HURRICANE HELENE 2024, coverage begins right now!

Thursday, September 26th, First Hurricane of 2024 

3:50 PM Thursday: We've been tracking the storm all day. It is hitting and flooding in Tampa area right now. We've had some gusty winds but they go away. Every now and then it starts to rain a LOT and we think "there it is" and then it stops. We've already had around 15" of rain this month so we're not short on water. 

The sky is bright white/gray, the sun is making if very bright in spite of total cloud cover. After I make this post I'm going to close the upstairs shutter. If it gets bad outside I will close all the shutters before we go to bed. 

The baby chickens are alarmed by the sound of the wind and rain. The muscovy ducks are sitting around in the yard napping. "Rain, we don't care about no rain". They ARE ducks. All rain has currently stopped here in Melbourne. 

GATOR 2024 We've Got One, just saw him today...AND HE'S GONE! NO, still here :-(

TUESDAY SEPT 17, 2024

Mary spotted him this morning and I confirmed, there IS a MAN EATING LIZARD IN OUR POND!

Looks to be about four to five feet in length using the snout to eyeball estimating method. We noticed yesterday that ducks were not swimming in the pond, now we know why.

Time to call the alligator removal hot line. 

SATURDAY SEPT 21, 2024 UPDATE

Today we could no longer see our alligator which is a good sign.

MONDAY SEPT 23, 2024

We have not seen our uninvited guest since the weekend so we're officially declaring the pond back to being GATOR FREE!

I saw him sunning on the shore one afternoon and could see his full length unobstructed, between four and five feet in length, tip to tip.

TIPS

Each evening the Gator was over here on the shore right in front of us. He was never anymore threatening than just being himself, he never came toward us or was aggressive in any way. Mary kindly hit him on the head with a chuck of rotting tree branch each night when she went out to feed the Pond-Fish. We're thinking he may have decided to head on down the drain canal to find that rumored place where Gators mate. 

TUESDAY SEPT 24, 2024......OH NO, He is still here.

YUP, early this morn we saw him crawl out of the pond to sun himself out by our Palm Island Garden. He laid in the sun for a few minutes and then headed West into our wall of bamboo. Again we hoped he left but come sun down he was up to his old tricks, laying in the pond, waiting for Mary to feed the pond-fish. This years gator saga crawls on.

WEDNESDAY OCT 2, 2024........We still have a gator and we wish he would leave. We both saw him on the shore this afternoon, he's not fat but he is L O N G. He has a nice smile but we still wish he would leave.

More and more if we ever want to see ducks swimming on our pond again we gotta get this alligator GONE!