She Took Pictures of the Ghost Crabs for You All

I was surprised she got out of bed today. After yesterday's yucky procedure, my fantasy author, Sandy Lender, was quite full of pain medication and "droopy" last night. But she got out to the beach for sea turtle patrol this morning and got these pictures for everyone to see. These are the ghost crabs she wishes to skewer (in fact, she said that to the first one she saw, hence we have a picture of its backside as it is up fleeing).

She informs me the first one here is a relatively small crab, as if I didn't grow up next to an ocean in my world.

The second one, sitting in some man's sandal footprint is a bit bigger. At first, she thought it might be dead because it didn't move as she approached it. But when she moved to place her own sandal next to it for "scope", it jumped up and scurried into the surf. It certainly looked bigger standing...but not as dead.

And you all have seen pictures of the ghost crab burrows in past posts. Sandy goes around filling those in around the turtle nests to annoy the crabs and encourage them to find better places to take up residence.

On a bizarre note, she passed a bird that had nested in the middle of the beach so she called that in. She didn't get a good picture of it because the bird became quite agitated (understandably) when she walked by. (What's that?) Oh, yes, Sandy says the bird ruffled up in bird language for "There's nothing to see here; just keep moving along." She's convinced it was a Bonaparte's Gull, which has a stable population. (Seems they'd be a bit less stable if they keep laying their eggs out in the middle of the beach like that.)

That's all for a writer's life for today. I think she's about to nap...

Tags: fantasy author, Sandy Lender, sea turtle, ghost crab

She Was So Excited She Could Hardly Breathe

No, it wasn't another "brush with Duran Duran." This morning while on sea turtle patrol, my fantasy author, Sandy Lender, found three sea turtle crawls in her zones. She was ecstatic. Now, one of the crawls looked as if the turtle was just up on the beach checking things out, perhaps getting frustrated by a particularly difficult dune where digging activity was evident. At that crawl, the turtle did quite a bit of crawling around on the sand, as if she'd been disturbed by something.

Sandy felt sorry for her. As she puts it, "Dragging your body around the beach can't be easy when you're a turtle full of eggs."

Anyway, I'll post some pictures here. The one with "holes" that look like eyes is a nest with obvious ghost crab activity. Sandy was miffed (and concerned) to see ghost crabs were already messing around her turtle nest. You can see by the first picture that the crab has a sizeable entry and exit chamber. In the second picture, you see the shells Sandy has poked in the holes to aggravate the crab if it should be continuing to use the burrow. This is the practice the members of Turtle Time use to discourage the crabs from sticking around. (Oh, Sandy informs me she'd rather skewer the blasted little beasts, but that's not fair to the crabs who are just doing what crabs do.) Instead, the volunteers put shells, sticks and sand down the holes to irritate the crabs into moving elsewhere.

I was moderately concerned for her throughout the process because she gets winded easily these days. Because this is the "writer's life" blog I'm allowed to announce that she's got an obnoxious battle to fight over the next couple of months. She's been diagnosed with Hodgkin's Disease and all the enlarged lymph nodes and whatnot are in her chest around her breathing tube, so when she gets all excited about sea turtle nests, she starts coughing and wheezing as if I need to cart her away on some sort of stretcher. Combine that with the "oh my God, the stupid ghost crabs have been here already!" and getting her to breathe became my focus. You know, there are books to finish...I can't have her collapsing on the sand somewhere waiting for the tide to carry her out.

She's happily planting flowers now. The dead plant that she couldn't bring back to life finally irritated her enough that she had to replace it. So she went all out and put violets in the planter box in front of the lanai. This is something her landlord should be responsible for, but...we won't get into all that. But here's the odd thing she's done so far. She left the lanai door open so going back and forth with potting soil and plants would be easier. Of course, a lizard darted in. This sort of thing worries her because lizards that get trapped on the lanai usually starve to death. So she cornered the lizard, grabbed it without causing it to drop its tail, and took it back outside to release it. While she had it in her hands, it, naturally, opened its mouth and grabbed her thumb. Small lizard=no pain. But when she placed it on a tree outside, it didn't let go. In fact, it clamped down harder on her thumb. And there she stood. Next to a tree. With a lizard hanging from her thumb. For at least a solid minute.

The end of the story is she convinced the lizard to grab onto the tree instead and she finished planting all the flowers (they look lovely, by the way; Kora would be pleased with the scene) in the planter box. I'll go inspect the rest of what she's doing...

