We feed the minnows bread crumbs. Finn spreads the tiny white stars, a benediction, into the water "Feed fishes?" He asks for another handful.

The wind has been stronger lately, in a place with a noticeable absence of it. The cold cat's paw of winter reaches down to us from the Great North. The cheap windows in our home rattle--single pane glass? The whole neighborhood is like a pretty painted cardboard village. Charming, but insubstantial. We look forward to a home that is our home, not a rental.

There is no more algae sitting on top of the pond. A relief in one way; perhaps the water is healthier? A sadness in another, the turtles used to bask on the tiny moss islands, their heads poking up and out of the water like sprouts.

A hawk presides over the pond. Kyah! Kyah! it cries, like a Mongolian horse rider racing across the desert on his fleet-footed steed. Faster! Faster! It is a beautiful, red-tailed hawk. Sometimes I see crows chasing it, others, a pair of sparrows plucking at it's tail feathers. It doesn't ever seem afraid or lonely, just fierce. Things with feathers rarely seem lonely. Maybe it's creatures of fur that need each other most.

A small black snake likes to bask in the sun under a bush by Finn's bedroom. I usually like snakes, but Florida snakes give me pause. I don't worry about the little black snake, though, because it's not poisonous. Once when I made to catch it, Finnegan's brother laughed and asked me not to. "Let it lie in the sun and be happy," he said.

In the end, I think that is the definition of Florida living; to lie in the sun and be happy.