Love is in the air! Well, at least love bugs. So, it must be nearly summertime in Punta Gorda!
As my husband Saint Bob and I get ready to mark six years as full-time residents, I look back at our edification, or Florida education, of the things we now know to be part and parcel with the zip code.
I have become a scholar of many new things. I have a relationship with reptiles that never seemed necessary when I lived in Ohio. I celebrate “Python Hunting Season” and cheer them on! I am getting better with the creepy owls that walk around in the daytime and live in random holes in the ground. I respect the turtles that resemble large, gray ambling basketballs.
I have a better understanding of hurricane prep vs. hurricane panic. I mean, I’ve been schooled from Irma to Milton and lived to tell the story.
I realize that Floridians live in a bird paradise with an array of storks, herons, ducks, sea fowl, and raptors. ALL visit my backyard regularly.
I am receiving an education on amphibians, too. Not all frogs, toads, and snakes are our friends (shiver). I recite to myself our local mantra, “A fed gator is a dead gator.” I am learning what to do and where to search if my resident gator goes missing. I know instinctively that this is his mating season, and he is likely out and about “making whoopie.”
Don’t even get me started on the rodents and insects that never cease to increase and scare the crap out of me. Psychotic squirrels and Jurassic roaches are a constant concern. I know when our down spout is in our yard that indicates a coyote. If the yard is turned inside out, that’s wild pigs making a visit.
On a personal note, I now appreciate the difference between Florida cold and Ohio cold. The thermometer may get lower up north, but in Florida it feels like the weather spitefully betrayed you.
I’ve also learned a whole new way of driving. I was trained “old school” as a defensive driver. I have now morphed into a pessimistic driver. I mean, we live off Burnt Store Road where the driving scenes remind me of Dennis Hopper in “Water World,” just give it the gas and go!
At the end of the day….no, really at the end of the day, my blue skies with perfectly plumped clouds, stunning sunsets, and stars close enough to touch make me long to keep my roots in this ground.
My heart speaks prayers of gratitude that God sent us here, and it is good to give thanks, here on my lanai.
