Sailing Club, with their annual clean-up. I was on the landscaping
team on Saturday and helped 'weed.' In Miami, weeding requires a
machete because plants down here grow out of control. There were
tropical vines, crab grass, palm fronds, rotting coconuts filled with
giant red ants' nests, and plenty of purple oyster plants. As Alyn
Pruett, the Club's Vice Commodore and fellow St. Louis native said,
the challenge in Miami is not growing plants, but growing the 'right'
plants.
It has been sunny and above 80 degrees here this week, which makes it
hard to remember that it is December. This also makes for tons of
plant and animal life during the winter. On one trip in from the boat
to the dock, Adam and I saw a puffer fish, a baby barracuda, a small
stingray, a school of minnows and another larger fish I don't
recognize, fish that were disguised as seaweed leaves, a large iguana,
an egret, and a great blue heron, all within 5 minutes.
One evening last week, I noticed a pair of blue and yellow macaw
parrots squawking and flying northwards over the mooring field towards
a group of palm trees across from Dinner Key. The two of them have
continued this daily ritual almost like clockwork as the sun sets
around 5:45 PM, as if they were going home from work.