Charlotte, and the Search for Turtles

Charlotte

There are many different kinds of creatures here in Florida that are new to me.  I get to meet many of them on the balcony outside my front door, and my favorite so far, from the class Arachnida, is this spider who my friend later named Charlotte.  I first met Charlotte when I was going out for my morning run a few months ago.  When I started to leave the apartment I was stopped in my tracks as Charlotte had built this fantastic web in front of my door.  As a general rule, I don't disturb the arthropoda I come in contact with unless they are disturbing me, and only then if they have found their way into my home (mosquitoes are the exception to this rule, they usually get little to no compassion from me anywhere I find them; it is matter of survival).  So a grabbed one corner of her web and swung it around until it did not cover the walkway.  By the time I came back from running, she had gathered up her damaged web, and was no where to be seen.  The next morning, she had build another web, in the same area, and although the web did make it difficult to pass, it did not prevent me from opening my door as the one from the previous day.  Again, I moved the web so that my neighbor and I would not accidentally get a face-full of Charlotte (at 2 1/2 inches across, she was pretty hard to miss, but a distracted person can overlook the most striking of objects surrounding them).  By the time I came back the second morning, Charlotte had again cleaned up her damaged web and was out of sight for the rest of the day.  The third morning, Charlotte had build another web, just as fantastic as the others, but this time, she built it at an angle that gave plenty of room to pass by without one disturbing the other.  This pattern went on every night and morning for the next three or so weeks; Charlotte always building her web at just the right angle, and always cleaning up before my neighbor came out to go to work, so as far as I know, their paths never crossed.  I miss Charlotte and her fantastic webs.

The Search for Turtles

I often feel a need to commune with nature and in the past I fulfilled that need by heading into the mountains on foot or getting on my bike and riding out on the country roads.  As some of you may know, Florida has no mountains to speak of and my bike did not make it out here with me, so it has been one of my challenges out here to find another way.  There is a turtle reserve a few miles from my house, so I got up early one morning several weeks ago to go exploring.  These are not the sea turtles that can be found right on the coast, but of the gopher variety that live underground.  Sadly, I did not see a single turtle or tortoise or even one of their burrows, but I did see these flowers and ferns and wasps.  I suspect that most of them probably fit neatly into the category of "weed" or "pest", but I don't know any better, and I think they are lovely.  I hope you enjoy them too.

Pretty great, right?  I plan to go out in search of the turtles again this week (if it ever stops raining) and hopefully I will find the right places to look, but if not, I'm sure I can find something else interesting to look at.