There's A Cricket In The Corner

Datil Be Some HOT Peppers!

2012-01-24T16:20:00.015-05:00

After stripping my poor overworked datil pepper plant of a snack baggie of smaller than usual datil peppers, I made the decision that while driving home from this past weekend's Jacksonville parent visit, I would locate a datil pepper grower and buy some plants. Oh how exciting! Eleven datil peppers were purchased and are home now, waiting for transplanting into 5-gallon buckets.

I contacted several places that sell datil plants and was disappointed to hear "they won't be ready for 2-3 more weeks" from all of them. I called Uncle Paul''s St. Augustine home and was ever so lucky to get Jeannie on the phone. She is such a wonderful gawdenah (gosh I love her and her New England accent) and told me she heard that someone on Church Road sells them. It was a seven mile shot in the dark, but lo and behold, I found them!

Randy Haire at 5225 Church Roa d in St. Augustine, FL has a small greenhouse and a whole bunch of datil seedlings (not ready for a few weeks) and a whole bunch more of 1-2 year old plants that have been cut back for the winter to ten inches tall. They look great with a sturdy stalk, good healthy leaves, and some with datils and flowers. Randy and his wifesay, "Y'all come!" He asked me to tell everybody about his datils. He does not sell peppers, just the plants.

My lone datil had gotten stringy and limby and the peppers were growing smaller and smaller and turning orange too fast, so I went home and followed suite, cutting back my scraggly bush to a ten inch stump with a few leaves. Soon we will have a whole bunch of healthy full datil pepper plants with big green peppers.

A single pepper can season an entire pot of lima beans. I quick soaked a bag of dry limas, then added a few pork ribs (that I smoked a week ago and froze) and ONE datil pepper. I'll fish it out before we eat, or somebody will be on fire.

Community Gardening Calls

2012-01-16T11:47:00.016-05:00

Two green thumbs up for the Apopka Community Garden! Located in South Apopka - a typically impoverished area - the goal of this endeavor is to bring locals together with the common interest of organic vegetable gardening. Besides black and white residents, Apopkans from Mexico, Puerto Rico and the Caribbean islands are growing vegetables native to their home countries as well. There are no specific hours for farming our gardens, but most seem to congregate in the mornings, trading gardening advice and if we have overages, freshly picked vegetables. Sometimes vegetables are donated to the local homeless shelter.

In exchange for $20 annual rent, Peter Jordan, an agriculture teacher at Ocoee High School and one of the folks that runs this community effort, gave me a quick tour. We have a big dump truck load of dark soil, an equally large pile of compost/manure. There's a small raised box with composted vegetables stirred into soil loaded with big happy earthworms - their rich liquid fertilizer drips into a 2-gallon jug that hangs below. Inside the shed are some tools, free seeds, and paperwork. I was given a list of seasonal vegetables that will grow well in our area. For the safety of the gardeners and to prohibit non-paying folks from strolling through and picking the fruits of our labor, the entire property is fenced with combination locks on both gates and shed. One entrance opens big enough to drive through and renters are encouraged to pull in and lock the gate. I remain fearless, but will be cautious for my safety in this high-crime area.

I was assigned to plot #25, a 4 x 16 foot raised garden. Although there are other gardens in different stages of growth, mine is newly built with fresh dark soil and no old plants to have to dig up or turn under. The nearest water source is a pretty convenient hose drag away, just past the next 16 foot garden.

As a side note, I am excited that Peter is considering bringing some chickens over and constructing a movable chicken tractor to house them. I've expressed interest in this in the past, but because of our home's location against the forest of the Wekiva State Park, we have too many critters invading our yard, eating our plants, and potentially eating chickens to even consider planting a garden or raising hens in my back yard.

Preparation for planting has included poured over the internet, deciding what to plant, and mapping out my garden. I want to put in tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplants, collard greens, zucchini and summer squash. I'd also like to grow my favorite herbs - basil, dill and cilantro. Today I will go visit my garden, check out the seeds in the shed and visualize, followed by a trip to the local Feed & Seed and hardware stores to see what they have to offer in seeds and seedlings. I don't know if purchasing from these places is appropriate for organic gardens. More to learn! I can't wait to dig in!!

Locally, University of Florida Cooperative Extension Service offers a Master Gardener program. This is something I might be interested in. I jump in with both feet, don't I?

Don't Allow Your Defects To Define You

2012-01-10T14:47:00.002-05:00

Years ago I saw a little sign at a craft fair that said, "Don't allow your defects to define you." It's a good attitude to live by.

My Green Vermont is one of my favorite blogs. I enjoy Lali's writing and look forward to her posts. The writer has chronic fatigue syndrome, something she rarely mentions. CFS can be overwhelmingly disabling when it strikes, and as with most auto-immune disorders, it can knock Lali flat on her back. She never knows when it will attack; it may sap every ounce of strength she has this afternoon, it could lay low until the morning of her next hair appointment, or it may never ever bother Lali again.

Rheumatoid arthritis has erratic timing like CFS. RA has interrupted my health for most of my childhood and my entire adult life. Who could count the thousands of medications and treatments I've endured? Damaged hands and feet always hurt and there's always some mild to moderate pain that settles in a different place(s) every single day of my life. I go and do and stand up straight and smile and my days are happy and fulfilling. It is important my pace myself, avoid stress and get plenty of rest, or I'll pay for overdoing things the next day. The resulting flare can be a day or weeks or years of intense pain for me. Healthy people should all read the Spoon Theory to understand this. These are the good times and I try to make hay while the sun shines.

The Spoon Theory writer talks about the many energy saving choices that she has to make every day that normal people take for granted. In addition to the regular discomforts, my wrists and shoulder hurt today. Here are a few of my pain saving choices I had to make just getting ready this morning: Lift (ouch) the washcloths until I reached a lightweight one because wet washcloths are heavy. Chose a smaller towel for same reason. Needed both hands to turn on the shower. T-shirts don't have buttons. Opened moisturizer and the toothpaste with my teeth. Used my toothbrush with the fat handle and, because faucets are really hard for me to turn on and off, I wastefully left the water running while brushing. Pony-tailed my hair instead of styling it. I am so blessed that my husband makes the bed every morning. To save my wrist from an awkward angle, I used the speaker phone to call Mark and thank him. Gosh, it sounds like I have the suckiest life on earth! The reality of it all is, I'm so used to compensating, I do this stuff without thinking. I actually had to sit here and walk myself through my morning to recall the whats and whys of it all.

Each RA flare varies in intensity and can occur regardless of how stress free and well-paced my life might be, however overdoing it and stress are pretty much a pain guarantee. When arthritis is unbearable, I lay low and work on being comfortable. Sometimes I can't even think of how and somebody (thank you Patty, many times over) will show up and hand me the right meds or a blanket or whatever. Of course nobody wants to be sick, but a bad arthritis flare doesn't destroy my being, because I know the sun will come out sooner or later. (Insert barfy Annie song here.)

Lali said she writes less when CFS takes over, and doesn't post in Twitter because, "everybody knows that birds don't tweet when they're feeling sad." How awful for her. I feel bad on a daily basis, some days worse than most, but very rarely do I feel sad.

Last week's Apopka Chief had had an article about a community garden and I cannot wait to be a part of this! 16-by-4 foot raised beds are available for $20 a year. I love growing things, but the deer and bears and other critter won't leave my back yard farming attempts alone. There are rules, and one is, if I don't start the bed within 45 days, I will lose my deposit. I feel pretty good today and will hurry to the courthouse and seal the deal, then go to Hall's Feed & Seed to start planning. Oh goodie!! This is one example of how I will make hay while the sun shines today.

Our Oldest Son Got Married!

2011-12-14T02:57:00.001-05:00

A son is a son
'Til he takes a wife,
But a daughter's a daughter
All of her life.

Our baby's due date was July 4th, but he was delivered eight weeks premature by emergency cesarean on May 12, 1984. In the hospital just before the delivery, my doctor told us that he felt pretty certain it would be a big healthy girl. The rest of the day was a post-surgery daze, and all I can remember is asking, "What is it again?" a boy "Really? A little boy? How nice..." The next day I was rolled into the NICU and stared into the incubator at a tiny naked preemie with gel-clear skin and fuzzy gummy bear ears as the doctors explained how our baby battled to fill his undeveloped lungs. He had no muscle tone and his skin hung from his bony frame. Tubes and wires were everywhere. He was very sick and they prepared us for the worst. It was Mother's Day.

An unexpected rush of mothering took me by storm. Actually it was more like a hormone hurricane! I spent my days in the hospital, with Mark joining me every evening. We scrubbed and pulled sanitized hospital gowns over our clothes and then we'd be ushered into the NICU with all the beeping machines and screaming alarms. We took turns slipping our hands into giant gloves that reached into the incubator to caress our darling struggling newborn through thick gloved hands. We talked soothingly to Baby Robbie, urging him to grow strong and telling him what fun it is to be a kid.

Robbie thrived and grew into a busy boy, a good student, and finally, a charming adult. All the while, as one does as parents - we were guiding, advising, monitoring, protecting.

Vanessa was the darling little girl from the next neighborhood that danced her way through the hearts of everyone she ever met. She and Robert lived parallel lives, crossing paths often during childhood. We are so glad their paths crossed once more as young adults, because she surely found a place in our son's heart. Robert and Vanessa were married this year on October 22nd.

Mark and I are now at the crossroads of a new dimension in our lives, uncharted ground; After years of nurturing and guiding, we have to change direction and monitor ourselves so that we do not intrude on their privacy and adulthood - - the overbearing in-laws. We are pleased to see how focused Robert is on his career and new wife and their life together. We are delighted to have such a lovely daughter-in-law. Vanessa is sweet and talented and wonderful. Is gushing overbearing? I don't want to be Hurricane Marty.

I enjoy the extra space Robert's empty room offers. It is currently used as gift wrap central, but we can't wait to set it up as a computer/guest room. Our other son David still lives at home, and we see less and less of him, as it should be. I have plans to make David's sunny room into a sewing studio one day. This empty nest thing is pretty nice!

Black and Yellow Garden Spider

2011-09-11T17:06:00.001-04:00

Back of Spider

Spider's Belly

This huge spider is attached to the front of our Florida home. Initially, we thought it was a banana spider, but upon closer investigation, it is a St. Andrew's Cross spider, commonly called a Black and Yellow Garden Spider. The photos you see are of David with his camera, the belly of he spider and the backside. Imagine this: Marty gently pulls back spider web with one hand and holds her camera within inches of the spider's back to take a photo of the spider's back. Cool shadow, David!

From XL Man Shirt to M Ladies

2011-08-20T15:28:00.001-04:00

It's another annual Snap-On Tools convention in Orlando. Last year they closed Universal Studios at 6 and opened it up to all the Snap-On employees, 5000 dealers and their spouses for a private party, where we rode all the rides, saw all the shows, and grazed our way through all the free food from all the restaurants until midnight. Everyone got a special shirt to wear, and by the time I got to the front of the line, the smallest size available was XL. I walked through Universal in a night shirt!
Orlando was chosen again, and it's the same drill. This year it's Sea World that will host our private party. I got in the line of over 5000 people and ended up again with an XL, exact same fit as last year's shirt. Groan. I decided that I'd fix it, and began researching cutting down t-shirts. I found a lot of trashy ho-girl shirts with holes and slits and rips. I called a friend and she brought over a good idea and I copied her shirt somewhat (the hemline and neckline) and , because the shoulder seams drooped so low off my shoulders, I decided to just chop those baggy sleeves off. Zig-zag hems did the trick and I got a pleasant surprise with the ruffled look. Girly! Not crazy about the placement of Shamu, makes it look like I have a fat stomach. Do you see the hidden wrench? Below is pretty much a before and after. Different shirts but both were exact same fit before I got the scissors out.

2010's XL

2011 cut down

Quilts Quilts Quilts

2011-08-19T09:17:00.000-04:00

I've made more, but these are the ones I have photos of. I'll add more pictures as I find them.

For baby. Paper pieced, professionally quilted meander.

Little girl sized, paper & machine pieced, professionally quilted meander.

Twin, machine pieced, professionally quilted daisies.

Queen, machine pieced, professionally quilted stars.

Twin/Full , machine pieced, and machine quilted in the ditch.

A kit for baby. Machine pieced hand quilted around animals.

Baby, machine pieced and machine quilted around hearts.

Queen, machine pieced, professionally quilted meander.

Baby, machine pieced and machine quilted.

Wall hanging, fused applique, machine quilted SW inspired.

Twin/Full machine pieced and quilted.

My First Quilt 2003 - Machine pieced and quilted.

Queen, machine pieced, professionally quilted meander.

How Ya Feelin? Hot Hot Hot! Let's Do Yard Work!!!

2011-08-17T09:39:00.001-04:00

Whoowee, it is a hot summer! Yesterday my indoor/outdoor thermometer registered 106 just outside the window. Still, things must be done. Mark is our yard man, but he is not a good sticker bush cutter. It's my job to keep the evil thorn-covered bougainvillea plant under control. It grows in long limbs in every direction, but never flowers.

