Fort Lauderdale, the seventh largest city in the state of Florida, offers 7 glorious miles of beaches. There were more than 11 million visitors here in the year 2011.

I eat at least 4 tomatoes every day and give at least 4 away. I cut them up in my salads, salt them and eat them over the sink, put them in soups, sauces, dip them in hummus and cook and can them. The deep red color is indicative of the deep, complex flavor. I will be sad in a few weeks when the Florida tomato growing season is over. But the good news is that I will plant the seeds for next season on September 1 – not that far away!

Believe it or not, this is a BIG couch! However, Darwin is a BIG dawg! He actually fell asleep like this with his feet on the ground!

As it always does in the spring, our giant pongam tree lost its leaves in the past couple of weeks. The near barren tree left us a great view of a giant bird’s nest, which we believe belongs to a hawk we saw flying several times overhead.

It isn’t that often that we come across a group of manatees we can see up close. But today my husband and I hit the jackpot! He was riding his bike home from the beach and called to tell me there were many manatees near the bridge at Stanley Goldman Park. I raced over with my 200 mm lens.

The water is very warm there, and that’s why they often gather in that spot. A mommy and her baby were loving each other up, and in the last 2 photos you can see manatees drinking water from a hose a man sprayed from his back yard. Read all about manatees here.

On this special American holiday, we celebrate the vision and courage of American Civil Rights leader and Nobel Prize winner, Martin Luther King, Jr. Every year on this day, I read his “I Have a Dream” speech, which I have on the wall in my office. And every year I think about how there’s really nothing that could be done to improve that speech.

Today I was privileged to review an extraordinary picture book, My Uncle Martin’s Words for America. You’ve got to read it yourself. Both the story and the illustrations are wonderful.

Cypress Knees

Roseate Spoonbill

Water ripples after gator takes a swim

Cypress reflection

One awesome knee

A forest of misty Cypress trees

Cat (of some sort) paw print? Panther? Bobcat?

Great Blue Heron

Low, low water levels

Iced tea-colored water

Air plant

Young alligator

Hawk

Humongous grasshopper

Daddy Long Legs

Graceful Crane

Ibis and Heron hangin out

Stork

Pelican