Arrgh, avast ye faithful readers,

If ye dint know, it be National Talk Like a Pirate Day today! So regail and revel in that that be your own! Talk yer dirty talk to the scummy masses today! Let 'em know that ye arrrr a pirate at heart! Florida be home to many pirates, ye see..........all enjoyed the sandy coast of this mosquito ridden spit o' sand. So hoist some grog, see the sun set o'r the vivid blue yonder. Be shure to take a sail if ye have a boat amongst ye.

Technically, it's not Fall yet. And it's going to stay pretty hot in Florida for a long time. So why not get out and host an end of summer backyard party for your friends and family before it cools down too much. Pull out the picnic tables, the checkered cloths and the lanterns along with great summer foods that take advantage of the summer bounty.

An easy way to save time and money this fall, when working on your lawn, is the mulch your leaves. If you have a mulching mower, this is easy. Just mow and grind those suckers up and add fertilizer naturally to your grass. If you don't prefer to do this or don't have this type of equipment, then start raking.

Just put the leaves back into your flower beds and bare areas to keep your plants and flowers moisturized all fall long. Don't add to the growing landfill with leaves! Save that for your non-recyclable trash.

Start a compost pile. Saving your trash to create a compost pile is an easy way to create new soil and enrich your plantings and gardens. Just be sure to create a place that's pretty far away from your house, because decomposing matter doesn't always smell pretty! A good source to learn about how to compost can be found at How to Build a Compost Bin. Now go enjoy the nice weather Fall brings and make a difference too!

Fall is only a few weeks away, thank goodness. I, for one, enjoy it much more when it's cooler outside. Some things to consider doing to prepare your yard for Fall:

1) Service the mower. Mowing starts to slow down now. Get a jump on maintenance by getting blades sharpened, change the oil, give it a good cleaning. In Florida, we hardly ever stop mowing completely, so keep it running!

2) Talk to your kids about raking! They all want to earn extra money, so fire them up about raking for cash. Those deciduous trees are already dropping their leaves, so stay on top of it and have some weekly raking sessions.

3) Cut back those old flowers! Dead head those faded bloom! Cut back the leggy annuals and give them a new burst of life before planting the new fall annuals. It saves you some money and uses what you already have. Consider adding some new annuals to the old ones to perk them all up.

4) Cooler weather means painting! It's the idea time to catch up on maintenance like fence painting, house painting, etc.

5) Change out your mats! Take a look at what you've got sitting on your front porch right now. How does it look? Ratty and disgusting? Or fresh and inviting? Spend a few dollars at Walmart and get a new porch mat and maybe a new plant to put by the front door. Take down anything that screams Spring or Summer and get rid of it.

I think we're ready to see a really big ramp up on the Hurricane Season in Florida. Fay was just the beginning. The models are already showing several new possibilities rolling our way across the Atlantic.

Take a few moments to survey what you'll need to get through until November 1st, when the season is supposed to end. Do you have all the supplies you need? Are your branches around your home trimmed? Have you cleaned out your garage so your car will fit? Gotcha with that one!

Items for Your Hurricane Supply Kit:

• Flashlights
• Tons of batteries of all types
• Beer, wine, Jack Daniels or all three (optional for some, mandatory for others, especially when you are hosting evacuees)
• Clean laundry (you might not be able to do it for a long time)
• Bug Spray
• Sunscreen
• Canned foods, cookies, crackers, cheez whiz, etc.
• Pop Tarts (this is a stress busting favorite)
• Water - for drinking and toilet flushing when the water system doesn't work
• Tarps to repair roof damage - something to attach tarps (nails, tools)
• Lots of Towels
• Valuable papers in ziplocks
• Lots of Gas in the car
• Lots of Gas for your grill
• Secure your grill
• Weather radio with extra batteries (see above)
• Regular radio for news and maybe music
• Books, crayons, paper and games to read/play when you have no power
• Baby supplies in bulk
• Baby wipes in bulk (this is your shower)
• A good supply of shorts and t-shirts, sleeveless shirts and undies
• Pet food/Carrier

