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| "Two tulips": my photo, digital. |
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Click here for Dukes of Dixieland.
Dad loved Dixieland, he was a dancer and said it was happy music.
2GN2S
Happy Heavenly Birthday, Dad!
My Dad would be 117 today, he passed at age 86, 31 years ago. Over the years and 5117 days of doing this little blog, many people have said they liked the many Dad stories, so I will preface this story with the fact that my Dad grew up during the Great Depression. It hit him, his family & everybody he knew, hard. It scarred him for life. He was beyond frugal, way beyond. He and my mother were divorced when I was 5.
My mother remarried when I was 11, and we lived four year in Australia before that marriage failed and I came home to live with my Dad in Hollywood. My Dad rented a very tiny 500' cottage which was all he needed as a single man. It had 1 bedroom that he gave to me, and for three years as I attended high school, he slept on a pull-down Murphy bed in the living room. We shared the only closet in the bedroom. He never mentioned this arrangement and I never heard him complain. But now when I look back I see his sacrifice and caring, that I didn't at the time. Thanks Dad.
Burmese pythons have established new breeding grounds outside the Florida Everglades — and they’re spreading. Florida's long-running battle against invasive Burmese pythons has reached a critical turning point, as wildlife officials confirm that a new satellite breeding population has successfully established itself in western Charlotte County, north of Fort Myers and Naples.
Rather than migrating north from their long-time core territory in the Everglades, this new population likely originated from escaped or illegally released captive pets.
Known as some of the largest snakes in the world, these apex predators average six to nine feet long. with state records exceeding 18 feet. They pose a devastating threat to native ecosystems because they can consume prey weighing as much as their own bodies — and many weigh upwards of 130 pounds.
The ecological toll in the Everglades has already been staggering, with studies showing that established python populations have caused raccoon sightings to plunge by 99.3%, opossums by 98.9%, and bobcats by 87.5%, while native rabbits and foxes have virtually disappeared.
Despite aggressive state intervention—including the removal of over 27,000 pythons since 2000 and the annual Florida Python Challenge, which recently mobilized 907 hunters to remove 280 snakes in just ten days—complete eradication remains notoriously difficult due to the snakes' exceptional camouflage and secretive behaviors.
The discovery in Charlotte County serves as an urgent wake-up call, demonstrating how easily these highly adaptable predators can quietly colonize new territories before local authorities can intervene.
source: Greenwood, A. (2026, July 9). Maps Show Spread of Burmese Pythons as Hunting Challenge Begins. Newsweek.
Just because ...
He doesn't hunt. He waits for the dead. Then drops their bones from the sky. Meet the Bearded Vulture, nature’s bone collector. Unlike other raptors, this hauntingly beautiful bird doesn't care for flesh — it craves calcium. With crimson eyes, a mohawk of feathers, and a face dipped in blood-stained dust, the Bearded Vulture doesn't kill... it cleans up.
High in the mountains, when it finds a carcass, it lifts bones into the air, drops them onto rocks, and feasts on the shattered marrow within. No other bird dares such rituals. No other bird can.
In the silence of the Alps, Himalayas, and Ethiopian peaks — he soars. Not a hunter. Not a scavenger. But something far stranger.
A sky-borne undertaker with a taste for skeletons.
Friday's Smiles ...
and 1 extra ...
Hoping you see all the good things in your day.
4 comments:
So interesting about the pythons. I have a hunter friend from Texas that just moved to Naples, FL. I'm sure he'd have fun hunting python there!
I love hearing stories about your childhood. Happy heavenly birthday, Grandpa Glenn!
Thank you Cheryl, my Dad always loved you. I will leave the pythons to your hunter friend! ;o)
Jacki, thanks for your dad story. Isn't it interesting that we understand things much better at our age than we did when we were young? You see your dad's sacrifice and caring are thankful for it. Do you think he can feel that? That's something I sometimes wonder.
Thanks for your yesterday's answer to my comment and to Cheryl's comment. It was an interesting conversation about an unusual and difficult topic, wasn't it? Wonderful!
BTW I also take some zink every day.
Have a happy weekend.
Thank you, Elenor. Yes I think many of us are so focused on ourselves that we do miss the subtleties around us. I am so aware now of the kindness of others.
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