Peacock boy by the pond

Great picture.... Duck, peacock, heron.....we love p2!

JUVENILE PEAFOWL DISPLAYING
This young peacock male is testing his ability to intimidate some ibis.

Notice the bored yawn at 0:27...

You be the judge, do the ibis look scared?

GEICO RACCOONS!

Loving Raccoons... It's what you do.  Thank you GEICO!!!

NEW BAMBOO SPROUT ATTEMPT OCT 23 2016

Here are eight new pots eith our latest bamboo sprouting attempt fully underway (hint: it's the row with blue tags).

This time we took cuttings from a stalk of Emerald bamboo between the 4th and 12th nodes. Each cutting had approximately three inches of cane on either side of the node. Mary trimmed the outgrowth so a single strand stuck out above the soil (except on one which is completely buried).

We are excited to crack the code on sprouting bamboo, it's supposed to be easy but so far we only have two successes to point to, fortunatel Spike and Baby-Baby have both launched new larger canes which indicates they're healthy and happy.

SQUIRREL AFTER HURRICANE MATTHEW

We're having trouble with the internet due to massive hacking, here is the picture of the squirrel begging for black oil sunflower seed. 

MORE POST HURRICANE PICTURES FROM AROUND P2, HURRICANE MATHEW 2016

As we headed out to look around after the hurricane a single lone squirrel was calling down to me asking if I would please put out some black oil sunflower seed. I did and she thanked me profusely :-)

Here are the rest of the pictures.

AFTER THE HURRICANE MATHEW 2016

GETTING READY FOR HURRICANE MATTHEW 2016

ROSEATE SPOONBILL VISIT

It was near the beginning of October, we looked out and saw four Roseate Spoonbill birds hanging around on the far side of our pond. These spoonbills are members of the Ibis family of herons and it's obvious seeing them hanging around with the Ibis that they are cousins, similar head and body shape. Both versions have some pretty interesting beak formations. While our white Ibis have beautiful blue eyes the Rosy's have a bright red-orange eye color. 

We had hoped the beautiful reddish hued birds might stop by again but it was a passing single day visit. We're guessing they're migrating to warmer, more southern Florida locations to spend their winter. 

I initially shot some photos with my Canon 24-105 zoom, then ran inside and switched to the Sigma 150-650 zoom to get some closer pictures. The beautiful birds seemed to be not too worried about me working my way over closer to them to get a better look. 

OCTOBER WEATHER SHIFT & CHORES

We're 2/3 of the way through October, this past weekend the weather here in Melbourne FL has shown the greatest change since we left the hot days of July and August. 

September gave us a break from the broiling summer temperatures by having some more rain but the temperature and humidity still made it almost unworkable for outside home improvements.

On Oct 22 our thermometer said it got down to 62 at night, the next night only saw the temp get down to 70 but these lower temperatures combined with overall lower humidity have changed everything for working outside. 

Sunday the 23rd, we cut down a stalk of Emerald bamboo and cut out eight-nodes to try and sprout. This time we completely covered each piece of bamboo with potting soil and left a long leafy branch sticking up out of the pot. 

The Dollar store had some nice 2-gallon buckets for $2 so we got six to test out Marys new watering technique, get buckets of water from pond, transport the water buckets on the black Strongway 4-wheel cart, pour on the plants, repeat. So far this is one of our better interim watering techniques, it is very easy to flood potted plants with delicious pond water which has been a proven winner for plant watering in the past. This process of carrying buckets of water seems much less labor intensive than filling water jugs from the artesian well and transporting those in the LM500.

Nappy Sneetches

Heron

Here he is working his way towards where all the fish hang around looking for nom. It is bound to be a very ugly morning for some slow moving panfish.

THE SILENT GIANT

He stands motionless waiting for an innocent panfish to make one wrong move, then POW, no more panfeesh. It's Baby Huey one of our favorite herons.

When standing upright he is almost five feet tall.

DUCKS ARE BACK
Over the past weekend we counted 40 ducks on the pond at P2.

The ducks love the cracked corn, it's "crack" for ducks, they will risk their lives for it.

We are so glad the ducks have returned, they are so beautiful swimming around on the pond.

DENNIS VISITING P2

He is normally afraid of me but today Dennis was hungry so he put up with me taking his picture so he could grab a couple of yummy panfeesh from our pond.

Last 48 Hours of Hurricane Matthew - Skimming Florida

The path that Hurricane Matthew took up from Haiti to the Bahamas and then up the coast of Florida is interesting, as very few hurricanes take this path.  Here's the "last 48 hours" gif from the University of Wisconsin's Space, Science, and Engineering center.  It really shows you how close the aggregate predictive spaghetti models were in showing where the hurricane would go along Florida.

I found myself studying this predicted path historically...  the day before the hurricane.  I wanted to see how many times a hurricane has skimmed Florida.

Hurricane Hazel in 1954 came between Cuba and Haiti but stayed out to the ocean more, then made a direct hit on North Carolina.

Hurricane David in 1979 devastated Dominica, direct hit West Palm Beach in Florida, then walked up the coast in a similar path.

This data may seem insignificant, but in today's world with endless data available at your fingertips, we are smart enough to not make decisions based on fear alone...   we make decisions based on data.    Unless you're at the coast and subject to deadly storm surge, your decision to evacuate, prep, not prep for a hurricane is really left up to you.  Homes down the street from me did nothing to prepare, and were just fine with the Category 3 Matthew 70 mph winds.  If the storm brought the 119 mph winds that were predicted hours before the hurricane arrived, they would have wished they had boarded their windows as we did.

Hours before the hurricane, I was studying past hurricane paths.  I know the spaghetti models are sophisticated predictive tools that I should trust... but the cone of paths they span are less than accurate.  The explanation for variation?  "If the hurricane makes the slightest wobble, it will mean the difference between a windy stormy day and devastation".  How's that for decision-making data?