Summer Flowers

We've had a ton of rain here lately and this little day lily has decided to finally bloom. Isn't it pretty! It's called a White Beach Spider Lily. I wish I had more of them, so delicate.

Summer Tree Planting

What does a crazy lady do when her a/c is on the fritz and it's 95 degrees outside?  Why go outside and plant a tree of course! This is a Royal Poinciana Tree that I grew from a seed.

I planted it in the yard today in hopes that in 10 or 20 years it will provide the house with some much needed afternoon shade.

When it grows up, with any luck it will look like this beauty! Until then, I guess I have to call the a/c repairman again, ugh.

Summer Fun

One of my clients gave us this pop-up backyard pool as a gift. We call it the "Big Blue Blob"

It's really not that big, but that's ok. It holds enough water to cool off in! Unfortunately, it's going to leave a "Big Brown Blob" in the grass when I remove it. Good thing our grass (weeds) grows back fast :)

Summer Storm

A few days ago, we had a doozy of a late afternoon thunderstorm and this large branch of my carrotwood tree, came down.

After I trimmed away all the branches that I could, this was left.

I'm considering leaving it like this for now. I think it looks kind of cool, like the tree is trying to get up and walk away!

Saturday Morning Squirrel Watching

 Inside

Outside :)

Happy Saturday!

Froggy Footprints

Several mornings lately when I go out to the driveway, I'm finding track marks in the dew drops on my new car! 

I could not tell at first what was crawling around on my car in the night and I was worried it would scratch the paint.

Not sure what was happening here. 

Maybe a nightly critter hoedown under the moon?

Finally after a few days of this,

 I could make out the hoofers telltale shape.

Looks like my car is playing dance floor to a froggy free style routine!

At least the paint is safe. Dance on little frog, dance on!

Eeek, What is it?!

Summer in Florida brings on not only the heat, but some cool creatures as well. I found this guy outside my garage chasing a lizard up my brick wall. I guess I spooked him because he took refuge under the wall a/c unit for a whole day. I tried to coax him out with some lettuce, he was not interested.

I know it's a reptile, but what kind? Iguana, Bearded Dragon, someones missing pet, not sure? He was about 12 inches long and had some greenish/yellow stripes under his neck.  I was hoping to get more photos, but the next time I looked, he was gone. I now have a hole in the ground about his size, at the bottom of that wall. I wonder if he dug himself a tunnel to live in? Anyone have any idea what kind of lizard he is?

It Might Be Spring!

 The flowers are blooming.

 My Pigeon Peas are flowering.

 I love how delicate these tiny flowers are!

My parsley is growing secondary leaves. It's also 86 degrees outside and yesterday we had a thunderstorm. It just might be Spring!

The Hitchhiker Fish

 

Look what we found by surprise, a baby American Flag-Fish! Last summer when we were gathering native minnows and fish from the canal near our house, I also brought back some plants and vegetation to keep in a large tub on the patio. I wanted to grow some plants and algae to feed the fish in the tanks. The only fish I put in the tub were a couple of mosquito fish, to eat any mosquito larva that developed.

Well, lo and behold, this week when cleaning out the tub, I found the mosquito fish doing well and this tiny Flag-Fish. It's a female, only a half inch long. Since Flag-Fish are egg layers, I assume her egg was attached to some of the plants and it hatched in the tub.

We had no idea she was in there and now she has been relocated to a more luxurious residence in my large aquarium. There is a larger female already there to keep her company, so we hope she likes her new home :)

Florida Tank Update

 Our Florida freshwater tank is doing great!

All the plants are growing and we haven't lost a single fish.

So far the Flagfish are getting along with everyone.

I tried to get some good photos of the males, but it's amazing how hard it is to photograph moving fish!

This is the best shot of the larger male Florida Flagfish.

  Isn't he beautiful!

Another Fish Tale

I know they may be hard to see, but our Molly had babies! If you look close you can see the tiny fry in these photos. There are about fifteen altogether. Not sure if they will make it, some will be eaten unfortunately. If they did all survive every time, we would run out of tank space fast! So we will let nature take it's course and see.

New Aquarium for our Florida Fish

Our ditch fish are getting new digs!  We have been busy setting up a 29 gallon tank for them. It's quite an improvement over the little 2 gallon they have been in. Right now we are waiting for the water to cycle and establish some good bacteria. There are some live plants, a few snails and a couple of common mollies in it for now.

So far all is well and we will add the others in a week or two.  On our last net dipping we caught two sailfin mollies and a flag fish.  We still have the 10 gallon tank with the pet store fish, but my son is obsessed with the ditch fish we found and wants to keep going to see what else we can discover. Florida has quite an array of critters in our ditches and canals. Not to mention a few not so friendly guys too, but we are steering clear of them!