January 16, 2009
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Tallahassee
I suppose its time for some kind of personal report - Of which I don't do very many.
We drove back down from our summer/fall cabin in Down-East Maine last October, enjoying the Fall colors as we drove down through the mountains. (Did you know you can avoid heavy traffic and hassles most of the way? Just stay off inter-states and away from the cities.)
Traveling when one of you is wheel-chair bound is somewhat of a challenge, but we manage pretty well - hint: check out so-called handicapped rooms before you sign in- they are often foolishly awkward and insufficient. The best bet is generally to book the largest room available - more room for the w/chair.
Our place here somehow managed to grow a hardwood floor - carpet was very hard going with the afore mentioned w/chair. Our local relatives (nephew & grand nephew) carefully supervised the installation and we are delighted with the result.
As usual, late Fall and Winter have meant medical stuff - mostly ophthalmologic this year. My wife had to have her cataract surgery re-YAG lasered (pretty common - so did I before we left) and the MD discovered that her Fouk's disease was acting up so I do a lot of eye-drop applying.
We had our family over for a lobster feast on Christmas Eve - a family tradition. I boiled them on the deck and everyone got delightfully messy doing battle with the results. Strangely enough, the cost of live lobsters here in Florida isn't much higher than it was last summer in Maine.
We often drive down to the Gulf - they are leading the annual flight of Whooping Cranes in this weekend, but we won't go down to see them - to large a crowd. A couple of years ago we were on the beach at St. George Island and a juvenile whooper landed only a few yards from us - he hung around for an hour until another whooper flapped in and collected him. They are huge birds - can you imagine, he stood over five feet high. Seemed interested in watching the fishermen (who ignored him) I think he wanted a handout.
When they fly the young Whoopers down, the ultra-light pilots who lead the way, have to dress up in a sort of whooper costume so the birds won't imprint on them as humans. The ultra-light planes are painted white with whooping crane markings.
The one we saw close-up was certainly not afraid of humans
It's cold today and a troop of much smaller birds just cleaned out our feeder.
Comments (1)
Dear Dick,
I'll be facing some "handicap" condition soon after my hip replacement replacement operation, but I won't have to use a wheelchair, thank the Lord. Glad that you didn't encounter too many problems and that you researched rooms before the trip.
I remember in the extra features for the documentary "Winged Migration" that the cameramen, who were similarly in ultralights, had to disguise their presence somewhat and they flew with the birds for a while before actually filming, so the results, which are fantastic, looked natural.
Re: Number 5 on your earlier entry: I have no doubt that the Bush Presidency made sure the American public was afraid. Now that Obama is in the White House, I hope that he can spur the media to stop reporting so much doom and gloom. Add the financial crisis to the phalanx of conspiracy buffs who think the world is going to end in 2012 and the media is going to have a field day scaring the hell out of us.
There's good news to report too, but we never seem to hear it.
Michael F. Nyiri, poet, philosopher, fool