The Easter Chick?

Ever wonder if those of us blogging from Florida this winter were telling the truth about the extreme (for Florida) cold temperatures and bitingly raw winds? Well as March ends and April begins... the weather begins to yield to warmer temperatures and southern comfort is restored to the sunshine state. But the evidence of the cold is still with us. Here in the sandy camp of Thousand Trails, Orlando (actually in Clermont, Florida), the Easter Chicks are not the typical little peeps that you find huddled under a warming lamp in the feed store. Nope. They are the rather large chicks of the Sand Hill Cranes. Why would this be proof of anything? Because the normal reproductive cycle of the cranes usually sees them flying way north before breeding. Flocks by the thousands actually fly from the deep south all the way to Alaska to have their young. That Florida in winter felt anything like early spring in Alaska speaks volumes about the weather this winter. But strange as it may seem, this year at least, Florida is the breeding ground of the Sand Hill Cranes. Yet another piece in the puzzle of Global Cooling?

But while the chicks are not yet ready to take to flight, the hot air balloons are. And a fleet of eight of them (they were low enough that the heat blasts to warm the air inside the balloons seemed to be right outside our open windows) drifted over this morning fairly early, while the morning was still gray and the wind still. I caught a picture of the last of them as it drifted off over the trees on the horizon. It seems that getting out of bed this morning just didn't feel like all that great of an idea. Oh, well!