Tarzan and Jane

palms and the forest in our back yard

I'm looking for Tarzan. Have you seen him?

our back yard as seen through the porch screen

There he is! Oh wait, no. That guy's wearing white athletic socks with black crocs. And shorts. (Where's the loin cloth?) That's not Tarzan!

debris from Hurricane Irma

Although we haven't got the carnage in our yard that some people do from Hurricane Irma, Beloved went outside right after breakfast to pick up what had fallen out of the trees onto our lawn.

my "Tarzan"

It's a jungle out there. No, really. I'm not kidding. As a matter of fact, not too awfully far from here is the real jungle where Johnny Weissmuller filmed Tarzan! Years ago, Beloved's brother took us there on his bass boat. There are monkeys, too! Check it out: the Ocala National Forest. This area behind our house looks a lot like that. Only I haven't seen any monkeys.

wearing my boots from Walmart

I decided I wanted in on the fun, so  I donned long jeans with socks and boots. ... I wanted to be fully protected from whatever's living out there.

the swampy bog -- see the water just beyond the palm leaves

Which turned out to be a good idea (wearing jeans and boots) because once I stepped out of our grassy lawn and onto the forest floor, it felt very spongy, like it's made up of a huge accumulation of branches, leaves, pine needles.  I picked my way through carefully, on the lookout for slithery things, if you know what I mean.

We've been in our house for about 2 1/2 months but this was the first time either of us ventured out into the forest. It's not a place for pedestrian traffic. 

the back of our house, as seen from the forest

Many years ago when we lived in Seattle, our house backed up to a much larger forest. We forbid our young children to go back there because even with adults, it was all to easy to get lost if you ventured out of sight of the house. This forest isn't nearly that big, but like I said, there are creatures out there and swamp land.

modeling the boots

Beloved said I'm the Jane to his Tarzan... yeah, well, love is blind. We had fun with it.

We brought the fallen branches and twigs out into the forest, tucking them behind larger trees so the view from the houses would not suffer. It's nature in it's natural state, so to speak, but I don't want it to look untidy as I eat dinner on my back porch.

our front door - the welcome sign is not for reptiles

Back to the unsavory subject of slithery creatures, both Karen and Carla have recently told me true stories of how snakes like to lay along the base of a door, which of course, scares the beejeemies out of anybody who opens the door. Cousin Marsha told us an equally terrible story about a friend's wife who was bit by a snake laying at the base of an outside step.

Now I'm not packing my bags to return to Colorado...

..... but I have taken to bumping the toe of my flip flops against the base of the front door several times in quick succession whenever I want to check the mailbox.  I'm hoping the noise will serve as advance warning to critters that their slumber is about to be disturbed and maybe they will slither away.

fountain at the turtle pond

Our adventure in the jungle was brief but that's okay. This Tarzan and Jane aren't real outdoorsy in this climate. Our favorite reptiles are the turtles behind the fence in the neighborhood pond. 

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