Wednesday March 6th 2024

The rain ended around midnight in this area. The line of storms from northeast to southwest moved across the Florida peninsular from west to east. It was very noisy with thunder and the sound of the heavy rain on my roof while the storms moved through the area. Today started overcast and got lighter as the day went by. At sunset the sky was mostly clear, but the wind was blowing hard out of the west to southwest. The temperature peaked in the upper seventies.

While I was in the Ocala area today I made a return visit to the Ocala Wetland Recharge Park. I discovered this park in the summer of 2021 and have returned a number of times since. It is a park area that is design to collect run off from the area and allow the water to sink into the earth to recharge the underground aquifer. My last visit was late last summer.

Since my last visit a pavilion area has been constructed in the park and the new apartments next door to the park have been largely completed. The recharge park is made up of several cells or ponds that water is cycled through. One of the cells has failed since my last visit. It is mostly dry and a large sink hole exists in the middle of the pond area. I guess a little too much water found its way to the aquifer and took the soil with it.

The rest of the park seems to be the same as I remember it. Water birds, turtles and plenty of color flowers could be spotted all around the park. Surprisingly, there were not a lot of people walking the paths in the park. I was pretty much alone for the hour or so I was there.