Fort Pierce and Vero Beach

           Fort Pierce is much different from Jacksonville Beach.  The homes are more modest, and the neighborhoods more like bedroom communities.  It’s also warmer, which works for me!

 

           This has been a wonderful place to strengthen my ankle.  It’s very flat, hardly even a small grade never mind a hill, so it’s relatively easy to walk.  I’ve worked up to a mile and a half or more a day very quickly.  Though my ankle is still a bit sore, it doesn’t get worse as I walk.  Day by day it’s easier to cover the distance.  What’s even better is that finally I feel like I can go WWOOFing soon.

 

           As I’ve walked, I’ve relished the many tropical plants and flowers that line the streets and adorn the yards, as I’ve enjoyed the birdsong emanating from the trees. 

  Most are common birds such as jays, but their songs are welcome to my ears, and some I'm not familiar with, but are fascinating to both watch and listen to--and sometimes find.

There are several birds in that tree, but very hard to find.

 

          

 

You can barely see the bird hidden behind the leaves slightly right of center top.

 

These could be grackles.  You see them everywhere (except in the trees), but their song is sweet, unlike the common grackle.

 

 

 Eileen and I have spent time at the beach, where I’ve walked in the sand, sat and watched the waves from the comfort of a folding chair, and enjoyed the sun on my skin, and the many birds flocking on the shore, and I loved watching the tiny plovers challenging the waves.

 

          What I haven’t done is taken my sketch pad with me, and there are so many things I could draw—gulls, terns, plovers, shells, and people, as well as the beautiful cloud formations.  So far, it’s been in the back of my car since I left Maine. I’m going to have to remedy that soon; there are far too many things that catch my attention to keep putting them on the back burner.  

 

           I have taken several pictures, though, such as a banyan tree that Eileen showed me.  Now THIS is a worthy subject for a sketch!

Banyan tree.  The picture doesn't show how complex, huge, and magnificent it is.

            And of course there’s always the difference in architecture that so fascinates me.  Most of the houses are single-level, garage on the side, boxes.  Perhaps I should have saved my allusion to Pete Seeger’s “Little Boxes” for Florida, because there really is “a green one, and a pink one, and a blue one, and a yellow one” and they’re all made out of stucco and they all look much the same.  ...But not all.  I found one house that I loved, done in the Spanish style, and admired it greatly.  It definitely stands out from its neighbors, unique and grand.