Thursday, December 3, 2009

sweeping the small stuff




After sweeping the remaining pieces of glass from the bike lane early this afternoon, during which task cooling scattered drops of rain fell and then stopped, then wrapping the pointy chunks in a Circle K napkin abandoned in the grass; and then sweeping up more berries from the Kcc entry/exitway (they resemble much softer blackberries but lack sugar and have a woody taste--plus, they fall from trees), a walk to the west island was commenced over the Evans Crary Jr Bridge.

Ick! Feces on the southside bridge walkway again; St. Lucie Boulevard has also been tolerating some such droppings on the sidewalk, bigger than insects' routinely observable in the vicinity of the constantly mowed and trimmed condo complexes. A dead fish about a foot long floated in water between Sewall's Point and the island, but there was little competition to grab it. Two police cars were reconnoitering the island parklands, while a white 'king cab' truck was parked in the lot--followed by a virtual parade of such trucks, differing only in manufacturer, motoring westward on the Crary Bridge during the return walk to Kcc (one such truck shown during previous night's Palm Beach TV journalism, with behest that the public call-in sightings to contribute to an incident report). The parked truck left after the police drove away as if following them, then returned, and then left again as if following a firetruck that rolled past on the bridge with siren sounding (about 4:17 p. m.).

Berries were duly dumped near a mangrove patch and voila! a small hermit crab arrived while I was making notes from the 2/13/2009 issue of the Stuart News (which tells us that Barton Jewelers in Stuart, FL, had to give away 150 silver necklaces, not 100 as originally planned). Tossing more berries near the inch-and-a-half univalve covering, a video was made as the creature began scrambling around in the sand, fully covered except for the tips of the legs slightly extended beyond rim of the white whorl. The crab was avoidant near a fisherman flipping hook and bait not far from the berry drop; fish had been jumping out from the water all around until the guy came rolling onto the island in a small SUV and dashed to the shoreline with his fishing rig. Another man had been throwing a net into the water as if it was a crocheted frisbee.

Cameraphone photos were made of the small, dried but perfect form of an immobile frog lying on the northside walkway of the Crary Bridge; and of the cement chunks embedded in an uprooted small tree along the south shoreline of the west island beneath the Lyons Bridge.

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