All my best,

Nigel

Tags: fantasy author, Sandy Lender, Duran Duran, Turtle Time

She's Got Nests and Pellets

My fantasy author, Sandy Lender, is pleased to announce that there are now four sea turtle nests in her "zones" along the Gulf. So when she patters along the shore looking for turtle activity, she gets to inspect the nest areas to make sure all is well with the little lives forming beneath the sand. She's very happy about this.

And in complete contrast to that good-natured story, she's in the kitchen putting all Petri's least-favorite food pellets into one container so she can tease him. Isn't that nice?

Petri, for those of you who aren't already aware, is the pet bird that rules the household. He's very particular about his food and doesn't eat the white pellets in his food mix. So, to make life easier for Petri, Sandy spends valuable time that I'd prefer she spent writing (it's my job to keep her writing, you know) picking out the white pellets so he doesn't have to. Tonight, for some odd reason, she's putting them all in one little cup to present to him as if that's his dinner. She's done this to him before and was so entertained by his expression that I guess we just have to do it again.

I'll get her back to the computer shortly. Never fear. We do have the third book in the Choices trilogy to complete, you know.

In the meantime, the second book is awaiting its release date at the publisher and Book I, Choices Meant for Gods is still available at the publisher's site and Amazon.

All my best,
Nigel
Tags: sea turtle, Choices Meant for Gods, fantasy author, Sandy Lender

She Gets Messages About Turtles

I find it amusing that my fantasy author, Sandy Lender, receives updates about turtles she doesn't know. There is a charming young woman named Laura Crawford who lives in the northern regions of your country who sent a note to Sandy about a sizable snapping turtle that safely crossed the road. The note mentioned some smaller turtles that made it across a road as well, and Sandy told me this is great news.

Turns out Sandy has pictures in her photo albums of stray, random, wild turtles that her friends have picked up off the road and photographed specifically to send evidence to her that the little reptiles made it safely from one side to the other. Isn't that bizarre? But she seems thrilled to pieces over it, so, what can you do? I think it's one more bit of evidence that she's not quite right in the head, if you know what I mean.

That's a writer for you. Eccentric.

The other messages she gets usually come from sea turtle conservationists. She has a collection of sea turtle images because the Turtle Time volunteers are constantly photographing nests and nesting females and turtle tracks and babies rushing over sand dunes to get to the Gulf. They are remarkable little creatures...

So maybe she's not completely out of her mind to collect these images and to care that these creatures stay safe. But I still find it a little odd.

Tags: sea turtles, Turtle Time, fantasy author, Sandy Lender

She had a Surreal Moment on Sea Turtle Patrol

If any of you read Sandy Lender's blog over at www.todaythedragonwins.blogspot.com, you know that she has a section of beach that she walks on Saturday mornings checking on sea turtle activity with the group Turtle Time. She's very much a fan of Archie Carr, and while I have no idea who that is, I'm certain I'll be getting a full education as soon as I'm done with this post. (You know how she is...)

So today, at the end of her walk, a fellow and his fishing buddy approached her to ask a question about one of the nests, if there were any new nests, etc. Toward the end of the conversation, the fellow said that he had met her a year or so ago when she and her husband (and why do even I shudder at that reference now?) were assisting with one of the nest excavations. The guy proceeded to relate that she had just moved to the area (slight time-line confusion, but who's counting?) and was helping with the Turtle Time group, etc. Now, Sandy found this extremely odd. See, she didn't recognize this guy. She had no clue who he was when she started talking to him. She wants to know how a person randomly recognizes another after more than a year of absence after only one meeting over a turtle nest. She needs to learn this secret because she's terrible with such things (as evidenced by her inability to recognize this person this morning).

Oh, I've been reminded to give the sea turtle report. There were no new nests today and neither of the two that are close to "ready" in her zones hatched last night. She did, however, spend some time filling in the ghost crab holes near the nests that are ready to hatch in hopes that the crabs will be frustrated by the harrassment and will move away before the babies make their run for the Gulf. (Apparently, ghost crabs like to grab and eat baby sea turtles so Sandy likes to encourage the crabs to leave the area.)

That's all for the fantasy writer's life today. You can still get her fabulous fantasy novel at http://www.amazon.com/Choices-Meant-Gods-Sandy-Lender/dp/1595071652/ref=cm_cd_t_h_dp_i/104-9089752-5140754.