This is what it looked like when I got it in a basket.

Mark's previous cuttings left all the limbs on the ground, its long thorns dried hard and begging to pierce through my flip flops and garden gloves. As usual, the thorns won, but I got it under control and cleaned up with rake and hedge clipper! The trash can is full of old and new clippings, the ground is clear of thorny foot-finders, and the corner of our yard looks less like a snake/raccoon/creepy crawly hideout. Although I stepped carefully, I could feel the points of thorns almost piercing my skin through my shoes and had to use pliers to get the offenders out of my favorite flip flops.

I drilled a hole into the wooden eave of our house, just above the bougainvillea and near the window, to hang a squirrel-proof bird feeder. It's so funny to watch squirrels leap from fence to the wire covered feeder, as their weight pulls the spring down and closes feeder openings. My canary's cage is near that window and he loves all the birds that frequent the feeder. Cardinals, blue jays, house wrens and tufted titmice are all greeted with a hello chirp.

A footnote on the bougainvillea: I learned that in order to have flowers, they need to be in well drained soil. Ours is in a corner of our yard that gets regular rain run-off from our roof. I also learned that they like to be root-bound, but ours has the whole yard to spread it's roots. One day, I'll dig it up and put it in a pot where it belongs and can be happily root bound, drained, and flowering.

Cactus Flower

2011-08-01T10:35:00.000-04:00

the potted cactus

My mother gave me a cutting from her cereus cactus. I think she called it a Moon Flower. I found out, it's called Hooker's Orchid Cactus, named for botanist W.J. Hooker by his good friend C. Darwin. I have had this plant for about a year and these are the first blooms. I noticed that I had already missed one bloom, but saw two Saturday night and was amazed at how fragrant they are. The flowers are short lived; A bud begin opening after sunset, stays beautiful for one night, then wilts after sun rise. On Sunday night there was one flower, more beautiful than the two the night before. There are still two more buds that will either both bloom tonight (Monday) or maybe one Monday and one Tuesday. Funny how such pretty flowers come from such an unattractive plant. You can read about them here and here.

Saturday's flower

Sunday's bloom

Photos taken with my iPhone 4

You Never Miss A Beat With A True Friend

2011-07-24T11:45:00.000-04:00

I met Pam through my friend Belinda in 1990. Our mutual friend died suddenly in 1995 and with that, I lost touch with Pam. We had chance meetings, but maybe we avoided each other because we reminded each other of how we missed Belinda. Maybe it was her busy life with six children or my busy life with two children that at times seemed like six. It doesn't matter now. Pam and I will always be friends whether we see each other daily or yearly. And when we do see each other, it's a wonderful homecoming.

I saw Pam holding a "Vote for McCain" sign on the corner near the voting precinct. I had started a big vat of Pasta Putanesca that morning and brought bowls of tomatoey goodness to Pam and her fellow McCain supporters. She and I picked up where we left off, enjoying each others' company and friendship. Pam's oldest daughter barely 30, died a few weeks later in a car accident. I was there for her and it felt like God placed me in her path when she needed me. Life got busy and somehow we eased out of each other's lives again.

A year passed and on Friday morning I picked up the phone and left a message. "What's up? How are you? I miss you..." and I got a return call that very evening. Pam's daughter was getting married the next day and Pam was overwhelmed. Kym and Ben decided to get married just 3 weeks ago and the wedding was Saturday. Could I help? And so I picked up where I left off, helping clean the church, decorate, etc. for 80+ guests.

Pam's husband (also named Ben) is a minister and their church had to be decorated for a gothic, but very Christian, ceremony. The reception was in the same room. Black, burgandy, and gold were the colors. I made runs to US Toys and Dollar Tree for plastic table covers, party supplies. Do you know how difficult it is to make goth look not creepy? We did it! I bought cream colored candles, fresh apples, and clippings from our backyard boxwood hedge and made decorations for the food table, laden with dozens of covered dish meals.

The couple met on an online Christian dating site. Both like goth clothing and vampirey junk, not my favorite, but to each their own. So for their champagne (ginger ale) toast, I made a special hard candy glass dip, which they loved. It was a great day.

I love Pam and it was such a great day to enjoy her company and work with her.

Bye Bye Birdie!

2011-06-23T13:45:00.003-04:00

Yesterday I drove from Apopka to Cocoa (an hour and a half) and handed over two adults, four eggs, and two adorable nearly 5-week old weened chicks. I only wanted one canary and now I own only one canary.

Let's back up a few weeks:
When the chicks were just 14 days old, we took our annual week vacation at Cocoa Beach. You can't exactly leave chicks with a neighbor at this stage, and so they got a vacation too. I was delighted to meet Mega Bird Store owner Donna when I drove into town for some birdie supplies. I was already feeling overwhelmed feeding and cleaning up after three chicks and two doting parent canaries, as I knew this scenario would repeat itself in just a few short weeks; Canaries typically have two clutches a year. Donna asked me if I'd consider selling. Well, YES! First I needed to wait for the babies to mature, so I left with her business card.

Knowing I only wanted to own one canary, I went home and pondered which bird to keep. Keep the adult male, a proven singer? I would have loved to, but this was not a possibility, as he is a great daddy bird and feeds mommy bird while she nests, then feeds the chicks almost single-handedly (beakedly?) from about 1 week until they are weened at around 4 weeks old. Although the chicks were weened, Jo already laid a second clutch and I could not separate him from Jo and the current nest of 4 eggs (due to hatch around June 27th) and so I chose the yellowest of the three babies, Chick #2, chosen not only for his color, but also because he seems the most laid back and I need a little bird that will roll with the punches, handle the changes in locale and care takers, as I travel a lot. He will either ride along or will be left behind with family or friends.

Chick #2 - no name yet

They say you cannot tell when a canary is a female until she lays an egg. And you cannot tell if a canary is male until eggs hatch! Other than a pricey blood test, there is no scientific way to tell the sex your bird as all the parts are hidden away inside. Non-scientific signs point to the three canaries I had as all male: longer middle toe than females have, hides in nest with head down and tail up when just feathering (girls sit there and stare at you), tries a few notes of a trill, and has vibrant colored feathers. All signs point to males. But then again, some females share the same physical traits and mimic males in song.

The deed is done, the birds are all gone but one and now I wait to see if this little yellow bird will sing as pretty as his father sings. This morning I played some YouTube canary songs (it's good training to give canaries something nice to imitate) and my lone bird listened intently, clung to the side of the cage and cheeped and chirped and strung a few notes. When I played his daddy canary's song, my lone birdie got very animated. It's a beginning, but nothing that would knock your socks off. Time will tell.

Chicks 1 and 3 - Parting Photos

2011-06-23T12:57:00.001-04:00

Please forgive my fingernails. I had a manicure after these were taken. Also please forgive the difference in color intensity. Light/shadows/camera flash seem to make a big change in feather color. I took the pictures of the birds as I moved them from the big cage to a temporary little cage so I could clean the big cage before transporting them to the Mega Bird Store for sale.

Both of these two chicks have the same facial markings - white bandit masks. The older Chick #1 is a bit more yellow, stands erect, and has rounder eyes that appeared black upon hatching. Chick #3 has less yellow, has sleepy eyes (like his mom) that were pink upon hatching, and Chick #3 likes to puff up and sit low. This could be remnants of him being the baby. Both are alert and cheerful. Both showed positive non-scientific signs of being male, and both are vocal with cheeping and peeping. One of them actually stood erect at his food bowl, stretched tall and puffed out his neck while trying to string together a few notes several times, but by the time I got to the cage to figure out which bird it was, they swapped places several times. It was impossible to tell them apart from across the room.

Chick #1

Chick #3

Chick #3
with a dot of food on his tail

New Clutch - Laid June 13-17
Should hatch June 26-30

Chick #1

Meet the Fam

2011-06-14T22:58:00.001-04:00

Chick #1, slim and reserved. Stands tall.

Chick #2, laid back and loves the swing.

Chick #3, curious and needy, but he is 3 days younger.
His feathers matured and smoothed the next day.

This video is of the youngest Chick #3 begging a meal from the male parent. The other two are so insistent, it looks like a fencing match, with the chicks making all the advances!

Daddy bird is bright eyed and friendly. He is small and his yellow feathers look so intense against white feathers. He has the sweetest soft feathers that fluff out from his chest in front of his wings. He is first when I put a plate of food on the floor of the cage, probably because he is the main baby feeder. He loves boiled eggs!

Mommy bird is quiet and calm, almost sleepy. Her feathers look white until she bathes and the yellow under feathers show up. She LOVES to splash around in the tub and if I don't put one in, she climbs into the water bowl. She will take the first bath, preen and dry, then goes in again. She likes green leafy veggies.

The babies started showing interest in food today. I tried to slip up and take a picture of them eating, and #1 hurried to a corner to hide, pretending if his back is away from me and he cannot see me, then I cannot see him. Chick #2 continued eating (see photo above), then flew up to his swing for a nap. Chick #3 hopped up to his father's perch and begged for food, fluttering and being all babyish. Like mommy bird, all three babies seem larger than their slight daddy bird. As soon as they grow longer tails, it will be difficult to tell them apart, especially Chick #1 and daddy bird. He has the same little chest fluffers as his father, so sweet.

NOOOOOOOOOOO

2011-06-14T10:37:00.000-04:00

Arrival date: June 14. Anticipated hatch date: June 28.

Update on babies: Chicks #1 and 2 are nibbling on the soft food I provide on the bottom of the cage. Chick #3 is a big fluffy begging baby. He doesn't show any interest in leaving his parents. If anybody wants a canary, please let me know! Age now, 3 weeks and 5 (and 2) days old.

Day 24 - Separation Anxiety

2011-06-11T11:03:00.001-04:00

This seemed like a good day to move the chicks away from the parents. The two older chicks were pecking at the food plate, but still demanding food with the baby, who seems so babyish compared to his brothers. I read that if you put all the chicks into a new cage, only a couple of perches 2" above ground at one end of the cage, and at the other end a variety of finely chopped soft foods on a dish on the floor and water in a cup. They should figure things out in a "follow the leader" sort of way.

If the chicks peep loudly all day long, it means they're hungry and need to go back to the parents to be fed. Sometimes they give up and feed themselves, but after an hour of peeping, I gave in. The pitiful cries from chicks and the parents woeful responses was deafening! Call me a weenie, but I never could let my "real" babies "cry it out" either. Instead of moving the babies back to the big cage, I decided to move the parents into the small cage where the perches were low and food on the floor. This way they'll watch their parents eat from the exact same place they'll need to go.

We have company in our house this morning. My son's fiancee Vanessa and her girlfriend that came in town last night spent the night in his room and Robert slept on the living room couch. This is my reason for silencing the incessant peeping. I've decided to move the adult birds out of the baby cage a few times daily, extending the length of separation each time. Like learning to wear contact lenses, eventually this cage won't seem so scary without the old folks, and hopefully the chicks will adapt less traumatically.

Mother's nest is ready and she likes hanging out in it, empty that it is. I will let the adult birds overnight in the big cage with the nest, because if Jo needs to lay an egg, it is usually in the early morning. She won't sit on the eggs until she has finished laying the entire clutch, which I encourage, because I don't want the 3-day age difference like we've experienced with these chicks. This age difference is like having a human baby 2-3 months younger, and with birds the loudest, boldest and biggest get fed first. Right now, I see the two adult birds and two older chicks roosting on the upper perch, while Chick #3 is fluffed up beneath them and sound asleep, with poop raining down from above. He's not a dummy, he's still just such a baby. How quickly parents forget and only 3 days ago, the other two were just as immature.

Canary Chicks Day 23 - A Nest Visit

2011-06-10T14:47:00.000-04:00

Momma Jo has been ignoring everyone as she is very busy building a new nest with the clean material I offered. The babies have been busy begging food from Daddy Jess, who is as busy as a one-armed paper hanger. It appears that he has lost some weight and I wonder if I should be concerned. Somehow Jessie still manages to whistle his beautiful song a few times daily, which is always followed by an attempted sexual interlude with Jo. This nano-second of romance somehow will result in fertilized eggs.

Curious about Jo's nest building, the chicks went
back for a visit to celebrate the good old days.
Daddy is clinging to the cage wall, ready to feed
babies and Momma bird is nearest to the camera.

2011-06-09T23:55:00.001-04:00

The canary chicks no longer use the nest at all. I cleaned the nest out today and provided new nesting material, and now Momma is happily working on lining a new nest. Tonight there is one chick sleeping on the swing, one sleeping on a perch. and the youngest is sleeping in the seed bowl and twittering to himself. Daddy is exhausted from running all over the cage feeding three demanding chicks. There is a buffet of food appropriate for a baby bird, and they watch with great interest as their parents eat, but the chicks don't quite get the idea of feeding themselves.

