My New Deck :)

Guess what - guess what !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Mom and Dad went out one evening a few MONTHS ago and came home all excited and whispering about THINGS. That whispering turning to grumbling these past few weeks but FINALLY they told me what the secret was all about.

They have bought ME a new deck - which is attached to a NEW house. The house isn't very big which is what Mom and Dad wanted but it has been completely remodeled inside and out with new bamboo wood floors, new kitchen, new appliances, new AC, new roof, new hot water system, (all of which are energy efficient)  new bathrooms, new closets, new everything -  but the most important thing is it has a huge sunroom and of coarse a huge new deck just for ME - I do so love my deck - it is important to be able to deck sit and survey ones territory :)

And the BEST thing - there is a woodland preserve behind us and the Jacksonville Cowspotdog Arboretum and Gardens in front of us - so the only thing we see when we looks out the front and back windows is woods and palms trees and that view is NEVER going to change! It also has a HUGE backyard and we even have our own well for watering the garden! The house is 4 miles straight down the road from where we were living - so it will be a little further to the beach but that is okay.

Note from Mom - we are totally AMAZED we got this house and so excited to have our offer accepted. Sadly the house was in probate (something the seller nor the real estate agent told us until 4 weeks after we put in our offer -  so we had to wait quite a long time for it to go before the judge and be signed off on.) We have decided this is where we want to retire so although it has taken nearly 4 months to get everything settled to us it was worth the wait and now Casa Cowspotdog is all ours.

We will be MIA for a few days while we move - but will be back soon :)

Wordless Wednesday

Elmo Zumwalt

Today we got to sit of the breakwater rocks and see seeing something REALLY different - we got to watch the USS Zumwalt (DDG-1000) coming into Mayport.  The Zumwalt is the first of its class - a guided missile destroyer for the United States Navy and the first ship to be named for Admiral Elmo Zumwalt.

The Zumwalt has stealth capabilities, having a radar cross-section akin to a fishing boat despite her large size. On 7 December 2015, Zumwalt began her sea trial preparatory to joining the Pacific Fleet. The ship was commissioned in Baltimore on 15 October 2016 and is now on her way to her homeport in San Diego, California. She cost $1.4 billion dollars to build and the Zumwalt's commanding officer is Captain James A. Kirk who attracted quite a bit of media attention when he was first named captain, due to the similarity of his name to that of the Star Trek television character Captain James T. Kirk, played by William Shatner. Shatner wrote a letter of support to Zumwalt's crew in April 2014.

Sunny Ships on Sunday

Wow weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee - it was a beautiful 70 degrees this morning even and it was so bright and sunny - Mom of coarse was rugged up like an Eskimo - she thinks anything below 85 is freezing! We managed to drag Dad out too - and had a wonderful long walk on the beach and we got to watch a couple of ships come in. The green one is a petroleum carrier and the red one is actually a dredging ship.

Bark Ranger Patrol - The cost of clean up

We had a pawsome day today - first we went to the beach and we are happy to report it is starting to look more normal. The king tides have pushed all the sea grass up high on the beach - hopefully to make the base for future sand dunes. The Dweeb was pretty pleased with himself when he found a nice smelly horseshoe crab - personally I like the rotting sea grass better for stink factor :)

Then Mom said we had better head off of do some Bark Ranger Patrols and check on my other parks. First we went to MY Abbey Hanna Cowspotdog Park - sadly many of the boardwalks have been damaged and the one path through the sand dunes you could take to the beach was just swarming with surfers going to and from the surf. Now personally they don't bother me at all but Dweeb sees those surf boards and just freezes on the spot - way to scary for him. The path we take to the lake was also closed due to all the tree damage so we didn't really get to check out much of this park at all.

Next we headed to MY Dutton Island Cowspotdog Preserve - we didn't even get past the gate here as the road crosses a causeway and it had been severely damaged and is unpassable - sigh.

Mom said we would give one more park a try and we headed off to MY Fort Caroline Cowspotdog at the Timucuan Preserve. The Fort itself seemed to have survived just fine but there was a lot of tree damage and there was only one trail was open.  This is also where the Spanish Cowspotdog Pond is and that too was completely closed due to storm damage.  So all in all....... MY parks have not feared very well but thankfully my trusty staff are hard at work and I am sure MY parks will be back to normal in no time.

Denny found a crabby patty

Rotting sea grass smells better !

Visiting Fort Cowspotdog

Picture perfect with the fort behind us

The Bark Ranger Board of FAME!

YES - there we are!

Inside the Fort

Fort Cowspotdog seems to have survived the storm

Wordless Wednesday

Ho hum - Just another perfect day :)

The forces of nature

Since Hurricane Matthew went through we have been seeing many changes to MY beaches - especially this week as there have been SUPER king tides occurring with the full moon (in fact for this whole past week and even this morning and the next few mornings too). A lot of the sea grass is either being pushed up the beach or just washed back out into the ocean. (I must point out in the high 80's temps we have been getting it is starting to smell REALLY pawsome - although Mom doesn't seem to find it so appealing)

Because so much sand has washed away what use to be the high tide mark has now changed and it is about 20 foot higher up the beach.  After our walkies on MY beach Mom decided to go and check out Little Talbot State Park (Yes that evil place that doesn't allow doggies on the beach - why she would consider going there is beyond me!)