Tags: Choices Meant for Gods, Sandy Lender, fantasy novel, sea turtles, fantasy writer, Archie Carr, Today the Dragon Wins

She Accosted This Woman in the Grocery Store

My fantasy author avoids the grocery store as much as humanly possible. She hates going there. Always has. Sandy Lender believes her mother used to "trick" her into going to the grocery store with her when she was a teen by cajoling her into going to some other store...and then stopping by the grocery store on the way home. "Oh, let's stop by the grocery," or, "Oh, I need to pick something up at the grocery store," were words Sandy grew to distrust. She tells me that she actually started questioning her mother before they would leave the house with "we're not stopping by the grocery store, are we?"

Anyway, Sandy was literally down to spaghetti noodles, canned green beans, and wilting lettuce that she wouldn't even feed to the tortoises today so she had no choice but to stop at this dreaded store on her way home from work. She rewarded herself for getting through the ordeal without killing anyone by picking up a little carton of this ice cream stuff made by a company called Turtle Mountain. (She's got a post about them at her site at www.todaythedragonwins.blogspot.com where she discusses their policy on helping the Sea Turtle Restoration Project.) So when she got to the frozen foods case (and do you realize that your society is able to freeze food to the point that it is solid? and it stays that way?), there was this lovely older lady standing there staring at the ice cream. Obviously indecisive. So...never one to be shy where sea turtle preservation is concerned, Sandy said, "I always buy the Turtle Mountain products because they're great and their proceeds help protect sea turtles." I watched with interest as the conversation just rocketed out of control from there. Insane, I tell you. What are the chances that someone would respond to that? So she stood there talking about mint chocolate chip ice cream and sea turtles with a total stranger.

Writers can be bizarre.

The most bizarre part? The lady bought a carton of the Turtle Mountain ice cream. Sandy should be in marketing for this company...

She Stunned the Lady at the Grocery Store

I couldn’t get her attention away from the fish counter to write down this fabulous idea I had earlier this afternoon. Now, I know Sandy has a variety of idiosyncrasies when it comes to what she eats because the people in your society are fishing various species into extinction and decimating other species with irresponsible bycatch practices. (She refuses to eat shrimp because some shrimpers refuse to use Turtle Excluder Devices* on their nets. She’d rather be safe than sorry…)

So today I’m struggling to get her attention. She’s staring at the labels on the fish in the little ice-chest area of the grocery store. The lady behind the counter is trying to tell her about trans-fats or something that Sandy doesn’t need to worry about. (You should see her. There are no traces of fat on this woman.) And she pipes up with “I’m not worried about that. I just don’t want to perpetuate the rape of our oceans.”

The lady behind the counter and I both stared at her as if she were insane. So the woman gave her farm-raised tilapia, and I quietly escorted her to another area of the store. Do I need to state that I forgot the great idea I wanted her to write down?

*She told me that if I insist on embarrassing her with my blog posts, then I should at least counter such negativity with positive information. Her suggestion was that I ingratiate myself to her by explaining the sea turtles’ plight. Because she has regaled me with this at least a dozen times, I’ve got it down pretty well.

Sea turtles eat shrimp so they are, naturally, in the way when shrimpers drag their nets across the ocean floor, tearing up fragile ecosystems to scoop up shrimp and whatever else is in their path. The shrimpers haul the nets up on the decks of their boats to discover they’ve caught any number of extra species, including sea turtles. (Turtles are heavy and crush and bruise the shrimp, so shrimpers get pretty upset about this bycatch.) Now, a couple things can happen to a turtle caught in a shrimper’s net. She can drown because the stress has sped up her metabolism while the net was drug along destroying the ocean floor and the lives on it. She can merely weaken while in the net and find herself compromised and confused once on the boat. When the shrimpers get angry and toss the heavy turtle overboard, she sinks like a rock and, again, likely drowns. She could end up in a soup pot if the shrimpers can hide the evidence of an endangered species on their deck. One way conservationists came up with to protect both the shrimpers’ catch (read: profits) and the turtles is to place a trap door on the net. This is the Turtle Excluder Device, also known as a TED. It’s a wedge-like doorway that remains closed until something heavy (like a turtle) bumps against it and forces it open. It sounds like a fabulous fix for both parties. The problem is that not all shrimpers are highly intelligent folks. They look at this doorway and think, “Woah, that’s like putting a hole in my net.” (It’s not, but that’s how someone who hasn’t had the concept explained to them properly might view it.) So more education on the topic is needed and better enforcement of the law is necessary. If Sandy were queen of the world, commercial fishing would be banned anyway and the turtles wouldn’t have to worry about nets at all. But she’s not. And until she is, she’s just not eating shrimp. She just chimed in with “Fish are friends, not food,” but I don’t know why that makes her giggle.

Tags: Sandy Lender, Turtle Excluder Device, sea turtle, shrimper, bycatch