Blue for Green

Okay, so I’m trading a house at the beach for one in the country. My first thought was, “How does that work?” What will replace the constant background murmur of surf tumbling to spill itself on the beach, the slushy rumble of collapsing waves? In place of the blue and white outside my windows now what will greet my good morning eyes in this new home twenty-one miles south and marginally inland?

Oak Hill, on the Atlantic and southern edge of Volusia County is home to barely 1,800 souls. An early sixteenth-century map shows it as the site of an Indian village called Surruque el Viejo. Before the long-running Seminole Wars starting in 1814, northern timber cutters arrived and named their camp Oak Hill. The name stuck but the timber cutters were eventually driven off by the Seminole. At one time commercial fishermen and citrus growers found the area promising but these days most residents of the town commute either north or south for work.

My current knowledge of the area is slim, but it doesn’t take a whole lot of study to see that Oak Hill’s biggest draw nowadays is fishing. Looking for a grocery store, or God forbid a bookstore, Starbuck’s or McDonald’s is a waste of time in a town no more than a blink along the side of US 1. On my first visit there I spotted the local library, a quaint little building along an oak-shaded lane, but it didn’t require a look inside to tell me that it likely houses fewer books than my at-home library. But there is a hardware store and a weekend flea market, along with a Dollar General and the Country Kitchen Family Restaurant. Among the scatter of bait shops and fish camps is another restaurant named Goodrich’s Seafood & Oyster House. This one has a good reputation and attracts diners from areas outside of Oak Hill. Uncertain if it is still the case, but at one time the restaurant was owned and operated by Larry Csonka, a well-known ex-fullback for the Miami Dolphins football team.

The thing is, I am not exactly moving to the Oak Hill described above. Leave all the excitement behind, head south for another seven miles and at the bottom edge of the county make a left onto a dirt road leading off into nowhere. Somewhere down that road is another left turn and another dirt road leading to Indian River Lagoon. A few hundred feet shy of the lagoon is the place I will soon be calling home sweet home.

Azalea Bloom!

I am privileged to offer a guest post from a very good friend, one who has given me hours of delightful and stimulating company. Knowing that Kathleen writes, I threw out a hint wondering if she might want to scribble up something I could share with readers here. Not too much later I got this engaging story about the joys of life in two small Florida towns.

Hi! My name is Kathleen and B has graciously asked me to write a guest post here on Scriblets. My husband and I also share B’s love of the seashore, especially the small seaside town of New Smyrna Beach. We are not full-time residents, however. We split our retirement between New Smyrna and DeLand. It’s only about thirty-eight miles—a mere forty minute ride between—but the two towns are worlds apart.

DeLand is a lovely, historic, Main Street USA town—home to Stetson University, the Athens Theatre, the Museum of Florida Art, as well as Skydive DeLand, one of the world’s leading skydive centers located at our municipal airport. During WWII, the Navy built the property as a naval airbase, later turning it over to the city. DeLand is also the county seat of Volusia County, Florida with an estimated population in excess of 25,000.

After an exhaustive twenty-year search for just the right spot, we came across this little piece of heaven which we have fondly named Southern Oaks, honoring the hundreds of magnificent Live and Laurel oak trees that adorn the acreage. We have never regretted our move and are still enjoying every inch of it. Right now, Southern Oaks, as well as the entire town of DeLand, is experiencing one of its most beautiful seasons—Azalea bloom! While the ocean and all its majesty is difficult to compete with, Azalea bloom is one of God’s most dramatic exhibitions. It’s brief and magnificent and a must-see.

Azaleas are cold-hardy flowering shrubs rarely found along coastal areas. They especially love shade from oak trees and are not tolerant of salt air or salty well water. They create a dazzling display of springtime color here at Southern Oaks and are one of our main reasons for being in DeLand this week.

Southern Oaks is a 2.5 acre work in progress. There are vegetable and herb gardens to tend; a plentiful array of citrus trees; a small vineyard and a large assortment of flowering shrubs and roses—not to mention a variety of out-buildings constantly demanding with their needs and our wants. It requires a significant amount of planning and energy and real hands-on work to keep it up, but we truly love every minute (well almost every minute). However, aging joints, a dwindling supply of vitality and basic get-up-and-go tend to slow us down more quickly than they once did. It’s then that we close up the house, set the timers to auto, and head to our cozy beach retreat.

And it’s exactly that—a retreat. It’s a sanctuary, a place of beauty, a safe harbor in a busy world, our refuge where we can go to renew ourselves and our well of vitality and energy. We spend our days watching the pelicans swoop and play atop the waves and plan our walks according to tidal whims. There is a timelessness that envelops us and a relaxation that truly soothes aching muscles and calms scattered thoughts. We are truly blessed with the best of both worlds!

Dreaming of the Sargasso Sea

This will not be my first mention of the sea turtles that nest along Florida’s east coast, especially along the stretch of beach just under my nose. When I left home at 8:00 this morning for my usual walk on the beach, the sea turtles were not really on my mind, and a surprising encounter with biologists, nests and eggs was far from my thoughts.

There is a blue-roofed beachhouse a mile and a half south of me, and for almost two months it has been my ‘turn-around’ marker. As I approached that spot this morning I noticed a jeep stopped there, and three people very carefully digging in the sand. I realized right off that it was a team from the Volusia County turtle watch, and that they had just come upon a new deposit of turtle eggs buried by a female turtle during the night. I quickened my pace, eager to catch as much of the event as possible.

I got to the nest maybe five minutes before the two graduate students and their senior located the cache of about ninety eggs. For the next thirty minutes I watched (and took pictures) of the gradual uncovering of the eggs. They were digging the eggs up this time because the mother had chosen a bad location, too close to the surf, and in an area of known raccoons, a natural predator. What was especially interesting about these Loggerhead eggs was the size, and the number of fused eggs. Normal turtle eggs look very much like a ping pong ball, but the eggs this time were in many cases extra large. Not only that, but a good many of the eggs were fused together. This in itself is not all that unusual I learned, but it is more commonly just two eggs. There were three and four eggs fused together in this nest.

The scientists were working as fast as possible (uncovering progresses in a manner much like that on an archeological dig—slowly) because exposure to the air, light and temperature is detrimental to the eggs. They had a site already selected for re-burying the eggs a moderate distance south along the beach. Better conditions all around.

Turtle nesting season runs from early May through late October. As of this week sixty-four nests have been logged and roped off. According to the figures from the Fish & Wildlife Agency, the 2009 nest total along Florida beaches was 52,374 for Loggerhead turtles, a number 40% below the 1998 total. Temperature is very important for the hatching of eggs. Ocean temperatures influence mating, as well as when the female comes ashore to deposit the eggs. Temperatures within the nest are relevant to determining the sex of the hatchlings. Warmth at the top of the nest results in females; cooler temperatures near the bottom produce males. Beaches in Volusia County are vital because the white sand is slightly cooler than the sand farther south.

As for predators, the newly hatched turtles run a gauntlet for survival, racing against the sea birds, raccoons, crabs, and once in the water, against fish and sharks. From a nest of 100 eggs only a handful will survive. Those babies who make it through all the hungry obstacles swim straight out to the Sargasso Sea, where they eat and grow for a year or longer. This is a region of the western Atlantic between the Azores and the Caribbean, so called for the abundance of Sargasso seaweed, its deep blue color and exceptional clarity. Blue heaven for newly hatched sea turtles.