Judy P's Tickle Trunk

…….or Temporary Pets.

Many of our campsites have come with pets, both welcomed and unwelcomed. There have been cats, ducks, raccoons and always the little ants which have no trouble finding the garbage can inside the camper. This cat  roamed regularly through our site at Hunting Island:

A fearless looking kitty.

We recently had to change campsites here at Knight’s Key RV Resort and it came with a change of temporary pets. The old site had a tree which harboured little lizards and not so little iguanas. I was sad to leave them behind.

Lizard.

Didn’t get around to naming this fellow but he looks like a ‘Carl’ to me.

We were settling in to our new site, separated from the ocean by a hedge of mangroves, when I sped this peculiar hole in the ground:

A most peculiar hole.

I thought it must house an icky member of the rodent family.

It appeared to be bottomless.

There was much to do so I forgot about the possible rodent for the time being. Later we set up our lawn chairs (coming soon; rant re the perfect lawn chair) and sat out for lunch. Now ever since Cape Hatteras I have been joking with Lance that a hermit crab would make an ideal pet; we could keep it til the novelty wore off and then eat it. (Kind of like our basil Christmas tree). Thus far he has resisted my entreaties. I was therefore delighted when we saw that the resident of the mysterious hole in the ground was not a rat at all, but a cute little crab.

Shy little crab.

Shy but curious.

Actually, I wasn’t really sure it was a crab until it completely showed itself. After all, if I’ve learned anything from watching SpongeBob Squarepants it is that crabs live in the ocean.

I marvelled at his eyes on the ends of little stalks. How very cartoonish he appeared.

It seemed sensible to give him a name.

Introducing our new temporary pet, Crabby.

The feng shui of the new campsite is much better. The old site had a heavy dank smell, slightly reminiscent of slop buckets and was hemmed in on the back by other campers. It did however, have a very cute tree in the backyard:

I named this tree knobby.

I couldn’t resist.

Here is our current backyard view:

I love to see the open ocean and watch the boats coming and going from the marina.

The only downside is that there are more noseeums here. I have a real aversion to using Deet products so today I am trialling a new product called EcoSmart. It professes to be an organic insect repellent. Repels for hours it says. I applied it to my left arm and left leg and didn’t put any at all on the right. So far, I have killed 6 noseeums on my right arm and zero on the left and one on my right leg. So it seems to be working and best of all, it smells like Thrills gum. Win, win.

Click on any picture for a larger view.

© Judy Parsons 2015