Mornings With Dog -- Spanish Moss

Before I get into my travels with the dog, I have to say that I committed the sin this morning of thinking to myself that I hadn't seen a giant roach in about a week.  This thought spiraled out of control and soon I was sure that giant roaches had been eradicated from my home, possibly even from my entire town.  Oh happy day!

Then I opened the dishwasher.  Yes, a roach was inside the dishwasher (which was admittedly full of dirty dishes, since someone forgot to run it last night).  Oh horrified day.

By the way, Floridians, you can call it a "palmetto bug" all you want, but it's still a giant freaking cockroach.

All right, so today Chester and I decided to share something else that is ubiquitous in Florida:  Spanish moss.

This stuff is everywhere.  It especially loves to grow on oak trees.

It spreads when wind blows fragments into other trees, or when birds carry it.  Spanish moss doesn't have roots, but neither is it a parasite -- it collects water and nutrients through its own scales, not from the tree, plant, or power line that it is growing on.

Your science lesson of the day, brought to you by Wikipedia and the University of Florida.

Our jack o'lanterns did not fare well in this weather.  Back in Baltimore, the pumpkins could last all the way into December without rotting, although they did often attract ants.  But these guys didn't make it beyond a week before they started to age and collapse.  I found it strangely compelling to watch.  Dan did not.

The pumpkins are gone from the front patio, but their legacies (and gooey stains) live on!

Mornings With Dog, Chapter One

And now for a new segment I shall call, "Mornings With Dog."  "Segment" suggests that this is something I will be writing on a regular basis, but we all know that it's more likely I will write one or possibly two and then drop it.  Kind of like my NaNoWriMo attempt this year, in which I passed 11,000 words the first weekend, and haven't written one word since.

But anyway, now that the time has changed and it's not completely dark at 7 am anymore, I'm trying to renew my habit of taking Chester D. Dog for a morning walk.  He appreciates it, and it is good for me to wake up and get my blood moving.  Mornings are also a nice opportunity to wear long sleeves or even a jacket, and feel like there's a coolness to the air, without having to deal with my nose going numb or my ears hurting from the cold.  Florida's nice like that!

I thought on some morning walks I would take a picture or pictures around my neighborhood to show everyone how nice it is here, or if at some point it becomes nasty, how nasty it is.

So without further ado,

This morning the sun was out and I wore a fleece jacket for our walk.  The temperature was right around 60 degrees but going up.  This morning Chester and I found real, live (dying) fall-colored leaves.

Real yellows and reds among the browns, right here in central Florida.  Makes a Marylander feel a little more at home.