​He's BACK Ya'll!! Again!

​After the longest summer absence from my sight in my history with my Ole Popeye Dragon (5 days short of 2 months but who was counting) I finally got to feast my eyes on this amazing hunka Gator flesh again!! Heartfelt thanks go to my dear friend and fellow nature photographer and Alligator enthusiast Linda Bonskowski who called me to let me know she had spotted 2 Gators in our favorite Gatortat and I needed to get down there. I can't tell you how many times in the interim my eyes met his absence and how utterly heartbroken I was. Popeye is an ancient warrior and the knowledge he was seriously injured 3 yrs ago by a larger Gator had my mind spiraling down into the maelstrom of the possibility that I might never see him again. Thank heavens that vision has dimmed and I was able to partake of his majestic presence again yesterday. What a weight of darkness and depression has been lifted from my life. The first thing I did before leaving his lair was to share a photo of my beloved Dragon King to none other than my Bestie, Alligator Alliance founder Lisa McNeill. I texted Happy early Birthday to her because I thought what better present than the realization that our favorite Gator is still alive and well and even thriving! Lisa shares my affection and concern for this guy equally and although she insists on calling him Beau, our love and respect for this character knows no bounds. I have to say that when I got the call from Linda I seriously doubted it was really my Popeye - but what the heck, at least I could see a couple of Gators, right? Just like me, Lisa originally thought it was an old photo of our boy and I was just acknowledging her B-Day this weekend. It took a series of texts that this was actually the here and now, real time and indeed I was looking at Beau aka Popeye! We shared our newfound joy and relief with giddy laughter and the camaraderie that only two crazy old women who share a teenage crush on a distinguished senior Dragon King can. I love my Gators and I love my Lisa. She truly gets me! Although our boy is sporting some new scuffs and scrapes on that massive mug of his, he appears really none the worse for wear on his return. With the recent record July heat wave we have recently experienced in Brunswick County, I can finally rest assured my old Dragon was simply whiling away his time in the muddy bottom of deeper cooler waters simply waiting to hit the shallows and the shoreline with this welcomed advent of cooler rainy weather. Alligators truly are the masters of survival, following instincts that have served them for literally countless millions of years, totally irregardless of the frantic emotions of silly grey haired old Gator Whisperers. We should take lessons in patience and perseverance in their behaviors and try to live as they do, keen in the knowledge that this too, shall pass and we will indeed survive...