Here's a first for me, a post with a link, it's actually from a blog I read frequently in my web list from the Arctic Circle. She's a single mother living in Kotzebue in rural Alaska, a place about as appealing to me as the fire pits of Hell (my future address I'm sure), but which nevertheless I find fascinating for the very perverse reason that I'd rather swim with piranhas in the tropics than eat seal meat and watch snow falling in the Arctic. If you follow this blog you'll find that from time to time they eat foods that seem rather, um, robust for suburban America, and are never likely to show up in your local Piggly Wiggly. This below is a tiny suburb of Kotzebue accessible by plane or snowmobile ( or husky sled I'm sure), called Kivalina eking out an existence on a barrier island, not in Florida, but Alaska. The white stuff I am reliably informed is snow and frozen ocean:
The blog is mostly a record of the surprisingly mundane doings of ordinary family life in an extraordinary place but every now and again it breaks out and talks about the aspects of life that are truly odd about life so far north, in this instance a trip by bush plane to the outer villages for purposes not revealed in the story. It seems Kotzebue, a place that resembles Big Pine Key under a snowdrift, is actually the metropolis, and there are people still living in wood cabins the villages dotting the back country. One can hardly imagine it, because I am after all a little miffed that its been dropping to 60 degrees (15C) at night since time immemorial it seems like in the Keys; up there its minus something horrible with wind chill and horizontal snowflakes. In Alaska they take jaunts in small planes in snowstorms, and they do it with insouciance. Here's the link for a view into a living refrigerator:
http://tundratantrum.blogspot.com/
http://tundratantrum.blogspot.com/
Aside from the arctic barrier island I noticed modern homes built on stilts, not high enough to park under, so their vehicles, left outside, turn into wedding cakes in winter which makes me wonder how little they pay for their cars and snowmobiles if they leave them outdoors to freeze. Quite aside from the pain of defrosting them and getting into them and making them go when needed. I have read that the ground in Alaska is made of frozen dirt called permafrost and if you heat it up it melts and things on top of it like houses and roads sink into the mire, so I'm guessing that's why they have houses on stilts, and probably not because of hurricanes. However I'd rather face a hurricane than endless blowing snow quite frankly. I'm hoping it hits 80 degrees today (27C) because I'm tired of being cold, even at my modest level.
...or the extraordinary evidence of life lived comfortably outdoors:
I also rather liked this al fresco garage which made modest little Whitmarsh look quite like the haunted wood:
Actually the street was haunted when Mr Kitty escaped from this man's home. He found himself in the undignified position of grovelling on the floor in front of a complete stranger hunting for his escaped pussy:
All's well that end's well and Mr Kitty was recovered intact by a man who managed somehow to navigate is way safely home with cat in tow despite there being strong evidence that drink had been taken. Cat and man slipped through the gate and I was left to ponder the value of phone booths as home decorative motifs:
I found a more conventional decoration upstairs:
By now I was about half way and looking back the view towards Solares Hill looked like this:
While the outdoor lifestyle was spilling comfortably out onto the side of the lane:
It's hard to be definitive about this but Whitmarsh Lane seemed a very comfortable little neighborhood, and the funny thing for me is that I had hardly given it a second thought recently but a police officer one night called out a routine check of the street, so naturally that prompted me to think of stopping by with the camera. Courtney's Place it turns out is quite flash:
They have their own extended golf cart yellow "cab"and enough off street parking for a gaggle of Harleys. And a short hop from there brings one to Petronia Street:
I quite liked Whitmarsh Lane...
And just to put the cherry on top it has no street signs at either end:
And even though this has nothing to do with anything it might be worth noting that Summer Time starts tomorrow morning in the US, a month ahead of much of the rest of the world including Cuba. So if like me, you listen to Radio Reloj (950am) bear in mind the time checks will be out by one hour.
Imagine my surprise when I read in the newspaper that Sculpture Key West was up and running again at Fort Zachary Taylor. It seems like yesterday I was photographing sculptures at the fort. Well actually it was the day before yesterday and I was there to check out the 2009 crop of oddities. And quite odd some of them were too. Art as headache:
You can throw a pile of stuff on the ground and call it Ghost Siege and say it's Art, but to me it's more like the piles of junk I love to photograph in people's back yards. When it's an unfinished yard project it means something to me, it's an expression of the reality of daily life in a town that some people think of as an extension of Disneyland. 
