The Law and the Seahorse

Last week I spoke to a visitor to Jensen Beach. He and his wife were in Martin County looking for an affordable home on the water. They wanted to get out of Miami. At the time, we were in the Sand & Sea Boutique on the Indian River. I spoke up when I saw him looking at my seahorse creations.

A well-spoken man, he told me about his former profession—a shrimper in Biscayne Bay during the 1980s. As he netted shrimp, he’d also netted seahorses, pulling them up from their anchors in tropical waters. The shrimper said that if he’d thrown the seahorses back, they wouldn’t have survived, so he’d donated many of them to a local city aquarium.

The seahorses, he stated, were every color of the rainbow.

Biscayne Bay is a subtropical lagoon, a shallow with meadows of seagrass and corals, to the east of Miami. The north end of the bay is home to downtown Miami. The southern portion of the lagoon is a part of Biscayne National Park and is pretty much undeveloped. It’s about 35 miles long, heading south into the upper Florida Keys.

Three types of seahorses inhabit Biscayne Bay.

Seahorses caught in fishing nets dragged on the bottom of the lagoon, are known as “bycatch.” Trawl fishing is a danger to the creatures.

In 2018, Emilie Stump, a Project Seahorse artist and writer, has written about the continued live-bait shrimping in Biscayne Bay. According to a 1997 University of Miami report, the trawls cause “substantial damage to potential seahorse holdfasts.” Seahorses use their lengthy tails to anchor themselves to these corals at the lagoon bottom. Dr. Joe Serafy published a survey in 1997 revealing that “roller-frame trawls are also known to catch at least eight species of seahorse or pipefish in Biscayne National Park as bycatch.” In addition, Dr. Julia Baum published research, estimating “72,000 lined seahorses per year” are bycatch from 31 trawlers off Hernando Beach, in the Gulf of Mexico.

It is important to recognize the dangers of trawling to seahorses because these creatures are the health marker of our coastal seas. If they are protected, our Florida waters will survive and thrive.

How do coastal waters retain their naturalness when more than 22 million and a half people live on its periphery?

President Lyndon B. Johnson signed a law to create Biscayne National Monument in 1968. It was expanded in 1974, and again in 1980 when Congress created Biscayne National Park in 1980.

Yet the bait shrimp trawling was continued to be permitted in Biscayne Bay. Why?

In 1974, the Florida Legislature created the Biscayne Bay Aquatic Preserve. In 1975, it created the Biscayne Bay-Cape Florida to Monroe County Line Aquatic Preserve.

The waters directly around the State of Florida belong to Florida, therefore, the responsibility of maintaining them, belongs to the State. Who is the State of Florida? Florida residents are. It is the responsibility of Florida residents to make sure that their coastal waters survive. Leaders are elected and put in place to accomplish these things.

The current Director of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s Division of Marine Fisheries Management is Jessica R. McCawley.

Shrimp trawling around the coastal waters of Florida continues to be permitted. Why?

Laws were necessary in the past to preserve large areas of coastal waters. Laws must be made and updated to protect coastal areas around Florida where seahorses live. They are the flagship of our waters’ health. As seahorses are protected, coastal seas will be preserved for future generations.

Dwarf Seahorse, KJadon, 2024, Available At Sand & Sea Boutique, Jensen Beach, FL

© Kelly Jadon, 2024

Seahorses A Marker for Indian River Lagoon Health

Seahorses are beautiful creatures of the shallows, both in Florida waters and around the world. Most often I use glass as my artist’s medium, as if to say of the seahorse, “fragile, handle with care,” or “look, but don’t touch.” But why have I chosen seahorses as a muse?

Most Floridians live near the coast. Our seahorses live in these coastal waters, just minutes from our homes. This includes the Indian River Lagoon, not far from my own house and art studio.

The Indian River Lagoon is a unique estuary of sealife. According to the EPA, it has national significance. A healthy Lagoon relates to healthy water, translating into healthy people and a healthy economy.

Locals have seen sharks, a variety of fishes, jellyfish, stingrays, an occasional sea turtle, and dolphins flipping by. The 156-mile-long Lagoon, this shallow area of brackish water, is part of a barrier island system covering about 40% of Florida’s east coast. The Indian River Lagoon belongs to the Martin, St. Lucie, Indian River and Brevard counties.

The Lagoon hosts mangroves, oyster beds, seagrasses, sandy areas, and salt marshes. In all, 3500 species of animals and plants live there.

