…come today, and stay awhile so the ducks can play. I mean that seriously. We live on a natural preserve, who’s water fluctuates with how much rain we have. Over the past 10 years we have less and less water which means less and less wildlife. The ducks, and egrets, coot hens, herons, storks, sandhill cranes and alligator do come back pretty quickly when we have a good down pour, and especially when we get a lot of rain from a hurricane. I think many of my friends are not so sure they would like having the preserve in their backyard and the reason I say that is they say you must get a lot of mosquitos, ( which we do not get at all), or I bet you have snakes in there, cotton mouths or water moccasins, and aren’t you afraid of the alligator. We occasionally get a snake and at one point had a black snake living in our pine tree outside our window. He would come out and wrap himself around the tree like Christmas lights and sun himself. He would disappear at the slightest noise or movement, so there was nothing to be afraid of. In case anyone is reading this and is afraid of snakes he is long gone, and I can’t tell you the last time I saw a snake. We have an eagle that comes around, and I can always tell when he is headed this way because the ducks leave an mass. We have large turtles and frogs of all sizes, an occasional coyote will appear looking for a meal, and a bobcat or Florida panther, not sure which as they both are very similar will dart by. Our resident alligator is not a real big one, I was told. A few days after we moved in the cable company came out to set up our cable service. The technician was a young native Floridian. He was in the backyard walking along staring down intently at the grass at the edge of the preserve, which was about 20′ from our patio. When he came in I said did you find the cable, as I thought that is what he was looking for. Oh no, I was following the alligator tracks. That really scared me to think an alligator would be that close. This young man proceeded to give me a lesson about alligators. He told me not to be afraid at all, that unless you feed them they will never leave the preserve. He said the amount of water we had would only support one alligator between 6′ to 8′ at the most. How true were his words. We have never had an alligator on our lawn, but we have had babies visit us. One came in the garage and one on the back patio. I believe they are made to leave and go find their own bit of water.

I love living on the preserve even thou my son has told me that in New Jersey they call it a swamp, and in Louisiana it is called a bayou. All I know is late in the evening to see the birds, ducks and other inhabitants fly off to their favorite roosting areas, there is nothing that is said better than that day is done. Rain, rain please come and stay.