There was a peculiar ramp that I didn't quite get either. Here it is in all it's three dimensional glory:
Sculpture Key West used to be a bit of a free-for-all but then the people in charge decided to make it a juried exhibit and there was, of course some grumbling about that. This year there seemed to be a few less exhibits than previously, but that could be just my impression or a function of the economy going down the toilet. This next one was provocative, a camper parked among the sacred pine trees of Fort Zachary- it is only as one approaches that one sees the little plaque indicating this is in fact an exhibit:
Which has quite a shocking effect when one peers through the door:
I think this one was called Comfort Zone or some such. All those papier mache hounds leaping around would be a shock to meet on the road (I noticed the trailer had a valid tag). Pity the poor officer making a traffic stop. Part of the pleasure of the art in the park as it used to known is the location, right on the waterfront looking west across the harbor, which gives a magnificent turquoise back drop to the exhibits:
In this next picture the pile is actually clean -up by the workers in the park:
This pile is actually an exhibit, a star shaped filled with cut branches and leaves that smelled rather pleasantly of cut grass:
Of course art can even take second place to fishing if you are that much of a philistine...
I measure my own art appreciation by the fact that at first I thought this was an exhibit:
The rake leaning up in debonair fashion was a hint that perhaps this wasn't an exhibit and I couldn't see a plaque anywhere so I'm pretty sure it was something other than an exhibit. I think. This next one certainly was an exhibit called The Stoop.
I thought this should be called Katrina Stoop with the house gone. Noel thought this was Dorothy's stoop after the tornado. Whatever. And with the flag up the mail box indicates outgoing mail. I'm sorry to say I forgot to check. Fences were a big theme this year:
Then there was the salt like house, made of dazzling white cow salt lick blocks in the form of a spiral:
With the obligatory annual self portrait:
This guy didn't seem overly impressed with the sign post exhibit:
Up close it was quite provocative:
And then there was the greenhouse made of suffocating plastic bags:
Lots of fun all round and one of the nice things about Fort Zach, a Florida State Park is that dogs on leash are allowed (not on the beach though):
And over it all the imperturbable brick walls of Fort Zachary Taylor secure behind their moat:
Any further south or west and your art would be in the water.
:The sun was starting to hit the horizon which gives the light a golden glow and perhaps that made the suburban street look prettier than usual:
And even though this isn't the world of narrow lanes and wooden tumbledown homes of Old Town it is pretty enough to pass muster in a world of bland mini malls.
I'm not overly fond of streets without sidewalks but there's lots of grassy edges to park on, or walk along if you are crazy enough to be on foot. Ride a moped, drive an electric car if you live in Key West:
According to J Wills Burke's book Streets of Key West there were two Von Phisters and either one could be the source of this slightly odd street name. The elder owned a grocery store where the Green Parrot Bar is today and his son was a magistrate in Key West in 1860. (J Wills Burke's book is available from your local independent books seller. Quote ISBN 1 56164 317 3). Nowadays Von Phister, which runs from Reynolds Street to George Street, shows off a whole bunch of architectural styles, the cute little Florida beach cottage:
The old Key West balcony:
And the mid century storm shutters that always look so appealing to me, be they ever so impractical:
I spotted more of these tin shutters with the red stripe on a house across the street, a home dominated by a giant casuarina, also known as an Australian pine:
I also noticed a lot of tin roofs in this neighborhood, which are a good thing in hurricane country but that doesn't mean you always see a lot of them:
Technically speaking, if you were to speak to a realtor they might call this part of the world "Mid Town" which was a newer designation for that part of key West that lies more or less between White Street and First Streets. Historically Old Town was the original area of Key West between White Street and the waterfront. Gradually as the city spread east, absorbing the open spaces where cattle had grazed, the newer suburban homes became known as New Town, rather unimaginatively. However, in order to differentiate between the far distant suburbs of First through 20th Streets and those named streets lying closer to White Street, the term "Mid Town" got coined, kind of. In a city that measures one's value by the length of time one has lived there, changes come slowly. Von Phister is New Town really and thus has lots of room for big houses:
It certainly isn't Old Town, but it has flowers:
...and Art:
...and some funky architectural motifs:
...and families:
But because this is New/Mid Town houses have room for the much desired OSP, off street parking:
And just a reminder that even though this is 24 degrees North Latitude we still have leafless trees in Key West:
I do like living in the Keys, you lot can keep your snow.