Within this unique ecosystem live three types of Florida seahorses: the Dwarf Seahorse, the Lined Seahorse, and the Slender or Long-Snouted Seahorse. Native seahorse populations are a marker for Indian River Lagoon vitality.

Seahorses are vulnerable. As they decline, we can know that our Lagoon is declining as well. Threats to seahorses generally include coastal development and pollution.

Seahorses use seagrasses as their habitat. Typically, they’ll use their long tails to anchor themselves to the grass. With their long snouts, the creatures suction in tiny animals that live among the grass. No grass means no food for the seahorses.

Algal blooms have been a plague across the Indian River Lagoon. In 2015, the Florida Oceanographic Society reported that Florida’s estuaries, which included the Indian River Lagoon, was “one of the most endangered ecosystems on the planet.”

Seahorses also need to see to catch their prey, but when algal blooms block sunlight, their vision is blocked as well.

In 2018, environmental reporter, Tyler Treadway of Treasure Coast Newspapers (TCPalm for you online folks), published an article about the fragility of the Indian River Lagoon after Lake Okeechobee discharges. Locals reported that the seahorses had begun to disappear.

The most important thing that can be done to improve the Indian River Lagoon seahorse populations is to do what is necessary for healthy seagrasses.

Seahorses are precious. They are vital markers of the life of our waters. The Indian River Lagoon is in transition. It can either be left to falter as it has been doing because of irresponsibility or it can be responsibly supported.

Project Seahorse states “that if we can get it right with seahorses, it will help save coastal seas.”

Little things matter. If the Lagoon had been cleaned up in several ways, manatees and other sea life would not have succumbed to death by environment.

I have seen a seahorse pulled from the river just across from the House of Refuge. Will my grandchildren know the wonders of the water as I have? Will yours?

I urge you to consider the future of the Indian River Lagoon and make changes to protect our seahorses.

Geode and Glass Mosaic Seahorse--Resin, Glass, Geode; Kelly Jadon, 2024, Available at Sand & Sea Boutique, Jensen Beach

(C) 2024, Kelly Jadon

Hummers Take Flight, 2023

Hummers Take Flight: The hummingbirds that winter in Florida have flown north for the summer’s zinnias. The base of this stained piece is glass, painted with acrylic used a fluid technique. Parts of the layered glass mosaic are fused. For Sale at $75.00

(C) Kelly Jadon, 2023

Pesach (Passover) Door 2023

This is a modern piece to remind us of the Pesach (Passover) Door. Red represents the blood of the lamb brushed around the lintel. The blood kept the enemy and death out. It was protection. Divine protection.

The door was also the exit for the Hebrew nation, a combination of those of the 12 tribes of Israel and some Egyptians (people of the world) who exited with them. The door was an exit from oppression and slavery. The Door was the Way to a better life following God.

The aqua-blue surrounding the door represents heaven and God.

The glass pieces within represent the changes that God makes as we follow Him.

(C) Kelly Jadon, 2023 (Not for Sale)

Jeweled Wreath

A Wreath

A circle

bedecked

as love unending from the beginning

until the last

even forever

the most potent power

the world has ever known or will know

love

(C) Kelly Jadon, 2021

What are you giving?

Christmas is here? It is in Stuart, Florida, where decorations are already up in shopping plazas prior to October 31st!

Most of the items incorporated in this wreath were given to me to make into something beautiful. And, I in turn gave this Christmas wreath to someone—Keri Burgess, Founder of The Farm Dog Rescue, a daughter who looks after a mother with dementia, an aunt who has helped her expecting niece, and a sister—who listens and helps.

Gift giving is important, whether we give our time, our expertise or our resources; what’s important is the giving. In fact, many like the receiver of this wreath, give everyday in our communities. They make the world a better place.

What are you giving to others?

(C) 2021 Kelly Jadon

What's in Your Cup?

What’s in your cup?

Tea originated in South West China. Portuguese priests and merchants brought the beverage to Europe in the 16th Century. By the 17th Century, tea became the popular hot drink in Great Britain, replacing coffee, itself only a decade older. Why the big switch?

Portuguese Princess Catherine of Braganza married Charles II, bringing her desire for tea instead of coffee with her from the Continent to Britain. Tea became the fashionable drink.

The British East India Company took tea to the world and their Colonies.