How's your yard doing through this massive Tropical Storm Fay? This one is a record setter to be sure. Massive flooding is a problem in many areas throughout the state of Florida, especially the Space Coast - Melbourne, Titusville, Merritt Island areas. Now St. Augustine is under the gun. Be sure that once this passes, you give your lawns time to dry out thoroughly before you even think about mowing or doing lawn work. Check your trees and shrubs for wind and water damage. Wet soil can make it easy for trees to uproot.

Get ready for mosquitoes too! A news report yesterday said there will be record numbers of the little nasty bugs for weeks to come, due to the excessive rains. Maybe this is the time to buy stock in Off?

Stay dry!

Hey, the site is Florida YARD Dog, right? Betcha want to find some good info about Florida yards, eh?

We attended several seminars at the Hernando County Extension Office and learned about things like when is the best time of year to fertilize, kill weeds, and plant different varieties. They also gave us product recommendations, so we wouldn't waste money on weedkiller that killed weeds that don't even thrive in Florida. Highly recommended.

Click to find the county extension office in your Florida county.

When you have little space to produce a garden, you can maximize your production by making some container gardens. We have a small patio and yet still want to produce some fruits and veggies. Tomatoes are really easy. Manure based potting soil (Black Kow), a tomato cage and a large pot are really all you need to have endless tomatoes all summer long. You can even do this on a screened porch, which in Florida is a really big help to keep the bugs down.

The Dog Days of Summer are here! Well, when you own a dog or puppy, the dog days are every day! During the hot Florida summer it's really important to pay attention to dog health, especially when it comes to flea and tick season. Really, all year in Florida the fleas are a problem. The ticks seem to come and go in waves. But if you or your pet brush up along any kind of foliage or even long grass, you will need to be sure that you are regularly using flea and tick preventatives. You can get them from your vet or order them online and have them shipped wherever you are spending the summer with your pet.

Lots of people get new puppies as new family additions in the summer, when the kids are out of school. It's a great time to keep the kids busy, while growing your new baby dog. Dogs and kids playing at the beach, what could be better! We have our own puppy (well - dog of 11 years now) and he loves having us all home to play with him, instead of being away at work and at school.

I think it increases my dogs life expectancy to have us all home a lot. We are not looking forward to his increasing slow down from aging in the next few years. We keep him exercised well. During the summer we do more playing inside or during evening walks. The kids love throwing his toys for him. Training him to do new tricks is their latest project. He finally learned to shake hands after ten years!

Heat is a big issue to watch out for with your dog or puppy during summer. We have been having temperatures this week reading into the near 100's. Please be sure to keep your dog in the shade or inside, and keep plenty of fresh, cool, water available. My dog goes through his water several times per day now.

Keep cool and enjoy your dog days of summer with your dog!

A beautiful tree for Florida yards is the Flowering Dogwood. It's a popular tree all over the south. It grows its best form and flowers in light shade. The fruit attracts birds nicely. It helps to mulch to maintain moist soil around the base.

If you haven't figured it out, a Florida Yard Dog is another name for alligator. Well, it's also a catchy name for the blog about Florida. But I did run across this little item today - a realistic yard alligator for YOU! So now you can get your own Florida Yard Dog. I just thought these looked pretty cool. Also good for that Gator fan in the family!

Now this alligator fountain might be a good spring update for your yard, but I think it's a bit cheesy! But I did like the swimming alligator - go figure! Now, this Yard Alligator is very much more to my taste! I like more ecclectic items for my garden, how about y'all?

In Florida, we shouldn't have to be worrying about frost in mid-April...but we are. This weird weather of the year continues and tonight it may dip to freezing in many areas of north Florida and definitely it will in the immediate lower south.

