What Next?

this great blue heron was
not happy and squawked 

This great blue heron found our beach a bit crowded and thought our swimming pool a better bet; however, he was very incensed when chased out and spent the next half hour making a fuss, preening, and displaying at our handy man, not to mention the squawking racket!

It's the rainy season, which also means it is hurricane season (as if mother nature pays attention to these matters).  We live in a  a humid subtropical climate with two basic seasons:

playing on the offshore sandbar

• a hot and wet season from May through October (high temperatures average about 90s °F (around 32 °C) and lows in the mid-70s °F (around 24 °C), accompanied by high humidity and an almost daily chance of thundershowers, especially in the afternoon which delivers 2/3 of the years average rainfall or about 28 inches, and 

• a mild and dry season from November through April.(highs during the coolest part of the winter average around 70 °F / 21 °C), usually with sunny skies.

A time to reflect:  Sonya Renee Taylor, poet and activist, recently gave a commencement address and posted on Instagram - here's an excerpt:

I feel like the bearer of news that sounds awful but actually is not. We will not go back to normal. Normal never was. Our pre-corona existence was not normal other than we normalized greed, inequity, exhaustion, depletion, extraction, disconnection, confusion, rage, hoarding, hate and lack. we should not long to return my friends. we are being given the opportunity to stitch a new garment. One that fits all of humanity and nature. 

Maybe the Dutch Donut model is a place to start?

enhances sunsets & dusts cars in red coating

Back to the weather:  Godzilla Cloud - aka The Saharan Air Layer, also known as Saharan Dust, is made of sand, dirt, and other dust that is lifted into the atmosphere - at about 5-15,000 feet, from the large North African desert. This dust is carried in the African Waves which push westward into the Atlantic Ocean and over to the Caribbean & Gulf of Mexico. Since one of the key ingredients for tropical cyclone development is a deep feed of moisture, Saharan Dust often acts to inhibit tropical storm development, typical in the month of June; this year the layer is "abnormally large" - largest in 50 years.

24 June - Heat Advisory (feels like >100 F/>38 C) In Effect For Tampa Bay Counties: hot weather causes extra stress on the body by elevating core body temperature, especially during exercise. Heat cramps, heat exhaustion, heatstroke and exercise associated collapse are all outcomes that may occur due to overheating. It 'felt like' 115 F/ 46 C on Saturday the 27th.

This means it is warm water season - no I am not referring to the pool or sea (now 91 F/ 33C), but to the tap water in the house - it comes out warm, not cool/cold during the summer months.

I guess heat doesn't kill the coronavirus as our daily headlines continue to read Florida Sees Staggering [Record] One-Day Spike In Coronavirus Cases

day after day! With this record we finally have a local [indoor] mandatory face mask ordinance from 5 pm on Wednesday June 24.

June 26 - Florida experienced its largest one-day coronavirus spike Friday with 8,942 new cases, as state officials suspended on-premises alcohol sales at bars (this should be interesting and I wonder if it will be enforced?).  The governors of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut imposed a two-week self-quarantine that took effect Thursday ((25th) on travelers from Florida and other states experiencing a surge.

seriously??? Wear a mask!!

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis "Really nothing has changed in the past week other than we had a big test dump," said at a press conference in Lee County. "Probably the most significant change we've seen is a radical change in the median age of people ... to the early 30s from the 60s." DeSantis repeated his statement that he has no plans to require Floridians to wear face coverings in public even as cities like Miami now require it.



Not sure about the handwritten commentary, but the typed reply to the graphic makes an interesting point. May we live in interesting times - what doesn't kill us makes us stronger???? Paraphrase of Job 23:10.

hazy dull day due to Godzilla 

By the way, here no special effects or beautiful sunsets due to the dust layer, just a dull haziness that blots out the sun a bit.  Apparently, the dust brings iron that falls into the Gulf and fertilizes the algae that bring red tide - oh joy!

For some deluded reason, I thought I could make a face mask with eye shield (do you like the model from my childhood??) and quilt a queen-sized article!

On a positive note, a graduate's family created a celebration on our beach and groups up and down the beach 'whooped' to cheer the grad on!  Very nice indeed.