Animal Farm

That there is a petting zoo at the Monroe County Sheriff's headquarters, underneath the Jail, causes most people to express surprise.The Sheriff's Office Animal Farm on Stock Island is open the second and fourth Sunday afternoons of the month. Last Sunday was the first time I had managed to visit the place and I came away realizing I need to go back and spend more time (and drop off a donation) there. My wife and I strayed from our appointment in town at the last minute and our visit was short and rushed. The County Jail is built on stilts eleven feet tall and a portion of the ground floor is devoted to parking. The other part is devoted to the animals at this US Department of Agriculture approved facility.The place was started in 1994 to get ducks and chickens off the Golf Course across College Road, where traffic was wiping out the birds. Then apparently the SPCA in Miami found an abandoned horse, blind and starving to death in a pitiable state. Sheriff Rick Roth got the inmates to build a pen and Ghost came to Stock Island, where she is doing much better, thriving you might say.

From there things proceeded to get comfortably out of hand. They call it a Farm but it's more of an exotic zoo with animals you may be familiar with and some you probably haven't ever seen before (Patagonian Cavey anyone?). I asked Farm Supervisor Jeanne Selander, the only paid employee at the facility, how she knows what all these animals need. "The Internet," she replied. For every field of human endeavor there is an expert somewhere and the Web has made research that much easier. Luckily for these animals.Prisoners do the daily maintenance at the facility and on visiting days show off their charges to the visitors. A ferret. And it wasn't just the kids that were fascinated. I got to pet the ferret too.I touched my first alligator while I was there. Thanks to Buffalo Bill I ate my first alligator last year (it doesn't taste like chicken) and this Sunday I got to feel the mighty pulse and the powerful claws of this tyke.

The female trustee who was offering this alligator to the visitors said he needs his piece of electrical tape as he has a habit of biting when released. Further along the jail inmates have built a magnificent aviary, large enough to allow the noisy parrots to spread their wings.

This is Fat Albert, a tortoise who wanders at will round the farm.

And eats green shoots apparently.He is not alone as there were a couple of other similar armored animals in a fenced off area.Unlike most zoos the Farm gets it's inmates from abusive homes or from people who can't cope with their animals anymore. There is this fashion for collecting and keeping exotic animals and when they get out of hand they get dumped. Sometimes deputies investigating a crime come across animals that need a safe place to live. As a result the collection of abandoned and abused animals becomes bewilderingly exotic. There is a pond in back of the farm and when I lived in the marina across the street I used to see the porkers wallowing in the water and sleeping under the palm trees in the shade. This alligator was either aggressive or curious but he came out of the water and followed me along the fence as I struggled to get a decent picture of him/her. S/he had back up lurking among the lilies.

American crocodiles supposedly have a narrower snout, live in salt water and are reputed to be quite shy. Alligators are far more populous and live in fresh water. As far as I know there are only two in the wild in the Lower Keys, both at the Blue Hole, a disused quarry, on Big Pine Key.An alligator's lunch:

It is not a bad life at the farm.

The mouse cage seemed a bit crowded.

And here we have three Patagonian Cavies, which I have read make excellent eating. They look as though they had thought about becoming kangaroos and gave up half way. Large snakes are becoming a problem in South Florida when people give up on their exotic pets and set them loose in the Everglades where they have no predators and eat the locals.There's Fat Albert in the background trying to make a break for it.A llama.

A peahen. The peacock wasn't in the mood for photography and I was being shushed out of the farm as it was closing time.

One last pet and it was time to go.

How could anyone abuse an animal like this?

Deputy Emil, a local institution, and Farmer Jeanne patiently posing for one more picture.Another porker, Angel, said to be shy. Ghost still munching away. The photograph of her when she arrived is on display and is quite horrid, with every bone visible..Ms Selander practically had to kick people out by force, such is the draw of the Farm, and I was as guilty as the rest.I left Cheyenne at home for our trip into town, it's still way too hot for her to spend time in the car with the air conditioning off. After seeing the animals at the farm I was glad to get home and watch her sleep.

