Floods, Squirrels, & Mass Hysteria!

Ok - I don't really have any mass hysteria to report...I just thought that was a catchy blog title. But we do have floods and squirrels.

But first, hello. And a note about this week. We have hardly any pictures to share. I know, we are a huge disappointment. But I am stringing together what little I have for this mini edition of the blog.

The reason we have few pics is that Glenn and I did few things of photographic interest this weekend. Glenn had a 2-day Relay meeting here in Tampa on Saturday and Sunday, so we didn't go to any parks or anything. And I just did things like clean and run errands, so not much to share there.

When Glenn was at his meeting, however, some baby squirrels showed up on the front steps of his office. They appeared to be orphaned and adorable.

Some volunteer even picked up one of them and was petting it, although this is not advisable.

Anyway, fortunately, one of Glenn's coworkers noted that there is a well-known "Squirrel Lady" who lived nearby in Tampa. Of course there is. So they put the little cuties into a box and drove them to the Squirrel Lady, who will apparently nurse them back to health and raise them to be responsible squirrel citizens.

Do you note that we have a lot of tales of animal rescue? I myself helped a giant box turtle cross the road the other day.

So the other big story here this week is RAIN. It has been raining A LOT.

Saturday night, we got between three and four inches of rain, as you can see here:

Actual container of rainwater.

Because of this, we've had to empty some of the water from our pool to keep it from overflowing. We also now have a real river, complete with current and possibly fish, now going through our backyard.

And this is what I'm calling our own personal fishing hole.

We are keeping the dogs out of the backyard for now because they turn into wet muddy little pigs, but I can tell you from the one time that Deuce broke through the screen and splashed around that the water is over beagle-chest deep.

Deuce, hard at work on his laptop.

So anyway, that is about it. Rain and squirrels. Sunday afternoon we went to Chad and Lisha's place in Ozona and watched the debacle that was the Steelers game. We had a really fun time despite the fact that we thought Glenn might go into a murderous rampage at the end of the game.

Later this week, my parents will be coming out for a long overdue visit. We can't wait! And, if we get bored, we can always go fishing in the backyard.

Love and lizards, everyone! Take care and have a great week!

Park It!

Hi all, and welcome to the latest edition of the blog.

This past Thursday through Saturday, Glenn went to Dallas for their Relay for Life Volunteer Summit.

Certain things about his trip will probably not surprise you.

1. He rented another cool car.

2. He once again dressed up like Slash.

3. He managed to get into a few selfies.

Looks like he is having way too much fun for a work trip.

He did have one surprise when his hotel was evacuated at 2 am when the fire alarm went off, but fortunately, the hotel was not actually on fire.

4. He also managed to get some cool sunset pictures...from the plane as he flew back into Tampa!

Meanwhile, back at home, I realized for the first time that we had a Bird of Paradise plant in our yard.

 

I also let Deuce destroy a stuffed alligator (this is why we don't usually give him toys.)

Come any closer and I'll kill you.

Ta-da!

So, anyway, Glenn did not get back till Saturday night, so we had to pack all of our adventure into Sunday.

Hold on to your hats, folks! Glenn and I went to A PARK! (Yes, believe it or not, there are still a few parks in Florida that we have not been to yet.)

This time we went to Sawgrass Lake Park in St. Petersburg, and it was really pretty. I read that it was a "little" park but we felt like we walked A LOT.

The good news is that a cold front came through and knocked our temperatures down from the mid-90s to the mid-80s which is a nice relief.  Atta way, Fall!

I found out these are called Beautyberries, and they are not poisonous, but supposedly not too tasty.

 We went to the park because we heard they had a lot of alligators, which was true, but they were just little fellas.

We also saw some big fish, and lots of other wildlife.

And I think this might be my favorite pic...

So that's it for this week, folks. Hope all is well with you all! Love and lizards!

A Blogger's Tale

Hi Everyone!

Wow - this past weekend went really fast.

We actually started the weekend early, since we had Lisha and Chad over to the house on Thursday to watch the stupid Steeler game. It was fun having them there, and a great distraction from the pummeling the Ravens were giving us.

On Friday, we were out walking the dogs and were treated to another rainbow. (God loves Florida.)

I think the pot of gold was on the roof of our house. :-)

On Saturday, we took it easy for most of the day, and then decided to head to the Clearwater Marine Aquarium since we had never been there.

In case you don't know, this is the site of the popular movie, "Dolphin Tale" about Winter, a dolphin who was fitted with a prosthetic tale. The movie, and its sequel "Dolphin Tale II" (in which a rescued baby dolphin named Hope becomes Winter's friend), just hit theaters last week,  and stars Harry Connick Jr., Ashley Judd, and Morgan Freeman.

So forgive me for ruining this adorable story by mentioning that the Clearwater Marine Aquarium is a shit hole.

We paid $43 admission to get in (!!), and the place literally has about 10 animals. Two dolphins, two pelicans, and 4 sea turtles who were missing legs and were consequently bobbing around upside down. (Honestly, the turtles seemed very sad. I'm not sure that rescuing them was the right thing to do.)

Glenn wants to have the place audited. It was a dump.

But okay. The famous Winter and Hope were cute, and seemed relatively happy.

Oh, and here's a stingray in a dirty tank.

Woo. That's really about it.

Outside, they had a Hollywood-made houseboat which was the set for the home of Harry Connick Jr and his daughter in the movie.

Probably spent thousands of dollars making this look run down.

Sunday, we decided to go to Wall Springs Park in Palm Harbor. It has a natural spring that drew vacationers in the early to mid-1900s. It used to feed a swimming pool, but now flows into a pretty pond filled with frisky ducks and fish.

Baby duck!

There was a nice path throughout the park that took you from the spring to Boggy Bayou.

They had an artistic pavilion of sorts that was kind of interesting, as well as strange benches made of natural pieces of wood. We had some fun with those.

And here is a pretty plant - probably poisonous, but pretty.

It is still insanely hot here, and I've discovered that I really like taking an afternoon siesta, which is what I did as soon as we got home from this walk. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

So, sorry, not the greatest edition of the blog ever, but it'll do. I will leave you with a sunset from our front porch.

Love you!