I started the day at 6AM. It was nice and cool, with a low temperature of 68F. The high today was in the mid to upper 80's. I did some more experimentation with the silver stained on the dichroic bevels. The photo here shows my lay out prior to firing. I combined different stains with different color and textures of dichroic. The results were worth the effort.

I finished cutting and grinding Sharon P's sidelights. They are packed away and ready for foiling.

I transfered my GlassEye licence from the old Dell to my new computer. I spent a couple of hours designing a sea turtle that is really going to be great, once completed. I am going to do the shell in stippled amber intense silver stain, with painted elements for the head and fins. I was really excited and ready to start the process, when UPS showed up with the SI100B I need to get the Dooley's commissions done. I put away the sea turtle, and started straight away on the commissions. Sad, but I have to get these done before the 14th....and so.....
The Amaryllis are in full bloom, and spectacular! So much so that Sherry wanted to take a walk over to "Paradise" to search out some more. On the way across the scrub we spied this delicate little wild flower. A real beauty.

As we approached the sink (a low, wet area of about 10 acres, complete with alligators), we noticed the smell of cairn in the air, quite heavy. I searched around and discovered the source, wrapped in plastic, and deposited in the water. This is not ordinary for this area. When someone disposes of carcasses in the scrub ( which generally consists of hog & deer, and is done quite often), they generally just throw them out on the ground, and let the buzzards eat the remains. Never are carcasses thrown into water. Needless to say, Sherry and I were concerned, as we could not tell what "type" carcass lay submerged in the sink, wrapped in plastic. Further suspect, were a group of "scrappers" (metal collectors) in the area we were searching out the Amaryllis. They had no English (or so they said) and looked a rough lot. I looked carefully in the bed of the truck, but saw nothing that indicated they had deposited the carcass in the sink. I snapped a photo of the truck, and we moved into the messic hammock to look for the flowers. We returned home, and I headed straight off to the outdoor shower in order to wash off the Deets and get the mosquitoes out of my nose and ears. Sherry washed up and got started on dinner (steamed shrimp and green beans with bacon, rice and a salad). During dinner Todd stopped by with Gavin. We told him about the carcass. He agreed that it was suspicious. After he left, Sherry and I discussed this, and decided to call the non-emergency 911 number at the Sheriff's Department. I described what we had seen,

and the Desk Sargent agreed that it was suspicious. Within the hour two deputy's and the Lykes Bros. Security Officer(the suspect carcass was located on Lykes property) arrived to question us on the report. As it was now dark, Sherry volunteered me to escort the Deputy's to the sink. Once we arrived, there was some discussion as to how to retrieve the carcass from the water, as the sink is inhabited by alligators (you could hear them "grunting" throughout the 10+/- acre sink while we were there). In the end, the Lykes Bros. representative walked into the water, grabbed the plastic, and pulled. You can only imagine the relief when it was discovered that the carcass was that of an alligator, and not a human. Obviously, an alligator poacher disposed of the gator in the sink, in order to hide his crime.

The Deputy said that what we did was quite right, as you can not tell out here in the brush. A body wrapped in plastic and dumped in a remote sink is a very suspicious occurrence, and should in fact, be reported. Besides that, said the deputy, a crime was committed, as alligator poaching is illegal.

So it was back home, away from all of the mosquitoes around the sink, get cleaned up once again, and off to bed. Another exciting day in Palmdale. I can not wait to see what tomorrow will bring. Life in Florida is always exciting.