Sarasota is a HOTBED of Birding Activity!

Sparky has been SUPER busy subbing....almost every day since school started back in August. She LOVES it! She gets to get dressed up, be silly, and read her favorite books when she does kindergarten. Her latest favorite book is, The Day the Crayons Quit. The kids love the part where the beige crayon asks his owner to stop peeling the paper off the beige crayon because he feels "naked" and doesn't want to come out of the box. They love this book so much that they asked Sparky to read it twice while she was there. Her favorite grades are kindergarten, first grade, and fifth grade....Just this past week, the little kindergartners have been celebrating St. Patrick's Day all week long. They made leprechaun traps to catch pesky little leprechauns. The kid that made this one said he made it all by himself, haha. 

The kids come up in front of their classmates and tell how their trap works. One little boy went totally blank when Sparky asked him how his trap worked. You should have seen the deer-in-the-headlights look when she asked. There was a big pause, and finally he says, "Uh...I don't know. It was dark. My mom made this after I went to bed." All righty, then.....

Each day or so, the teacher does something different to indicate that the leprechaun has visited. She might sprinkle glitter to leave a path like he's been through their room on one day, and in the room Sparky subbed in, the assisting reading teacher went through and created a chaotic trail of glitter, notes, and mischievous deeds. 
The notes were like, "Haha, you almost caught me!" and "Thanks for all this gold, I'm going shopping!" The kids went crazy when they saw what happened. "He broke my ladder!" "He left me a note!" "I almost got him with my trap!" One little boy said, "My dad says there is no such thing as leprechauns, but I think there is!" So there, poopy dad!

If Sparky is not subbing on a particular day, she is out looking for birds and nature stuff....There are TWO eagles nests within a few miles of our home...One has chicks that are about ready to leave the nest, the other has chicks just beginning to flutter their wings in the nest.

They are always magnificent to see and watch....Here is a youngster who looks like just about ready to fly the coop.

And sure enough, in a few minutes, he did....


We are so fortunate to have these sightings here in Bradenton and Sarasota....


See you soon at the Venice Rookery, another terrific birding spot!

Sparky is NOT a Fuddy Duddy Grandma!

But then, nobody ever said she was! Sparky just wants to go on record as she is still moving to keep from getting "stove up" as Indiana Hoosiers say, and probably a bunch of other folks around the country use that expression, too? She just wanted some proof that she is still moving at the age of 63 going on 64, so her pickle ball playing friends at Sun 'n' Fun took some photos to prove it. Suzette, thank you…At first Suzette had nothing but butt shots---the angle was all wrong. "NO MORE BUTT SHOTS, PLEASE!" begged Sparky. So here's Sparky, playing her favorite game…..

What else is new? We found another cool place to eat on the beach, The Beach House!  They have a terrific fish dip there, one of the best we've ever had. Sparky had the BIGGEST peel and eat shrimp in her life there and Eldo had a grouper dinner which he said was delicious.

The restaurant has recently been renovated, and it looked really pretty although it isn't quite done yet. They will be finished with renovations by the end of this month somebody said. We plan on going back….

Sparky is subbing regularly at her favorite school. This past week, the kids were priming themselves for St. Patrick's Day. Sparky was in kindergarten again, and the student teacher assisting the absent classroom teacher, was helping the kids try and catch a leprechaun this week. It's almost spring break…They were bonkers on Thursday, with one more day to go. But the teachers are coping by having some fun stuff for the kids to look forward to…The leprechaun was very mischevious! He knocked over some chairs in the room, got into her M & M's, (AHEM! Maybe SPARKY got into the M & M's, says E.) Nope! Sparky doesn't care for regular M & M's. Now, PEANUT M & M's, that's another story! At any rate, a trail of green and gold glitter showed the leprechaun making an exit out the back door so the kids just missed him. They were SO EXCITED that he'd been there. The culmination on Friday, was the kids were going to put their traps they had made during the past two weeks out to see if they could catch themselves a leprechaun. Here are a couple of whiz bang traps they made…..Awesome! Even if they did have a little help from mom or dad.

Sparky almost blew it after reading a story about leprechauns and discussing whether is was fiction or non-fiction (yep, learning this in kindergarten), when helping the kids come to the conclusion that the story was made up or fiction, had a little boy ask with a VERY solemn face, "Mrs. Sparkles, are leprechauns real?"  Mrs. Sparkles, a.k.a. Mrs. Sparks said, "Hm-m-m-m-m…what do you think?" And then quickly changed the subject……

Sparky had a visit from her sister, who's had it with winter in Michigan. She and her husband, came just for a day and night visit. Too quick, but we'll return the visit to them soon in Matlache, a quirky little town further south from us, near Pine Island…Wonderful little shops there, great kayaking, and my sister has already seen 1) two dolphins jump totally out of the water while she was standing on the dock, and 2) a sting ray fling itself out of the water, a BIG one! Hope we get to see something!

And that's all for now, folks…See you later…..