Mid-afternoon, sun finally trying to break through.  Spent all morning on medical stuff inland, so it’s good to be back on the windy coast, anticipating a little color in things when these clouds move out. Gray is fine, but it is monotonous.

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About ten years ago I saw the biggest rattlesnake I’ve ever laid eyes on in all my years in Florida, just across the road on the path down the dune through the palmettos.  I couldn’t judge length because he was coiled, menacingly, I hasten to add, but he was big around as my arm, with a head nearly big as my fist. I beat a quiet but hasty retreat, of course, and didn’t go back down to the beach for a couple of days.  When I did go again I made a lot of noise, and for a year or so after.  We never saw him again, but the palmettos are pretty thick over there so he may have hung around a while.  I thought about it when I’ve made an effort to kind of clean things out over there, but that’s always been in winter, so I was pretty safe.

Though their number have diminished sharply in the time we’ve been here, or more accurately, our sightings of them have diminished, what he was after was the little brown dune mice that are indigenous to the dunes and scrub lands.  We used to see them on this side of the road, too, but not so much anymore.  Cats and snakes had something to say about that.  Besides the family of elegant black snakes, we’ve seen quite a few gray and orange rat snakes over the years, and a couple of kings.  One night after dinner I went out to the back deck and found a gray rat snake stuck between boards of the deck. He had tried to pass down but got wedged by the mouse you could clearly see in his gullet! I pried up enough of the board to free him and he carried his on-board dinner into the dark.

But due to a Papa oversight, the dune mouse population thought they had a reprieve at one point.  They found a tiny opening in the soffett I had failed to close and, for a few weeks one winter, we had a kind of hilarious (in retrospect) running battle with them.  They would wait until we were asleep, of course, and then they would start scampering about the attic.  That went on for a few days, and then I got a couple of small live traps.  We didn’t want to kill the little rascals, but deport them.  We tried cheese first as bait, but they didn’t fall for that.  Peanut butter did the trick. I would set the traps up in the attic before bed, and you could hear when the trap sprung.  Most were false alarms– the little dudes were pretty good– but I did catch three, I think.  I’d climb up the ladder and get the trap, then take the little guy out and drive up the road a-ways and let him go.  One night, though, one got down into the house.  We couldn’t get him the first night, but we set the trap up in the front bedroom the next night, and with Melba’s help–she chased him down the hall–we got him.  That’s about the time I found the method of entry and sealed it.  Haven’t been bothered since.

In another stretch it was raccoons.  Just to the west of where we are on Skinny Island is the Tomoka Basin, where the Tomoka River empties into the Intracoastal Waterway, which has a number of designations depending on where you are.  Near us it is called the Halifax River.  Anyway, the Tomoka Basin is a pretty wide area from island to mainland, dotted with small, uninhabited spoil islands.  We figured the raccoon visitors we used to have swam over from the spoil islands and found our lush little enclave.  They used to come calling frequently, which upset Cecil greatly, but he never gave an inch.  One night I heard a racket at the back screen door, and upon investigation saw Cecil in a defensive stance, and two gigantic Raccoons confronting him.  When I opened the door to chase them away, one of the bold rascals tried to barge in! I had to block him with my leg. Every few nights we’d see or hear them, and even Cecil got used to it, and let them slide.  Unfortunately, they frequently continued on to the beach, and over time quite a few were hit and killed on the road.  We don’t see them much anymore, or the opossums .  No place to run, no place to hide.

We lament the loss of the animals, but not the mega-plant on the dune, a non-native, invasive species that has steadily choked out the indigenous plants lo these many years. Not a Brazilian Pepper, the most prolific invader along the coast, it is something perhaps similar, a very salt-tolerant, touch plant with an elaborate root system enabling propagation in multiple places. To be honest, I have actually encouraged its growth by my several efforts to eradicate the thing.  Cutting it back, which I have done at least three times–to the ground–only stimulated its growth.  To compound the issue, on two occasions, while wielding my trusty machete, I have been harassed and accosted by well-meaning citizens, enraged that I was defacing the dune.  So, this time I determined to do it right.  I had a county environmental person certify that the plant was indeed an invasive species; I contacted county permitting, who told me I didn’t need a permit from them to eradicate the thing, but I might from state EPA.  I contacted them, and they said have at it.  The environmental guy said what I needed to do was cut it down as far as I could, and immediately paint some undiluted heavy-duty Round-up on the exposed cut.  He said it would act systemically on the plant, but wouldn’t harm the dune, or any other plants there. I recruited my son, who waded into the stuff with a chainsaw, while I followed with Round-up and paint brush.  We did it in December, and to date it looks like we killed the mother.  Spring will tell, but I’m ready.  Any sign of green and I’m out there with the chemical again. Of course, this time, with the EPA go-ahead email in my pocket, nobody even challenged me. Maybe it was the chainsaw.  Anyway, now we can see the ocean again.