kissalostsoul

You know, I’ve been living on the road solo for about six and a half years, and I have to admit that I’ve just about filled the closet and drawers with my clothes.  Couples that travel together have to share a closet and three drawers, but not me.  In a couple of weeks, Nurse Ratchet, aka my brother Kurt, will be arriving to help me through the surgery recovery process.  The other day I got to thinking that he’ll probably be bringing more than the clothes on his back with him since he’ll be here several weeks.  Hmm… what’s a girl to do?  You have to remember that I have clothes for all seasons, and a drawer full of just volunteer uniform items.  Doing laundry is a pain in the neck for me, so I’m comfortable with a two week supply of all needed clothing items.  (Well, maybe a little more than that)  I had a brain storm the other day, and this was my solution: When I first hit the road in a smaller rig, I had the passenger’s seat removed and p...

Since I last posted, there hasn’t been much that’s been exciting around here.  I roved on Sunday morning, and worked the VC in the afternoon.  We had a whopping six visitors for the day, sold nothing in the nature store, and closed up in record time.  I was able to get a few pictures during my roving time, so that’s what you’ll see tonight. It was cold enough in the morning that this pied-billed grebe didn’t have to worry about any alligators snacking on it in Alligator Pond. Yesterday morning, I attended a two hour refuge staff meeting that included welcoming a new staff member, Cindy, who will have her office in the VC.  Guess I’ll be seeing her often and getting to know her.  She likes birds, so I think we’ll get along just fine. Found my three sandhill crane friends again in the field around the secret pond.  My guess is this is a family of cheese heads (from Wisconsin).  Looks like the adults are on the outside of the pic with the youngs...

I had planned to head for Kingsland to do grocery shopping and some errands this morning, but thought better of it considering it was Saturday and one of my stops was Wal*Mart.  I really didn’t want to battle those weekend crowds so close to Christmas, so I decided to wait until Monday afternoon for those chores.  Instead, I just drove into Folkston to get some milk and bread to tide me over. Since I can no longer take Emma for a walk, we hopped into the car in the afternoon so she could at least experience the sights and smells of the Swamp Island Drive.  Since the sun had finally come out, mama gator was basking away as we drove by.  I didn’t see her little one, though. Not much wildlife was out and about at that time in the afternoon, but we did see an Eastern phoebe hawking insects from this branch.  Phoebes have the habit of almost constantly pumping their tails up and down when perched.  It took us an hour to do the eight mile loop, and we were soon b...

It was another morning of chilly temperatures, low cloud cover, and scattered fog.  I was assigned to rove for the morning, but encountered no visitors.  That was no surprise to me.  I put today’s hybrid refuge vehicle in drive and toddled along at about five miles per hour.  I had the window down, but the heat turned up as well. I found one of the huge fox squirrels hunkered down on the top of a burned tree stump in the middle of the pine trees and saw palmettos.  Can’t you just feel the cold wetness of this morning? All of the birds seemed to be fluffed up to keep themselves warm including this red-shouldered hawk.  The dark dingy conditions made taking pictures a bit of a challenge.  I was surprised this raptor sat still as long as it did. But eventually it got tired of me looking at it, and took flight.  At least it gave me a nice view of it’s red shoulders for w...

We’ve had some pretty miserable wet and dreary weather the last three days down here in the swamp.  I had two days off that were mostly spent inside, and today I divided my time between the VC and working a few very cold hours out at the Chesser Homestead.  We only had a total of six visitors today, and I was surprised there were that many considering the weather.                                       A few more photos tonight from my boat trip to Monkey Lake. As many of you know, I’ve been waiting for weeks to get a surgery date for getting my new hip.  Since I seemed to get a helpful person at the hospital last week, I was giving her a little time to arrange things.  Then, last night, my cell phone began to ring at 4:55.  I flew out of my chair (not exactly in my condition...

Today’s work assignment was to man the Chesser Homestead as a docent, and no, I don’t wear period clothing.  I wear my volunteer uniform.  This is the slow time for visitors on the refuge so I didn’t expect that anyone would be taking the trail to the homestead.  There was dense fog again this morning, so I just drove my own car out for the morning. A few little birds were bubbling through the live oak trees in the front yard as I sat rocking on the porch.  This blue-headed vireo (formerly solitary vireo) managed to find a little caterpillar while searching the branches.  Since there are also quite a few pine trees in the area, everything has pine needles hanging from it.  There was a bit of a breeze today, so looking out from the porch, leaves and needles were falling everywhere like a rain shower. I hadn’t packed a lunch to take along with me today since I forgot to take some lunchmeat out of the freezer last night.  Along about noon, I closed ...

I woke up to heavy fog once again this morning with the prospect of overcast skies all day.  Oh joy.  The morning weather really didn’t matter since I was working the VC inside, but my expectations were low for my afternoon of roving.  Mother Nature ignored the weather and provided me with some great discoveries. After lunch at the rig, I got in a refuge car to rove the Swamp Island Drive.  I kept my foot off of the gas pedal, and whizzed along the route at about 7 mph with the windows down and the windshield wipers on low.  There was an intermittent mist dripping from the skies.  Along the way, I went down one of the back roads to the ‘secret’ pond near the Chesser Homestead.  I usually find something of interest to look at, and today the resident alligator was out of the pond along the edge.  Since alligators are all over the Okefenokee swamp, I tried to get some slightly different views today.  The gator cooperated so I could get a...