Anyway - when pulling up to the gate to the park the Park Ranger told her only boardwalks 1 and 3 were open. The other 6 boardwalks were all so badly damaged in the storm that they can't be used and as you can see from the photo below - even boardwalk 1 took a pretty good beating (which is sad as they had only just finished this a few weeks ago). What shocked Mom the most at Little Talbot was how much sand had washed away - 8-10 feet of it going back 200-250 feet. All the palm trees and shrubs that use to line the edge of the sand dunes are now gone - as too is the beautiful white sand - which is now grey and even dark black in places. So much sand washed away that is even uncovered an old pier that use to be there some 30 years ago! Sadly too - Mom could see that many many shells had washed up but they have just been smashed to pieces in the relentless waves.

This was the brand new boardwalk 1

Plenty of stinky sea grass

Changes in the beach at Little Talbot

The top of that pile is where the beach use to be!

Uncovered - part of an old pier

Another view of the old pier

Little Talbot a few weeks ago before the storm

Sunday morning beach walkies

Sea Urchin Shells

We went for an early morning walk on the beach  and it was the highest tide we had ever seen (we think the full moon probably helped). There was still a lot of sea grass on the shoreline but that is pawsome because look at the treasure "I" found for Mom today - lots of sea urchin shells.

Do you know - we found out something about all that sea grass - they push it up high on the beach so that it acts like a trap for sand and over the years (providing we don't get any more bad storms for a while) - the sand dunes will eventually build up higher thanks to that base of sea grass - pretty cool huh!

In one of the pictures below you can see me stood in the gap where one of the sand dunes use to be - it gives you an idea of how much sand was moved. We also got to watch the strangest looking Navy ship coming into to dock. We couldn't see any identifying number or name but we did find out it is a USNS - (T-EPF-4) Spearhead-class expeditionary fast transport ship. We also got to sea lots of Albatrosses - they didn't seem to like the windy conditions this morning and we also found some washed up beach treasures. 

A little windy today

MY sand dune has washed away

Debris on the beach

Spearhead-class expeditionary fast transport ship

Mr Albratross

Washed up treasures

Checking on MY beach

We headed down to MY beach this morning to see what had happened and were pleasantly surprised - instead of lots of sand being washed away - LOTS of sand got washed up (or maybe it was the sand dune that got washed down and covered the beach). There was LOTS and LOTS of sea grass stalks that got washed up too (wonderful stinky rotting sea grass I might mention)  but all things considered not a lot of debris. We did find a big piece of wood from someone's dock and sadly we even found a dead deer (a four point stag) amongst the sea grass. We are not sure how he got there but are guessing he got caught in the storm surge somewhere and was washed out to sea.

Mom was disappointed not to find even a single shell -  but we did meet a lovely lady on the beach who Mom stopped to talk too. She worked as a meteorologist for the Navy for 22 years and she came over to say hi because she had a sheltie a few years ago and recognized us. She told Mom that they only opened the beach to the public again yesterday because of the strong rip currents and storm surges this past week. She also told Mom she went down on Sunday and saw LOTS of shells washed up but the military police wouldn't let anyone on the beach and of coarse they have all washed back out to sea or been buried under the sand now.

We took LOTS of photo's today and remember you can click on them to see them bigger. We also got to see a submarine leaving the base today - it was flying a flag Mom didn't recognize and an American flag so we are not sure where it is from. Mom was also happy to see the "Mayport Feral Kitties" all survived - we saw a couple sitting on the breakwater and found they rest of them over near the RV park.

Oh we forgot to mention - around our neighborhood most of the damage is just tree and fence related. Mom says the fence builders must be rubbing their hands with glee at all the work they are going to be having for the next month of so. A lot of houses lost roof tiles but only small amounts like 10 or 20 tile each although we did see a couple of places that had half to three quarters of all their tiles gone. The neighborhood across the street from us still doesn't have power but they will hopefully by the end of the day. The big problem with the power was the amount of tree limbs and trees that fell breaking the lines. Not having had any real major storms for the last 10 years - trees have been busily growing bigger in all that time and they hadn't really done a good job of keeping them trimmed and away from power lines - lesson learned as the CEO of the power company said on the news last night.

Lots of sea grass washed up

Looks like a piece of someone's dock

So many good smells in this stuff

Comeon Mom - this stuff is great to roll on!

Still windy here - the birds are grounded

Poor dead deer - mmmmmm salted venison jerky!

What happened to my sandy beach near the breakwater?

Getting to the rocks isn't easy

This use to be a sand dune !

Mayport Kitty - just chill-laxin

Submarine leaving the Mayport Base

Another view of the submarine

A Bloody Battle

Looking down the battlefield

While out and about the other day we came across the Horseshoe Bend National Military Park and discovered this was the site where on 27 March 1814, Major General Andrew   Jackson's army of 3,300 men attacked Chief Menawa’s 1,000 Red Stick Creek warriors - killing 800 of them. You can read more about it here - although Mom is of the opinion that Jackson (yes the same one our hometown of Jacksonville is named after) pretty much slaughtered the Indians for their land. This "great" victory helped him on his path to the White House where he became the 7th President. Thankfully the only battle we saw when we were there - were turtles battling for poll position on the rock :)

The battle plan

Along the battle trail

Horseshoe Bend River

Battling for poll sunning position on the rock