MARCH 2020 – ONE LAST ESCAPE

Essay and photos by P.C. Zick The winter of 2019/2020 may have been foreshadowing of what happened in the early spring of 2020. From the death of my brother to my husband’s myriad of physical ailments to surgery for my daughter, I’d had it by February and looked forward to a fresh start for a

Our Urban Oasis

We live on the southeast side of Tallahassee, but when we drive a mile from our home to a city park, it’s hard to believe we’re so close to an urban area with a population of 200,000. We call it Piney Z after the name of one of the lakes and the neighborhood bordering it,

MAKE YARD A FOUR-LETTER WORD

Residential Yards Can Hurt or Help the Environment Fragile describes Florida’s environment and habitat. It would be that way even without the influx of twenty million plus people inhabiting it year-round then add in the tourists who flock here each year for days, weeks, or even months at a time. And of those millions of

MY KAYAKING ROOTS

Photos and essay by P.C. Zick (@PCZick) I began my water journeys in a canoe, but I never felt at home, either as the navigator in the back or the first mate in the front. However, I knew nothing else and loved the quiet and peace of the rivers of north Florida, mostly the Santa

Seven Years Since the Oil Spilled

BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded seven years ago on April 20, 2010. I recently did a book signing for Trails in the Sand, my novel that uses the oil spill as the backdrop to the drama unfolding in one family. “The race to save wildlife from tar balls approaching Florida’s beaches runs parallel to a reporter’s

FLORIDA GARDENING

    We’ve been in Florida since November. The time has flown as we’ve been taking back a house that had been a rental property for six years. We tore out the kitchen and replaced it with new cupboards, counters, and appliances. We painted most rooms and had renovations done in the bathrooms. And then

NATURE WORKS MAGIC

A weekend spent enjoying the wonders of where we live helped fight the anxiety of the past few months. Nature always rejuvenates me and inspires me to continue. If the bald eagle, the great blue heron, the white ibis, and the anhinga can survive the loss of habitat and invasion by humans, then I can survive

WINTER SOLSTICE CHEER

 After spending the past five years in the north, I am happy to return to the place where I lived for so many years in north Florida. We spent some time this past weekend taking advantage of nice weather while sending some of our warm thoughts back to those of you in the throes of an

FLORIDA FICTION – GRAB A COPY FOR #FREE!

Good morning – I’m running a special offer this week. If you haven’t read any of the books from my Florida Fiction series, now is the chance to grab the first two for free. All three books are stand alone novels. Each one has its own cast of characters and political, romantic, and environmental issues facing

It’s Growing! #gardenlove

My husband rushed to put all of his seedlings in his newly built garden bed before we headed to Florida for a few weeks. The light began fading from the day as he tenderly placed the last plant in the soil he’d been preparing for a few weeks. And then the heavens opened up. He