Cold

There was frost on my windshield this morning, frost!  I thought that when I moved to Florida from Indiana (by way of Delaware) five years ago, I would be done with frost and ice.  In fact, I threw away my ice scraper.  Little did I know at the time, I had not moved far enough south to avoid the occasional frost.  I'm not a big fan of frost.  Fortunately, I noticed my icy windshield through the kitchen window before I was ready to leave and was able to start up the truck so that it was warm and thawed by the time I needed to go to work.


When I arrived at the park, I checked the rain gauge and unlocked the office before I headed out for a quick walk.  I wanted to check on the water level to make sure that it hadn't risen too much.  I unlocked the cabin and got some pictures of the craft project that I put out yesterday.  They are clear, glass ornaments.  Visitors can remove the top, collect acorns, holly leaves, berries, pine needles, pebbles, or any other small treasure that they find.  I also have some supplies out like glitter glue and paint pens to decorate the ornaments.  I had enough supplies for this year leftover from last year.  This ornament was the example that I made last year.  I think it help up well.


At the river, I saw that the water had come up some more, but not drastically.  I don't mind the water level changing, but I am not looking forward to another flood.  Hopefully this is all the extra water we will see.


The river was stunning, as usual on a foggy morning.  It was cold and windy, but it made the fog even more fun to watch.  I saw a few gar break the surface of the water to gulp air, but I wasn't able to catch them in action.  I did catch some cool fog movement though.  There will be more time for gar soon when they really start to gather at the spring.

I didn't know what the day would hold, but by the look of the sky, it seemed as though the rainy  weather was over.  That meant that it was a good day to leaf blow!  It had only been a couple of days since anyone had run the leaf blower, but it looked like it had been a month. All of the rain and wind had left piles of leaves everywhere.  I started at the walkway down to the spring, with my earphones and mp3s.  When that walkway was clear, I cleaned up the sidewalks around the restroom, the dive rinse station, and blew off the parking lot as well.  I didn't see any frogs or insects on the walkway, it was too cold for anything to be out.  It was almost too cold for me to be out.  There were a few birds fluttering about, but they didn't stick around long with the leaf blower roaring.  When I finished up, I headed back to the office to warm up.  I took care of the paperwork and then I heard a car pull in.  My coworker had arrived to go fishing on his day off.  We chatted for a few minutes before he nestled in to the spot on the river bank where he would spend the rest of his day.
As he headed for the river, there were cars pulling into the parking lot.  A group of divers had arrived.  I checked in the first two divers who informed me that two more were on the way.  I walked around the park and picked up a few more sticks until they arrived.  I checked them in as well and then retreated to my warm office.  As I approached the office, I saw that one of the pipe insulators had fallen to the ground.  I picked it up and saw the darkest, coldest looking Anole that I have ever seen.  Can you find it?  Its well hidden.


In the office, I kept myself busy on the project that I started working on yesterday to list the wildlife that I have identified in the park since I have been photographing and blogging.  I can see this list coming in handy for several different reasons, such as documenting what is in the park, having an accessible database of photos for future projects or displays, and as a reference.  I have only gotten through the first few months of the blog though and I already have a very long list.  I wish that I had been doing this as I went.  At one point, I took a break to take brochures to the rack by the restroom and scrub the algae off of the fish tank in the cabin.  I walked down to the river to see how the fishing was going.  My coworker had caught several Mullet already!  The fish were small, because the majority of the breeding adults have left for the Gulf, but they were biting better than I have seen them in a while.


On my way back up, I saw some more beautiful Lichen on a fallen limb.  The reddish color caught my eye first, but when I got closer, the pale green and hairy one was my favorite!



My adventuring over, I got back to work in the office.  In the afternoon, the park was still very quiet, but I did check in one more dive group and spoke to one other visitor.  I spent all the time in front of the computer that I could stand before I headed out in the early afternoon to use up a little more comp time.