My grandmother died last Friday. I can’t say that we were close. It’s been several years since I’ve visited that side of the family. From what I’m told, the personality I knew had slipped away a while ago, and she lately required a lot of care for a body whose mind wasn’t there. This last stage of passing sounds honestly like a positive thing for everyone involved.

I’ve been looking through the pictures I have of her and her family, most collected (in embarrassingly poor quality) for a slideshow created for her and my grandfather’s 50th wedding anniversary. The most recent, post slideshow, is from around 2006. In the span of a few moments, the snapshots transform her from child to newlywed to elderly woman. I only experienced the latter part of this person, and have a hard time imagining what the earlier parts would have been like. Generations speak across wide chasms of world views, the human condition colored by vastly different assumptions as to what is obvious and relevant. And eventually, there are only fragments, and those younger fill in the gaps with both the familiar and the foreign, painting a picture that those who experienced it might not even recognize.

Right now there is a squirrel throwing acorns on the awning over the back door. It’s really loud. The squirrels don’t particularly like us, but they seem especially perturbed by this kitty cat, which has been coming by for pets, and maybe food, but moreso the attention.

A couple of weeks ago this polyphemus moth fell from the oak tree, disoriented and seemingly unable to fly away, probably near the end of its life. It’s the largest moth I’ve ever seen in person.

The Newcomers Survival Guide to Florida Gardening says that fall is when you plant most of your vegetable garden, so we are trying again. The chives are actually holdovers from the spring, having perked up a little lately, but still not doing well enough to harvest from. Basil is in the blue bin behind, and is doing the best of the plants we’ve started from seed. We also have started tomatoes, carrots, yellow squash and lettuce. We bought a roma tomato and parsley as plants, as so far the plants we’ve boughten (not started from seeds) have been the only ones we’ve gotten to harvest from.

More from Weedon Island Preserve:

We’ve seen roseate spoonbills before, but always while I was driving. They seem solitary and moderately shy. This is the first time we’ve gotten pictures of them.

This is also the first time I’ve seen green anoles. They are native, but the brown anoles, which I believe are imported, are much more common.

Last weekend, when it was still warm, we went back to Caledesi Island State Park. You can technically walk from Clearwater Beach to the island, but it’s easier to take the ferry. This was not as cool of a visit as when we came before in the winter; even in a strong breeze I had mosquitoes latching onto me like I’m the best stuff on earth. Three bites. We tried swimming, but there are more waves here than at Fort De Soto, and terrible visibility (barely as far as my outstreched hand).

The beach is still really pretty, and has more shells than the more accessible beaches further south. Although they are a bit hard on the feet. Combined with the already low visibility, I really should invest in some kind of swim shoes.

From the bare sand, sea oats and other brave plants start, and then palmettos.

We’ve been getting quite a bit of rain at the house that hasn’t registered at the official airport guage, but the gigantic thunderheads from the summer are mostly gone.

The water between Caledesi and Honeymoon Island (where you catch the ferry) is quite shallow, much of it wading depth or dry at low tide. There are lots of channel buoys and no wake signs that make for popular osprey and cormorants perches. I haven’t gotten any satisfactory osprey pictures, but here is a cormorant, panting.

I had thought I posted this before, but here is a female anhinga (taken at Sawgrass Lake Park), which, especially with the males which are all black, look and behave very similar to cormorants. Both swim underwater, but don’t have waterproof feathers and so they are often seen holding their wings out to dry, like this one. Anhingas, however, have long straight bills, while cormorants have a hook on the tip of theirs.

It’s gotten cold all of a sudden. Lovely frisbee weather besides the wind, though. The lizards are all sluggish, and people are pulling out their sweaters to go with their flip flops. And for the first time in like six months, it’s below 79 in the house.

We tried planting a few herbs and tomatoes today. We don’t have much hope for them.

Over the summer, this vine has been enthusiastically growing over the bushes around the yard. It’s been making bean pods:

And we’ve had a mockingbird hanging out by our front gate lately. I have yet to get a picture of it doing the flashing wings bug dance.

This area gets a lot of rain all at once. This was our street right after a rainstorm on the 24th

And here was the intersection near our house

But the soil is very sandy and this all drains away quite quickly. This is what it looks like normally

That intersection has three, maybe four, storm drains, all large enough to lose litters of puppies in