Signs of Summer and Fleming Animal Adventures

The first signs of true summer....

• multiple days of near 90 degrees


• kids played in the Nemo sprinkler after naps


• I baked a tomato tart with fresh basil from the herb/butterfly garden, which, by the way, looks lush and green--except for the thyme I'm killing.


• the pool is up to 75 degrees--still way too cold for me so right now we just sit in the jacuzzi at around 82 and pretend we're in the pool

But speaking of the pool....

A few weeks ago, I was walking across the house, vacuum in tow, when I glanced out the patio doors to see a pair of mallard ducks swimming in the pool. R was thrilled and we let them swim around a bit more til D swooshed them out of the yard and they realized they could fly.

Today, as the kids and D and I sat in the jacuzzi, a ginormous bird flew low over the house and dropped something into the pool. We all stared at each other, shocked, and then finally realized what exactly was dropped--Mr. Bird's dinner. At first we thought it was a hawk, but then, after thinking about the size of the bird (huge, I tell you, HUGE) and then seeing him perched on a neighbor's roof, watching us, we decided it must have been some kind of buzzard--not a majestic hawk--and his dinner was some kind of maggot-infested, dead-for-days, washed up fish. In our pool. So, D had the joyous task of scooping up said dead fish and wrapping it up in a garbage bag, where hopefully the roaming neighborhood cats or assortment of raccoons, possums, and armadillos will not discover it before Trash Day.

Life in Florida, I tell you, never a dull moment.