Florida the Cool

The temperatures may be hot, but Florida is really a very cool place. Sure, we have insects...
And alligators, too
But where else will you see Mr. and Mrs. Whooping Crane walking down the sidewalk?
And, we have pelicans!
Of course, sometimes even pelicans can get a little wild.
But we have a trump card - the beach! Kind of puts everything in perspective, doesn't it?

(These are all photos taken by my family around Southwest Florida)

You Might Be a Floridian If...

You know the four seasons really are: almost summer, summer,
not summer but really hot, and Christmas.

"Down South" means Key West

"Panhandling" means going to Pensacola.

You think no-one over 70 should be allowed to drive.

Flip-flops are everyday wear.

Shoes are for business meetings and church.

No, wait, flip flops are good for church too

Socks are only for bowling

Orange juice from concentrate makes you sick

Sweet tea can be served at any meal.

An alligator once walked through your neighborhood.

You smirk when a game show's "Grand Prize" is a trip to Florida.

You measure distance in minutes.

You have a drawer full of bathing suits, and one sweatshirt.

You get annoyed at the tourists who feed seagulls.

You never use an umbrella because you know the rain will be over in
five minutes

All the local festivals are named after a fruit. (Although we do have a Shrimp Festival, and I'm not sure Swamp Cabbage is a fruit...)

A mountain is any hill 100 feet above sea level.

A good parking place has nothing to do with distance from the store,
but everything to do with shade.

Your winter coat is made of denim

You can tell the difference between fire ant bites and mosquito bites

You're younger than thirty but some of your friends are over 65

It's not "pop." It's "soda" or "coke."

Anything under 70 is chilly.

You've hosted a hurricane party.

You go to a theme park for an afternoon, and know when to get on the
best rides.

You pass on the right and honk at the elderly.

You understand the futility of exterminating cockroaches.

You can pronounce Okeechobee, Kissimmee, Withlacoochee, Okahumpka and
Loxahatchee.

You understand why it's better to have a friend with a boat than have a
boat yourself.

You've driven through Yeehaw Junction.

Bumper stickers on the pickup in front of you include various fish, the
NRA and a confederate flag.

You were 8 before you realized they made houses without pools.

You were 12 when you first met someone who couldn't swim.

You've worn shorts and used the A/C on Christmas. (We actually ran the A/C once, trying to make it cold enough so we could have a fire in our fireplace).

You know what the "stingray shuffle" is and why it's important!

You could swim before you could read

You have to drive north to get to The South

You know that no other grocery store can compare to Publix.

Every other house had blue roofs in 2004-2005

You know that anything under a Category 3 just isn't worth waking up for.

You dread lovebug season.

You are on a first name basis with the Hurricane list. They aren't Hurricane Charley, Hurricane Frances...but Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne.

You know what a snowbird is and you hate them. (Well, that might be a bit harsh. We only hate the sheer volume of them clogging the roads!)

You know why flamingos are pink.

You think a six-foot alligator is actually pretty average.

You haven't seen snow.

Tornadoes/Tornado warnings don't scare you, and you laugh when your friends from outside of Florida get scared by lightning.

You eat ice cream cones in the winter, because it's finally cool enough so that it won't melt instantly down your arm

You save your sweater for summer when everyone's A/C is so cold, you are freezing in their houses or cars

(Thank you to my youngest son for sending me this! My sons are true Crackers, not transplanted Hoosiers like me, and will never let me forget it...)

When Are Bugs Pretty?

No one thinks flies are pretty?! I'm shocked. I mean, look at the little guy, with his huge red goggles, his shimmery blue-green hide, and his little hook to hold on with! Though, to be honest, if he had been on my kitchen counter I'd of whacked him without a second thought. For me the demarcation line is inside versus outside. I've always been an outdoors girl, and I marvel at the beauty of all kinds of unusual things. Snakes, for instance. My mom says there's something heathenish about my fascination with snakes. But have you ever really looked at, say, a coral snake? They are really gorgeous. We have large indigo snakes here too. Once my young son was leaning against a tree by the pond and felt something on his leg. He looked down and there was a 5-ft. indigo climbing him! He did a frantic little panic dance and the startled snake dropped off. Evidently he'd never seen a tree behave like that.

I find many spiders and other unpopular creatures to be beautiful too. My sister and I loved ants when we were little and were always trying to make homemade ant farms, with moats around them. An awful lot of ants drowned themselves rather than stay with us! Maybe it's from growing up in Florida where you either get used to things or stay nervous a lot. We always did a lot of camping, so when we went swimming or canoeing, it was usually in a pond or lake, and there were often alligators nearby. Mostly they leave you alone, especially if no one has been feeding them. Unless they've been fed, alligators are pretty shy of people. I did get to swim with a manatee once, back before it was illegal to touch them. They have hides like elephants and faces only a mother could love. We have oodles of lizards and frogs. We watched quite a drama in our bathroom window one day. We heard what sounded like a girl screaming and ran to find the source. There were 3 frogs on the outside of the screen, but there was the glass of the window kind of trapping them. They were what was screaming! A snake was crawling up the screen, wanting to eat them. While he was trying to pick out the juiciest looking frog, a tiny spider started sidling sideways toward him, ever so slowly. Finally he reached the snake's head, climbed on and bit him right between the eyes! The snake jerked, then fell from the window. So the little spider saved all those frogs! Sort of made me think of the story of the mouse saving the lion.

I love watching all the little dramas unfold as long as the creatures are outside where they belong. Even birds, which are so beautiful and fascinating flying free, I've had no luck with inside. Once we had a parakeet named Midnight. It was basically psychotic. I figure it was because it was caged. Another time we came home to find a peach-faced lovebird clinging to our screen door. Someone's pet that had escaped, we thought at first. My son made a pet of it, and at first it was adorable. It would sit on his head and sing and act all innocent. Soon, though, it became an attack bird, refusing to allow anyone in to his bedroom except him - and then, it turned on him too. We came to realize that it had probably been booted out by it's original owner in self-defense! I use to like squirrels, too. Until one got down inside our bedroom wall! So, if any bugs could read this, the moral of the story would be - stay out of my house! The bugs in the pictures I posted were all found outside and left to live and let live, except the red and black one that I trapped in my kitchen! He was left in a jar to be admired until he expired.

Does Anybody Know What Bugs These Are?

Here is a fly up close. Down a bit I said he was pretty, but here you can see that he is.


This one has a smiley face on his derriere!


I know what this bug is - a pesky fly - but he's still pretty!


Here is one that looks like a fighter jet:


Does anyone know what this bug is? He's not only beautiful, he matches my kitchen!


These were all in Southwest Florida. Anybody got a clue? I don't!