Life in the Everglades this past month has been dealing with record cold; crops have been lost effecting farmers and migrant workers (also watch for rising food costs) and water levels are dropping quickly (read not enough rain). But still life goes on...

 Christmas is still fun without the real cold and snow (although I do miss the white fluffy stuff) and the New Year, 2011, is looking bright ... Following are more of the events of the last couple of months.
 
Baby Too (read Honda) now has nearly 2000 fun Kilometres on the odometer with visits to the Florida Keys, Flamingo and numerous trips to town for shopping and the library. Also picked up a new helmet (skid lid) that has a built in sun visor (a great design feature for sunny places).

 After a great deal of negotiating, I finally procured a used Impex Assateague, christened Erik Too, in reasonable shape that meets all my future requirements. It is almost eighteen feet long with three hatches, a skeg, a larger cockpit for easy entry, a comfortable seat and more stability in rougher waters. It also came with a built-in compass and a paddle. Erik, my kayak
learning P&H Icefloe craft, will hopefully become a prized vehicle for some expert kayaker. Christening will occur in the new year once the ordered hatches arrive (they were stolen from the previous owner's side yard).

 I have also infiltrated the US Department of the Interior as a spy for the past couple of weeks . My new volunteer career is exterminating the many exotic species (mainly plant based) invading the Everglades National Park, such as Brazilian Pepper, Lather Leaf vine and Pythons. The two Burmese Pythons caughso far were eight and ten feet long – mean, strong killing machines with no natural enemies. This work requires a great deal of hiking through the brush with machete in hand – hopefully I can learn moabout the Everglades while exterminating the bad guys (although the native Nicker Bean plant is hard to move through or around and the Poison Ivy and Poison Tree make my skin itch). My long term goal is to obtain National Park chain-saw training in preparation for rebuilding hiking and canoeing trails after an inevitable future hurricane.

Went canoeing for a day with Bridget Ryan and two of her friends over in Everglade City. Even with a map and GPS we managed to get lost in the mangroves a couple of times. But it was still a great day floating around in the Ten Thousand Island portion of the Everglades.

Christmas was Glade Hut based with Turkey and all the trimmings with Cindy and her kids. New Year was spent camping in the Big Cypress with old camping friends. Bogie, Cindy and I are still taking many walks in the Pinelands – Bogie only follows us when he smells a Panther (still unseen to date). As you will notice from the associated pictures, snake viewing over the past couple months has been spectacular; I have also seen a couple of Pygmy Rattlesnakes but was without a camera.

I hope you all have a great 2011 and I will report on new adventures sometime in January or February.