swatted while he was changing lenses, which almost lost the lovely 100mm.

As evening approached, we headed back on the trail that appeared to be heading most directly towards the parking area. A ranger came by in his truck and told us to take the other trail, which looked no more official or labeled.