On Saturday, Mike counted four ducklings. On Sunday the neighbors and Mike saw a water moccasin. We’ve repotted the tomatoes twice now, and several of the herbs have perked up since fertilizing a few weeks ago.

We put up a bird feeder on a metal pole over the weekend. It has a shroud on a spring that will lower and cover the openings to the seed if a heavy enough animal rests on the feeder. The idea is to keep the squirrels, which are still occasionally digging around our plants, away from the bird seed. So far so good. We saw what was probably a male red winged blackbird at the feeder, and Mike saw a Cardinal underneath it.

On Saturday and Sunday there were six. On Monday I counted five. I’ve not seen the little ones today, though the male paddled by while we were cooking super yummy kabobs.

This is the great blue heron that has been hunting in our boat slip. The water is quite murky, but it’s caught several fish there now.

You can buy an awful lot of organic produce for what we’ve spent over the last couple of years in pots, soil, water, seeds, plants, fertilizer, fungicide, cages and whatnot, often getting nothing edible in return. We are in no way saving compared to throwing away half of every package of basil and cilantro and parsley that we buy at the store, wasteful as that always seems.

So we’re trying again.

Two tomatoes, a roma and a solar fire, which is supposed to do better in the heat (developed by the University of Florida), two sweet basils, two ‘yummy’ mini bell orange peppers (their name not mine; I don’t have an opinion yet), a curly leaf parsley, and two flats of marigolds.

This picture is for Mike:

They’ve trimmed back the trees that had the Christmas lights in the Florida Botanical Gardens. I’m not sure what spring is supposed to feel like here. There is no unfurling from the great sleep of winter. But it is no longer sweater weather, and trees that know how to awaken from the cold are starting to bud.

A year ago, we were unloading what belongings we had carted across the country with us into one of the ubiquitous storage units in the middle of Tampa. We were acclimated (Mike may disagree) to highs around 40, and it was hot and stuffy dragging around boxes and lamps and bits of collapsible furniture in the 80 degree heat.

At that point, I owned one pair of capris, no shorts. No comfortable bathing suits. Flip flops that made my feet bleed. I’ve slowly remedied those things, although I still don’t understand really short shorts, and I’m still pasty white.

My grandmother said it takes a year, to experience all the seasons, to know how you like a place. With everyone here talking about how it’s been one of the coldest winters in many years, perhaps I’ve not seen the typical year, but it’s a start. The mourning doves are back, and we are starting to see butterflies and lizards.

Gulf fritillary

Limpkin. This is the first time I’ve seen these birds. There was a pair of them at the creek. They resemble juvenile ibis, but are larger and have a more distinct pattern of white spots.

I didn’t notice at the time how algae covered these turtles were.

For our first warm weekend in a long time, we and all of the local bird life were out at Lake Seminole Park.

We think this is a merlin because of the size and color pattern on its breast. It was content to sit and watch us as we walked around its perch and back again.

On the north end of the park there is a short boardwalk into a shallow, lily covered nook of the lake. There are some well done signs explaining the differences between similar birds. This, we learned, is a coot, not a moorhen:

We were there in the late afternoon. The lighting for photography would be far better in the morning.