The island behind our house

One of my favorite places in all of Florida just happens to be located directly behind our house here in Celebration. It is a slightly elevated patch of open prairie dotted with pine, palmetto and live oak which is completely surrounded on all sides by thickly wooded swamps. The only access to this "island" is by a trail that starts behind our garage.

Trail to the island

In fact this little known nature preserve is where the Disney Corporation relocates animals, especially the endangered gopher tortoise, when they develop new areas of their property that ends up displacing the local fauna. Every once in a while a Disney truck will pull up near our house and a crew of workers will head back into the swamp towards the island to do some sort of conservation work. Lately they've been grooming the prairie with a tractor to enhance the habitat for turtles. Other than these occasional visits from the conservation crew no one else even knows this place exists (besides Connie and I). It is our own private tropical paradise where we can readily see all kinds of wildlife and experience the peace and serenity of an untouched tract of primordial Florida.

The island

An ancient giant live oak


A beautiful tropical spider (Gasteracantha)

The funny thing is we can't get any of our neighborhood friends to join us on a "hike around the island" as we like to call it. They seem deathly afraid of venturing back into the murky depths of the unknown. I think they prefer their version of Florida to be throughly scraped clean of native vegetation, sprayed for bugs and covered in neat squares of uniform green fescue. Welcome to their Magic Kingdom. I certainly prefer mine.

Sunset deep in the swamp


Good-night all.