What We Need Is Here

To the Bat House, Riley!

_{Ben, Mary, Joe, and squirmy Riley waiting for the bat show} 

We have picnicked twice at the UF Bat House during the last month, and I plan to do it again soon. What a show! And the weather is just perfect for picnics right now. We brought along a laundry basket full of cheese, tomatoes, bread, oranges, strawberries, and fancy lemonade, and our table on the lakeside was front row seating. 

The bats emerge slowly at first, right at dusk - 10 or 15 at first, which seems like a lot of bats. Then they start really streaming out, a swirl of gray against the blue sky as they zig and zag after mosquitoes. A hawk waiting for the bats to emerge held 4-year old Riley's attention as much as the sixty thousand (really, 60,000!) bats did. 

While we waited for the bats, we enjoyed people-watching. Lots of families, students, and international folks enjoying the student gardens and beautiful Lake Alice.  As the sun sank, their attention was drawn to the bat house, and when the bats began emerging, everyone applauded. Quite a show.

You can see a video of the nightly flight of the bats here. But if you're in town, you really should go see for yourself. 

Get Out the Map

I'm gonna clear my head; I'm gonna drink the sun

the saddest sight my eyes can see

is that big ball of orange sinking slowly down the trees

sitting in a broken circle while you rest upon my knee

this perfect moment will soon be leaving me...

Indigo Girls: "Get Out the Map"

John was truly inspired when he suggested we ride out on the Hawthorne Trail this morning to see what we could see. February really is my favorite month I think. Year after year I'm amazed by the sunny, blue skies, cool-ish days, the fly-through of robins and sandhill cranes. There's still cold and rain, but, oh, these days seem about perfect to me, how ever many February has to offer us. 

We can pick up the Hawthorne Rail Trail less than a mile from our house - on Depot Road, just south of the GRU Kelley Plant. It's paved all the way and winds through the old, industrial part of town (where the train used to come through) to beautiful Boulware Springs and beyond. We got off our bikes at La Chua trail and walked the mile and a half footpath alongside hundreds of alligators sunning themselves. Our walk was accompanied by the thrumming of leopard frogs so loud at times that we thought it might be the echo of a helicopter flying in the distance. Accompanying that background noise was the warbling of sandhill cranes overhead (such a sweet sound to North Floridians) as they gather to head back north - and the occasional squeak of baby alligators. It's another world out there just a few miles from downtown. 

We get so caught up in all the goings-on in our house, home, and immediate downtown neighborhood, we sometimes forget to wonder at the natural beauty just down the street. Although it's not exactly fasting, we're going to make appreciating some of the hiking and biking trails right outside our door part of our Lenten "discipline."  

Those of you who know us personally, know that my son Ben finished up cancer treatment a couple years ago. This week we had one of those scares post-cancer families and loved ones go through every once in a while. Ben had had some troubling symptoms over the last week or so, and his oncologists felt concerned enough to test him for relapse and some other lesser but still serious issues. Everything came up negative! He rode his bike to the beach this morning in celebration (75 miles, yes). So our happiness and wonder is tied up in that as well. Beautiful. Beautiful.

Batiful!

Yesterday evening, around 7:30, I was weeding the garden, got tired, and lay down on a path on my back for a minute.  The sky was still clear blue from the lack of humidity, with a few low "cotton-candy" clouds glowing pink and gold from the setting sun. It was so peaceful to be gazing up at the big sky, back against the earth. Suddenly I saw one, then two, then three, then a dozen bats fluttering, swooping and chirping overhead. They looked like they were dancing against that beautiful sky. I was struck by the contrast of this scene to the general idea we have of bats as menacing creatures of the night - rats with wings (oh joy). These looked playful and kind of lovely and, for me, welcome little visitors whose "dancing" is partially due to the fact that they're chasing down mosquitoes.

I'm quite sure they're residents of the University of Florida's famous bat house a few miles down the road. I have visited this amazing site several times at dusk to watch the thousands of bats emerge and swarm like giant bees before dissipating to make their rounds around the city. It's a great place to visit if you live nearby. Or just stop what you're doing and be still around 7:30. Look up.