Monday, December 1, 2008

basic pad-form palm

o 'Monster homes' newly built along the St. Lucie River between SE Ocean Boulevard and Old St. Lucie Road are causing ground slump, with some sinking and cracking of their new neighbors' driveways such that the owners of the older more genteel buildings are offering those for sale. It's a wonder whether the slump and sinking might eventually invite a rush of river water over the riverbanks towards the roadway, as another future possible catastrophe.

o The sounds of masses of insects chirping in south Florida during the warm winter months have been imitated with the manufacture of metal 'jingle bells' (not to cause a panic or pest-control over-reaction).

o One type of tree here in the Kingswood condo complex drops two-foot 'twigs' from the main tree branches that produce clusters of berries along those stem lengths. When the stems lay on the ground awhile, they flatten as they dry out such that the stem can be ascertained to be the inspiration for guitar-necks, with dried-berry frets.

o After dumping smashed and intact berries into the slough that soaks a ditchlike river 'pocket' beneath St. Lucie Boulevard, swept from entry roadway and front sidewalk of the condo complex yesterday, TV journalism tells us today that a dead man has surfaced from a canal in a different region of FL. The first time I did this two years ago, a human leg surfaced from a PA river -- the fish are just that interested in a berry tasty treat.

o A broken green Heineken bottle was swept from the crosswalk near the intersection of SE Ocean Boulevard and St. Lucie Boulevard, also near the bridge entrance spanning the river itself -- one of two such bottles abandoned in the immediate area, the other carefully placed near a piece of fabric lying beneath shrubbery during at least two past years now, near Monterey Commons Boulevard (which is really and more appropriately a 'Place').

o Finally, a walk to the new United States Post Office on Johnson Street near Florida Street intersection is easily made from 10th Street (unless a wooden, sometimes watersogged boardwalk collapses into an always water-filled ditch, as two signs warn), where a large flock of crows exerted presence near Florida and Bayou Streets; there is also a canal with wading birds searching for food.

More bizarrely, a small yellow plastic 'hand' was observed alongside the road and near railroad tracks at the intersection of Florida Street with Dixie Highway (as different from Dixie Avenue, also nearby, off 10th Street -- 'scuse me, Dixie Lane as mapped) as if [also] carefully placed, and a mental flashback was made to a shrew removal encounter near St. Luke's Hospital in San Francisco, CA, at the Stanyan Street entrance to Golden Gate Park; the shrew was dead and lying in the street on the downslope, and as the small carcass was being removed a classic Chowchillan coasted his vehicle to witness the action, whereupon a small handlike paw was necessarily left on the asphalt so the carrier could avoid being hit. (The hospital does have a psychiatric ward.)

Need I mention a common small Leopard Frog torn with white flesh exposed in the middle of Kingswood Terrace Road?

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