Travels with Dakota and Zoe (and their spirit dog, Phaedra)

Phaedra and Zoe here: coming to you from Sanibel

We are almost ready to go home and it seems like we just got here! How did that happen? This year has been really exciting for us. We arrived here in the middle of December and wouldn’t you know it, the first thing Mama and Papa did (after they set up the RV) was go out to a party. Bah Humbug! We started out with the same old, same old pattern as all the winters that we’ve been coming to Sanibel. It might help us lots if y’all would send emails to Papa and Mama telling them that they should take us everywhere they go except to work. What do you think?

I had my birthday on December 28. I am 13 years old, now. I

had the best birthday ever. Zoe, Papa, and Mama took me to Zebra which has Yogurt Cones for dogs! Who knew yogurt tasted so good! We all sang Happy Birthday to me! Strangers loved seeing us.

We've had some wild times - like a tornado warning twice in one week, wind that made Papa so mad he took down the wind chimes and tried to throw them away. (Don't worry about that, though, we showed Mama where he had put them and she rescued them.) Then there was the heat. It was just as hot as Chapel Hill in the summer with just as much humidity. Zoe is so lucky because she has short straight fur, but my beautiful tresses curled up like birthday ribbons you buy at the store. Every time I went outside I thought I’d suffocate because of the dense air. This didn’t seem to bother Papa and Mama much, though. They don’t have to wear fur coats all the time, either.

And, oh, the rain! There was so much rain that our RV almost floated away. We didn’t see sun for about 10 days. Sometimes, the rain on the roof was so loud that we couldn’t hear ourselves think. But, we didn’t leak! That’s always a good thing. Normally, we have a large grassy field between our Maintenance Building and the tennis courts of the Sanibel Recreation Center. Somehow or other it turned into a huge lake WITH 50 or 60 white birds there every day for a week. It was so funny to see Blue Wing Teals floating across the grass field and Ibis standing on the top of the tennis court fencing.

All that rain had a bad outcome, though. Normally, Sanibel is a place where we "kick back" and smell the seaweed. (Oops, we meant the flowers!) This year we’ve been smelling something more that flowers and seaweed, unfortunately. The wild weather that we’ve had here wasn’t just here on Sanibel. Did you know that winter is the dry season down here? Well somebody didn’t get the message! North and inland from us there is a really big lake, Lake Okeechobee, which stores extra water. It used to flow into the Everglades and into meandering rivers like the Caloosahatchee which empties right into Pine Island Sound. That is where Sanibel is located. Somehow people thought they knew more than nature and did something that caused what Mama calls “unintended consequences”. I don’t exactly know what that means except what “they” thought was a “good thing” turned out to not be so good.

Water is very strong. It has ways to get into things like houses when it’s not supposed to. That’s another story, though. At Lake O, if engineers didn’t release water from the lake, the water would overflow and flood people’s homes. So, down the river came 3.6 billion gallons of water each day for a while. This water ran through sugar fields and picked up fertilizer and pollutants as it flowed straight to the Sound. Bad things happened, then. But, since we are fur-kids we don’t really know what happened. We do know that the water turned brown, plants and fish died, people coughed and coughed when they breathed the air near the water, and brown water went in the gulf and bay. We weren’t allowed near the beach because Mama and Papa thought we would eat the dead fish. Humph! Well, maybe we would.

All that being said, it has been a wonderfully busy time with visitors from the north. (You know, of course, almost anywhere in the US is north of where we are, right?)

First of all, our Parker and Anne came down. They went biking and walking on the beach before the Red Tide came. All of them - minus Zoe and me, of course - went to Cape Coral to see Burrowing Owls and Monk Parakeets. They walked on Six Mile Cypress Slough. Parker became a really great photographer, too. Before we knew it, they had to go back home.

All of our friends from last year are back. Jimmy, the King Charles lives next door again. I really like him. Even Zoe talks to him this year. We miss Ginger who isn’t here anymore. She was a really great dog - except for the time she walked right into my house and climbed up on my sofa. That wasn’t cool at all.

Anne and Dave came down with kayaks and cameras. They’re our kind of people, too. That Anne is the only person besides Papa and Mama who will hold my water dish up for me. I couldn’t believe it when she did it. I never thought anyone besides my folks would ever do that. We like them! Papa couldn’t kayak with them. He fell and hurt his shoulder before New Years’ Day and can’t do anything like that right now. He’s really bummed, but he’s getting on with living! He also taught Anne and Dave about Geocaching.

Vicki and Tom came over for a couple of days, too. They’re from
Chapel Hill as well. They were amazed at all the birds and probably got overwhelmed at the enthusiasm of our parents. They were really nice and couldn’t believe where we live. Not quite as big as their home, but they don’t have bobcats in the back yard! Papa enjoyed having them here for his birthday, too.

Great White Pelican

Our friends, Jim and Sally, brought other friends over to Sanibel because we had two REALLY SPECIAL birds show up here. A Great White Pelican from Eastern Europe, Africa, India, and Asia showed up one day at the Ding. Imagine that! She isn’t an escapee from a zoo or anywhere else, so somehow she flew here from Africa because of the strong storms probably. I don’t think we’ll ever know because she left after being here for four days.

Great White Heron

There was also another really cool and unusual bird on the island at the same time. It is the Great White Heron - related to the Great Blue Heron. I imagine you are so excited you can’t stand it. Zoe and I feel that way - NOT! Mama and Papa do though.

We are much more beautiful than any silly old bird. At least these birds don’t get to sleep between Mama and Papa like we do. HA!

You might think, "Oh, that's just another Great Blue Heron, only white." Well, that's not right. This one is a subspecies, but if you look closely, they are the same except for the color. Of course, that is except for the great big fish this blue guy is eating!

Bonfire on the beach

Carol and John kicking back

Private Screening of Star Wars


Superbowl 2016

I'm not sure I impressed upon you all how much time we spend at home while Papa and Mama party. You know how they say a picture is worth a thousand words? Well, here are thousands of words about that.