My Homewood Road Home

Adjusting to My New Environment

At the beginning of the summer, I finally moved out of the dorms after 3 years and settled into a house in San Carlos with two of my teammates.  It has only been a few months since I have moved in, but I have quickly adjusted and I now feel at home on Homewood Road.  One of my favorite features of my neighborhood is that every home recycles.  The city of Fort Myers provides free recycling containers for every household, which is a convenient plus that allows residents to recycle with ease.   Although it's not the nicest of neighborhoods, I enjoy finding the beauty around me when I go rollerblading with my roommates or ride around on my skateboard to collect my thoughts.

The place where I feel most at peace is out back by my pool.  This is one of the places where I find it easy to clear my head and just relax.  I enjoy dangling my feet in the pool and looking out into the yard.  It might help that the pool came with the Miami Dolphins logo on the bottom, my favorite NFL team!

My sense of place

Except when there is a snake in it! I love wildlife, but I sure do hate snakes.

A nice snake surprise

Go Dolphins!

The most abundant wildlife around me may be the thousands of stray cats that roam the neighborhood.  Or perhaps it's the millions of spiders, most of which sneak their way into my house.  But besides that, my roommates and I are constantly spotting wildlife around us.  Just the other day we saw an osprey chasing a tiny bird around the trees behind our house, hoping to make him a tasty snack.  There seem to be birds everywhere, as these guys were just hangin out in front of my house when I got home today.

A group of ibises plucking our grass for worms

The most rewarding experience I have had since I moved onto Homewood Road was finding four stray kittens in the woods directly across the street from my house.  When we saw the tiny critters wandering from the shelter of the woods, my roommates and I were immediately concerned.  Where was their mother?  They seemed to be starving.  They also had obviously never been in contact with humans before, as they hissed and spat at us with terror in their eyes.  After a few hours of searching the woods for a momma cat, we decided to rescue these kittens from lives as strays searching through garbage cans for food.

The wooded area by my house where we found the kittens

Saving these little guys was one of the best decisions of my life, as we immediately became attached to these little guys, who quickly adapted to human contact, eating sold food, drinking from a bowl, and using a liter box.  Although these kittens may not actually be considered "wild", they would have been if we had not saved them. I was so thankful that we found them each a good home with food, shelter, and vet care to get rid of those fleas and ticks!

Me and my kitty friends-  I sure do miss these little animals