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Friday, June 14, 2013

What Is Up With Lizards and Lawn Furniture?

If you've followed my story at all you know that we lived full time in a 34 foot motor home for 3 1/2 years and then moved into a house in Florida 8 months ago and then to ANOTHER house in Florida 1 month ago.  I'm getting progressively worse at moving as it happens - I'm so disorganized and feel like I don't want to spend the little bit of time that I get feeling good organizing stuff that I've grown very detached to over that last several years.  Among this "stuff" we have 4 pieces of patio or lawn furniture, camp chairs - whatev.

When we left Denver these chairs were in pristine condition.  They saw the light of day a couple of times a year when we were camping or went to a concert in the park.  We have two Coleman foldup chairs and two Sports Authority Alpine brand zero gravity loungers that we call the "Big Ass Chairs".

The Coleman chairs had - and notice I say HAD - a little foldout table on the side with a cupholder in it.  The Alpine Big Ass Chairs were - and notice how I say WERE - strung with a stretch bungie type string.  This furniture stayed pristine from Bend, to Las Vegas, to Phoenix but it started a serious decline in Dallas in the summer of 2011 where it faced temperatures over 100 degrees for over 90 days with no rain.  The hottest summer on record in Dallas and the worst drought in history.  It was devastating for Texas and for our lawn furniture.

Up until we moved to Florida, in the RV, in the fall of 2011 we thought that the lawn furniture was for us - I guess really anywhere else in the United States when you have lawn furniture is IS for the people.  The lizards in Florida though did not get that memo.  They got the memo that said that lawn furniture is the exclusive domain of horny little reptiles.

These are not big lizards - from 2 inches to 4 inches maybe.  They LOVE lawn furniture. And it doesn't matter if you're a gecko or an anole - apparently they have a corrupt lizard real estate agent selling them the deeds to our lawn furniture.  And they don't just sleep there.  They fight there; court there; do the hanky panky there; and of course hide there.

And that brings up a funny story - and I'm throwing Norgin under the bus here for the sake of a laugh.

When we were getting ready to move from the RV to the house in New Smyrna Beach we had no furniture here.  Everything "house" oriented was back in climatized storage in Aurora, CO. So we set up first with our lawn/patio furniture.  We had the above listed chairs plus a small, glass topped patio table. 

I had Norgin, a client of our neighbor Chuck, come to help me.  He loaded the furniture into the back of the Prius and we took off from Sanford to New Smyrna Beach, a 30 minute trip.  Between the RV Park and Walmart in NSB three lizards made their way onto the dash while we were driving.  Norgin bravely and calmly handled getting them off the dash and out the window.

I know, I know...it's heartbreaking to think of the gecko going "Heyyyyyyyyy!!!!!" as he flies away but dang I purposely and shook and tapped those chairs prior to them going into the car and those little buggers chose to stay inside.

So we pull up to Walmart, where my strategy was to buy clear storage boxes to put stuff in from the RV in the house.  Remember, we had NO furniture.  So I open up the hatch on the Prius and Norgin reaches in to move the chairs to make room for the boxes and a lizard JUMPS onto his shirt!

He was screaming like a little girl, running around and slapping himself like a crazy man and I was laughing so hard I almost peed myself!  But I was SO apologetic too but laughing my ass off, so it really, probably didn't seem all that sincere.

Norgin is a sweetheart and I would never purposely embarrass him but Oh My Gosh this was funny.  I would have done the same exact thing but I would have sworn like an old sailor.  Norgin kept it to little girl screams so I know he's going ahead of me in the line to heaven.

So here is a little video of the lizard who has taken up residence on the big ass chair in the screen room.  Just prior to this he was bobbing his head up and down and making his red throat balloon out, which is a mating ritual.  He stayed right in this place for over 12 hours yesterday but today was nowhere to be seen.


And if you are of the curious type then you can click here and check out this site with lots of information about Florida Lizards

The lizards are our friends.  We welcome them with open arms because they are our best defense against fleas and no-see-ums.  So welcome home little dudes...welcome home.

Peace be with you and all that jazz....!


Copyright (c) 2013 - Chardale Irvine - All rights reserved.

1 comment:

  1. Thgis reminds me of when we moved you in Ogden and the cat decided to use the cat box on the way. Problem was...the cat box was on my lap!!!

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