Canary Chicks are Cool

2011-06-08T09:16:00.000-04:00

Have you noticed that I haven't named my bird babies? If they were Curly, Larry and Mo, well, I would never be able to part with my Three Stooges. So we have Chick #1 and Chick #2 hopping and flying all over the cage. They still won't feed themselves yet, so whenever they see a parent, they open their squealing beaks and beg with fluttering wings. I do keep soft food (cooked quinoa, seed, and fresh fruits and veggies) on little birdie trays on the cage floor for the moment they decide to give it a try. I've been playing canaries singing on Facebook to encourage daddy bird to sing more often (he sings once or twice a day) and I occasionally hear a few notes from the babies. Chick #3 is still nesting, but this morning I saw him pop up onto the edge of his nest, where he sat and watched his brothers hop about the cage, with as much of a wistful look as an expressionless birdie face can conjure. Maybe it was just curious interest.

Canary Chicks Day 19

2011-06-07T11:14:00.003-04:00

The two older chicks like to stay perched on the edge of the nest. Because of this, when I put the birds back into their "big" cage after our beach week on Sunday, I purposefully placed the nest close to the cage floor. Occasionally the older one will pop onto the perch I placed next to the nest, but most of the time they stay on the nest's edge. Since the most aggressive birds get fed first, the two that are older seemed to be hogging the food source (mom and dad) all morning long. I just noticed baby chick #3 on the nest edge, a little wobbly, but demanding his fair share of food. Chick #1 was just pushed off his perch and s-l-i-d down the bars that he was clinging to for dear life. He somehow was able to reach the perch with his beak and give himself a leg back up into the safety of his nest. I wonder, can he make his way back up if he does go to the floor of the cage? A few minutes later, he FLEW to a slender perch I'd placed mid-cage. Here's a video of his first adventure from the perch. daddy bird giving encouragement and loud tweets. I think all three chicks are males. Notice how the other two lay low? (Chick #1 does this too.) That's the typical boy response, 'Just lay low and nobody will notice we're here'. If there was a female, she'd sit up and stare at you with an 'Are you looking at me? Well then, I'll just sit here and stare right back at you.' FYI- Babies are messy. I clean the cage nightly.Oh, and I'd like to thank the inventor of clothespins!

Canary Chicks Day 16 - Take A Walk!

2011-06-03T14:40:00.000-04:00

Trying to figure out the sex of my canary chicks, I have exhausted all three ways to "guess" - by activity level, longer middle toe, and to tap on the nest and the boys will duck down while the girls sit up and stare. The nest tap results in all three birds laying down and staring. Nobody puts their tails up, but nobody sits up, however all three stare. Confusing. Maybe they're too old for this test. Maybe they aren't old enough. An inspection of their toe length makes me think they could be males, as the longer toe seems quite a bit longer tan the other two toes, much more like their father and very unlike the mother bird's feet.

Today I put the three chicks on a towel on the floor. I kept the caged parents nearby so they could keep an eye on their babies, however they are pretty relaxed about my intrusions. The other times I removed the babies, it was to clean out the nest or clean poo off the babies' feet or feathers and I kept them in my hand. Oh what fun the babies had today! It was the first time they've been out of the nest, feet on the floor, and had room to stretch and hop. The babies flapped their sprouting wings. They hopped around and all three seemed pretty active. Baby Chick #3, being three days younger than the other two, is clearly smaller and weaker with less plumage. He would hop and then rest. His level is equivalent to the other two when they were three days younger, so I am not worried about him. I put the chicks apart and they would go toward each other to hover together as if they were in the nest. The biggest/oldest chick is stealing the scene, hopping on a dollar and coins (for size reference) and then joining his brothers for a rest. You can hear the adult male chattering, babies peeping and finally, the mother bird with her louder peeps at the end of the video.

Day 14 - Feathers!

2011-06-01T11:04:00.000-04:00

May flowers always line your path and sunshine light your day.

May songbirds serenade you every step along the way.

May a rainbow run beside you in a sky that's always blue.

And may happiness fill your heart each day your whole life through.

When the parents feed the chicks, it is fast and furious! There's a lot of movement with long stretched necks, open mouths, nonstop baby tweets and place changing, which includes stepping on each other. The two older chicks (by 3 days) sometimes stand tall on their little toothpick legs. Each chick may get two or three touches of food from the parent's beak, then all is quiet. Don't feel bad for the one in the back, he will get fed on the next go around. Sometimes the parents show up ready to feed, but the chicks are all too full and just ignore them. I noticed one of the chicks preening his new feathers today.

Ugly Baby!

2011-05-27T21:03:00.000-04:00

Here's Chick #2 on day nine. It looks like this one will have a lot of yellow in his feathers. Momma bird had just eaten a bunch of romaine lettuce, and you can see it in baby's crop. He's starting to open his eyes.

Day 8 Parents Feeding Chicks

2011-05-26T09:15:00.000-04:00

Both Canary parents are feeding the chicks pretty regularly now. The chicks have become much more demanding for food and it's all the mother can do to keep up, so she allows the male to help out. And because the chicks are eating more, my twice-daily feedings have become more plentiful. Besides a food cup of sprouted seed and quinoa (cooked like rice), the breakfast platter on the cage floor this morning includes a piece of raw corn on the cob (her fav), cottage cheese (his fav), boiled egg, romaine lettuce, a blob of the cooked seed, and a sliver of apple. I think they're glad I'm an early riser, because they attack that plate as soon as it's in the cage! The corner of the cage with the nest is dark and the chicks continue sleeping until the parents arrive with full gullets, ready to share.

Canary Chicks Opening Peepers

2011-05-25T20:29:00.001-04:00

This is Chick #2. See the little eye starting to open? They stay sealed shut the first week, then open little by little.

A size comparison. Chick #3 looks much smaller than the other two, but he's equally feisty! Here, they're taking a rest after being transferred to a kleenex in a warm bowl while I changed out some of the nest bedding. Momma bird has been pooping in the nest (they're supposed to be neat and clean out baby's poop, but that's not happening. I was instructed by my friend that raises canaries that the babies would get skin rash if left in damp poo. Since my birds are very very tame, they don't seem to mind what I do and always go back to the chicks.

Smaller Chick #3 on the left. Chick #1 (black eyes) on right.
Check out those feathers sprouting from their wings.

Doting parents feeding the babies together.

Day 7

2011-05-25T14:32:00.001-04:00

Momma bird checks out the morning snack buffet of
lettuce, boiled egg, soaked seed , cucumber and corn.

Today the chicks are 6 and 3 days old. The youngest seems to have caught up with his siblings, as I cannot tell them apart now. All three pop their heads up quickly when they hear or feel anything about. They stretch their little necks with beaks open to the sky! We can hear the chicks peeps better now...On the first 3 days, they were barely audible. Eyes are still sealed shut, feathers have not started to fill in.

Below is a quick video of the mother hen, still wet from a bird bath, getting comfortable with the chicks beneath her. She gives a couple of whistles, which signals the male bird that she's seated and ready for food. He feeds her from the food he has stored in the crop in his neck, similar to a hamster's. The camera was leaning on the cage and magnified the sounds of the busy male bird.

Canary Chicks Day 3 - and we have THREE

2011-05-21T15:44:00.002-04:00

How exciting to find that the third chick hatched early this morning! I woke up at 5 and mother canary popped off her nest and, although the baby didn't show, I saw the empty egg shell. So I swooped in and took the discarded shell (I wanted pictures of it).

Comparison between a canary egg
and an Eggland's Best large egg.

I usually add a few drops of food coloring and a slosh of vinegar to my boiled eggs as they finish cooking in the hot water. It's like Easter all year long! (The canary egg is in its natural color.) I took this one picture (below), but Chick #1 popped up, so the other two were hidden from sight. I left them alone for a couple of hours so the newest chick could gain his strength after all that work hatching. People have worried about the newest chick fighting for his place in the food line. I have noticed that the parents feed whoever pops his head up. Once that chick is satiated, he lays down for a nap and the other ones get their turn. They don't stop feeding until everyone is asleep. Without feathers, I can see food in their crop, evidence that all three are being well fed.

Three in the nest. FEED ME!! Chick #1's eyes are
black, but it looks like #2 and #3 will have pink eyes.

Folks ask what I feed them while they're feeding their young. Following online instructions, I boiled some bird seed mixed with quinoa for 20 minutes. Today I minced raw corn, kale, apple and egg with my little garlic chopping wheel, then added that to the mushy wet mix. Jo's favorite goodie is a ring of raw corn on the cob, but she leaves the nest too often to snack, so I am not offering whole corn again until the chicks are bigger. Jess loves sugar snap peas and both birds adore broccoli and strawberries.

Did you notice in the video that
Chick #2 had something on his beak?

I called a canary breeder and was instructed on how to remove what we both agreed was a blob of egg stuff from inside his shell that got stuck like glue while he was hatching. Anything else (parent's poop) would have dried and then fallen off. The breeder told me that if I needed to clean him or this bird could end up bald and blind, and most likely would have a deformed beak. It was on his beak and forehead, and covered part of one eye, both nostrils, plus it had head feathers tangled in it too. A damp q-tip did the trick.

Jo has food around her beak from Jessie's feedngs.

Both canaries are little
but cheerful Jessie is the smallest

Each time I try to get a picture of Jess feeding Jo,
he leaps up to check out the camera. Hi! Hi! Hi!

These are very friendly little birds and Jess' reaction is not an aggressive protection thing. He's just curious yellow...

Canary Chicks Day 2

2011-05-20T18:50:00.000-04:00

Aunt Jo, such a good mother bird. The father, Uncle Jess, is so attentive, feeding feeding feeding Momma Jo. Then Jo leans beneath the fluffed feathers of her lap to feed her babies. It's all very sweet. Both parents have changed their normally chatty banter to baby talk, sweet and soft.The hatchlings are extremely small...including head, they are dime-sized. My adult canaries are small and the woven nest is barely 4 inches wide.

At 17 hours Old

2011-05-20T12:17:00.003-04:00

The egg and both chicks could all fit in an iced tea spoon.

Look at those tiny feet!

And for those of you that haven't heard my male's beautiful Canary song -

Canary Clutch

2011-05-19T23:41:00.003-04:00

After sitting calmly and quietly on her eggs for two weeks, Aunt Jo was a little anxious today, and although she remained on her nest, she moved around a lot, checking beneath her and begging food from Uncle Jessie with a babyish "peep peep peep" and fluttering her wings. Before I left, I shooed our sweet and very patient Momma Jo off her eggs, and from my short person vantage point, I tiptoed and saw the tops of 3 whole-looking turquoise eggs in the nest just before I ran an errand at 5:30PM. By 6:30PM, David surprised me with a text picture of two newly hatched chicks!

There were three turquoise eggs, each about the size of a peanut M&M. Now one unhatched egg and two of the teeniest dime-sized baby birds lay next to the remnants of their halved shells. Barely audible peeps come from these ugly babies, sporting downy halos of mini fluff about their heads and big black b-b eyes hide under closed lids. Still feeding from their yolk sac, they won't begin eating until morning, but they are already practicing the open mouth beg. We are all completely smitten!

Momma Jo was polite enough to allow me a peek and I took the above video of the chicks at less than an hour old. My husband had just gotten home, and when he saw me videoing the chicks, he panicked, thinking the mother hen would abandon the nest. You can hear Mark having a fit in the video, saying she's going to "freak out". That won't happen with my very people-friendly domesticated birds. It is my guess that the chick that didn't pop his head up was last hatched and still recovering from all that hard work. Egg #3 should hatch in the next 24 hours. The discarded shells were nowhere to be found the next morning and I suppose the parents ate them. I KNOW which is the last egg laid, as the final egg in a canary clutch is always a more vibrant turquoise than the rest, and this is the one that remains.

My 33-year old niece Karen called, bubbling about "her" new chick, already named Pippa after Princess Kate's sister. Who will take the other two? I think my parents may want one, as daddy loves all little animals and my mother can whistle just as beautifully as...a bird!

My New Canaries - Jo and Jessie

2011-04-22T19:52:00.002-04:00

Jessie and Jo

I got something I've wanted for many years - Canaries! I have been gazing at websites, looking at canaries in bird stores, and pretty much lusting after a little yellow triller for quite a while. Today was the big day. I found a man that breeds show canaries and I asked him if he'd sell me one. He told me to bring a cage with seed and water and he would sell me one. Thank you momma and daddy, for the birthday money!

I hurried to Petsmart and bought a small white and blue travel cage, some bird seed and a mid-sized swing, then drove straight to the breeder's home. He had a small cage with TWO canaries in it. He told me his first intuition was to let me choose between two males (the males are the biggest singers), but then, because I was so nice on the phone, he decided that I should have a mated pair, with hopes that they''ll be prolific and I'd join the canary club (he is an officer). He gave me some quick tips about nesting hens and eggs and feeding. Oh my! This was more than I bargained for! I'm so glad I bought a swing that fits two. Here's a video of my birds. The male is mottled with deep yellow and has a higher pitched chirp, the female is a very pale yellow/white and has a deeper chirp.

David and Mark were not as thrilled to come home and find my new pets. They've only known the craziest, most bizarre and insane screaming parakeets (I'm a dud at choosing budgies). Hopefully, since the breeder chose for me, my bad bird luck will be changed.

