We had a wonderful visit to McKee Gardens last week. But, first a quick note about our weather!

It has been unusually wet and warm this winter. The high humidity is stifling when the temps are also in the 80s. So, we felt lucky over the past few days as the temperature dropped to the 60s and low 70s. But, today the water element returned with a vengeance....a heavy rain storm that lasted all morning. We used the time to get a lot of office work done, and Sharon made a new batch of granola. Yum! Sharon also noticed that our barometer, which had been high, dropped considerably before and during the rain storm.

The chart below illustrates how to interpret a barometer's inches of mercury reading. This provides a reasonably accurate forecast for the next 12 to 24 hours.

Barometric Reading	- Forecast
Over 30.20"
Rising or steady	- Continued fair
Slowing falling	- Fair
Rapidly falling	- Cloudy, Warmer
29.80" to 30.20"
Rising or steady	- Same as present
Slowing falling	- Little change
Rapidly falling	- Precipitation likely
Under 29.80"
Rising or steady	- Clearing, cooler
Slowing falling	- Precipitation
Rapid falling	- Storm

So, our barometer was displaying 31.00 inches of mercury: high and not moving much until this morning. Then it dropped to 29.68, very low! The drop was quick and you can see what that meant in the chart above. Stormy weather!

On to the good stuff! 

McKee Gardens in Vero Beach is an old botanical garden open to the public. One section is devoted to bamboo, which Greg finds very interesting for their beauty and the diversity of the plants here. We had some time today and visited McKee for the first time this season (after a few visits last year) just to spend time in the bamboo garden. Not all plants are labeled, so we don't have the names of each one. But, we thought posting the pictures would be fun in itself. At the end is a small surprise!

 

Gigantochloa pseudoarunidacea (above right)

Tropical Blue Bamboo (above)



Slender Weavers Bamboo (above)

Guadua angustifolia (above)

Bronze Bamboo or Bambusa Lako (two pictures above)

Oldham Bamboo (above)



Fallen tree with ferns and moss

SURPRISE! As we were driving back to the boat we saw these Roseate Spoonbills alongside the road. Greg saw them and Sharon identified them within 3 seconds! OMG! We quickly did a U turn, stopped and took these pictures. They are in the same family as an Ibis, but they are obviously quite unique.

Happy January!!!!!