Florida is a strange place. The amount of wildlife living in the grass, bushes, trees, waterways, and even inside of your house, is astounding. When I take my early morning walks here, I pass by egrets nibbling in the grass, apparently finding all kinds of delectable insects to munch on. Tiny salamanders poke in and out of the brush, and again, always looking for a tasty meal of a protein-rich insect. Despite the heavy duty spraying and dousing of insecticides to keep bug life under control, the place would be overrun with crawly critters if not for the birds, amphibians and lizards.

But as nice and green as the lawns looks, I wouldn’t step on them unless my feet are completely encased in closed shoes. Some of those crawly things are less than friendly, namely the fire ants. One of my mother’s neighbors died from fire ant bites several years ago. I don’t know how many times he was bitten, but they can be very painful, even if they don’t make you ill. I’m not sure what else is living in the grass, but I don’t really want to find out.

The difference in health dangers in interesting, when I compare it to Seattle. I used to live in Florida, and my cats had fleas all year round. Considering that they didn’t even go out, and considering the fact that I lived in a high rise condo down by the beach, surrounded primarily by sand, sea and concrete, there were still fleas that managed to make their way into my apartment. And not only did they There have also been several cases of homegrown malaria here in Florida, which shouldn’t be too surprising since malaria has made a huge comeback and was once endemic in this region. And global warming is accelerating the movement of mosquitoes, and at some point, we may be seeing all kinds of tropical diseases showing up in places where they’ve never been recorded before.

Oh, I forgot, global warming doesn’t exit, at least according to Bush science. Well, I guess if brother Jeb gets bitten in the butt by some blood thirsty critter, and ends up with yellow fever, then maybe Bush will reconsider. Then again, there have been several cases of hemorrhagic dengue fever in Texas. Now that is one nasty illness. The mosquitoes are coming up from Mexico, and they’re not really all that concerned about border checks, or having the right kind of visa. They’re here, and again, if Bush spots them in Crawford, maybe he’ll have some kind of revelation.

Since I am temporarily on dial-up, my blog will be sans photos until I return home to DSL. They just take too long to load. I am, I am spoiled.