My dad's Aunt Jo was so incredibly sweet. She quilted and I now quilt. She had a canary and I now have two! It is only right that my birds should be named after Aunt Jo and her husband, so Jo and Jessie it is! She's been gone since I was a young adult, and try as I might, I cannot recall any conversation with Aunt Jo that didn't include how much God, Jesus and she loved me, followed by sugar, sweet, angel, darling, sweetheart, baby angel, and any other sugary sweet adjective she could dream up. Our conversations went pretty much like this, "Hi Aunt Jo, your roses sure are beautiful!" to which she would reply, "Oh sugarplum, honey, angel, God love you, my sweet sugar darling angel sweetheart. Jesus loves you. I love you. I love Jesus. He loves you. You're so sweet..." Aunt Jo had the most beautiful pink roses growing on her fence and entry arch. She also collected salt and pepper shakers. I don't collect things, but I sure do treasure the little rose decorated kissing Dutch couple I was given after her death.

I wonder where Aunt Jo got these?

I look forward to some sugary sweet canary trilling from Jo and Jessie!

Today's My Birthday

2011-04-20T15:21:00.006-04:00

My husband turned 54 in October, and for six months I tortured him about his advanced age. Then on April 20th...a miracle! Mark is once again incredibly young! But in six months, then the teasing resumes...

Many loved ones sent happy birthday wishes today, lots of cheery songs (and a similar rendition of the required birthday dirge) were left in my voice mail. Sweet cards and gifts are on the coffee table. A dear friend came by this morning with tulips and we shared a cup of coffee and a nice visit. There is half a cake on the counter.

Mark made sure to make my birthday week special by taking me special places this past weekend. On Saturday we went to the Starke, Florida Strawberry Festival, meeting up with my sister Patty and her husband Jon. Then on to Jacksonville to visit my parents, followed by dinner with Patty and Jon at Players Grille in Miramar, near the neighborhood I grew up in. We played the trivia game and it is official, Patty knows more music trivia than me. The big rule breaker that I am, I smuggled our tiny dog in the hotel in my purse. Sunday morning we dropped the dog off at my friend Kim's house, skipped church and instead, met up with my other sister Kathie and her husband Larry (in town from the Pensacola area), who we last saw in November. K&L, their two adult daughters (my darling nieces) Robin and Kevin, their 2 sons and a baby girl, Karen and her two children, plus Mark and I went to Beach Diner in Mandarin, where I got an amazing shrimp and crab omelette with hollandaise sauce. meow. And we all got to visit a while. After lunch, Mark and I went back to Kim's, who, as a professional dog groomer, gave 2-year old Juliet her first real haircut, what I like to call a Yorkie Pixie. Very cute! A nice visit followed, then Mark and I went to niece Karen's house to see all her family and her husband Christian (who is suffering with a back problem), and another visit with K&L, plus momma popped by, how very nice! Finally, we headed home, the back way down State Road 13 almost to St. Augustine, and I used my handy dandy restaurant "find it" on my iPhone and found the Outback Crab Shack. Holy cannolli! My my my my my! I took a picture of my meal, 6 blue crabs (they turn red when they hit the hot water) and all the fixings. It took me nearly two hours to eat four of the crabs, but we were laughing and talking and the doggie was with us in her fancy-schmancy stroller, and we were loving life and I was in crab rapture, it was sooo good. I can die now...MY LIFE IS COMPLETE!

I saw all my family and what a shame that I didn't take pictures. When I am with family, I'm too busy visiting to consider photo taking.

Jamaica, Mon!

2011-04-16T20:00:00.000-04:00

The view from our balcony.

Four and a half glorious days in tropical beautiful Jamaica with my dear friend Bonnie at an exquisite all-inclusive resort, all the lobster you can eat, and a butler at our beck and call. The skies were blue and clear, a soft breeze and warm sunshine. Tropical flowers bloomed in abundance and the foliage was lush and green. There were plenty of cushioned lounge chairs and sun beds to relax on. The hotel staff was incredible and there was always someone asking if they can get a us cold bottle of water or a colorful frozen foo foo drink. You could even swim up to a bar in the pool, sit on underwater cement bar stools and get a mixed drink. I'm not much of a drinker, but the resort served an impressive array of top shelf liquor. We ate spicy jerk chicken cooked on an outdoor grill, freshly cut fruit, and sushi. The pool water and ocean water were clear and cool, not warm, not cold, just right! There was an indoor spa to enjoy hot tubs in a variety of temperatures, wet and dry saunas, a thalassotherapy pool, Swedish showers, and a gym to exercise away the pounds we were trying to not gain (and we didn't). There were massage tables both inside and outside for those willing to pay (we didn't). We danced together in the night club to reggae and Lady GaGa, and all sorts of pounding music. Our suite was beautiful with two queen beds, a living room/office area, an amazing balcony with a swinging nap chair and a soft outdoor sofa, a stocked fridge, Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee, you name it. If that wasn't enough, we could call for room service whenever we got the notion. If I was with my husband, I would have asked the butler to draw a bath, complete with bubbles, floating flowers and a cold bottle of champagne. The bathtub was amazing - big enough for giants, complete with jacuzzi jets.

What more could a person want?

Bonnie and I have been friends since we were in 10th grade, almost 40 years. She owns the travel agency and I work for/with her and we went to Jamaica to make sure a large incentive group was well taken care of, so it was a working/fun trip. Leaving paradise was difficult and we wished for just one more day. Spending time with Bonnie was very enjoyable and relaxing. Although I would have loved having my husband with me, I highly recommend going with a good friend to this resort!

Virginia is for Losers

2011-03-17T14:05:00.000-04:00

I don't like Virginia. There's no good reason to dislike a state, but from the very first time Mark insisted on driving to Virginia, I was unhappy with the prospect. And I pouted. And I do not pout! Was it because it's a long drive to nowhere and we always get home really late, hungry, and tired because there is no restaurant, restroom, or interesting store or parks or historic places? All of the above!

Our North Carolina home lies in the northwest corner of the state, called the tri-state area, sharing a corner with Tennessee and Virginia. If we cross the NC border to the south, we go to Elizabethton, TN, with Big John's Closeout, a huge clearance store for home building supplies where we go to gaze at storm doors and fancy kitchen faucets, and there's a great pizza buffet and they have Big Lots, where I optimistically buy apple saplings that never survive. To the west is Johnson City, TN with shopping malls and lots of good restaurants. We pass through both of these cities when we go to the tiny airport that services our area. Tennessee has the Tennessee Valley Authority, where they dammed up and flooded valleys to "electrify the whole state". We go look at the amazing sight and quote lines from "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou". There are wonderful wild plants to gather and transplant. I have Tiger Lillies and a prolific Wild Iris garden, all culled from inviting TN roadsides. Tennessee has purpose.

Mark gets a thrill from crossing state borders. I don't get it. I want purpose! Instead, we cruise lovely rolling hills and piedmonts, meandering down lonely country roads. The people we see as we drive along are walking from nowhere to nowhere, nothing but clay and grass. Not a flower in sight! We see stick-thin men wearing overalls and straw hats, and looking more scarecrow than human. The woman wear frumpy snapped-up-the-front house dresses that should be only worn by feeble old ladies. Probably in their early 30's, these women look like they're 59 years old, tired, toothless. There are usually a few barefoot "young'ins" scrambling to keep up as Ma meanders along the roadside, not a house or store in sight for miles and miles.

On our last Virginia drive, we saw a woman in the typical garb, bedecked by the typical kids, and she was carrying two huge watermelons in front of her ample, drooping breasts. Her boobs were the exact size of the melons that she carried on her trek to nowhere. I turned to Mark and made the statement we see so often on bumper stickers: "VIRGINIA IS FOR LOVERS. They say this because there is absolutely nothing else to do in Virginia!!"

Wouldn't you pout too?

'Saw this online. At first glance I thought this man's shirt said, VIRGINIA IS FOR LOSERS!

Quilts

2011-02-28T17:57:00.000-05:00

Some of the quilts I have made...

David - queen sized

Robert - queen sized

Ben - first quilt, child sized

Chris - child sized

Daddy - twin throw

Wall Hanging for Robert

Joshie - child sized

Mark - twin throw

Miranda - child sized

Mom - oversized lap quilt

Queen sized for NC loft bedroom

Lyla - child sized

Miranda - child sized

It's Raining Frogs!

2011-02-23T09:33:00.000-05:00

This is my favorite time of the year! Just before daylight, I could hear leopard frogs making their squeaky sound in the pond this morning amongst a chorus of hundreds of spring peepers.

Spring Peeper

As a child, we sometimes got tiny frogs - lots of them - in a spring shower! We thought maybe the eggs evaporated into the clouds, hatched, and rained down. Maybe a water spout from the river was the culprit?

Baby Bull Frog

Amlose Free Diet

2011-02-21T08:32:00.003-05:00

AMYLOSE FREE DIET

I read Dr. Ritchie Shoemaker's very difficult to find book, Lose the Weight You Hate. It is a rambling book, filled with unnecessary case stories, so I condensed it down to three pages, which I know could be reduced more, but I think you need some explanations on why he allows some foods you'd never expect, like corn. The only case story you need is mine: Age 53, post menopausal, 5’2” tall and lost 10 of the 35 pounds I plan to lose in three weeks. I never felt hungry or denied. This is the easiest diet ever!

ABOUT AMYLOSE

Amylase in saliva breaks amylose down into glucose, which is stored as fat.

No Amylose prevents rapid rises in blood sugar and keeps insulin from making fat.

· Calories that are most efficiently stored as FAT comes from a particular type of complex carbohydrate (amylose) which the body quickly breaks down into simple glucose.

· By avoiding those foods that trigger sudden rises in blood sugar – foods high in amylose and other sugars – we can reduce the efficiency of fat storage. As you create less fat, your body will be forced to mobilize the fat storage for energy, a process which will result in weigt loss.

· By preventing surges in blood sugar, this diet short-circuits the “starvation response” and thus inhibits “protien wasting” …which is the culprit responsible for re-gaining lost weight.

· Choosing low-glycemic Index food will also prevent over-production of cholesterol, helping to reduce blood pressure and control diabetes in many patients.

A “diet diary” monitors your intake. Keep a close eye on your eating patterns to ensure healthy nutrition. Those that do not keep a log usually fail to achieve their weight loss goals.

LIVING THE NO-AMYLOSE DIET MEANS WEIGHT LOSS.

LIVING THE LOW-GLYCEMIC INDEX DIET MEANS MAINTENANCE.

THE NO-AMYLOSE DIET - The “00-2-3” Rule

0 amylose

0 sugars (glucose or sucrose), corn syrup, and maltodextrin (found in low fat foods)

2 servings protein (at least 6-8 oz) each day

3 servings fruits each day

3 servings of low-glycemic index/amylose-free (above ground) vegetables each day

Skipping meals will not help you lose weight! About starvation dieting: eating less/skipping meals triggers a starvation response that sets in whenever we skip meals or eat significantly less than our usual amount at any given meal and produces an artificial fasting state. The next meal consumed will be absorbed and retain many more nutrients (especially fat!). If you are not a breakfast eater - consuming a handful of grapes, an apple, or a piece of ham in the morning to avoid the insulin-controlled starvation response and tells your brain you are not starving.

If you want to, plan a Diet Holiday every couple of weeks to enjoy something you’ve been craving, like some pasta or a slice of cake at a birthday party. This is a satisfying way to quell the denied feeling most dieters experience. You may find that after a few forksful of the fantasy food, it turns out to be just a fantasy, and that you really don’t feel compelled to eat the entire plateful of lasagna after all.

THESE ARE HIGH IN AMYLOSE AND NOT ALLOWED – eat nothing made from wheat, rice, oats, barley or rye. No bagels, bread (not even the healthy kind), cereals, muffins, pasta, potatoes, sweets, honey, bananas, sugar, low fat or healthy choice usually has sweeteners added. No vegetables grown underground, defined as a root or a tuber (including, but not limited to radishes, carrots, all potatoes, including sweet potatoes, and peanuts). NO Bananas and no store bought fruit juices (contain sweetners), low fat salad dressings (sweeteners), Avoid eating any fat you can “see” and any fat that turns solid at room temperature. No cakes or pies, sugary soft drinks, chocolate. No french fries.

ALLOWED FOODS:

· Only two vegetables grown underground are allowed: onions and garlic.

· Some of the allowed vegetables include: cucumbers, celery, lettuce (iceberg has zero nutritional value), zucchini, eggplant, brussel sprouts, peppers, lentils, corn, peas, and all the bean family – navy, string, lima, soy and all the rest

· Some of the allowed fruits include: apples, pears, plums, peaches, oranges and grapes, raisins, prunes and freshly squeezed fruit juice (no added sugars). NO BANANAS ALLOWED!

· Protein always acts as an acceptable option, when selecting a snack or maintenance transition food on this diet. Choose meats that are lower in fat. (be careful with saturated fat in pastrami, salami, and bologna).

· Butter and whole milk and creams are OK Raw is better than pasteurized.

· Nuts that grow on trees: cashews, almonds, pistachios, but read package labels to avoid sweeteners.

