Merry Christmas To All!!

I just liked this picture of the snowy egret sitting on the pool fence with the flowers in front and the palm trees in back!


Well, it is the day after Christmas but what the heck! This will probably be the last of my vacation postings as we leave on Saturday early so will probably spend most of Friday getting packed up. It usually takes less time to leave vacation than to leave home.

We had a very quiet Christmas although were quite surprised when our lovely Innkeepers Sylvia and Ken left us two Christmas treats outside our door -- a 1 lb box of Belgian chocolate truffles and a can of English shortbread cookies all beautifully wrapped! We always feel like guests here instead of renters as this couple does everything to make you feel at home. What a find this place has been!

I did finally get to see at least one dolphin swimming in the canal just feet away from me. I have continued my four mile walks in the morning but there are so many more people out there now, it isn't anywhere near as nice. The beach down the way was literally packed today but the weather is of course perfect for the beach and even the Gulf is still in the low 70's so swimming is great! I continue to be amazed by the changing beach. Last week the detritus was piled a foot deep in places -- shells, sea urchins, sand dollars and all sorts of yucky stuff. It is literally all gone now!! No more big shells but again I am finding the small shells which had disappeared for awhile.


This is a not so great picture taken from across the canal of several ibis (only two are in this cropped version). They were very dark -- much darker than the brown and white ones I saw at Sanibel. I don't know whether they are very young new ibis or what as ibis are either pure white or scarlet and these were obviously neither although they were definitely ibis. Well, thanks to Google and Wikipedia, I now know they are glossy ibis!! Very exciting as I hadn't seen these before although I guess they are common on the east coast of Florida. The brown and white ones I saw at Sanibel were immature white ibis as I suspected.



This was also taken from quite a distance and is a kingfisher also fishing for dinner I suppose. He has been there several times on that railing.


On Christmas the birds finally had a pool party and these were two of the four bathers -- a snowy egret and a great egret. There were also another great egret and a small blue heron all taking turns going down the steps and taking a drink and a bath.


This was the little blue heron at the pool.

This is a picture up pretty close of the snowy egret which is the smaller of the egrets.


This is another nine patch and snowball quilt that is finished except for borders. It will be a "comfort quilt" to be given to VA probably by quilt club. It was a challenge as the snowballs were 6 inches and the nine patches were 6 1/2 inches -- an oops in my original cutting. I didn't know I had made the mistake until I had sewn all the snowball blocks and I refused to take them apart!! Hopefully the quilting will take care of any remaining problems. There are a lot of seams that don't meet up in this one!!