Whatever. Derrick doesn't NEED the Bucs.

I can't believe the Tampa Bay Buccaneers fired Derrick Brooks, along with four other "old" players: Warrick Dunn, Joey Galloway, Ike Hilliard and Cato June.

Derrick Brooks is arguably the best Buc ever, and inarguably one of the best. Guy's been to the Pro-Bowl eleven times. He's on the Florida State University board, for chrissakes! He's not only a fantastic football player, he's a nice guy to boot. Not that something like character matters in the NFL, but still. Damn.

Full disclosure: I went to FSU with Derrick Brooks, as in we had classes together. Not as in, he ever knew of my existence. But it was well-known that he was a good guy then, too. So I'm totally biased here.

Brooks has been a shining example of what a pro athlete should look like, and this is how he's treated. Booted out the door, no explanation, no warning.

"Right now, like all of you guys, I'm just trying to get a feel for it all, trying to come to grips with it," Brooks told ESPN by telephone. "I don't even know what to think."

I can't blame this on new head coach Raheem Morris (as much as I'd like to; who the hell is this guy? Oh, he's the former assistant coach); he's too new to have made this decision. It has to be the owners. Four of the five guys let go were over 30 and the other guy is 29 - they made it really clear that they're looking to give the younger players more field time. But at the team's expense?

Derrick Brooks has been with the Bucs since 1995 - since he left Florida State. Fourteen years, people. And let's not forget - two Super Bowls. TWO.

He founded Brooks-DeBartolo Collegiate High School, a charter school in Tampa, and created "Brooks Bunch," a group for disadvantaged kids that he takes on trips like Washington, D.C. and Atlanta. He's served on the FSU board since 2003.

Of course, fellow FSU alum Warrick Dunn also deserves some praise. This dude gives away houses! Dunn founded "Homes for the Holidays," where he helps single parents buy houses and donates furniture, food and accessories for the home.

These firings come on the heels of the Jacksonville Jaguars firing their cornerstone player "Fragile" Fred Taylor (a former Gator, thank you very much - I try to keep it balanced) after eleven years. He also made it clear he wanted to stay, but the Jags said "no thanks."

Say what you will, this is the end of an era for the NFL.

I, for one, will have a hard time getting fired up about either the Jags (my former hometown team) or the Bucs (I've loved b/c of all their Seminoles). I may be done with pro football for a while.

Of course, I've got a spring and summer to change my mind, but it will never be same without Derrick.

Here Comes the Sun . . .

Spring has arrived! Yes, I know it's probably a bit rude to rub this fact into the faces of anyone from up north - say, the 140,000 without power in Maine thanks to the snow storm, but I'm so excited and it's so pretty!

The azaleas are really starting to crank the blooms out now. This is our largest azalea, out back besides the porch:

(Speaking of azaleas, I think the Florida Azalea Festival in Palatka is still going on March 7-8, even though I couldn't find a single mention of it on the Palatka Daily News web site. There is a web site for the festival, but unless you want to register for the parade or the Azalea Queen beauty pageant, there's not much there to look at.)

Right next to the azalea is a shrub that has little tiny buds that are starting to pop:

When it's fully leafed, it provides a great deal of privacy for our master bathroom - right now, anyone who really wanted to can see in.

One of the other trees in the back yard is also budding with leaves:

There's a few survivors in the vegetable garden planted by the home's previous owners, and most of them are doing pretty well. There's some sort of cabbage plant, rosemary and parsley:

The pineapple isn't doing so well:

I'm really hoping my plumbago comes back. It looks bad - Kyle thinks it's a goner.

Be Sure To Wear Some Flowers In Your Hair

We're going to California!

I booked our flight to San Francisco for our honeymoon! I'm getting pretty excited. I received my 2009 Official State Visitor's Guide and Travel Planner from visitcalifornia.com and flipped through it last night. The highlights are the pull-out section on Yosemite and the big-ass map of California.

Kyle had already drawn up a draft agenda:

Redwood National Park

(Which is a 5 hour drive north from San Francisco. Hmmm....)

Two Days in SF:

• Fishermans Wharf
• Alcatraz (eh)
• Giants game (eh)
• cable cars

To which I'd add some awesome restuarants like The Stinking Rose and visiting historic Art Deco architecture.

Santa Cruz/Monterey

My biggest desire here is to drive US 1, down the California coast, specifically Big Sur. I've been looking at photos my whole life and I'm dying to see it for myself. I want to do the 17-mile drive down Pebble Beach. I've heard it's awesome; lots of mansions and dramatic coastline. Oh, and gated - costs $9.

Yosemite National Park

This is the other big deal. It's such a big park, it's hard to pick what we'll do - we'll probably only stay one night, two at the most. Going in May, it's still going to be chilly, but the falls are supposed to be awesome this time of year.

We were disappointed to find that the Ahwahnee Hotel was booked. We were hoping to make this one of our big splurges - although just a quick glance at reviews on TripAdvisor show it's rated horribly. Hmm. Maybe we dodged a bullet. Looking around, it looks like lodging is already filling up and expensive...

Wine Country

• Sonoma/Napa Valley

I don't think we'll have time for this.

We really only have Tuesday-Sunday, which sounds like a lot until you add in driving time and the sheer amount of stuff. That's basically two days for San Fran, two for Yosemite and two for Big Sur country or wine country.

I wonder if we're trying to squeeze too much in?

