Since our earlier visits to nearby Oakland Nature Preserve (very nearby since we moved!), Hurricane Irma did some serious damage and until very recently the boardwalk there has been inaccessible. It’s actually still under repair but open enough for an enjoyable (short) walk – with lots of clearings, open blue sky, and downed trees, as evidence of Irma’s passing last year. Here’s some photos:
Over the last couple of weeks, Margaret has been packing our “old” home (Independence) and this past weekend we rented a U-Haul truck to move the more breakable items from my office (test equipment, computers) as well as other fragile things. But today was the “big move” with a company arriving to take everything to our new home (Stanton Estates) …
It took two trips and 7 hours in total, with much more time for Margaret & I to start unpacking and putting things away so our new home is a little less chaotic than it was when everything arrived!
But tonight, we’ve got our bedroom sorted, somewhere to sit and eat, and my office is ready enough that I’ll be back to work in the morning … beyond that, we’ve got a lot more to do in the next few weeks!
One effect of Hurricane Irma last summer was to destroy the original Heron nest in the tree behind our home so we wondered if the Herons would return. Now we see they’ve moved to a smaller, lower down, nest in the tree in front of the original one – and today I’ve been able to capture some photos of one parent flying in and joining the other:
In the very cold (for Florida) weather last week, I also got a picture of the Heron in the nest, perhaps sheltering chicks with wings stretched in a sort of igloo (I don’t know if there are chicks, but this is what I interpreted!):
M&I / GBMINI 