Today I went back to the canal with the Nikon and the short telephoto and took pictures of the guardian and his flock. Came home and proceeded to not find him in the Audubon Guide to Birds of North America. Did not find him on Ducks Unlimited. Finally, though using the Google-fu, of which Miz Shoes is justifiably proud, I discover what was at the local watering hole: I present to you the Egyptian Goose. Is he not lovely? Is his flock not beautiful? What they are doing in South Florida is a mystery, but probably just another story of an illegal alien who found the weather to their liking and a mate from the same long way away.

In today’s Nature Notes, Miz Shoes attempts to illustrate the definitive answer to the age old question: Is it the heat, or the humidity?

The evening before I took the following photo, I saw an avocado on the ground when I came home from work. The squirrels had been eating away at it, and there was a large, clean hole (albeit ringed with tooth marks. The next morning dawned hot and humid, as all summer mornings do in the tropics. When I left for work, the avocado was sporting a festive fur collar, very much like Santa’s fur-trimmed suit. This was the mold growth in 12 hours.

When I reached my office, the heat was up, and the sun was shining in the breezeway of the building, turning the condensation on the windows of the empty restaurant into diamonds. As I turned around to get the shot, I saw where a long-since removed holiday decoration had been. The ghost of Christmas past, in the pattern of moisture on a too-cold window, on a too-hot morning.

As ever, this is part of the Nature Notes meme.

An embarrassment of riches.

The little Casita des Zapatos is old. It was built in 1954 (same as yours truly) and many of my trees date back that far, or close. As good as a year as this was for the mangos, the avocado tree is out to compete in the ridiculous amount of fruit olympics. This tree was a graft, way back when, and the main trunk produces pear-shaped fruit of good size, with thin skins that zip off like a banana peel, small seeds and thick, delicious meat. But at some point in the past 55 years, a sucker came off the root stock, and nobody ever cut it down, so the tree has a second, also good-sized trunk. On that side of the tree, the fruit is small, and almost round, with thick, crumbly skins and giant seeds and thin meat. It is equally delicious, though.

This year the root stock side of the tree has borne fruit like never before. There must be hundreds of avocados, growing in clusters like grapes. One branch was so loaded that the RLA built a crutch for it, to keep it from snapping under the weight. The nice thing about avocados is that they don’t ripen on the tree, so you can pull them off as needed, let them ripen in a brown paper bag on the window sill, and have a never-ending supply of guacamole. The nice thing about guacamole is that you can freeze it (just don’t put the onions and tomatoes in before you do; add those after you defrost it) and it lasts forever.

Here is my Tex-Mex guacamole recipe, exactly as written for me 30 years ago by my TINY friends (TINY, for those who aren’t old enough to remember, were Texans In New York, a very large population in the late 70s, when The Lonestar Cafe was the toast of 5th Avenue, with its giant iguana on the roof, red eyes glowing in the night.)

2 big avocados cut in 1/2 inch chunks

1 chopped up big onion (green onions are great too)

1 big handful chopped serrano chili peppers (green)

1 chopped green pepper

1 big tomato cut in 1/2 inch chunks

salt and pepper and lime juice

Just mix these with a big spoon. DO NOT MASH.

As ever, this is part of the Nature Notes meme.

This morning, the sun was hitting the red hibiscus just so.

As ever, this is part of the Nature Notes meme.

In the tropics, lack of soil or root space means nothing. If there is water and sun, something will grow. In this case, it is a strangler fig, growing in a crack in the grout between the Metrorail platform and the retaining wall, two stories up. The county keeps cutting it off, and it keeps growing back. In the end, the fig will win.

As ever, this is part of the Nature Notes meme.

Remember my poinciana tree, that was a naked twig one day, and covered with little feathers the next?

This is it in high summer, a fractal canopy of green, casting a huge swath of shade over the driveway and the side yard.

As ever, this is part of the Nature Notes meme.

Back in January, RJ came over and helped me make a bird sanctuary in my back yard. I put in feeders, and a bird bath, and a squirrel feeder to try to keep the furry little bastards out of the bird feeders. I learned early that South Florida squirrels turn their cute whiskered noses up at dried corn. They prefer sunflower seeds, and most particularly, raw peanuts. It keeps them happy, fat and out of the mango trees, so I’m happy to feed them what ever they want.

But now it’s July, and my lawn (such as it is) is overrun by these plants.

What are they? Those, my dear gentle readers, are peanut plants. I have a veritable peanut plantation sprouting at random throughout my yard. Not only do the squirrels squirrel away nuts for later, the blasted blue jays do too. Next year I won’t have to buy peanuts, I’ll just harvest the yard. But I may boil these little guys up for myself, and start feeding the critters roasted nuts.

The copperleaf hedge is in bloom. Can you see the flowers? I shot this in the morning, as I was leaving for work, and so the color is true morning light, and the drops of water are, I think, condensing dew, and not late night rain. Click on the image to open a pop-up window at full (huge) size.

As ever, this is part of the Nature Notes meme.

It’s been pouring, day after day. The poinciana tree can’t hold on to its leaves. The feathery fronds are shedding in the daily deluge. The water pools up in the driveway and then recedes, absorbed back into the earth, giving Florida a much-needed reprieve against the on-going drought. This is the detritus along that water line.

One morning, you go outside and the poinciana is bare. You think it will never have leaves again. The next morning, there are tiny green furls on the branches. Within a week or two, the leaves have opened and there are masses and masses of orange and yellow flowers. In the tropics, there is truly and literally an explosion of color.

The Nature Notes meme, begun by Michelle at Rambling Woods, and embraced by RJ at Flamingo Musings.