Princess by Kelly Jadon, 2021, $40

(C) 2021

Florida Eco-Tourism: The Birds Have It!

The first neighbor announced today that the Ruby Throated Hummingbird has returned to her feeder!

Each year northerners “snowbirds” travel highways south to the Sunshine State to avoid the cold. The true birds also migrate south. A part of Florida’s eco-tourism relies on its beautiful birds. The hummingbird species is key, since they are such miniature delicate creatures and can be lured for closer viewing with nectar feeders.

Between 11 and 14 types of hummingbirds can be seen in Florida, the most common being the Ruby-Throated hummer. It is actually active in the state year-round.

Birding as eco-tourism is so popular that areas count species. Tampa Bay holds the record for most types and numbers of hummingbirds.

(C) Kelly Jadon, 2021

Palm City: Walk It

Each week I drive out to Palm City, Florida to see my mom and take her for a roll in her wheelchair outside between the grassy fields. The openness of the land, its greenery, the sun and wind around us, reminds me of being Up North.

We Florida transplants hail from Michigan’s countryside of dirt roads, wild asparagus, and cornfields, and the strong smell of cow manure ripe in the breeze along Green Road in Goodrich.

We were always outside. It was a place of play, work, and imagination. Today, the whispering winds of Palm City bring a calmness and peace that can’t even be touched in town.

To really see the great beauty of nature, one must walk in it, not drive. Life must be slowed down and enjoyed. That’s how we see the little things of great beauty—especially, the hummingbird.

I bend over toward Mom’s ear and ask, “Do you want to go back?”

“No,” she always answers.

(C) Kelly Jadon; “Hummers in Flight” 2021 $1800

Hummers Drawn to Purple Blooms

Kelly Jadon, 2021, SOLD

Purple flowers draw hummingbirds as well as pinks, reds and oranges in South Florida. Hummingbird sight is truly fascinating. The little birds see colors in the ultraviolet spectrum that humans cannot see. This ability helps them find food and attracts a mate.

One flower with tubular type purple blossoms to plant for a South Florida winter is salvia. Once rooted, the plant can keep producing for nearly 20 years as mine has in the shade of a palm.

(C) Kelly Jadon, 2021 “Hummingbird Drawn to Purple” SOLD

The Pineapple: The Welcome Sign!—SOLD!

The pineapple is native to Brazil and Paraguay. Native Americans carried them north, up into Mexico long before Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue. Strikingly interesting, Caribbean chiefs had their crowns or tops planted outside their doorways.as signs of welcome. Hummingbirds, also native to the Americas have been helping pollinate pineapples for a long long time.

Hundreds of years later, a Dane by the surname of Jensen, planted pineapples on the Treasure Coast. By 1902, Jensen Beach had become the U.S. and the world capital for pineapple production. Each summer season, 1 million boxes of the fruit was shipped Up North (a place to us Floridians) on the Florida East Coast Railway to New York City.

Locals still grow the fruit in their yards, favoring the super sweet Hawaiian Gold variety. When my neighbor moved in a few years back, I gifted her with a pineapple from my own yard. She in turn planted the crown and continued its growth.

Pineapples are still the sign of “Welcome to the Treasure Coast,” where the only real gold you’ll find is what’s inside the pineapple’s skin.

“The Pineapple” Kelly Jadon, 2021, $75, SOLD!

(C) Kelly Jadon, 2021

Pinked Out

Fall came early this morning to the Treasure Coast—70 degrees! The woodpeckers are a bit livelier, their ruby heads hammering palms in search of insects. The Egyptian geese are squawking at park’s pond—they are new arrivals to the neighborhood.

The hummers haven’t yet arrived though. We’re watching. The neighbors typically gather under a pink-bloomed orchid tree watching the little birds flit about in pairs. Today, though fully leaved, the orchid tree has only one bloom. The first sign. Yet even the butterflies have shied away.

(C) Kelly Jadon, 2021

Kelly Jadon, 2021 “Hummer Pinked Out” $75

A New Life!

Today my daughter texted a photo to our family. There’s a new life preparing to be born! In that secret place, the baby is being knit together. It’s amazing what ultrasound technology reveals.

Life is precious. Life is brief. Like that of grass—it is green, ages and then is cut and returns to the earth. The life of a hummingbird is brief as well—between five and nine years, depending on the type. The majority don’t make it past one year.

Enjoy the flowers, the birds, the beauty of the earth while it is before you!

