Timing is everything!
And this week I was lucky three times. It started with this Banded Jawfish. I found him near the end of my dive at Blue Heron Bridge and realized he had a mouth full of eggs (jawfish are mouth brooders). Exercising more patience than is typical for me I waited him out and he rewarded me by spitting out the eggs to aerate them. He did this once or twice, paused, repeated and so on. I watched him for 10 minutes or so. This is only the second time I have actually witnessed this behavior. Truly amazing!
My second bit of timing this week involved this Pine Woods Littersnake (Rhadinaea flavilata). I picked up a flower pot and put it in my wheelbarrow to repot the plant. I went back to clean up the area around where the pot had stood. I discovered this little guy sitting right in the middle of where the pot had sat. When I went back with the newly potted plant he was gone. Endemic to the US, this snake is mildly venomous, but not hazardous to humans.
Spinner Shark (Carcharhinus brevipinna)
My third bit of good timing occurred on Saturday at Fort Pierce Inlet State Park. The Spinner Sharks were active once again and this time I was quick enough to snap a picture of one mid-leap. They get their name from the way they feed. “When feeding on schools of forage fish, they speed vertically through the school while spinning on their axis, erupting from the water at the end.” (Wikipedia)
“Urassaus Dragon”
In 2005 Carl and I went to see “Wicked” on Broadway with our friends Ginny and Rob Moe. There was a dragon in the play and when I saw it I said to Ginny, my quilting buddy, “that needs to be a quilt”. Shortly afterwards I started this quilt. I created the dragons, then dawdled over what to do with them. I finally finished piecing the top sometime around 2019. But, I did not feel that my quilting skills were up to the challenge. Then I monkeyed around with the backing finally finishing that several months ago. After waiting for my black batting finally, last week, I got around to finishing the quilt. 20 years in the making, but I think it was worth the wait.
A few more images from this week around the ‘hood (The project quilting challenge themw was “of another era”):