· Cream of mushroom and cream of asparagus soup are milk-based, and are harmless in terms of blood sugar rates. Same with tomato soup – provided you can find one with no sugar added

· OK are pickles, artichoke hearts, olives, cheese, condiments, spice

· Popcorn and baked corn chips (beware of sugary coatings and fake cheese coatings) You can put butter on popcorn. Watch the microwave ones, they may contain sugar. Pop the plain salted, then if I want, drizzle real butter.

· Coffee, tea, sugar free sodas, sugar free Popsicles, s/f jello

· Two allowed foods that are surprising is amylose-free waxy corn (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waxy_corn and also http://growingcorn.blogspot.com/2009/02/types-of-corn.html?showComment=1298300066443#c3178041003822236195) and sticky rice (http://www.foodnavigator.com/Science-Nutrition/Sticky-rice-evolves).

· Quinoa (www.quinoa.net) is a wonderful food that I use as a replacement for rice and also as a breakfast cereal. Warmed, with cream and Splenda added, it tasted similar to cream of wheat with the texture of some tapioca tossed in. For dinner, plain quinoa has a wonderful nutty/rice flavor, and can be mixed with other foods like onion and garlic, as you would couscous. Cook like you would rice, shorten simmer time to 15 minutes.

Breakfast - Enjoy as much fruit at as you wish. Include some protein, like eggs and cheese. In a pinch, get a sausage biscuit, throw away the bread and pat the fat out of the meat with a napkin.

Lunch – Have a good salad, but no low-fat dressing. Add some sliced ham, turkey, roast beef, or tuna. Or have a chicken caeser salad. Have a cup of soup, but avoid noodles and vegetable soups that include carrots, potatoes, or barley.

Afternoon snack – Fresh fruit, butter-free popcorn, or baked tortilla chips (guac or salsa are okay too!)

Dinner – Protein (a steak, chicken breast, broiled fish) along with two different kinds of above-ground vegetables (for example, lima beans and butternut squash or stewed tomatoes and fresh corn on the cob)

Spices or Condiments – No restrictions. Use good judgement when using yogurt or cheese as flavor-enhancers because of the concentrated amounts of milk fat, sugar, corn syrup and maltodetrins. Read labels. (low-fat yogurt is loaded with high-fructose corn syrup. Ketsup too.)

Alcohol – Drinking alcohol actually causes blood sugar levels to drop. Beware that tonic water is loaded with sugar, and alcohol carries 7 calories per gram. You are allowed up to two mixed drinks (no sugar!) or three 4-ounce glasses of wine or four bottles of beer (head for the low carb brands, like Mich Ultra) per day.

SAMPLE MENU

Breakfast – tomato juice, canteloupe slices, coffee the way you like it, huevos rancheros.

Lunch – salad: chick peas, olives, artichoke hearts, extra turkey chunks, green peppers, sugar-free lemonade

Dinner – garden salad: tomatoes, blue cheese, mushroom, avacado, and Sweet Sausage Casserole (recipe follows), fresh peaches and pears, sugar-free iced tea.

Once you’ve met your weight goal, on MAINTENANCE you can add to this to the Sample Menu:

(Insulin 10, 1 Amylose per day)

Maintenance uses the low-glycemic index diet, “0-1-2-3”

Breakfast – add two slices of toast

Lunch – no change

Snack – Tostidos and salsa

Dinner – buttered garden peas

Suggest you find a list of Glycemic Index (GI) values.

SWEET SAUSAGE CASSEROLE (Dr. Shoemaker's recipe. It has flour, go figure.)

Brown one pound sweet Italian sausage, cut into small chunks. Let simmer, then drain off excess fat and pat dry with a paper towel. Toss with one tablespoon flour. Saute in butter: 6 cups sliced zucchini and 1 cup chopped onion. Add 2 tablespoons flour and ½ teaspoon black pepper. Mix in 16 oz. cottage cheese, 1 cup parmesan cheese, 2 beaten eggs, the meat, and place in prepared casserole dish. Bake 325F for 30 minutes. Top with 4 oz. cheddar cheese, bake two more minutes to melt cheese. Serves 6

Clear Away Winter, Welcome Spring

2011-02-17T10:38:00.003-05:00

It seems like you could garden in Central Florida year-round. Florida is never buried in snow, averaging only three freezes a winter, which usually lasts only a few hours. The tropical foliage really suffers when the temperatures dip below 60F, so although the weather seems great (read: not frozen), our tender plants cannot tolerate the grooming it so desperately looks like it needs. Once we are safe from cold snaps, Floridians have a small window of time to get those flower beds back in shape before the mosquitoes arrive and intense heat and humidity strikes. Now is the time and here is a sample of what I plan to work on this week:

Our blue flowering plumbago have died back to foot-long dead sticks, but a patch of green leaves are sprouting at the base of each nearly dead plant. These are the best plants for my sandy soil; full sun, drought and heat tolerant, and they survive winter and come back in happy, bushy, flower covered mounds.

I was given two hydrangea plants just before winter and decided to wait until spring to plant them. They look a little scroungy right now, but once they're in a shady place and given lots of water (hydrangea means "water lover"), they should thrive. I think the plants I received are blue booming.

Beautiful red amaryllis and fragrant Easter lily bulbs are growing and green shoots have already begun to grow. Once in bloom, they will peek up over the plumbago. I don't do anything with these bulbs, just leave them alone year-round in the ground and we usually get dozens of brilliant blooms around Easter each year.

A woody evergreen bush called the yesterday, today and tomorrow plant grows at the end of our front porch and is ready to bloom bloom bloom! It has intensely fragrant flowers that bloom deep purple, fade to a pale lilac a day or two later, and finally turns white for a few days before falling off. The scent is so strong, it's overbearing if you stand too close to the flowers. I'm glad we planted this at the far end of the porch! I keep watching for shoots to transplant, but just never seem to find any. Momma gave me a baby in a pot (again, just before winter) and it is ready to be planted. I'm wondering where I should put it? NOT near the front door, but close enough, so we can enjoy the pretty flowers and fragrance from a safe distance.

Each year I put annuals under a small viburnum tree. I think I'll plant colorful mounding impatiens this year. I wonder if I can keep them moist enough?

A Mouse was in the House

2011-02-13T12:13:00.002-05:00

When we were little girls, my sister Patty and I loved to visit Kings, a humongous department store on University Boulevard. While momma was downstairs buying a bath mat or tissues or school supplies, Patty and I always headed upstairs to visit the pet department. This was the early 1960's and parents and kids weren't afraid of strangers, because everyone was nice back then and we were safe. That, and the upstairs was more of a balcony and we could look down and search out our mother anytime we wanted. Being very well behaved, as most children of that time were, the adults didn't mind the two little girls, probably holding hands, and wishing for every pet in the store.

We would oooh and ahhh over the turtles, goldfish and hamsters, but on this visit, there were tiny and adorable baby mice. She was thrifty and, other than a penny in the gumball machine, momma didn't buy things on a whim. We probably had a couple of cats, a dog, and maybe an adopted raccoon or opossum in the yard or garage, plus Patty and I had access to a bevy of warty frogs that we diapered with toilet paper squares and tiny gold safety pins. Well aware that momma would say we didn't need to add to our animal menagerie, Patty and I stayed upstairs, faces glued to the glass aquarium crawling with the most adorable mice we had ever seen.

Except a parakeet, pets may have visited inside, but they were never allowed to live there. We had inside visitors, like when we brought a cat in. We would put a kitty in the living room coffee table. The doors were like a jail cell that closed with a strong magnet and a plate of brass. The captive cat would reach his paws through the wooden spindles to slap at the feather or string we teased him with. The cats would play and when they tired of our torture, we put them back outside where they'd stretch in the sunshine and take a well-deserved nap.

Momma came upstairs to collect us, and Patty and I were in mouse mode. "Oh please, please, please!" we begged. "They're so small and cute and there are little cages and besides, Julie and Susan have a hamster!" They must have been adorable, because momma surprised us and bent to our pleas. The smallest ones were the absolute cutest, and because we thought that we would get to enjoy our pets a little longer if we got the youngest ones, Patty and I each chose a mouse that was barely past the 'pinky' stage. We were so excited!

I can't remember if momma bought a cage or we brought our mice home in a tiny cardboard box and reassigned a bird cage. I do remember having a wonderful afternoon, playing with our tiny new pets, and setting up their mouse house. We didn't want to go to bed that night, but knew there was more mouse play in the morning, so with the cage in our bedroom, we went to sleep. What a disappointment the next morning to find an empty cage! Our mice were so tiny, they slipped between the bars and were on the lamb! Momma helped us search our bedroom, and we set out food and hoped to find them enjoying a meal and then catch our little escapees.

After a few days, we probably forgot their names. After a week, Patty and I gave up on ever seeing our mice again and reassigned the cage for frog play. And although it was probably less than a dollar each mouse and $3 for a cage, momma surely mentioned that this was all a huge waste of money as we hunted for change for the popsicle man.

Momma was active in the Junior Women's Club and a church circle. Never would we have believed that the mice would hide out undetected and only surface when company came over. It turns out, ladies' groups were a big draw for mice, and they would peek over the edge of the cornice boards to see what was going on, then run down the drapery for a visit. Momma was mortified and felt that her friends would think that we had mice-mice, and so she pretended they didn't exist. If the ladies ever noticed a darling little brown mouse with white spots and another mostly white one with a big gray saddle-spot on his back, they politely didn't say.

I don't know what happened to the mice. Patty and I hoped they squeezed under the front door to live happily ever after in nearby woods. Momma probably baited mouse traps after her little girls went to bed at night until she was doubly successful. This is exactly what I would do in this situation today.

Battling Shower Mold and Soap Scum

2011-02-11T16:41:00.003-05:00

Our bathroom shower is so big that we don't need glass doors or a shower curtain. It's like stepping into a gym shower, a thousand 4 inch-tile squares that attract soap scum like a magnet and invites mold to grow like it's a hothouse. Keeping that shower clean is a chore, and although I've done the weekly swoosh, some deep cleaning was needed badly.

An entire squirt bottle of Comet Bathroom Cleaner, a scrub brush, a toothbrush, plus a lot of elbow grease went into cleaning my giant bathroom shower. I scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed. I got dizzy, took a break to let the chemicals work, then went back and scrubbed some more. Finally, I took down the squirter part of the shower head and washed down the whole stall. All my effort was in vain. It looked like I hadn't even begun to clean.

Back to the drawing board! On went my little laptop, and I knew just where to go - thriftyfun.com! In the thrifty home section, after scanning past all the stinky bleach suggestions, I found what I was looking for!

1 cup white vinegar
1/2 cup Borax
2 cups hot water

Mix borax in very hot water (it doesn't completely dissolve), then add vinegar. Slosh this mixture in shower, then scrub scrub scrub!

Holy cow!!! The stain on the shower floor is gone! I made another small batch to get the bathtub, sinks, and toilet sparkling clean. Finally, I made a paste of Borax and vinegar to spread on the more stubborn mold in the shower corners to soak in for a while, then scrubbed it off.

An advantage of vinegar over bleach is that vinegar leaves an invisible residue behind that kills mold and the Easter egg smell leaves when the solution evaporates.

There were a lot of things I wanted to get done today. Instead I played in the bathroom all afternoon. I have come to the conclusion that we either need to replace all the tile or get the grout replaced.

I'll have David clean his bathroom. I'm tired!

Superbowl Sunday

2011-02-06T13:02:00.005-05:00

Juliet had fun playing football this morning, then the pregame shows came on and distracted her from her game. I can read her mind, "Hey that guy with the Steelers hat has a football just like mine!" Go Steelers!

I HAVE 43 FIRST COUSINS

2011-01-28T15:43:00.004-05:00

Do you cousins? I have 43 first cousins.

My dad's sister has four: Julia, Shawn, Dana and Erin.

My mother is a Mickler, and with her sisters and brothers, there are 40 first cousins!

This picture is of aunts, uncles, 1st and 2nd cousins, plus some other relatives at a Mickler Family Reunion. Photo taken several years ago.

Cousins, one family per line with surname:

Phillip, Shirley, Newmy, Larry, Alfred*, Debbie (Mickler)

Leroy, Barbara Jean*, Lee, Frederick (Hartley)

Randy, Pam (Greene)

Terry, Billy, Charles, Peggy (Riley)

Chucky, Susie (Mickler)

Raymond, Patrick, Stephen, Nancy, Cathy, Jamie* (Mickler)

Kathie, Patty, Marty (Wise)

Susan, Julie, Richard, Chris (Johnson)

Johnny, Chris, Beth (Mickler)

Karen, Sharon, Keith (Howard)

Shannon, Joseph "Bubba", Michelle (Mickler)

*Barbara Jean died as a new infant, Alfred died of crib death around age one, and Jamie had a fatal car accident at age 18.

Amylose Free Diet

2011-01-28T10:06:00.027-05:00

AMYLOSE FREE DIET - High Carbohydrate, High Protein and Low Fat.

