Leaving Miami Beach

Our month in Miami Beach is over and today the 3 of us are driving across Florida to the Gulf side. With apologies to you in the north who are getting hit with snow and cold, the weather has been wonderful ---- sunny and warm most of the time, with welcome breezes off the ocean. The area turned out to be way more interesting and engaging than I had thought. Besides the beaches and historic districts, there have been cultural and recreational events weekly. We have discovered offroad walking trails and impressive homes and gardens. The stereotype of oldsters rocking on the porch has been replaced by the new reality of hipsters rocking on the beach strip.

There ARE drawbacks. Feral cats roam the roads. The total lack of residential recycling drives us crazy when we have to put paper, cans and bottles in the garbage. Beyond our street every parking spot for miles has to be paid for and timed. The novelty of satellite TV (new to us country folks) wears off when 800 of the 1,000 channels is To Be Announced, Pay Per View, or Shopping. Fruit and vegetables are relatively poor/expensive, considering they grow here --- the good stuff is shipped up north! And no clothes line to air-dry the laundry.

But those are small frames in the big picture. We might be back in the future because we have seen thousands of economical vacation rentals that are NOT online. In fact, we have had to resist buying a condo in this temptingly low-priced Foreclosure Capital of the USA. The climate suits us and the Hispanic flavour is appetizing. For me, it's a dream place to drive with all the traffic lights synced to let us truly cruise on by, smooth as Barbie's pink T-Bird. Here are some last images from our daze in Miami Beach...

Tune in the Cat Network: Is Your Cat On the Map??

Miami Beach has had a cat problem for decades, from back when tourists would leave their cats behind to fend for themselves. It's warm, right? People will feed them, right? Right, and too right. There are now an estimated 3,000 feral cats here, fed by well-meaning mostly older people. And using the fine-sand beaches as an industrial-size litter box. But many of these cats are full of hookworms, which are transferred from their poop to humans walking in the sand. And you know kids outside put anything in their mouths! 6 cases of hookworm in humans have been reported since October.

A local group called the Cat Network (not a Discovery TV Channel!) is trying to overcome the situation. They trap and neuter and vaccinate about 50 at a time. They try to discourage feeding and breeding in the outdoors. But even if you're no good at math, it's clear that the cats can multiply faster than the Cat Network can subtract. Help!

So another initiative is the Cat Poop Map (see orange dots on aerial view). Locals can check a website to see where cat poop is thickest on the beaches. Wear shoes, lay a blanket down first, or just go somewhere else!

Oasis in the City

Note: Here's another contribution from Guest Blogger Pat:

One of the things that stands out in Miami Beach is the number of parks or areas designated as open spaces. The Lincoln Road Mall is neither but should rank high on anyone's list as an urban oasis. An earlier blog highlighted the commerical and aesthetic look of this 11 block pedestrian street, the only permanent pedestrian street in Miami Beach.

Down the centre of Lincoln Mall is a botanical garden which provides a natural canopy for outdoor restaurants and on Sunday mornings a backdrop to the weekly Farmer & Antique Markets. You don't have to be a gardener to enjoy this walk but if you ARE, pick up a copy of the self guided Lincoln Road Botanical Walking Tour. Prepared by members of the Miami Beach Garden Conservancy (same group as blog on MB Botanical Garden) it tells you the names and origins of all trees and shrubs and more....e.g. Fishtail Palm is poisonous, Gumbo Limbo is edible. 80 varieties from 7 regions of the world! Thickest canopy cover is Royal Poinciana, most distinctive fruit is African Sausage Tree! Etc. etc.

Kudos to the MB Garden Conservancy and an inspiration to all garden groups to do the same in their community!

It's Still Wild In the Air, On Land, and in the Water!

Not much fun in writing that last blog, a downer on the future of the Everglades. But winter here is the best month to see birds, gators, and other creatures in the Park. We saw plenty. To cheer us all up, here are some of the wild things awaiting you. (Hint: probably not a good idea to go swimming...)

Never Say nEverglades

Humans used to be encircled by nature,

Now nature is encircled by humans....

Yesterday (see Blog Jan. 28) we were at the north end of the severly damaged south Florida ecosystem, at Lake Okeechobee. Today we drove to the far south end, at Flamingo in the Everglades National Park. "Bittersweet" is too weak a word for the experience. Approaching the Park you pass through more hundreds of square miles of farm fields. Not sugar cane this time but tomatoes, corn, cucumbers, papaya, beans and watermelon. We northeners will gladly be buying them in a couple of months back home. But just as with sugar cane, these massive fields all survive on water pumped from the shallow flow that had fed the Everglades for many thousands of years. Only the fractional amount still engineered into the glades keeps it from drying up and disappearing forever.

The Everglades is not in-your-face like Niagara Falls, or the Grand Canyon, or the Canadian Rockies. You must actually think about what you're seeing in front of you ---- a river of grass, a shallow sheet of water that has supported animals and native peoples for longer than recorded history. An inch higher elevation, or an inch more of water, changes the ecosystem dramatically. The area has survived hurricanes, windswept fires, drought, floods, and invasive species. The question today is whether it can survive the onslaught and demands of more and more people.

It is shocking that the current "restoration and recovery" plan on display includes building dozens of motel-like accomodation buildings --- and all the permanent infrastructure that goes with that. What next, a landing strip for private jets and a Starbucks?

This was the last major daytrip in our January in Miami Beach, and had the most impact. The Everglades are unique, amazingly diverse in plants and animals (separate blog), and on life support ---- still there, but the plug is slowly being pulled. Staggering beauty or more despair?

Lake Okeechobee Gets a B-

Lake Okeechobee ("Big Water" in native Seminole language) is that large blue circle in the middle of the map of Florida, and the 5th largest lake totally within the U.S. I've always been curious about it, thinking it was like Lake St. Clair or Lake Simcoe back home --- they're all about the same surface area, and roundish. So we drove the 2 hours up to see it and walk part of the Florida Trail around it. Instead, we got a lesson on local agriculture and water management.

Lake O has been the headwaters of the Florida Everglades since the ocean receded a billion years ago. But hundreds of square miles around it have been drained, scraped clear of plants and animals, and planted in ---- sugar cane!! A crop that can be had much cheaper from nearby Cuba (Canada's main sugar source), but that would mean dealing with that wicked Fidel Castro!

The lake is now severly "managed" by a mammoth earthen dike all around the 100-mile circumference. A deep moat is in place inside the dike, which creates a 15 foot deep water circle to draw on to irrigate crops. That leaves the lake itself with between 1 and 12 feet of water, mostly grown over with plants that sprout in dry season when the original lake bed is almost empty. There have been attempts to reduce the cane fields but to no avail politically. If you have Domino sugar or Karo syrup in your home (U.S. only), it probably came from here. The crop grows year-round in ancient black silt.

One benefit of the "management" is the abundance of birds nesting and feeding within sight of the wide recreational trail. But don't expect swimmers, boaters, or even water views. I give Lake OkeechoB itself a B-.