Independence Day Weekend - Happy 4th of July!

Well it's the 4th of July, and that means summer is halfway over. Thanks to Facebook, the family has re-connected to some old friends for a great time this weekend. On Saturday there was a birthday party with one set of friends and later on that night a barbecue and fireworks with another set of friends. The kids had a ball lighting all the fireworks and watching them go off. I'm pretty sure the adults all enjoyed the food and beer, while watching the fireworks! Unfortunately no pics from Saturday. I forgot my camera which is so unlike me. That's ok though, as I was elected to man the bbq and make sure the ribs, hamburgers and hot dogs all got burned to a crisp! (just kidding - nothing got burned)


Sunday has been pretty layed back. We all took a cue from the cat and just layed in the shade. With beautiful weather in the upper 80's, we hung out around the house and just chilled in the backyard.



One thing about our yard, there is still plenty to see. With the flowers blooming and the garden producing, I found a few things to take pictures of.

As I took pictures of the dahlia's, one of our hummingbird friends came down to check out what I was doing. She was hovering about a foot away from me, but it was too hard to get a picture of her at that distance.


This dove has adopted our backyard and has become a permanent fixture around the feeders.

The back bed with some new plants from last weekend. All ready the weeds are coming back!



The bees are loving the lavender. I'm sure that the lavender honey they are making is delicious, wish I knew where the hive was. :0)

The trumpet vine is trying to take over the back corner. I hate to cut it back because I know the hummingbirds love it and so do the bees.

It amazes me, the scrub jay's always know when there are peanuts for them and the squirrels.

This year seems to have been really good for all the birds. The pheobe who hangs out has either had 2 babies or I saw both parents and the baby, either way we have 3 pheobes for the time being.

There are no shortage of house finches for us this year either. 6-8 of them are always under the eve's or on the front porch looking for bugs. I haven't had a single tomato worn this year and I'm sure the birds are responsible for the insect control.

So another weekend is in the books for the 2009 summer. We had a good time here, hope yours was good as well. Until next time.

TVH

The Ragged Edge The Keys Islamorada, Florida

I'm sure by now everyone is tired of hearing about my vacation to Florida. So this is my last post about it, I promise. While in Florida, we managed to get down to The Keys. We only went as far as Islamorada, but we had a wonderful time. Erika found this great place called the Ragged Edge on the Atlantic side of Islamorada. If you ever get to The Keys, I highly recommend this place. It's so Keys-ee (i.e. in the spirt of The Keys)

The view of the Atlantic Ocean from the dock of The Ragged Edge.
Looking back from the dock to the Ragged Edge.
2 of the units @ the Ragged Edge. Very clean and lots of room.

Sunset in The Keys.

If you look close , there is an eel in the center of this picture. This was taken from the dock.
The Ragged Edge has plenty of room to dock your boat.

3 foot Nurse shark cruising the flats in front of the dock @ The Ragged Edge. We saw 4 of these guys as well as tarpon, black-tip reef sharks, barracudas all cruising the flats out in front The Ragged Edge.
School of Mangrove Snappers and Pin Fish also taken from the dock of the Ragged Edge

Mangrove Snapper - see the tooth hanging out of it's mouth.

I caught quite a few of these baby barracuda's from the dock. I hooked a couple 3-4 footers, but with no wire leader they broke me off as soon as I set the hook.

There was a really nice pool. The kids loved it!

If you make it to The Keys you gotta go hand feed the tarpon! The coolest $5.00 you'll ever spend. These guys get up to 6-7 feet long!!! Lay down on the dock and hold the fish near the water. Up comes the biggest mouth you ever saw and take the fish. These guys are wild. They come back everyday to get fed. Unbelievable!! :D

My pictures really don't do it justice. If you've never been to The Keys, please, put it on your must do list. One of my all time favorite vacation spots! You have to see it in person.

Next week look for some pics of The Tattered House. I stopped by this weekend and the shop looks Fantastic, but I didn't have the camera. So, I will make a point of swinging by this weekend and getting those pics to share with all of you.

Until next week, be safe.

TVH

Birds of Florida

Well we're back from Florida. Man, what a great time we had! Like every vacation, this one was too short. I definately wanna go back to the Keys again and spend some more time.

For my first post back I wanna share the birds we saw while there. The best part was alot of these photos were taken while sitting on my Mom's back patio.

Wild Monk Parakeets these guys are really noisy and hard to miss when their around.


Brewers Blackbird Female


Brewers Blackbird Female feeding her baby

Double crested commorant

Great Blue Heron (White Morph )

Great Egret
This guy hung around the place we stayed in the Keys looking for handouts!
This momma Green Heron was very busy
Looking for dinner at low tide on the sea wall.
Green Heron perched on the boat
If you look close you can see the 2 baby Green Herons on their nest. This was right across the water from Mom's patio. I took this 2 days after we got there.
The same 2 Green Heron babies 2weeks later, right before we left.
Laughing Gull
Magnificant Frigate Bird (Male)

This osprey managed to get himself some lunch out of the Gulf of Mexico!

Juvenile Osprey waiting for momma to come back.
Brown Pelican.

Brown Pelican nursery amongst the mangroves in Tarpon Bay.

Red Bellied Woodpecker

Royal Tern

Looking rather far away this small Least Tern was another difficult shot to get

Snowy Egret

Parrots. I took this at the Under the Sea park in Islamorada.

White Ibis. Juvenile (brown) and an adult in the neighbors yard.

White Ibis in flight.

White Ibis in Ft Meyers Beach

Yellow Crowned Night Heron walking the sea wall across from Mom's.

My only shot of an Ahingha. This bird swims underwater and spears fish with it's bill

Not as many birds as I had hoped, but it is summer. I had hoped to see some Flamingo's and some Spoonbills over at the Ding Darling park in Sanibel, but no luck. Well there is always next time!

I'll try and put up another post soon.

Have a good one!! :0)

TVH