Lose the Weight You Hate by Dr. Ritchie Shoemaker

Copied from LiveStrong website:

Starch, the primary form of stored carbohydrate in plants, consists of two chemical compounds, amylose and amylopectin. While amylose makes up 10 to 20 percent of natural starches, amylopectin accounts for the remaining 80 to 90 percent. Amylose, which is a straight-chain molecule, takes longer to digest than amylopectin, a multi-branched molecule. Lower or eliminating amylose intake may be beneficial for hypoglycemics, dieters, athletes and others who need quick energy from the food they eat.

Do not skip meals. Eat 3 meals a day. The starvation response burns calories from muscles not fat.

Eat adequate amounts of protiens: lean meat and eggs.

Eat adequate amounts of fruits, but NO bananas

Eat plenty of vegetables, but NO root vegetables (potatoes, carrots, etc.)

Be careful with fats and milk intake. Limit cheeses and yogurt. You can eat almonds, cashews and pistachio nuts.

You can eat quinoa , corn, popcorn, baked corn chips, tortilla chips, corn taco shells, corn pasta, sugar free corn flakes (Natures Path) and grits. All legumes/beans are okay.

Spices and condiments are okay.

Drink Water! Coffee and unsweet Tea are okay. Diet soft drinks, but only rarely.

Moderation in eating includes: eating good food, prepared well, presented pleasingly and eaten with gusto not gluttony.

Avoid starches and breads. Avoid all cereal grains, breads, pastas, cookies, crackers and cakes. Avoid wheat, rice, oats, barley, rye, etc. These are the biggest food problems.

Avoid root vegetables: potatoes, sweet potatoes, beets, yucca, etc.

Avoid sweets; sugars and hidden sugars like dextrose, sucrose, corn syrup and maltodextrin. Read all labels and avoid all foods with these ingredients. No chocolate, no candy bars and no health/nutrition bars.

No sugary sodas. No commercial fruit juices - fresh squeezed.

Butt-itis

2011-01-21T14:02:00.002-05:00

I am a candle-gainer. You have to dip and dip and dip to get a candle fat enough to be worthwhile. I'm worthwhile and then some! When I gain weight, it doesn't go one place, but like a candle, the fat evenly coats my entire body and isn't really noticeable until I've gained an extra ten. And I think, eh, I will diet next month.

Do you know people that, when they gain weight, they gain it in one place first and it's totally evident that she's been doing some serious eating? You see a friend you haven't seen in a month, and there's some major badonkadonk going on, and you think, "HOLY COW! What happened to your behind?!" I wish so much that when I put on an extra five pounds that I'd get a case of "butt-itis" so severe, nobody could miss that I'd been putting away the groceries, including me. Inspiration to diet, or not gain in the first place!

So today I had a doctor's appointment with my family doctor. Dr. Shaw has been treating my family for the entire 24 years we've lived in Apopka. It was a good appointment, like visiting an old friend. Like the woman in the mirror, I've watched Dr. Shaw get older and fatter. We discussed my weight, and I am going to join a program in his office to drop that 40 that somehow creeped onto me like dipping a candle. I asked the doctor if he was on the program and he laughed, "No, I like to eat too much!" He did tell me that, although I am fat, I am absolutely the healthiest he's seen in the 24 years I've been his patient. It's true! I no longer am going to the rheumatologist, am taking minimal medicine, only when I need it (for RA), and the only other med I need are daily hormones. Three cheers for hysterectomies!

So I start the diet program with an appointment on Monday. My inspiration, besides wishing to wear size six (I am only 5'2" - that's the size I should wear) instead of 14, is first and foremost to take some great photos in a gorgeous dress at Robert and Vanessa's October wedding. My other inspiration is a trip to Jamaica with my skinny friend Bonnie in April. How much can I knock off by April?? Go to church, light a candle, and pray for me!

Ding-Dong The Bells Are Gonna Ring!

2011-01-18T16:38:00.002-05:00

Vanessa and Robert are engaged and have set the date for October 22, 2010. Oh how exciting! They've started the planning process and are checking their options. One idea is to get married in Key Largo. Wherever they choose, I am sure it will be a beautiful wedding. Mark and I are thrilled that Robert has such a lovely fiancée and we wish them every happiness. Some of our friends have asked if they will be invited. It's not my wedding, but I'll see what we can do.

This ring is an incorporation of my original engagement diamond (from a ring my mother-in-law wore), and diamonds from Vanessa's grandmother's ring, plus a couple more thrown in for good measure. It looks so pretty on Vanessa's tiny hand.

Can't stop singing - "I'm getting married in the morning, ding-dong the bells are gonna ring!"

Angel Food Time!

2011-01-18T16:16:00.003-05:00

Have I reported on Angel Food Ministries? It's a food co-op that is usually through a church as a ministry. This ministry is not for only the poor. It is a benefit for the whole community and the more that buy in, the more buying power our dollars pull. I buy a Bountiful Blessing box and the Premium Fresh Fruit and Veggie box for my family each month. I also buy the same for my son, a 3rd year law student, and finally, I buy a Bread of Life box for a friend who is going through some tough financial times due to her husband's health. Her freezer is too small for the bigger box and she says that it actually feeds both of them for the entire month.

Mom and dad buy a box, not really sure which, but momma absolutely loves the Fast and Flavorful (TV dinner) meals, because they are easy, healthy, and low in sodium. I keep thinking my sista/friend Margaret would enjoy having these in her freezer. Momma and daddy bought a box for their friend Lucille and she was hooked on the quality of the food and money saving goodness. We all are!

You go online first, www.angelfoodministries.com and see which location is nearest to you. I go to a church called Victory World Outreach. This is not my church and they do not press me to become a member. The scheduled pickup is the last Saturday of the month and while I'm there, I pay for next month's food. A volunteer carries the pre-boxed food to my car. I go online and order everyone else's boxes at their local churches and pay for them online at an additional $2 fee. The food must be paid for by sometime near the 3rd week of the month (January 23rd online) and picked up on the morning that is scheduled online (last Saturday usually). When I order food, I always plug my old email address - momwatson6@gmail.com in, and suggest my friends do the same. One day there will be enough people that purchase because of me and I'll get a free box!

The church earns a buck or two per box that they give food to needy families. If someone orders and doesn't show, their box is also donated. The food is good, restaurant quality. The vegetables in the regular food box are flash frozen and delicious. No dented cans or seconds! I donate some things to neighbors, like the humongous five pound bag of waffle fries to the neighbor with four kids. One box is supposed to feed a person for an entire month. Of course, you'll probably need bread and the regular extras to go with it, but wow, what a savings!

Chickens, Horses, Dogs

2011-01-11T18:12:00.000-05:00

Went to Jacksonville to visit my very dear friend Lisa. She has three horses and a bunch of chickens. We drove to her barn with my little doglet Juliet in tow and it turns out she likes chickens. Alot. Too much. She got a wild look in her eyes every time one strutted past. I really wanted to get a small movable chicken coop/tractor with three or four bantams, but after seeing the lust in Juliet's eyes, I think having my own chickens won't be a good idea. I really wanted some pet chickens and fresh eggs. Too bad!

Here I am with the sweetest little hen on earth. She followed us around.

A Snowy Engagement

2010-12-30T18:25:00.003-05:00

We came to our Beech Mountain, NC home to spend ten days after Christmas. We arrived to blizzard conditions and, although we have 4-wheel drive, we had to get chains on our front tires to keep from slipping and sliding. The snow stopped after two days and we have had blue skies and warming conditions. In fact, today it's in the low 40's. We expect some rain/snow later in the week with colder temps. I really love the snow so it's always welcome in my book!

After dating for a year, our oldest son Mark Robert, Jr. proposed to Vanessa on December 28th at the Beech Alpen Inn Restaurant on Beech Mountain, NC. Robert and Vanessa are planning to get married in the fall. They actually grew up together, going to the same schools, riding the same school bus. Vanessa is David's age, three years younger than Robert. I remember Vanessa as a little girl and it's like having a preview of how darling our grandchildren will be. I bought her a Bride's Magazine at the mall and she was so excited. We poured over all the pretty gowns in the book, what fun! Robert and Vanessa are very happy, and their families are thrilled too! Maybe next year Vanessa's parents can come with us to NC.

Wedding date: October 22, 2010. Location will be revealed once they make a decision.

Mo's Girls

2010-11-30T17:30:00.004-05:00

When I first started Miranda's new baby cousin Lyla's quilt, I followed the paper pieced pattern exactly, then decided I didn't like the size (too small) and the material scraps I used just didn't seem organized enough for a newborn's quilt. So, I am giving this quilt to Lyla's big 5-year old cousin. I assembled this quilt using remnants of material from several other quilts I made in the past. The green floral border is overage from a quilt I made for Miranda's Great Grandmother Wise's Card Trick quilt. The pink hearts blocks were originally made for Mo's baby quilt, but I decided to use lots of colors, so why not incorporate those hearts for the one they were made for? I'll bet Miss Mo will notice! She doesn't miss a trick! Paper pieced dolls and machine pieced by me, then professionally quilted. Size - 37"x37".

Lyla's Dolly Quilt

2010-11-30T17:00:00.003-05:00

This quilt was made especially for my new grandniece, Lyla Grace. This quilt measures 34"x38", was paper-pieced on my Brother CS-80 sewing machine by me, then professionally quilted at my local quilt shop. The border is made of squares from the material used for the aprons on the dollies. The quilt is square, the photo was taken at an angle. Here's a picture of beautiful baby Lyla on her birthday, November 23, 2010.

Fire In The Kitchen Datil Pepper Sauce

2010-11-17T19:51:00.002-05:00

Yep, I made me a mess o' datil pepper sauce! Uh huh, my fingers burned for two days cuz I thought wearing gloves was sissy. This paper plate is holding about 1/3 of the peppers I used. I grew these datil peppers from a plant I got at last spring's family reunion in St. Augustine. I have some seeds from my cousin Chris that I am going to start after Christmas.

First, I wanted to keep some of the seeds, so I took the seeds out of about half of them. I didn't want to chop up ALL the seeds, as they add too much heat to the sauce.
I mixed in all kinds of secret ingredients that I am sworn to secrecy to keep the SECRET, but have to admit, I cannot follow another person's recipe, no matter how secret it is. I have to make it my own!! So I added this and that, and oh my my my my my, this is one batch of hot goodness! Mark and I had a sampling of the sauce the night I cooked it on some fried fish - on my goodness gracious, meow meow, and holy toledo too! It's some good stuff!!

Canning is new to me and I learned today after talking to my sister and searching online. It was a breeze and I'm glad a bought a jar grabber when I bought the jars. I used my own pots, but think if I plan to ever can again, which I am sure I will, because it was vastly enjoyable, that I MUST have a canning pot with the jar holder/lifter insert thingy. I worried that my jars were too close to each other, the sides of the pot, and whatever. Also, I didn't have anything to keep the jars from the bottom of the pot, so I opened up a metal vegetable steamer thing and used that. Hey, ya do what ya gotta do! I was pleased to fill 11-1/2 half pint jars. It was very satisfying to hear the jar lids suck tight as they cooled, little kisses. I got some of the cooked sauce on my fingers and am burning all over again. Whew! That's some hot stuff!

Table Runner Instructions

2010-11-14T10:51:00.000-05:00

It's easy to make a holiday table runner and only takes 10 minutes. The runner I made measures 42" long, 15.25" wide.

Fabric Requirement:
1/3 yard for center (I chose printed)
1/2 yard for back/edges (I chose red)

Batting is optional. Use very thin batting, cut 1/2 inch smaller than the 1/3 yard fabric and about 42"- 45" long. Cut length when you trim selvage.

Place fabrics right sides together with selvage on the ends. Sew sides together to make a tube. Turn right side out. Press so you will have equal back (red) fabric on each side of the center (print) material, about 1.25" on each side. If you choose to use batting, slide it inside the runner now. Trim selvage ends straight across. Fold the runner length-wise with center (printed) fabric on the outside, Iron only the ends (about an inch or two) to set fabric for sewing. Sew across folds on the top and bottom, using 1/2" seam (photo 1 below). Press seam open (photo 2 below) and flip inside. Iron and secure with a button (photo 3 below) or just tack the center down. You can get creative and add ric-rac or some other decoration. If you chose to use batting, it is recommended to stitch in the ditch of the two lengthwise seams.

Lyla Grace's Quilt

2010-11-13T12:04:00.000-05:00

So after illness, work, travel, broken sewing machine, and more travel - finally, FINALLY, I have Lyla's quilt top finished. I will take it to the quilt shop today to be professionally quilted and another strip of bubble gum pink material will make the binding around the edge. The back is so sweet. It's actually at the bottom right of this photo. Lyla Grace is due to be born a couple of days before this Thanksgiving.

I have harboured a concern that the baby would find a magic marker and make faces on the dollies...It's an heirloom! But then, I thought of how sweet that would actually be as an adult, for Lyla to see her own artwork as a child. Then again, perhaps she never will feel the need to draw in faces. I have let go of this concern. Now, what shall I name this quilt?

