A Lot to Be Thankful For

 Hey Everyone! 

Hope you are all doing well. I realize Thanksgiving is still a couple weeks away, but let's be honest, I won't do another post before then, so let's just celebrate early.

I have a total mismash of pics, so I guess I'll start with today and sort of work backwards. Today, Glenn and I decided to tackle our giant snake plant that had become completely pot-bound. So pot-bound, in fact, that Glenn had to cut it out of the pot with a chain saw which was very exciting.

You can see how the roots actually grew into the pot.

We ended up dividing that one plant into 6 big plants.

Speaking of plants, my friend Lisha had a guy in Safety Harbor build me a raised garden for my birthday (belated), and we filled it with herbs. It's super cute and everything is so far still alive and well.

We have basil, rosemary, thyme, parsley, sage and chives.

Also, here's a random pic of our beautiful Eva from this morning. 

Yesterday, we had the excitement of having to catch a small snake on our lanai. It was tiny, but we were a little nervous that it might be a pygmy rattle snake because of its markings. Turns out, we think it was just a baby black racer - I guess they fully turn black as they get older. We were able to coax it on to the pool skimmer with a broom and hurl it into the neighbor's yard.

In other exciting news, we had a hurricane this week (Eta). Actually, it turned into a Tropical Storm, but there was still a lot of damage around here. I was irked because the day before, the weather people had said that it had gone off to sea and fizzled out and the next thing you know they were like, "RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!"

We were fine, but we got almost 8 inches of rain in one day (imagine how much snow that would have been!), and had several tornado alerts telling us to take shelter. The Safety Harbor Marina completely flooded, as did Bayshore. The Causeway was shut down and totally swamped. Glenn got some pics on his bike ride on Bayshore the next day after the water receded.

Tom Brady's dock broke off its moorings and his two jet skis floated away. I just picture him watching this scene with a single tear rolling down his face. 

Anyhow. All is well now and the weather has returned to gorgeous. We have a new round of orchids currently blooming.

This is Horatio.

Halloween wasn't all that long ago, and although we did not participate in any festivities, our good ole pirate ship guy broke out all the stops as usual.

He also installed some sort of motion-activated thing so when I walked by the house an automated  pirate said something to me...I don't even remember what...and then laughed a creepy laugh. Scared the stuffing out of me.

Speaking of laughing - and I am really struggling to transition here - I ordered a water bottle online because Glenn was mocking me for destroying the environment by going through store-bought bottled water every day. So I ordered a big bottle but when I saw how huge it was (a half gallon), it just cracked me up. Every time I looked at it, I burst out laughing.

Ok - the rest of these are in no particular order, but were all taken at some point in Oct. One day, Glenn and I took Stella out for a drive and stopped at a little bayside park near Dunedin and took a brief stroll along the water.

I saw something weird looking moving around along the shore and it turns out it was a ton of horseshoe crabs. I had seen their shells before but never a live one, let alone so many. They are so pre-historic looking.

Ok - so here are a few random pics from me.

ME

A muscovy duck crossing my path

A couple roseate spoonbills

And a pic of my office staff:

Lucky for you guys, Glenn is good about taking pictures on his bike rides. Here are a host of lovely shots. 

Anhinga at sunrise

These are also spoonbills (and an egret)

Great blue heron

And he was very excited about getting these dolphins swimming right along the shore.

And here are some pelicans accompanying him on his ride.

Anyway, that's about all we have for now. Hope you are all doing well and staying safe. Here's a pic of Eva with a little smile on her face. Love you all!

I think it's October?

 Hello all - 

We haven't really done anything or gone anywhere recently (other than getting my oil changed in my car) so there hasn't been much to blog about. 

Still, we eventually round up enough pics from walks or around the house to paste something together. 

So let's see. We've done some work around the house. Glenn was finally able to mulch again, and ripped out some giant ferns in the front. It looks very nice out there even though the only people to see it are the Amazon delivery guys.

Glenn also frightened our neighbors by setting up an ACS balloon arch in our driveway, but he took it back down.

Our Key Lime Bush continues to produce far too many limes.

Inside, I opted for lemons - fake ones - putting together a new centerpiece for the dining room with a rustic dough bowl.

[We interrupt this blog to bring you an adorable picture of Eva. Please stand by.]

Hello, friends.

Let's see. What else? Well, my mom wanted to see some pics of us, so, uh, here...

Quarantine Hair

And presented with no explanation...

In weird nature news, we thought we discovered a snake on our lanai, but it turned out to be a legless lizard. This pic is stolen from the internet but looks exactly like the guy.

Unlike a snake it was very slow and Glenn had to coax it outside and into a flowerbed with a stick. It was probably about 16-inches long.

Other wildlife sightings include:

A tortoise...

A bunch of storks on the Stork Lady's roof:

And a Cooper's Hawk who didn't seem to mind us getting pretty close to him.

So pretty!

And here's the moon, over an Anhinga (kinda hard to see - black bird on a branch), over a pond.

Glenn got some dolphin pics on his bike ride. The first couple aren't too clear, but they are cool because you can see they are blowing out air from their blowholes.

Here are some other pics from that ride.

You can see Tampa's skyline in the distance.

Oh, and if this pic looks familiar, it's because this bald eagle likes to hang out on the roof of this one house.

The other evening I was walking through the dining room and noticed an orange glow coming from the windows. It's nice when we get sunsets like this right outside of our front door...

Well guys, that's about all I have for now. We'll wrap up with Glenn's nightly "puppy party" (where both dogs just lick and chew on him - gross) and then let Deuce get some sleep.

Goodnight, everyone!