The Calendar Says Spring But the Trees Say Fall

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Contrary to popular belief, we do have seasons here in Florida. Really. We have Summer, Football, Winter and Live Oak Fall - in that order. Summer is about 8 1/2 months long - April through October. Then it's Football season, then Winter sets in for a few weeks and then, near the end of February Live Oak Fall starts.

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Those Huge beautiful graceful live oaks with their lovely tendrils of Spanish moss start dropping their little leathery leaves. Billions of them. They sound like rain and they fall and fall and fall some more. Then, while the leaves are still falling, they flower - tiny insignificant blooms on long green tendrils. Trillions of them. The pollen from the flowers is incredible - green powder that gets in and on everything. Everything takes on a green patina - walks, streets, cars and anyone who ventures outside to rake the leaves. As you rake, puffs of green pollen rise up and you start looking like Gumby. Meanwhile, those trillions of tendrils start to turn brown and fall and fall and fall some more. Those that aren't raked up or that fall on the roof disintegrate into what looks like coffee grounds - right around the time the rainy season starts and they gather in puddles and gutters and the first few minutes of a rain storm looks like Maxwell House French Roast dripping off the house.

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We started the raking this weekend and filled 5 heavy duty industrial sized bags. The area that we raked is about 1/10th of our yard. The pile behind the tree in the above picture is just what the Mister blew off that corner of the roof. You have to go up on the roof first and blow the leaves out of the crevices, they don't fall voluntarily.

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The pictures don't do the volume of the piles justice.

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You can see some of the tendrils mixed in with the leaves in this picture. That's just the beginning of the stringy brown stuff.

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This morning the area that we raked was covered again - like we were never there.

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In the meantime, the new leaves are are growing - the trees are never actually bare because everything happens simultaneously. In a month or so the trees will quit dropping stuff on us - until November when the galls that grow on each of the leaves and the acorns start falling.

Happy Fall, Floridians!

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Rehydrating an impudent anole

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We brought the orchids in the house twice this winter because of cold weather. The last time was over a month ago. The little anole you see in the picture came indoors with the orchids - two or three always do - and hopped impudently behind the sofa just as we were taking the plants back outside. I have excellent success hunting down the stragglers and letting them back outside, but this lady was fast and elusive. I eventually forgot all about her. I finally saw her last week, chased her down and set her out in the sun on one of the orchid tables. She was dehydrated , so I sprayed her with the mister. Meanwhile THE Mister is asking me why I'm being mean to the anole - spraying it and all.
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She appreciated my efforts - she stayed right there for about 15 minutes basking in the sun and lapping up water before going off to do whatever it is anoles like to do. She let me stand around and watch her and take pictures.
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I am far more in tune with nature than the Mister