I still don't know how that military family from Louisiana could have dumped her at the SPCA.The more I see people, the more I like dogs.

The Palms Of North Roosevelt

Stopped at the triangle by a traffic light I realized the palm trees lining the main road into Key West will soon be -horrors!-torn down. And -double horrors!!- might not be replaced with more coconut palms after the street is rebuilt. The city has announced that in order to save money looking after these high maintenance trees they may be replaced them with less expensive palms after the Boulevard (the informal name given to North Roosevelt Boulevard) is re-built. However the public outcry is putting that idea on hold at the moment. These palms are the trees planted around the Marriott Beachside Hotel which sits at the Triangle (as the entrance to the city of Key West is known).They seem to be flourishing quite nicely.

How did this cyclist get here in an essay about the palms of the Boulevard? That's because the Boulevard is lined on it's north shore not only by palm trees but also by a wide, spacious sidewalk/bike path.The road is five lanes wide, including a center turn lane that few motorists know how to use properly so perhaps it might give way to a center median with turn lanes to not confuse the poor dears navigating their cages. The coconut palm in Key west is an odd tree. It's not a native plant around here but it has become by default the symbol of tropical vacations world wide. Images of luxurious rest are enhanced by a picture of an artful palm draped over a sandy beach with turquoise water filling the background. On those grounds alone the predictable groundswell of opposition to change has arisen across the city. The fear is that tourists will turn away in droves if North Roosevelt were to be lined with anything other than non native coconut palms. No other palm will do. Indeed no other tree will do, and so loud has the clamor grown the city is backpedaling to avoid charges of tree fascism and worse. You still won't be allowed to park vehicles longer than 20 feet (6.5 meters if you're from Quebec) on city streets.The city in it's defense claimed the coconut palms are expensive to maintain as they produce tons of fronds, as I know myself thanks to my dozen mature coconut trees at home. They also produce nuts that fall and hurt people and damage things and become missiles in hurricanes. My mailbox looks like it is in a war zone as I can't cut down the coconuts fast enough. So you might say I, a non city resident, am sympathetic to the city's plight.However rational thinking is nowhere to be seen. Making the argument that the city spends money unnecessarily to maintain these trees is a point of view that carries no water for the "anti-government-waste" nutters who have done an about face and now insist the city government waste money maintaining a fresh crop of coconuts after the street is rebuilt.
The bike path went through the same rectal probe of indignation when it was a crumbling cement path and the complaints about the potholes were incessant enough to fill a novel. I used to hate cycling the assault course that was the old bike path as it crumbled underneath my tires.Finally the city spent hundreds of thousands paving the path and told citizens it was a temporary measure until North Roosevelt was completely rebuilt by the State of Florida, a project finally due to get underway next year and last two years. Then the complaints came in that the path was black and going to absorb heat and be too hot for people to ride comfortably... Date palms like those shown above are unacceptable. Royal palms were also mooted as were native thatch palms. Indeed there are 2600 species of palm trees in existence but the demand is for cocos nucifera. Of course North Roosevelt is pretty ugly so the argument in favor of keeping at least one side of the road looking pretty isn't completely lost on me.
However the passionate voices in support of the palm trees aren't quite so loud when it comes to some decent landscaping on the business side of the Boulevard which is, to put it politely, a mess for the most part.

There are some exceptions. I am quite fond of the gumbo limbos flourishing in front of the Home Depot Parking lot.

Even motorcycles are enhanced by the presence of palm fronds. In the background the old Key West Diner remains empty awaiting a new tenant, behind it's carefully landscaped sidewalk.The Salt Run Bridge is just a brief interruption to the march of the palm trees toward First Street and Truman Avenue.

I parked my Bonneville under these spindly trees planted in the Walgreens lot. Low maintenance trees apparently preferred by the profit driven business class.
Not good enough we are told for a city managing a budget. Ah, irony, where is thy sting?