(C) Kelly Jadon, “Hummers” 2021, $70—No Longer Available

A Last Gift: An Ekphrastic Blog

I knew my grandmothers. I also knew my great grandmothers—one lived in a house built into the front of a hill in Boyne City, Michigan. The floor, linoleum, was not level, but ran downward on a slant. Great grandma Jacobson, the descendant of Swedish immigrants, lived on a prime piece of real estate, overlooking Lake Charlevoix. The view was spectacular. Every time a child was born, my great grandfather, an original Swede from a sailing ship, would add on another room. I visited there one time, in the summer. Great grandma was a little old woman with a little old stove. I attended her funeral a few years later. Most of her sons were there too. They loved to crack jokes. Some included my great grandmother, in clear view in her open casket. Their humor centered around the idea of my great grandmother suddenly sitting up during the service. Her daughter, my great aunt, told her brothers to stop. She was more reserved than her siblings and thought the dead should be respected. They just laughed though and answered, “If Ma were here, she’d laugh too!”

Grandmothers are all sorts of people, by so many names, Nana, Nona, Gram, Grandma, Grammy, Mimi….Recently I found out that I’m to be a grandmother too. A grandma? Me? I don’t feel old enough for this regal title!

I’ll need to think about this. Will I be the joking grandma who would laugh during a funeral? Or will I be the type that promises homemade waffles and then sneaks sweet potatoes into the batter?

Another grandma-relative I know regularly handed out jelly beans to her many grandkids. When her turn arrived to go to Heaven, a bag of jelly beans was placed under her arm in the open casket. That’s how she was known and remembered by her grandkids—and one of those kids, helped himself before the coffin closed. A last gift. A good memory.

(C) Kelly Jadon, 2021

Where do stained glass windows originate?

Stained glass originated in ancient Egypt, Rome and Syria. The Egyptians created glass beads around 2700 BC. Wealthier Romans inserted the first stained glass windows. And the Phoenicians manufactured glass in Sidon, Antioch, and Tyre. Today, the Syrians remain famous as glass blowers and beach makers.

For the last 1,000 years, stained glass windows have been seen as those installed in churches and cathedrals. These windows were not for worship purposes themselves, but told the pictorial story of Jesus to illiterate attenders.

My own first attraction began as a child attending services at the Goodrich United Methodist Church in Michigan. Sadly, the building no longer stands.

Churches have favored stained glass windows as a religious form because the light coming through the glass illuminating the Biblical story is symbolic of the light of Scripture. It is a physical symbol of a spiritual concept.

The windows are often ornate and vibrantly colored, demonstrating the variety and beauty of the Christian faith.

(C) Kelly Jadon, 2021 “Hummer Hanger” $125

(C) Kelly Jadon, 2021

I'm Small, But I'm Fast!

My daughter is built just like her “Tayta,” or grandmother, in English. At 79, Tayta is still in vibrant health, living in Nazareth, Israel.

At the end of my daughter’s senior year, the Jensen Beach High School yearbook was published. It included a photo of my daughter sprinting around the last curve of the 400 meter race. Captioned underneath was her comment—”I’m short, but I’m fast!”

The hummingbird is the smallest of birds, but able to fly up to 60 miles per hour. 90% of his time is spent hovering while feeding, its wings beating so fast they “hum.” He can move himself up, down, backward, even upside-down!

Noel Jadon, Far Right

(C) Kelly Jadon, 2021, An Ekphrastic Blog

Florida Blue Heron

When I first came to Florida I lived in Pasco County, on the Gulf of Mexico. Moving to Florida from Michigan is a bit like arriving as an immigrant in a foreign country. Many things are different.

About a mile or so out into the Gulf I observed houses, built up above the water on stilts. Pilings were sunk in place during the early 1900s. They were temporary houses of refuge from frequent rainstorms or a place to hold the catch. To a Northerner, they are similar to the ice fishing shanty out on the frozen lake.

Privately owned and grandfathered in as permissible buildings, they are handed down from one generation to the next. Unique treasures, permits are no longer allowed for more stilt homes.

The Florida Blue Heron too has long stilt-like legs lifting his body up high above the water, keeping him dry. His long neck reaches deeply to suddenly spear fish and baby gators with his spike-like beak. He often stands alone along the shallows in my backyard, just as the house on stilts upon the Gulf waters.

(C) Kelly Jadon, An Ekphrastic Blog