Celebration Life

We’re just back from the Celebration Memorial Day 2010 Flag Ceremony. We thought this was a well-executed tribute to the men & women, husbands & wives, sons & daughters, who have given the ultimate sacrifice in service to the United States of America.

Thank you, veterans.

As always, click the photo for a larger version. Apologies for not knowing the names of the people pictured, but if you mail me I will add appropriate captions.

Traffic was fairly light at the Celebration Farmers Market today, presumably because it’s a holiday weekend. We were glad that Tom was there:

As well as the produce stand:

This is a relative newcomer who we haven’t visited yet:

And a booth making their first appearance that I know of:

Strange that I only took pictures of food places. Hmmm.

I took this picture last Monday (5/24) using my iPhone.

Since I took that without benefit of a zoom lens, you can safely assume he’s dead.

He was pretty well hidden behind some grass, so you wouldn’t have noticed him if you were walking by. He was pointed out to us by someone walking in the other direction. None of us knew he was dead at the time, so we had a nervous chuckle and went on our way.

The next morning, I knew. The dozen or so vultures camped out in the area gave it away. Fortunately, the Florida sun hadn’t started to work its magic, so there wasn’t a smell yet. Later that day, township people came to take him away.

There was speculation on the internal message boards about the cause of his demise. Was it old age? Seemed unlikely… we was only 7 feet or so. Was there some poison or pollution in the water that did him in? Also unlikely, as there wasn’t evidence of any other deaths. Run-in with another gator? This one seemed more likely; it’s mating season, and our subject was missing a sizable chunk of scales & flesh from his left side, and some on his right.

We’ll probably never know. It’s a shame, though. We always made it a point to try to spot him on our walks, and more often than not we’d see him working on his tan on the grass opposite the trail.

And if it was another gator that did him in, where’s THAT gator? Hmmm…

Update 2010-Jun-01: There’s an older article about another alligator here: Celebrationblog.com: Wildlife Part 4.

Flat Stanley, who in this reincarnation hails from Pictou County, Nova Scotia, watches from the East Village as Space Shuttle Atlantis blasts off for its final voyage before retirement.