It has been glorious weather lately, sunny days around 80 degrees, blue skies and a light cooling breeze.
Considering how grim the weather has been Up North we have been very fortunate to have a big block of high pressure overhead keeping cold air out of South Florida. I read of snow in Dallas and frost in Florida's panhandle and I know I couldn't take it.
What I can take is Cheyenne down to our favorite coastal walk on south Big Pine Key. It's busier this time of year when people from the nearby campground stroll up and down beach combing, unlike summer when I have the place entirely to myself. Even forced to share this spot with a few visitors isn't at all bad.
The campers clean up assiduously, trimming foliage and trying to get the invasive Brazilian peppers under control. Known locally as Florida holly for their green leaves and red berries:
Low tide brings a wider foreshore to walk but there is almost no sand to speak of, just rocks and dried seaweed.
The past week or more the weather has been lovely, almost summer like with flat waters, big puffy white clouds, and over it all a slightly cool breeze, enough to ruffle a newspaper but not enough to blow the laundry off the line. I have taken the liner out of my mesh riding jacket and I've been thinking about fishing my lightweight summer riding gloves out of the closet it's been that warm.The weather has induced a meditative state in me, a detachment that has surprised me a bit.
The weather forecasters tell us a block of high pressure is keeping the cold northern air out of South Florida and the Bahamas and we get to have an early summer when the rest of the country is literally freezing. 
The beauty of this is that owing to the frequency of winter cold fronts this time of year, one appreciates and doubly so this prolonged spell of warm weather with afternoons above 80 degrees and nights well above 70.
There is a little bit of irony here, there always is in my life it seems. This also happens to be the week when I am off work and in the classroom during the day. My usual afternoons off are replaced by precious hours of sunlight sitting in a classroom learning to be a better medical dispatcher. It's useful stuff no doubt, but I'd rather be working during darkness and getting up at lunch time in my normal fashion to be home with my dog and loose in the wilderness enjoying the patterns of sunlight on the gumbo limbo trees and their peculiar red bark.
The Bonneville will be parked in the sunlight and Cheyenne will be home alone for eight hours every day for three days. Our lives will be turned upside down! And the sun will continue to shine without me. I will ride past the Bahia Honda bridge on my way to Marathon in the morning and on my way back in the evening. My commute will be turned upside down. I am a creature of habit... 
When we were out walking the beach we met more than one person which is a sign of winter as the campground on Long Beach road is full of people and this is also "their" nature trail. In summer we can enjoy it almost always alone, Cheyenne and I.
We are deeply in love my Labrador and I. After fifteen months together Cheyenne is getting very used to her new freedoms of middle age. She stays home alone, free to come and go as she pleases and for the most part my wife or myself are there with her. When we aren't there she manages fine moving between the lounge chair on the porch, her bad and the couch. When I am home she enjoys being as close to me as possible. I find it hard to refuse her.
I met a woman walking the beach and in my efforts to be polite to strangers we fell to talking. She said she thought I was a visitor but it turns out we live on neighboring islands more or less and we fell to talking about places we knew in the back country.
She was candid enough to describe herself as witch and when that didn't phase me I had to point out that twenty years in a California University town gets you past worrying about labels, and even though I would not claim to be a Wiccan anymore than I would claim to be a Mormon I am not particularly opposed to the worship of nature. I don't label nature very much either unlike the conservancy people. 
It turns out there is more than one group (coven) of Wiccans in the Keys, who knew, and we chatted about how it is easier to be off the mainstream here than on mainland Florida. My wife encountered surprising anti-Semitism in Fort Myers where she started her teaching career. That despite the fact that she describes herself as a cultural Jew, not a particularly religious member of the Chosen People. Every time I think we are past being afraid of each other I find people busy labeling each other in ways that make no sense to me. 
I was quite surprised the Wiccan spoke up to me about herself as openly as she did but it made for a fascinating conversation about her family's roots in this religious practice (if that is how you can describe it). Mind you she described herself as very open about it so she was clearly used to talking about her beliefs. So often my attempts to be engage strangers in my polite new way leads down a dead end of really boring small talk, usually about the weather , always a popular topic in the Keys, that I have been thinking about giving up the new me. However, even though the weather has in fact been delightful, I also got some thought provoking conversation. 
Her thesis was that Wiccans are all about love and respect and her beliefs take the judgment out of being judgmental, or at least she tries to. My response was that sometimes people are just to evil, if not simply irritating such that it is impossible not to be judgmental about them. She laughed at me. I suppose I deserved it. We met some campers and they strolled by with a brief greeting and keep marching along. I'm not sure which one of us worried them the most though I'd like to think my pink Crocs played their usual role.
The day was still splendid and I'd had a decent conversation, and my wife had planned a bang up Chinese dinner at home. 
What more could a man and his dog ask for?
