PARADISE ISLAND, A SNAKE AND A BIRD

This corner of our property was covered with plants that looked like Missouri (read that not tropical). We like the jurassic look with big tropical leaves and palm trees so we cleared the area and found a bunch of crap buried there too. There was a big pile of concrete blocks, a couple of old tires, several dead tree stumps and a lot of crappy old viney dead plants that have not rotted all the way yet.

Paradise Island area begins along the right side of the Bridge/Road on the left

After extracting all the non organic matter (tires, concrete blocks) we leveled out the land and built a frame out of 2x12 boards that are 10 feet long. Eventually we want the boards to rot away or we'll remove them but right now they are supporting all the top soil we're adding to build the land up with good plant growing matter.

View from farther back

We've grown a pair of traveler palms from seeds, the largest of which is going to be planted in the Paradise Island garden. We'll remove the pot that is acting as a placeholder and try to install the plant in the placeholder hole causing minimum damage to the plant.

In the rear behind the wooden board frame we're going to add a Cocoa palm which we bought at Home Depot when he was a tiny ugly runt. Since then he's grown into a beautiful vibrant palm which is very slow growing. This is good because their leaves act like a privacy fence between our property and our neighbors.

S N A K E ! ! !
Jason our lawn tech god spotted a big snake while cutting the grass, he was sure it was a water moccasin. He told me and we went to investigate. By the time we got there the snake was no longer sunning himself on shore, he had headed into the safety of the pond.

I had my iPhone and shot the best photos I could so we could hopefully identify the visitor. His round eye shape makes me think he is a common banded water snake which is not poisonous. 

I grew up hating snakes but I've come to appreciate them as beautiful and part of our environment so I'm no longer scared of them. They eat biting insects and rats, both of which I really detest. 

Anna

The anhinga is a wonderful and strange bird. It flies through the air and it flies through the pond underwater trying to catch fish. She dives under the pond surface for up to 30 seconds at a time and covers the full length of the pond sometimes.

Anhingas use their wings and their feet to propel them under water. After they do a round of fishing they must sit on the shore for a few minutes and shake the water out of their wings so they can fly away. 

Anna looks prehistoric sitting on the shore with her outstretched wings. 

We love when she visits, some of our pond fish pay with their lives but a birds gotta eat! I've never actually seen her eat a fish, unlike our other visitor, the cormorant, who also swims completely below the surface catching fish. We named him Cory and we have seen him come up with a fish in his mouth more than once. 

BUILDING ROADS AND BRIDGES, THANKSGIVING 2017

Mary was off from work Tuesday through Sunday so we spent six days swimming, playing and digging up a lot of our property.

The outer property joins the main residential property across a drain canal. We've been working on building a bridge between the two properties, it started with dragging a big heavy 10" culvert drain pipe into the ditch, then covering it with massive amounts of top soil and mulch. We let that age for a couple of months and it's become quite solid.

We liked the way the top soil and mulch turned out so we decided to extend the bridge further to firm up and define where to drive lawn mowers, go karts and mini bikes.

The new road we built over Thanksgiving

Forty one-cubic foot bags of top soil and 30 bags of mulch later

East end of bridge, easy to see a foot of water in the ditch

Another view, east end of the bridge and drain pipe

View of the bridge and road from South

The drain pipe is peeking out of the grass, note the foot of standing water in the ditch

A view of Date Palm and P2 from South