4-26-2026
I checked my cage, it had not been touched, and very little more leaves had been eaten either. Maybe a bug ate the leaves?
4-25-2026
I looked out this morning – someone ate all the leaves off of one of my pepper plants!
Time to put put out a trap and relocate the offender.
My desert rose is in bloom!
I planted about 60 seeds and got only a few straggling sprouts. So I went to Home Depot to get a dimmer switch and found plants on sale! Four for $10! So I bought four tomato plants and four bell pepper plants. My garden looks a lot better now!
4-22-2026
This noon I had to go to Isla del Sol, which is close to Fort de Soto, so I took my camera!
Then on my way back home I stopped at Mariner Beach Club – and there were about 200 of my Black Skimmers starting to build there nests!
Migration Patterns: Northern populations of Black Skimmers (from New England/Virginia) migrate south to spend the winter in Florida to build their nests on the beach and bring up their young. They arrive here in Florida on the beach about this time every year.
4-22-2026
I have seven bean sprouts – I had eight but someone ate the leaves off of one. I also had planted a sweet potato – the next day that was gone, just hole left where it had been. My daughter says I am being very generous – feeding the local squirrel population! Those squirrels have no trouble climbing up!
4-18-2026
I have four bean sprouts !
Marian and I went out kayaking in such beautiful weather!! We only saw two birds!
Great Blue Heron
Yesterday and today I spent all day at the University of South Florida (USF) with my staff for the bridge break competition. We had 22 bridges come from schools in the area, 11 from Middle Schools and 11 from High Schools. And, as the last two years, girls from Middle Schools won the competition for strength and efficiency, and boys from High Schools won for esthetics.
I rescued this ladder from the dumpster and added the planters, now I planted golden wax beans and Bush Blue Lake green beans today. They should germinate in a week. Two months to harvest, hope they survive our weather up until June.
Updated 4-8-2025
Then 3 inches of new snow with temperatures down to 6° covered the flowers!!
Not a plant, but amazing photos of the trip around the moon!!
Photos
I went to University of South Florida today for my bridge break meeting and noticed a sign for an “Orchid Auction” on campus, so I stopped in. The auction had started two hours earlier, but there were still hundreds of orchids left.
Most were selling for $50 or more—some for several hundred—and it was clear the people there knew exactly what they were looking at. About a hundred attendees were actively bidding, driving prices up on certain plants.
One orchid, though, didn’t get any interest. The bidding opened at $18 and no one responded. As they were setting it aside, I spoke up and took it.
I thought it had a beautiful blossom. I realize the two flowers it has now won’t last long, but for $20 it felt like a worthwhile donation—and I came home with something I can enjoy.
You may note in the bottom behind the plant in the middle there is a looped white rope around a zig zag white rope. That is the model of the spinning wheel that Mahatma Gandhi. used to make his own thread, cloth and then his own clothes.
While Eileen and I were in Europe two months ago there was a cold snap here. When I got home February 4th my plants had taken a big hit. There were no flowers or leaves on many of my plants, but now 2 months later:
From not one leaf to this in two months!
No leaves or flowers to this.
My fig tree has leaves back!
It is hard to see but the brown leaves in the crnter are where I harvested a pinapple several months ago. Sprouting sideways out of the old stem is a new pinapple plant!
My avocado is doing well, lots of new leaves.
I had a bonsai in this planter, but it died. In its place this clover plant sprung up. I did not plant it, it volunteered. It has wonderful pink flowers!