Going Wild in the Streets of Sarasota with Chalk

Sarasota has so many things going on all the time but this past Halloween weekend was the first annual Sarasota Chalk Festival featuring artists from around the world.  Enjoy the show: *click on each image to enlarge it

Red Bug Slough

I took a long bicycle ride today through Red Bug Slough which is a 72 acre preserve and remnant piece of natural Florida nestled in the midst of suburban Sarasota.  Imagine this beautiful preserve in the middle of Sarasota!  There is a ton of wildlife from all kinds of birds including osprey and bald eagles, to otters, alligators, limpkins, anhinga, turtles etc.
Here are some photos from today's bike ride:

Huge old oak trees

Anhinga drying his wings off

see if you can see the baby turtle in the photo

it's a red bug but not what the slough is named for

can you see the baby to the back of the mommy turtle?

can you believe someone lives here?

Spanish moss

Butterflies and stuff

So last weekend was the big Master Gardeners Plant Sale which just happened to take place around the corner from my house.  It was just too easy!  I made two trips and loaded up on plants that attract butterflies so I could plant my butterfly garden.

The area needed to be cleaned out first since there used to be a few ficus trees that died from the cold weather last winter and there were a ton of weeds to pull.  I cut the dead ficus down and pulled the weeds, moved the iron table and chairs and the pea gravel so I was just down to dirt.  Finally, it was time to plant.

The variety of plants should give me lots of butterflies of various and assorted colors and species.  Some plants are meant to attract the butterflies for the nectar and some are for them to actually eat while they are growing.  I will post progress photos from time to time to let you see how things are progressing.  This weekend is the rain barrel workshop so I suppose the next post will be all about rain barrels and collecting rain water for watering the yard.

Montana Summer

We no sooner got to Florida, did some quick unpacking, set up the office, signed the papers to close on the house and took off. First to Pennsylvania for my Mom's birthday and a visit and then on to Montana for at least a month to keep cool and unwind from all the driving, packing, unpacking and stress from a cross country move.

There is hardly a nicer place to spend the summer than Montana. It has a dry climate and being in the mountains, where I was, the nights are cool and pleasant so no air conditioner is required. Nature provides the AC around these parts. The weather was perfect and every few days we would get an afternoon thunder shower. If only the mushrooms would have cooperated better.

My digs for this summer was an old homesteader cabin on Deep Creek in Paradise Valley. There is a main house and then a couple cabins that have been made very comfortable on the inside although the outside looks virtually untouched as it should. Listening to Deep Creek every night, lulling me to sleep was intoxicating. It was just cool enough at night to want a light blanket and all was right with the world. The stress melted off quickly and I was back in my element and loving every minute of my precious Montana. If only winters didn't last so long, I would have stayed there forever. But alas, Sarasota is going to be an awesome place to spend the winter so I'm happy about that. We will work on a more permanent solution for Montana summers.

Here are some photos of the highlights of our trip including the road trip along the way.