I found this cool product that I wish I knew about earlier in the cold season, but it's never too late to find a good product tip. Check out Frost Protek, a lightweight easy-to-use plant cover. I'm pretty sick of using my good and not-so-good sheets to help my plants. I really like this easy to store plant cover.

In the meantime, I'm going to cover our newly sprouted tomatoes with some newspaper and hope for the best. I'm going to have to use some sheets too for now.

Today I spotted a female cardinal flying excitedly from the bottlebrush bush in front of our home. Upon inspection, I see a nicely made spanish moss and stick nest in the center of the tree. Now, if I can just get the kids to stop peeking at it so much and remove the cat from it's favorite spot beneath the bush, all will be well. The cat doesn't know about the bird, but we want to keep it that way. The females are a darker reddish brown, the male looks like the photo at the left.

This is such a beautiful time in Florida! Even though the calendar doesn't yet say Spring, the flowering plants are saying it to us. The glorious colors of the azaleas are everywhere! I highly recommend that anyone add these lovely plants to their yards for color and greenery year after year. There are also lovely varieties of native Florida azaleas like the wild pink azaleas shown below.

Florida authors always seem to have a unique voice. Capturing the Florida lifestlye can be tricky, and an author really needs to live here to do it justice. Just my opinion.

I enjoy Randy Wayne White's books. I read Sanibel Flats years ago and was hooked, and look forward each spring to a new book in this long-running series. Doc Ford is the hero and is the kind of person many men wish they could be. His sidekick is Tomlinson, who manages to push the envelope of normality while being the most human character in these books.

Doc is a "retired" covert operative/marine biologist, and most of the books have him pulled back into the black world thanks to his former life. A couple of the books are lighter fare with a bit more humor, and I particularly enjoyed The Man Who Invented Florida.

Enjoy!

We spent a bit of the day without power at work, today. I thought it was due to the massive storms that rolled through North Florida, but apparently there was a glitch in Florida's electrical grid that cascaded and wound up taking out a number of power plants, including a nuclear power plant.

About 3-4 million people were affected. Amazingly, most seem to have their power back already. A far cry from the weeks we spent without power during a season of hurricanes in 2004. With no clean-up, power comes back quick.

I'm a big fan of Tom Corcoran's Alex Rutledge mystery novels. Rutledge lives in Key West and when I saw this picture of a house in Key West, it immediately struck me as "Oh, it's Rutledge's house."

Which is weird, because Rutledge is fictional and I've never seen his house. I guess Corcoran does a pretty solid job of descriptive writing if I had picture in my head that was so vivid, I immediately thought of it when I saw a photo.

The Amelia Island Book Festival brings authors and readers together each fall on the extreme northeast coast of Florida, in the town of Fernandina Beach on Amelie Island. A wonderful time of year to visit, by the way. Authors range from locals up to world-renowned best-sellers. A must-do for the bibliophile.

To go with yesterday's post about the Lighthouse in St. Augustine, here is the inside view, looking up. That's your climb - enjoy!

Photo credit: WordRidden on Flickr

I love lighthouses. This shot of the St. Augustine Lighthouse is really nice. The lighthouse is open to the public, so you can climb to the top and see St. Augustine from on high. There is also a great summer camp that takes place there, with a lot of focus on natural science and marine biology. My daughter has gone twice and loved it.

Photo credit: eye2eye at Flickr

Any guesses?

The Florida State Flower is the Orange Blossom. Wish I knew where I got it so I could give them credit, if you know drop me a line.

Santa brought his helpers to The Paper Porch in Brooksville, FL after last Christmas. Guess they needed a vacation. Also, they might have been checking out Roger's Christmas House.

Welcome to Florida Yard Dog! We're going to be putting all kinds of information here of note and interest to people who appreciate the natural world in Florida. That might be your yard, the woods, parks, or wherever they may be natural Florida. We'll also post photos and notes about places to go, people to see, and things to do in Florida.