Iguana Piss in South Florida

So I guess after the recent posts, it is time for a lighter, airier note. Iguana Piss and all of the other things that do "nature" in the back yard. I have not been living here since June of 1988. To be specific, 2 days after graduating high school. Not really my scene, though I grew up in South Beach before the models took over and right at the point where it was a great place to dance to your freedom. We moved here when I was 11 - sometime in the summer of 1981. Big changes and bigtime culture shock. But that is not this story.

I just moved back to Fort Lauderdale in March (2008). I have not **really** experienced this place as an adult. I had many interesting **adult - like** experiences here but not as really as an independent being. So now I am working here, still thinking I am not an adult and I have a dog.

So the dog, Zoe, is now into chasing lizards. She even points. Just for the record, she is white lab going on 9 years in March 09 and by all breeding rights should be a bird dog. She will amusingly look at the wild parrots as they fly overhead but she POINTS at lizards. She would stare by the hour given half a chance. So this rambling brings me to the point of this blog. I like to believe I am a nature girl. Grew up in the woods in South Jersey (so far south, I do not have an exit - Cape May county). So I know woods. Would spend as much time in those woods as allowed and I never liked wearing shoes. But HERE I have discovered a few creatures that have really fucked me up.

(1) Crabs: yep. Crabs. Bluish ones. Ones that are in my back yard. After Trop Storm Faye, there was one in the back yard. I thought... hmmm "did it get blown in? washed in? dropped in? What the hell was it doing here and why my backyard??". I do live near a canal that drops into the ocean but still. I am kinda in the subs - urban subs but still, the subs. I thought it was random. Well it turns out, no, not random. I have encountered 5 more.

(2) Freakishly hairy caterpillar. As bright a green as my Honda Element. I stuck the back of my hand right on it and it freakin' HURT. For days. In fact, 3 weeks later I still have 2 little spots where its little vicious venomous hairs are. It musta moved in when I brought in the plants for trop storm Ike that brushed past. It seemed to be at home on the corner of the table I had at the front door. Of course after I hit it, I thought I sliced my hand open on the corner of the table until I turned on the light and found that thing. Probably laughing.

(3) Palmetto bugs - these I remember, I hate em' and I will not give them any more power over me by writing too much about them. Suffice it to say they make me scream, curse and flee.

(4) yep, more shit.... Slug. Got no idea what to say here cos I do not know much about them other than they are a dark Payne's gray color, long and thick (about 5 1/2" tall x 1" wide). If they do something with the mosquitoes, they can stay.

(5) Last but most certainly not least. The Pissing Iguana. Those fuckers are everywhere and they are hurting the indigenous lizard population - which is a sad aside and a result of the stupid people here that love exotic pets and then let them go for whatever reason. This afternoon I was sitting quietly reading outside - trying for a little of the vitamin D I have been missing because work has been crazy and sucky lately - and all of a sudden I thought someone through a glass/bucket of water over the fence. Yeah, no, you guessed it. I looked up and there s/he was. Pissing like a cow on a rock. Only this was no rock, it was my plants and I was dumbfounded on how much PRESSURE that thing had. I mean they are bigger than you would think since they are in the wild here but still!!! It was loud! I wasn't sure what to do but I was sure glad that it didn't piss on me. So I did the only thing I have the capacity to do in that situation. I calmly got up, came inside and sat down at the computer to look up iguana piss to see if it harmful to dogs. Salmonella is on their skin, so who knows, right?? Anyway, the next thing I knew to do was...to blog about it cos I just don't know.... what else to do with this new experience.

As I said, I think of myself as a nature girl but oddly my response to narrowly being pissed on by a rogue Iguana in my backyard was to come in and blog about it.

PS - one night there was some kind of Egret thing or something I saw on my walk with Zoe. I thought at first it was a badger, but since I was nowhere near a computer I couldn't look up whether badgers were part of Florida. Everything else is so why not??? If it could happen, it would be here.

Over and Out until the next thing rocks my world around here.