Poultry in Paradise

Observations from Key West Part 1

The chickens and roosters rule the roost here. They are free to run and live anywhere on the island. I always thought roosters normally crow in the morning at sunrise. But here in Key West there is a competition among the roosters to see who can be the first to “cock a doodle do”. So in the wee hours of 4am they get started with their WAKE UP song. I don’t know if they have any natural predators, even the cats don’t seem to bother  them.

The music we have heard has been fun. For early birds (title reference, Haha) bars have the bands do a sound check. They play for a few hours or so during happy hour. The Green Parrot had a pretty good rock cover band the other day.  Lunch at Schooner Wharf with live entertainment. Raven invited Mr. Blues to join her and he was singing “Sitting on the dock of the bay” and some good blues tunes.

The bikes we purchased have been working out very well. Bike riding is great in Key West with nice bike lanes and wide sidewalks. Its fun to ride through the neighborhoods off the beaten path. We do our grocery shopping and laundry towing a fold up wagon. There is an insulated tote bag for the cold stuff and the eggs (title reference again ) made it back to the boat just fine.

We have done a few touristy things. The conch train tour was fun and informative. Our driver was 3rd generation Key West native. He had all the local scoop on the history and happenings. Jim and Mary Jo came to visit for the day. Lots of fun hanging out with them.

We visited the Hemingway house on Whitehead Street. Hemingway lead a very colorful life around the islands along with fishing everyday. A lot of cool memorabilia and photos in the house. There are 55 cats on the 1 acre lot. I am not a cat person and they were everywhere.  Where do they all stay, there is a cat condo and feline sick bay on the property. In case you were wondering I didn’t notice any roosters or chicks on the property.

Birds in the Sky ( I’m probally pushing it ). We are near the Naval Air Station Key West and have an airshow just about every day. F-14s in formation, Large transports, and AWACs planes. This is the second Largest TOP GUN training base in the US. The jets fly low and loud.

On the next post I’ll talk about the food, but I had to through one mention in here because it fits. Roostica for really good thin crust oven fired pizza.

Sunset photo time. I know in 8 hours the competition will start all over again.