My Back Yard

There is nothing like the peace of the water...it is even good for your blood pressure in helping it maintain a proper level . All you have to do is watch water...even an aquarium...will do.

When I was in cities, all i wanted to do was get to a campground to be with some dirt. I cannot stand the cement...It is everywhere, and I cannot seem to find something organic in cities...except maybe the people...and there are some that are truly not real...if you get my drift...and some of them have so much daily pain that it is understandable why they crack under the pressure.....I met a woman in the elevator in Manhatten one day....the next day she had a bandage over her eye...she had lost her eye but it was just another day to her....too much for me to live like that.

Being in the city sooooo long, is not good for the health of such an organic being. I remember camping in Michigan when I lived in East Lansing and was attending Michigan State University. Even thought the campus was dirt, it was soooo cold and the dirt was underneath snowy, frozen dirt, they use malathion on the campus grounds even though it is illegal....Could not hardly smell the dirt beneath(way beneath) my feet. I love the smell of dirt. There are some who understand that statement because they have smelled it too, and remember it, and enjoy it.

Water is the same. It has it's own smell and allure as dirt. You get close to salt water and you know that you are close to salt water. Sometimes you simply want to get into the saltwater and soak up all its revitalizing electrolytes. As a matter of fact, my doctors told me to go get into the ocean when I was undergoing Radiation Treatments so I could heal more quickly. They told me it would be very good for me. And it was....

Now I believe that if we do not appreciate something...it will be taken away from us....

I mean why do we need it anyway if we are not using it?

A global appreciation day would be a nice change....for a holiday....so people could be thankful for what they do have....whatever it may be.


Photography by Mila Bridger Photography 

Hurricane Frances - Jupiter, Florida - September 5, 2004

Frances was my first Hurricane...since I moved onto the sailboat...when we moved to Ft Pierce so we could get to the Bahamas more quickly from the U.S....you can do it in a day on the right day weatherwise...in a sailboat....

.....Then when we heard about Frances coming we put the boat up on the hard in the right marina which was Crackerboy Marina in Ft Pierce....they are quite capable...then we came on home to Marco Island to a friends house....We heard that after Frances went through the boats were all in smithereens and we had a friend try to get up to Crackerboy to find out, in his dinghy boat...but to no avail...everything was locked down and in a quarantine for the area...

There was so much destruction that people were looting very badly....some looters took a washing machine from someones back porch while it was running with clothes in it....that was ridiculous!!!...needless to say when we got back, all the boats at Crackerboy were in fine condition as expected but at the marina across the street, they were mostly destroyed....

There was a huge boat graveyard in Ft Pierce...It was heartbreaking!!! There was also a moratorium on any boats in the water because no one really knew what the bottom was like now because so many boats went down...masts and all....and you could see some of the masts sticking up out of the water....for instance most sailboats have at least a four foot raft, so you did not know what you might come across underneath the surface......they had to dredge the whole area to make certain they had removed all the boats that went down from the bottom before they could open up the channels again...

And you could just see all the boats smashed at the graveyard where they were amassed over by the Ft Pierce City Marina ( or where it had been )....One of their floating docks floated up and off the pilings and as it washed by the other docks it took them all with it...boats and all....

Where I had been was a wreck of some boats still floating and some down under the docks or what was left of the dock above the water where they had been tied to it....It took the guys and a come-along three days to get the post that was across our slip up out of the way so we could tie to it again....The people from Oklahoma were pretty grand at Lassos to get the lines across to the pilings....There was even one boat up on the cement right up in the marina cement yard where we used to cook dinners with friends....

Many people had gone to Fema to try and recuperate some of what they lost in the storm...and we heard that a woman was there from Jamaica who had just lost all of her family in one Hurricane...and when her husband went down to see about the relatives and if they survived he was picked up in the next Hurricane and gone forever too....There were people who had it worse than some others, but just about everyone involved had some problems with wind, water, or looters or electric....

The State of North Carolina Electricians came down to help us get our electric back up from Frances (as Florida had gone up to help them in previous years) and it was just up and barely working, but needed so much more work to truly become stable, when the next Hurricane that year of 2004 was already on its way.