A breather on the trail to catch one's breath and count one's blessings. Wiccan or otherwise.
Considering how grim the weather has been Up North we have been very fortunate to have a big block of high pressure overhead keeping cold air out of South Florida. I read of snow in Dallas and frost in Florida's panhandle and I know I couldn't take it.What I can take is Cheyenne down to our favorite coastal walk on south Big Pine Key. It's busier this time of year when people from the nearby campground stroll up and down beach combing, unlike summer when I have the place entirely to myself. Even forced to share this spot with a few visitors isn't at all bad.The campers clean up assiduously, trimming foliage and trying to get the invasive Brazilian peppers under control. Known locally as Florida holly for their green leaves and red berries:
Low tide brings a wider foreshore to walk but there is almost no sand to speak of, just rocks and dried seaweed.
The past week or more the weather has been lovely, almost summer like with flat waters, big puffy white clouds, and over it all a slightly cool breeze, enough to ruffle a newspaper but not enough to blow the laundry off the line. I have taken the liner out of my mesh riding jacket and I've been thinking about fishing my lightweight summer riding gloves out of the closet it's been that warm.The weather has induced a meditative state in me, a detachment that has surprised me a bit.The weather forecasters tell us a block of high pressure is keeping the cold northern air out of South Florida and the Bahamas and we get to have an early summer when the rest of the country is literally freezing. 
The beauty of this is that owing to the frequency of winter cold fronts this time of year, one appreciates and doubly so this prolonged spell of warm weather with afternoons above 80 degrees and nights well above 70.
There is a little bit of irony here, there always is in my life it seems. This also happens to be the week when I am off work and in the classroom during the day. My usual afternoons off are replaced by precious hours of sunlight sitting in a classroom learning to be a better medical dispatcher. It's useful stuff no doubt, but I'd rather be working during darkness and getting up at lunch time in my normal fashion to be home with my dog and loose in the wilderness enjoying the patterns of sunlight on the gumbo limbo trees and their peculiar red bark.
The Bonneville will be parked in the sunlight and Cheyenne will be home alone for eight hours every day for three days. Our lives will be turned upside down! And the sun will continue to shine without me. I will ride past the Bahia Honda bridge on my way to Marathon in the morning and on my way back in the evening. My commute will be turned upside down. I am a creature of habit... When we were out walking the beach we met more than one person which is a sign of winter as the campground on Long Beach road is full of people and this is also "their" nature trail. In summer we can enjoy it almost always alone, Cheyenne and I.We are deeply in love my Labrador and I. After fifteen months together Cheyenne is getting very used to her new freedoms of middle age. She stays home alone, free to come and go as she pleases and for the most part my wife or myself are there with her. When we aren't there she manages fine moving between the lounge chair on the porch, her bad and the couch. When I am home she enjoys being as close to me as possible. I find it hard to refuse her.
I met a woman walking the beach and in my efforts to be polite to strangers we fell to talking. She said she thought I was a visitor but it turns out we live on neighboring islands more or less and we fell to talking about places we knew in the back country.
She was candid enough to describe herself as witch and when that didn't phase me I had to point out that twenty years in a California University town gets you past worrying about labels, and even though I would not claim to be a Wiccan anymore than I would claim to be a Mormon I am not particularly opposed to the worship of nature. I don't label nature very much either unlike the conservancy people. 
It turns out there is more than one group (coven) of Wiccans in the Keys, who knew, and we chatted about how it is easier to be off the mainstream here than on mainland Florida. My wife encountered surprising anti-Semitism in Fort Myers where she started her teaching career. That despite the fact that she describes herself as a cultural Jew, not a particularly religious member of the Chosen People. Every time I think we are past being afraid of each other I find people busy labeling each other in ways that make no sense to me. I was quite surprised the Wiccan spoke up to me about herself as openly as she did but it made for a fascinating conversation about her family's roots in this religious practice (if that is how you can describe it). Mind you she described herself as very open about it so she was clearly used to talking about her beliefs. So often my attempts to be engage strangers in my polite new way leads down a dead end of really boring small talk, usually about the weather , always a popular topic in the Keys, that I have been thinking about giving up the new me. However, even though the weather has in fact been delightful, I also got some thought provoking conversation. Her thesis was that Wiccans are all about love and respect and her beliefs take the judgment out of being judgmental, or at least she tries to. My response was that sometimes people are just to evil, if not simply irritating such that it is impossible not to be judgmental about them. She laughed at me. I suppose I deserved it. We met some campers and they strolled by with a brief greeting and keep marching along. I'm not sure which one of us worried them the most though I'd like to think my pink Crocs played their usual role.The day was still splendid and I'd had a decent conversation, and my wife had planned a bang up Chinese dinner at home. 
What more could a man and his dog ask for?A breather on the trail to catch one's breath and count one's blessings. Wiccan or otherwise.
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