Here's another place I haven't visited in a while, the nature trail on Big Pine Key, off Key Deer Boulevard.
It's a large expanse of not too much, scrubby pines and rustling palm fronds, home to a gravel trail and a lot of informative signs:
It's named for the first warden of Key Deer, the man responsible for saving them from hunting and extinction:
Rusty could smella few things going on away from the trail.
It is a pleasant walk lacking only shade on a July afternoon.
He is very patient o leash and doesn't tug or struggle with me. He could easily chew through it in seconds if he felt like it.
A few years ago a controlled burn got out of control and burned more than a hundred acres, which is a lot around here and you can still see evidence of it:
For the most part the vegetation has recovered even though there many dead pine trees as a reminder of that bizarre week of burning:
The old mosquito control, a fish trench populated with fish that eat mosquito larvae:
Key Deer Boulevard. A couple of miles down there is Big Pine's supermarket and traffic light.
5 comments:
OMG I can't even imagine how hot that must have been... (It's going to be about 100F up here today.) That said, I went to the Blue Hole last time I was down there; saw some cute alligators.
I never see the gators. They hate me.
Well, and you have a dog with you. :)
That’s so funny. I read your blog today and wondered if rusty ever encountered an alligator. Guess my question has already been answered. Beautiful pictures.
The funny thing about people and dogs is how worried people get about their dogs being eaten by gators. Rusty isn’t a lap dog and he is my early warning system. He senses things long before my obliviousness and I rely on him to notice hazards long before I could smell them. I grant you throwing a five thousand dollars French bulldog down the trail to sniff out alligators probably would not work but Rusty lived on the edge of the Everglades avoiding homicidal farmers and desperate bigger dogs and all the Everglades wildlife. He’s a better survivor than an I. And he was free too!
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