Castoffs for Mo

2010-11-13T11:26:00.000-05:00

Lyla Graces quilt began with completely different dolly blocks. The original ones I made from scraps didn't suit me for an infant gift, and so I tossed them aside and started over. Lyla's cousin Miranda is five years old and she will get another quilt. The castoff dollies. Mo's baby quilt was all hearts and I came across some pink hearts that I never used, so I incorporated those hearts into Miranda's newest quilt. The green border material was leftover from a quilt I made for my mother, Mo's great grandmother. She might find material that she recognizes from her cousins quilts in it too. The backing is the same green material as in the first dolly block on the right. I hope to find some pink material in my stash to make the binding.

What shall I name this quilt?

A Gift for Grand-Nephews

2010-11-13T11:00:00.001-05:00

PILLOWCASES!

Because I made Lyla a baby quilt and I made her cousin Mo a quilt with some dolly block remnants, I decided the little boys needed something special to commemorate Lyla's birth.

For Lyla's oldest brother, 7-year old Chris gets an African animal pillowcase. I've been to the zoo with his family. They had annual passes and Chris loved it.

For Chris' little brother, soon to be a big brother to Lyla, 3-year old Joshie, gets frogs. Joshie's family has an aquarium that houses a pet frog named Charlie.

Cousin of Lyla, Chris and Joshie, and big brother to Mo, 7-year old Ben gets a hunter's pillowcase. Ben is very proud of a some deer antlers that he has hanging in his bedroom.from a deer his daddy shot. Too bad the colors on this one came out so flourescently strange in this photo.

In Memory of Jon Kersten

2010-11-08T07:57:00.000-05:00

My earliest memory of my neighbors Jon and Cathy Kersten was 23 years ago. We met on the street of our neighborhood, and exchanged phone numbers. They had four children, their baby was about six months old, the same age as our youngest son, David. That afternoon, I dialed their number, "Can you come over? My husband is out of town and I just got home and the front door is wide open!" Cathy and Jon came over, he in fatigues and carrying a baseball bat, and they checked every room and closet in our new house. I slept sounder that night knowing I had friends that would protect me in Mark's absence.
Jon was a man that was all about family and fun. Music adds joy to everything and Jon was always be-bopping and skiddley-dooing and drum-tapping his way through every day. His children got the benefit of a daddy that played, really got down and played, with them. As adults, their father was a mentor, driven to do what was right and good. His childen and grandchildren have sweet memories. Jon didn't wait for lemons to make lemonade!

My dear friend Cathy and her husband Jon had the kind of loving relationship that other couples should emulate. Theirs was kind, caring, thoughtful, and selfless. Cathy and Jon were in sync. What a gift that they married so very young...more precious years together.

Quilting Baby Dollies

2010-10-19T12:00:00.003-04:00

"Once upon a time...

...there was a beautiful little princess...

...she lived in an enchanted castle."

Click twice on photos to see enlarged version.

The quilt top is nearly finished. How do you like Lyla's Dollies?

And the darling princess backing, just adorable, isn't it?

The next step is adding border. I tossed a few scraps (middle picture) beside the top to see how a simple mix of apron fabric blocks would look. Decision made! I'll sew a strip of 4" squares of the four different apron fabrics to make a colorful block border. Once that is complete, I can sandwich the top, some lightweight polyester batting, and the princess fabric backing, and take it to be professionally quilted. The binding will be bubblegum pink with white dots, same as the base of each dolly's dress. Finished size should be about 57"x39".

Fall in the Mountains

2010-10-19T01:31:00.003-04:00

Fall in the North Carolina mountains is a wonderful experience. This photo was taken on the Blue Ridge Parkway, between Blowing Rock and Grandfather Mountain. Leaving is always the hardest part.

What a difference a day makes! Same view of the same tree in my front yard, but less leaves. Blame it on a rainy, windy night.

Will I Be Homesick?

2010-10-06T13:52:00.000-04:00

Contemplating the day we sell our house, a big home on a pretty piece of property with a pond out front and woods behind. It's actually gotten too big. We don't ever use the formal living room or dining room, opting instead the coziness of an eat-in kitchen and family room. I converted Robert's room into a sewing room and plan, once David moves, to move my sewing stuff into his room with more windows and bright afternoon sun, making Robert's room a guest room. Will I miss bears and racoons that plunder our garbage? Nope. Will I miss the amradillos that turn our lawn into a bombing range overnight, holes everywhere? Maybe. I love the wildlife here - turkeys, red-tailed hawks, sandhill cranes and the many water birds , gopher tortoises, bunnies and deer that frequent our yard. Hearing a pack of wild coyotes screaming at night is frightening and will sit you upright in bed from a deep sleep. Twenty-four years in one place and one plants deep roots. My neighbors are my dearest friends. All things must come to an end and one day, more sooner than later, Mark and I will sell our home and move to our NC place. One winter there, and I feel confident that Mark will be ready to bail out from the snow and get a second place here, in Central Florida. A condo or a small place in a retirement community would suit me fine. I wonder what the future holds?

Lyla's Dollies Baby Quilt In The Works

2010-09-21T03:55:00.002-04:00

Because I decided the original dolly quilt was more for a four year old than a newborn, I went shopping for some different material. This delay cost me a few days. Then I got sick. Ugh. A few more days. Then I started sewing and my bobbin winder quit winding. Another delay! Finally, I am underway!! Here are six of the nine blocks I will put on the quilt top.

Won't it be a sweet quilt? There will be three rows of three, (8.5"x8" blocks) holding hands, and some sort of fabric strip between each row so they don't look like they are standing on each other's heads. Do you like the retro fabric I used for their aprons? Bubblegum pink dotted fabric will border edges and the sweetest fabric for the back (I'll show you later).

Chicken Coop

2010-09-19T14:08:00.002-04:00

I want to get two or three chickens. I want fresh eggs and that "I'm almost a farmer" feeling one gets from raising an animal for food.   If you allow your chickens to roam your yard freely your eggs will be higher in Omega-3 fatty acids and lower in cholesterol, among other health benefits. I want a chicken tractor/coop like this one that a local Apopkan makes, that can be dragged around the back yard so my chickens can free range in the safety of a cage. An egg-laying chicken will provide other valuable functions besides being a loved member of the family: they're tick-eating, mosquito-eating, and fly-eating fertilizer machines.

Alektorophobia: Fear of chickens.
I do not have a fear of chickens. I fear what may be attracted to a chicken coop. Our home backs up to the woods of a state park, the home to bears, foxes, bobcats, opossums, raccoons, owls and hawks.   These are just a few wild animals that come to mind; some want the chickens, some want the eggs, and some want what the chickens eat.

Melissophobia: Fear of bears.
I am not afraid of bears. I am afraid of the havoc a bear can create in his search for a meal.  A bear can smell food from two miles away. Chickens eat cracked corn. Corn is like crack to a bear. I can do things to protect my hens from the other animals, but a bear will just tear a door off, crash into, or knock over the whole coop to get to a scattering of corn the hens may have left behind. Once inside the coop, a bear may take advantage of an eating opportunity and go for chickens and eggs, but fruits and vegetables are their main food interest. I will have to keep our chicken feed in the garage. That, and maybe get an electric fence to go around the coop. An extension cord to a simple electric shock fence may ward off all chicken-eating critters.

Chicken Varieties: If you've ever been attacked by a mad hen (as I have before) a docile chicken is a must! Other requirements would be one who is a good layer,and tolerant of Central Florida's summer heat. I am fond of the Easter Egger, who fits the bill, plus they lay pretty green or blue eggs.

Spent Hens: Chickens that are past their prime as egg-producers. The older they get, the fewer eggs they lay, usually 3 years old. Will I be able to get rid of a useless chicken? "A hen in the pot" just doesn't appeal to me, especially if that hen has been my little buddy.

My mother just called and told me about the horrors of raccoons. When they had chickens, daddy had to kill two raccoons, one in a tree that was eating their young guinea hens (they're great guard dogs, "pu-tawk, pu-tawk, pu-tawk!") that roosted in the oak tree, and another one that had gotten into the hen house and was killing newly hatced chicks. I cannot imagine Mark or me with a gun. Maybe a pellet gun, but stinging a hungry animal wouldn't be a permanent fix, now would it?

As I type, my mind is ticking and I'm thinking of a comment my neighbor Kyle said, as she showed me her two horses and mule on property she and her husband have two miles from our neighborhood. She said they used to have chickens there, but they wandered away. I wonder, would Kyle like a coop co-op? There, they could run free during the day and enjoy the protection of a closed coop at night.

The Cadillac Couch

2010-09-12T12:49:00.006-04:00

My father inherited a Cadillac from his recently deceased friend, Dr. Fleming Roach. Dad is in the used car business and knows the value of this great car, 1996 Sedan DeVille with only 50,000 miles. With people concerned with gas mileage and being ecologically correct, it would be a slow resale, but it is a great car and daddy gave it to me!

This car drives like a dream, feels like you're sitting in a cloud, on a comfy sofa. It's big. I decided to call it "The Couch."

We have too many cars to insure - our oldest son in his last year of law school drives an Explorer Sport, son #2 is looking looking looking for a job and while we wait wait wait, we insure his Camaro. Then there's the "back-up" green Monte Carlo (that David currently drives until he can get his oil pump fixed on his Camaro). I'd like to sell The Lizard, Mark's Corvette (he's SO attached), and although the GMC Jimmy's 4WD is convenient in the winter when we go to NC, I'm thinking it should go too. That, or rent a garage near the airport closest to our NC home.

Homemade Cherry Pie and Churned Vanilla Ice Cream

2010-09-01T16:44:00.000-04:00

Uh huh.

That's Venus...That's Mark

2010-08-31T19:18:00.002-04:00

Sunset from our back deck of our NC home. August 28, 2010 - the air was crisp and a cool 58F and the crickets were incredibly loud! Too bad you don't get the full effect in this video. It was about 8:30 PM.

Sugar Maples are already beginning to show some color at our Beech Mountain home..

Hazy blue mountains - how the Blue Ridge earned it's name.

Mark and our friend Sig, ahead of me on a Blue Ridge Parkway hike, Cold Prong Pond Loop. The berries that weren't ripe in early July were gone, but a few wild apple trees were loaded!

Moo, Whinnie, Cluck

2010-08-27T01:13:00.002-04:00

Our next door neighbor Kyle popped over for a visit. Somehow the conversation moved to raw, unpasteurized milk straight from the cow. Yep, I can hook you up, girlfriend! We called Ann, a high school biology teacher and licensed Apopka farm owner. She has two brown Jersey's for milk, a bunch of chickens, horses, and the friendliest short-legged stocky black cows called Dexters. They're a pretty sturdy breed that does well in Florida. I admired the bull's curly bangs and Ann told me that those curls are a sign of virility. She didn't have to tell me...I saw his footballs! Kyle got a $10 gallon of Jersey Juice and we both learned a lot about cow and horse feeding, chickens, and well, everything farmy.

On our way home, we stopped at Kyle's barn to feed her horses. She has a beautiful tall Tennessee Walker, whose previous owner named Harley. Kyle isn't fond of that name, so I changed it to Carly. She just didn't seem like the motorcycle type, and I have always liked Carly Simon. This Carly has a beautiful brown coat with a glorious splash of paint on one shoulder, black mane and white polka dot knee socks. Carly holds her head high, far superior to all others in the stable. Carly's colt Bambi is nearly grown and not yet broken, but Kyle showed me how calm she is with a saddle blanket on, and when Kyle draped herself over Bambi's slick back, the young horse just enjoyed all that loving and hugging. Louie is a stately Mule. He's the biggest, prettiest, long-legged mule I've ever met. Actually, Louie is the ONLY mule I've ever met. His alert ears are long, high, and close together and this makes him look ever so smart. I didn't know that mules are so easy to care for. They eat less than horses and they don't have a horsey smell, in fact, nose pressed against Louie's side, I could only detect the mild hint of the grass he rolled in earlier in the day. Who woulda thunk? Best of all, like the horses, Louie is very sweet. Kyle invited me to go riding with her, and says her big girl Carly is a smooth horse to ride.

Velvety soft horse noses, friendly curious cows, the sweet smell of hay, and a nice friend to share it with made this a perfect day. I think I'm ready for a couple of chickens!

America is Tired and Poor

2010-08-26T15:56:00.001-04:00

The American flag is supposed to fly the highest, a sign of respect often ignored or forgotten in word and in deed.  Emma Lazarus' words reached out to those looking for political, economic, and religious freedom.  It was a long and expensive trip on a crowded and unsafe ship, followed by a frightening visit to Ellis Island for a medical exam and intelligence test that would determine their future. A quarter of a million immigrants never made it past Ellis Island, deported back to their country of origin.  Some were sent home because they were suspected of being unable to support themselves without becoming public charges. It was a privilege to become an American and those that were allowed to stay were excited to become a part of this great country and live the American Dream. Let that flag fly high!

Give me your tired, your poor. We have become the tired and the poor as we are forced to support those who do not belong.  American citizens represent many countries, but it seems the melting pot simmers a bit slower these days. We lack patriotism!

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me has become a charity we can no longer afford.   Our taxes are high because we are helping everyone but our own.

