Sunday in Sarasota

The “South” begins somewhere at mid-Florida—at least judging from the Spanish moss, that lacy, graceful gray-green stuff hanging from limbs and trunks of trees. Not a parasite like mistletoe but grows in minute deposits of dirt in tree bark. Nature walks with Biologist bros-in-law are best;  they know such stuff.

Best of all was a jaunt out to a weir--"a low dam built across a river to raise the level of water upstream or regulate its flow." The latter, one could see. A sign said --see below--but the rounded the flat top was an open invite. and most tourists did. I thought, “Damn, that thing was built before me!”

 The tenacious black snake, “Or salamander?” I said, protruding from a crack in the weir, refused to be intimidated by the tourists who almost trod him, stood his ground—ah, section of cement—undaunted. “A snake,” said the Biologist, for lack of eyelids and lashes.

“A crack in it!” I said, retreating to safer ground.

 At a distance herds of elegant, white egrets greater, lesser and cattle communed. Turkey vultures,a contentious race, jabbed, gabbled, and harassed one another. Gators lazed like logs in the water, waiting for a bird, fish, dog, or tourist misstep. One show-off fish lost his life before we left.

 At the parking lot of the baseball diamond where we had stashed the party's cars, sand cranes wearing little maroon baseball caps gave the Baltimore Orioles farm team their backsides intent on more interesting tidbits. In an afternoon chock with them.