Christmas... uh, I mean, Valentine Cactus?

Look who finally decided to make an appearance!

My "Christmas" cactus finally started blooming! We had it inside for too long in the fall, so it wasn't getting the six-eight hours of darkness it needs to bloom. We only moved it outside around the holidays, so I knew it would be a late bloomer (Ha ha! Late bloomer! Get it?)

Rainbow River Canoe Day

This past weekend, Kyle and some friends of ours went canoeing down the Rainbow River.


We rented aluminum canoes at K.P. Hole county park and paddled upstream, towards the head springs (Rainbow Springs, where there's a much bigger state park apparently). We didn't make it all the way to the head springs, mainly because you have to return the canoes by 4 p.m.

Having grown up around the Atlantic Ocean and St. Johns River, I am still amazed and thrilled at how clear the spring-fed waters of Florida are. You could see all the way to the bottom, which in some places was very shallow and covered with aquatic grass (Strap-leaf sagittaria), but in others went so deep that there were divers and snorkelers - this is all limestone and sand, making the water appear a gorgeous turquoise. Throughout the sandy bottom you'd see little boils bubbling - water from the springs pushing up through the limestone.

My only other clear-water river experience has been in the Santa Fe, near Ginnie Springs. Sadly, the first thing I noticed at the Rainbow river was how clean it was. I never saw a can or bottle at the bottom of the river (although we did find one beer can floating in some marshgrass).

This is in stark contrast to the Santa Fe around Ginnie, where we never return from a "float" with less than five or six rusty cans and slimy bottles that Kyle picked up along the way. Because Ginnie Springs is privately owned, they can allow people to bring alcohol, and the majority of these park-goers are young and stupid, getting wasted and tossing their trash wherever they are, including the river.

The county and state parks prohibit alcohol, in fact, K.P. Hole prohibited any food or drink in disposable containers. Seems you've got to make rules just to keep the water clean, and that's heartbreaking.

The Rainbow river was so beautiful, and due to the time of year, it wasn't very busy. It was warm enough for Kyle and his friends Adam and Cori to snorkel (with wetsuit-like tops), but not this Florida girl. I don't get wet until June - at the earliest. I was still wearing a sweatshirt, after all.

Cori, who is the best fisherman I've ever met, caught a nice bass - we released him after the photo.

We saw a ton of birds, including a king fisher, bald eagles, cormorants, cranes and anahingas (snake birds, called so for their long, slinky necks - they're fantastic swimmers and fishermen).

The day was wonderful, and reminded me just how lucky am I to live in such a beautiful state.

Poking around in the yard

We're so lucky. Our yard has some lovely winter-blooming plants, some of which I've never seen before. So of course, I take photos and ask my coworker, Tom Wichman, to identify them for me. Tom is the statewide coordinator of the Florida Master Gardener program, and is a capital-N Plant Nerd. (I kid 'cus I love!)

He said the tree with fringy pink blooms in the back yard was commonly called a Chinese Witch Hazel tree (or shrub).

(PDF with photos and info)

This showy plant, out front with the million other bromeliads, is bellbergia nutans, commonly known as Queen's Tears.

(Web site with photos/info)

I knew this was a camellia, but I had to show it off, because it's so beautiful. Too bad there's only one shrub, and it's hidden way in the back of the backyard! (The previous owners of our house seem to have liked sticking random plants around; we also have a lonely rose bush in the back.)

I was also telling Tom about how we'd like to plant some sort of hedge-like shrub in the front of the house, and since I liked camellias, he suggested a Camellia sasanqua 'Shishigashira'. It grows slow and puts out a ton of flowers.

(Info/photo)

Sandhill Cranes

Before coming back from the holiday break, Kyle and I went to Payne's Prairie to see the sandhill cranes.

We saw almost as many alligators as cranes; okay, not really, but we saw a lot of gators. I'll apologize for the bad photography up front. None of this was close to us, and my zoom is only so-so. So I've altered many of the photos, upping the contrast on the fuzzy ones.




Kyle decided he needed a photo of a real gator with his damn Gator baby doll, which seems to accompany him whenever he brings his camera. Some day he'll have enough to publish a freaking book of Gator baby doll photos. You might be able to make out the doll propped in a branch, but you probably can't see the alligator much further back.

We did see cranes. Thousands of them, actually. They come down to winter, and this year was a bumper crop - estimates were as high as 8,000. Usually there are around 2,000. The temperature and water depth were apparently perfect this year, bringing in the crowds. (Bad-photo warning!)

Along with the gray sandhills were a few whooping cranes, which are endangered. When conservationists started a breeding program, they trained them to migrate with ultralight aircraft. When they were on their own, a few decided that it was safer in numbers and joined the sandhills on their migration path.

I think the high point of the day was when a huge number of them simultaneously decided it was time to move - right then. It was thrilling to see so many moving in tandem. Photos can't do it justice. They make the most amazing sound, a loud, cooing, throbbing noise.

There were a lot of people out to see the cranes, including some professional photographers. One of them pointed out this group of baby alligators, perched on their mother's snout. We would have never spotted them ourselves, but this guy had the biggest lens I've ever seen. I'm sure his photo came out better:

Less cute, and a hell of a lot scarier, was this guy. I don't know how I spotted him, but he was very, very close to us, just lurking in the water.

The prairie is a mix of marshy land and dry, grassy land. I'm curious to see what this looks like in the summer.

It turned out to be a beautiful day.