I’m terribly behind on posting pictures. One picture of a poinsettia hardly covers the San Diego trip. But here instead is one of our first outings with the new T2i camera, to Paynes Prairie just south of Gainesville, in the last days of December.

This is not a grassland prairie. Almost everywhere has brush much taller than me. I believe this is a yellow-rumped warbler.

It was a delightfully warm day after a stretch of cold, and this may have been the first day the armadillos were able to rout about in a while. In any case, they were plentiful, and completely indifferent to our presence. Usually they have their head down sniffing about under the leaf litter, so they must not use their eyes much.

The new camera is very inviting and has a gorgeous screen on the back. Several killdeer were patrolling the trail, would fly a little ahead, we’d catch up, they’d fly a little farther, and finally, perturbed, fly over our head to land back on the trail behind us.

A green (?) anole.

Just a few feet rise in elevation from the prairie there are stands of sweet gum. A red-bellied woodpecker.

And then a few feet above that the oak and palmetto start back up. It was in here that we saw the wild horses that live in the park, albeit ones very accustomed to people walking by. They seem to be fending just fine, eating palmetto and acorns while we watched.

This is the best, as in well written and informative, early review I’ve seen about the new Adam tablet from Notion Ink. The company proposed a great cross-set of features that fit my wishes pretty closely, long battery life, e-reader, wifi, open, not attached to a cell contract, a good selection of ports. Others must have agreed; the company has developed a devout following of fanboys. I’ve only been held in suspense for about two months, watching the bumps and tumbles of delays and removed features. These user reviews are the first real opinions I’ve seen on the device in the wild. And it’s about what one would expect from a start-up, still getting the bugs worked out. Which is to say it’s rather disappointing to have that potential of perfection, or at least robustness, dashed. It’s tough coming out with an Android tablet before Honeycomb. That doesn’t mean that the device is a failure, it still might meet my needs if I went back to the base Android OS, but I’m not likely to buy their first generation device.

In San Diego and in Tampa around Christmas, poinsettias are planted outside in seasonal flower beds.

I’m hoping to go back at dusk with my nifty new camera, but in the daylight, the lights have a bright mood more like how the holidays here feel to me. There is not the cozy cocooning of plants and people in blankets of snow and fleece, and the sunlight remains warm and near.

I was ready to return the half read In the Shadow of the Poorhouse: A Social History of Welfare in America by Michael B. Katz when the library asked for it back. The book focused on tracing the dominating political philosophies towards welfare through the last two centuries, with descriptions of the everyday life and challenges faced by the poor in each time period playing a supporting role. I would have preferred the emphasis reversed. I also found myself wishing for less meandering and more effort on presenting the book’s ideas concisely.

In many ways, we have made little headway in our attitudes about poverty. Much of the reformations in the 1800’s were based on the assumption that jobs were always readily available if one was willing to work, and thus pauperism was usually a personal failing, due to a lack of work ethic, or intemperance. What aid was given should be as unpleasant and minimal as possible, so as to dissuade the lazy from becoming dependent on public support. There was very little interest in investigating the actual causes of destitution, nor what kind of aid was most effective at returning people to self sufficiency.

Because of their environmental sources, crime, pauperism, ignorance, and mental illness–which observers at the time usually confounded as different manifestations of an underlying and pathological condition of dependence–could be eradicated. Even intemperance could be treated in institutions because it originated in causes extrinsic to individual character, most often a faulty family life in childhood and an absence of religious and secular education. Institutions would seal off individuals from the corrupting, tempting, and distracting influences of the world long enough to reorder their personalities. Even poorhouses shared in this rehabilitative vision; they would suppress intemperance, the primary cause of pauperism, and inculcate the habit of steady work.

The poorhouses failed. They were more expensive, and ended up providing even fewer opportunities to regain independence than the vilified outdoor relief. We still debate the worth of the social safety nets we have put in place, which of course should be discussed, but we still work implicitly and often explicitly under the same assumption that the poor deserve their lot. Congress has failed to reauthorize extended unemployment insurance and instead argues whether the rich can deal with not having their tax breaks extended, all while the nation still struggles with a 9.6% seasonally adjusted unemployment rate with over 5 unemployed (U3, those actively looking) people for every job opening.

A few weeks ago, we went back up to Alligator Lake Park. The water has mostly dried up; there are only a few channels of water left. Wildlife still teems along the dike and bird calls provide a constant chatter. Some of those that we caught sight of: an american bittern eating a snake, a killdeer and yellowlegs, many white ibis and american coots, great and little blue heron, anhingas, a hawk, a downy woodpecker and yellow bellied sapsucker.

blue-gray? gnatcatcher. Flit, flit, lingering almost long enough for pictures.

glossy ibis. These get iridescent green and chestnut plumage, but the downcurved bill and boxy head doesn’t leave many other possibilities.

wood stork. Both this and the above shot were under water earlier in the year

Despite the earlier freeze, there were also many butterflies out.

little yellow sulphur

tropical checkered skipper

monarch. We also saw the mimic species, viceroy.

red admiral

gulf fritillary

In May when we discovered Withlacoochee River Park, the cypress trees by the canoe launch were in deep languid water. Now several feet lower, there are stretches of the river without enough water to canoe in. When we arrived, shortly after sunrise, mist was dancing along the river surface.

This limpkin’s companion had a freshwater mussel that it wanted to keep us from stealing.

We were the first car in the parking lot, and so no one had yet cleared away the spider webs. This arrow-shaped micrathena was off to the side, and not nearly as large as some of the golden silk spiders sitting over the trail. I eventually picked up a stick to catch the spider webs instead them hitting my face.

After the confusion of not being on the official park trail map last time, this time we came prepared with more supplies and a better combination of maps. At the very bottom of the 5 mile Florida trail loop, we found a deserted camp site. The only frog we saw on the trip hung out on the picnic table with us while we ate lunch. We think it was a barking tree frog.

A clearing taken over by dog fennel attracted several yellow butterflies which never sit still, along with zebra longwings and this gulf fritillary.

This green anole watched us, and then hid behind the branch.

Almost back to the car, a large black snake was sunning itself along the path. It decided to slither off before we decided to take a detour.

On the way home we stopped by a frozen custard shop. While not bad, we were both expecting something more. It felt and tasted just like any other ice cream shop.