Routine Established

Sunday, 26 May
Eastbank COE Campground — Bainbridge, Georgia
Temps: Lo 59F / Hi 91F (15C / 33C)

No specific activity or theme for this post, so I’ll just intersperse photos from these past few days throughout the narrative.

With some of the spillways on the Apalachicola River side of the Woodruff Dam open …

… a portion of the fishing platform is under water …
not that it stops one of the anglers from stationing himself there.

We can’t call the campground our own anymore.  At least not for another day — and even then, we won’t be alone next week, but there will be a lot fewer campers after tomorrow’s mass exodus.

Mui’s favorite bird (so far in our travels) … the Eastern Bluebird.

By 8:00p on Thursday, all but two of the sites were filled with campers pouring into enjoy the Memorial Day long weekend.  Early Friday, the occupants of those last two sites set up camp to make it a full house.  We braced ourselves for a lot of revelry, but except for a few sites that were party-central, most campers were here just for a relaxing time.  Since swimming with alligators isn’t a popular pastime, and there are no other amenities for kids here, it’s been a mostly-adults holiday weekend here at Eastbank.

Based on eye color and size (it was bigger than what my reference sources indicate
is average for a yellow-bellied slider), I’m ID’ing this as a Suwannee Cooter.
Anyone disagree; let me know.

I’m not calling what we have fallen into a rut; but rather, a routine.  Sounds better ;-)

Taking advantage of the cool mornings — a fleece jacket feels good — we have our breakfast on the little patio we created for ourselves in front of the coach; go for a walk over to the Jim Woodruff Dam and back; read, draft blog posts (me), and relax in the shadow of the coach as the sun moves from behind us to in front of us, and our shade gives way to full sun; do chores inside the Phaeton in the hot mid-day hours; enjoy happy hour in the shade of the trees that filter the rays of the sun; and call it a day after the sun sets in Florida on the far side of the lake from us.

Based on my limited knowledge of damselflies and dragonflies, I am guessing these
are both (above and below) dragonflies.  My internet connection is too crummy to
figure out what type they are, so if you’d like to ID them for me, go right ahead.

The only break in routine was when we drove the 24 miles (38 km) over to Marianna, Florida on Friday to shop for produce and fruit, and pick up a few things from Lowe’s.  We also stopped by Wal-Mart to pick up some AMDRO ant & spider granules, which comes in a shaker-bag for easy dispensing.  So far, so good.  Regular monitoring and reapplication of ant spray and granules over the weekend has kept the ants at bay.  Keeping fingers crossed that we stay ant-free for the remainder of our stay.

Mural by Curtis Everett on the wall of Pilcher's Barber Shop
on US 71, approaching Sneads from Marianna.

Campers two sites over from us weren’t as lucky.  Some (a lot; really a lot) of the pesky Argentine ants used a broom that had been left against the coach to climb up the sides and on to the roof, and infiltrated the coach.  They pulled up stakes and left yesterday to deal with the clean-up elsewhere.  I saw them spraying, so it wasn’t that they weren’t trying to keep the ants at bay.  That site, however, was one of the party-central spots and there was a lot of cooking and eating outdoors, which I think contributed to their problem.

  Looking across Lake Seminole to the Woodruff Dam in the pre-dawn hours.

The goal of this net-fisher is to catch the legal limit of 50 fish (mostly mullet);
he already had 10 in the bucket when we stopped to chat with him at 7:00a.

The question of whether or not the Canada geese family that visits us are being fed by campers has been answered with a resounding “yes.”  While most people are doling out bread, our neighbor came prepared with a container-full of corn, which he disperses liberally whenever the family comes by.  He is an equal opportunity feeder, however.  The bird feeder he put up has attracted a whole bunch of small birds, providing me with several photo ops.  Is it wrong to feed birds by putting up bird feeders?  I never thought so, but if it’s OK to feed them, then what makes feeding the geese wrong?  Something I need to cogitate on further.

Cardinals — male (left) and female.

House Finch (male)

Guessing these are female house finches; they showed up at the same
time as the colorful males came by to check out the bird feeder.

In the right light, the Common Grackle (male) has beautifully iridescent feathers.

Red-shouldered blackbird

Shunning the bird feeder, this Eastern Kingbird catches his own meal.

The squirrel can’t get to the bird feeder, but joins A house finch
to pick THROUGH seeds THAT HAVE FALLEN FROM THE FEEDER.

We continue to have beautiful sunsets, which I can’t resist photographing.  They do make a great way to wrap up a post.

From Saturday’s brilliant orange and red “curtains down on the day” …

… to Sunday’s golden finale, all of the sunsets have been eye-catching.

And that’s a wrap for our first week here at the Eastbank COE campground.  Don’t expect our routine to change during week two … but who knows ;-)