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. Visa overstays,Visa fraud, and slipping illegally across our borders, the benefits outweigh the risks. If you are caught, you are sent back home, not even a slap on the wrist. Start a family and you'll never have to return to your home country. If you manage to evade the border patrol, you are home free to receive public assistance, free education, and free medical. Illelgal aliens have rights and don't pay taxes. You can't get that back at the old casa!

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Our jails are country clubs compared to those back home and our criminal justice system is overwhelmed with wretched refuse.

I lift my lamp beside the golden door. Knock, and wait for an invitation to enter, and pay for your keep. Who tolerates an unwelcome stranger that barges in, robs the pantry, and then demands more? When will our government see the light?

Pileated Woodpecker

2010-08-24T09:01:00.000-04:00

This morning I heard, then saw two crow-sized male Pileated Woodpeckers - black feet and black bill and red head, looking all pretty. It reminded me of the time when our youngest son, David, was about four. He was playing outside and came running in all breathless and excited and red faced, "Mom, come quick! There's a ptarodactyl in the tree!" If you've ever seen how gangly they fly, with head jutted out and lifting themselves clumsily on huge black and white wings, each stroke of the wing is loudly accompanied with a chuckle call, similar to a bird in Tarzan movies. (but not the peacock). Add to this the pointed feather tuft at the back of their head, and why yes, these woodpeckers DO favor the prehistoric bird!

Come, my little dinosaur. No need to bang your beak into the trees for a snack...A feast of neon-green hornworms that are wreaking havoc in my tomato plants awaits you!

Getting Closer to a Beach at the Watson's

2010-08-18T20:20:00.000-04:00

Juliet "helps" the boys dig. David and neighbor-friend Billy both wear size 14 stompers, and you can see how very small our diggin' doggie actually is as she tries her paw at a little hole next to their shoe prints. Julie doesn't miss a trick, noticing the newly opened screen, and she zipped outside, did a little dance, then came back in through the loosened screen panel. David's friend Drew will replace the screen tonight.

Finally, a picture of the sand-filled pool garden. I'm ashamed for you to see our slimey pool. Mark will brush it down again tonight and add chlorine and clean the filters. It is really a beautiful pool!

Pool Garden - Our New Sand Box

2010-08-18T14:12:00.003-04:00

The Sand Man arrived, drove the giant dump truck through the big double-gates of our side yard and right through the back yard to dump a pile of sand. First, my friend's brother Matt dug dug dug the weeds and plants out of the pool garden. Next, our son David dug out more dirt. Now we need to fill an even foot deep by 70 square feet, which equals just under 3 cubic yards, or 8100 pounds of sand. David and I both expected to see a much bigger pile of sand and wonder if this is truly 3 cubic yards. It'll seem like a that pile never ends once David starts filling the wheelbarrow over and over and over again! Ugh, the pool looks disgusting! David and his friends left all the floats in yesterday, then it rained and rained, which always starts an algae bloom. Clean up and chemicals tonight.

Dolly Quilt

2010-08-15T21:47:00.004-04:00

My niece Robin is going to have her third baby later this year and, after two little darling boys, this is a girl! I have a quilt for each baby born, and so making one for a girl is extra special! This is a picture of the pattern I ordered, and below is a (very poor quality) picture of the first dolly I made. Each block will measure 7" once it's sewn into the quilt. I am not sure how many I shall use. I LOVED making the first block! It's a new technique (to me) called paper piecing. You actually sew the material onto a paper pattern, and only after the whole quilt top is assembled, then you remove the paper. A tighter stitch is required to make the paper tear off easily, but any mistakes results in a much more difficult stitch removal. I know first hand!! I'm not fond of the circles mid-quilt (they remind me of bottle tops) and so I might just make an entire quilt of different dollies. The one I made has dark skin, and I have a variety of skin tones and hair colors, and lots of different scraps to make pretty dresses and aprons and backgrounds. It's like a photo album! Will baby like it? I hope so!

Such a poor quality picture. The seam allowance is shining through because I took this picture with light behind it. They won't show when the quilt is complete and sandwiched with a nice cotton batting, then quilted around the dollies. I haven't decided if I will be able to hand quilt, or if I'll have it machine quilted.

35 Year High School Reunion

2010-07-30T13:22:00.000-04:00

Where did 35 years go? We are supposed to be 35 years old!

Reverse those numbers and you have 53. I'm good with that.

Here are a few friends that gathered for breakfast the morning after the reunion: Left side - Jacques Klempf, David Kampfe, Karol Eilermann Smith, and Marty Wise Watson. Right side - David Bard, Barry Smith, Cheryl Bernstein Bermann, and Bonnie Baumgarten Friedman.

Reconnecting with old friends was nice, but out of 600 students, we only had 60 at the reunion. We made plans for the Class of 75 to get together with at a local restaurant once a month or a quarter. The first will be this coming weekend, only a week out from this reunion, but someone from far away will be in town, so why not? Don't count on me. It's a little soon to turn back around and drive the 2-1/2 hours to Jacksonville.

Quilting

2010-07-19T22:42:00.000-04:00

Quilts have once again called to me. I joined a "block of the month" at the local quilt shop, and next June I shall have a lovely Underground Railroad sampler nearly complete. A picture of a completed quilt is on the first page of The Material Girl's newsletter. I also have finally decided it is time to make my Rock Candy lap quilt. It is cut out and ready to piece, a first quilt for myself, as all my other quilts have been gifted. I'm anxious to see it finished, as the material is the prettiest batik fabric, chosen to look most like the actual pattern. More pressing than my own quilt, however, is a quilt my niece Robin's baby. Lyla Grace will be born in November or December, I think. I am sure I have plenty of girly girl colors to choose from in my material stash to create a feminine crib quilt.

Green Thumb is not Fruity

2010-07-19T07:35:00.001-04:00

I have huge and gorgeous tomato plants. They're big and leafy with strong thick stalks. These are plants to be proud of! I got my plantlings from a reputable feed and seed store. They are planted in beautiful dark organic fertilizer. They get water from my rain barrel, I've fed them organic tomato fertilizer, but there is not a single bloom or green tomato to be found. Same goes for my datil pepper plant. Nobody has ever seen a more healthy plant, but not a pepper in sight! Where have I gone wrong?

Puggie Puppies!

2010-06-29T22:46:00.000-04:00

I had to take my car to the mechanic today. After a nice lunch with Mark and our younger son David, I spent the afternoon riding with Mark on his giant Snap-On Tools truck as he went from auto shop to auto shop, selling tools to car mechanics. One of the mechanics showed me his 9-week old miniature Pug puppies. They'll grow to be about 5-6 pounds. Ohhh how darling! They crawled all over me and when I left, my shirt dirtied with tiny pawprints and the sweet smell of puppy kisses lingering on my skin. It was a humid and roasting hot day, that's why I'm so red faced and curly haired.

Photo taken with my brand new, bought today, iPhone 4.

Raw Cow's Milk

2010-06-03T12:06:00.001-04:00

A local middle school teacher named Ann has a small Apopka farm and sells free-range eggs and raw cow's milk. My 23 year old milk drinking maniac son and I drove over to see what's what and we were pleased to walk out into the pasture to meet Clover, and Paris - who is ready to calf at any moment. Paris is not being milked so near to delivery. We got to watch Clover being milked (with a machine) and she produced 4.5 gallons of Jersey Juice. These two Jerseys are sweet pets that will live out their lives on the farm, even after they are no longer productive.

Most people who drink raw milk are "foodies" and are particular about what the cows get to eat, where the live and how much "cow time" they get. Ann's Jerseys eat a soy free diet of grain and grass and free choice hay. Florida's soil is worthless for sustaining a milk cow; we don't have real soil, it's sand, and dairy cows would starve to death on just Florida grass. Ann has a friend who is allergic to soy and could not drink any milk (grocery or otherwise) until Ann found a soy free cow food, because soy is one of those things that does pass through the cow and end up in milk.

Ann also has a small herd of about a dozen Dexters, small black cows, and she has one butchered occasionally, which I am curious to try out. She names the Dexters too, but they have "reality names" like T-Bone, Burger, and Stew. Ann has a variety of chickens that scratch what they want, wander in the fields, and enjoy the sunshine. When she gets a bully rooster, he becomes dinner, as it should be. She sells big brown eggs with strong healthy shells.

I just drank a glass of delicious custard yellow milk. It tastes similar to Gustafson's Farm milk from the store, but it is creamier than whole milk. The cream seperates, so you have to give it a shake before pouring. I can use a turkey baster and take some of the top cream for my coffee.

Florida Fruiting Flora

2010-06-02T12:56:00.000-04:00

I have several thriving plants on my front porch: a topsy turvey tomato, hanging upside down from it's stem and always begging for the roots to be watered (more than a normal tomato would!), three tomato plants in 5-gallon buckets, a fast-growing fig tree, a healthy and thick datil pepper plant, and one sorry excuse for a Japanese plum. How is it that all the other plants are so excellent and the one I want most to survive is floundering? Hmmmm... I so love the way a JP looks when it's grown to be a big tree, heavily laden with golden fruit. Maybe it hates it's pot! Today I will transplant to a better container, prettier than the mustard yellow 5-gallon bucket with holes drilled in the bottom. I'll get a pot that offers the beauty that this poor plants leaves need to survivie! Everyone else just gets water!

Unjustified Beach Fears

2010-06-01T19:27:00.001-04:00

Oh what a nice week at Cocoa Beach with my family! David and Audrey, Robert and Vanessa, my cousin Julie, and of course, Mark. We go this amazing new blender, 600 watts of ice-crushing power, and we made some yummy foofy drinks. The sun was bright and shiney, the skies were clear and blue, the fish were biting and Julie and I caught sheephead in the intercoastal. The evenings were fun-filled with Apples to Apples games, guitars, and poolside entertainment.

I have one fear, one stupid stupid unjustified fear. I am not afraid of sharks, heights, muggers, snakes or being left alone on a deserted island. I do not fear death. I am, however, completely terrified of stepping on a crab in the shallow water at the beach. A really big dog with teeth bared and hair up doesn't frighten me as much as the prospect of a crab under my feet. What is wrong with me?!

I enjoyed the swimming pool and took nice long walks on the beach.

Sharing my fear with my dog, in miniature. Fiddler crab was actually bait, which I don't mind handling at all. Juliet, however, was completely traumatized when the crab latched on to her whiskers! She may need psychological care now.

Postage Stamps Promote Pet Adoption

2010-05-13T00:04:00.002-04:00

Did you see the new stamps the US Post Office just issued to raise awareness of humane and responsible pet care? You'd think they'd encourage adoption of shelter dogs, bright-eyed mongrels of unknown lineage, but instead the Post Office showcased all pure-bred dogs. When looking for a Lab or Golden Retriever, one usually doesn't make a bee-line for the pound. Our decision to buy our Yorkshire Terrier from a breeder didn't help alleviate the over-abundance of shelter dogs, but in my defense, we chose a breed of dog known for the least allergic response for the asthmatics in our family. To my defense, we had Juliet spayed, the absolute most responsible choice all pet owners should do. About the cats, the Post Office's kitty lineup looks similar to those you'd typically find at the Humane Society. But I still remain baffled with their choice to use fancy dog breeds.

Gardening

2010-04-25T09:50:00.000-04:00

Oh what a mess I've made! I cut down hedges, moved plants, and dug lots of holes. Things look much worse before the beautiful results happen.

Our flower beds were overtaken by healthy, fast growing everything! The viburnum hedge, closest to our house, became so tall and wide, there was no choice but to hack it all down to fifteen pitiful stumps. You can't kill it, and they'll grow back quickly, but this time Mark will be sure to keep it at a controllable height. The garden walkway is such a mess. I need to break up and transplant the blue flowering plumbago that have just gone crazy, and also I want to transplant the many amaryllis bulbs. I have dozens of pink blooms, and my mother just gave me several deep red bloomers. Because they wait until spring to bloom, and grow so tall with the amazing two-to-four flowers per stem, I plan to sink the bulbs against the front of the (future) hedge, placing lower flowering plants in front.

Yesterday Mark helped me finish up planting the azeleas. Although I bought six one-gallon plants, several had two azeleas in them, and so I split them up. I think we planted eight under the many oaks beside our driveway. Next year they will be big and flowering, oh how wonderful they'll look! Currently they look happy and healthy with a drip hose spraying the entire area.

I still have a lot of small flowering plants to put in the ground; sweet williams, petunias, daiseys, and much more. It will be so nice.

Oh my back aches up high, between my shoulder blades and up, and including my neck. It's all worth it!

It's a Great Day to be Born

2010-04-20T09:27:00.000-04:00

Yep, today's my birthday. 53 years have flown by, because we all know time flies when you're having fun! Speaking of flying, in honor of my birthday, NASA brought the space shuttle back today, complete with a sonic boom that rattled my eardrums! I was outside, hoping to see the contrails, but the skies were clouded closer to the horizon looking east.

I couldn't think of anything I wanted or needed, and I have a promise of "anything" once I see it in a store, but resourceful Mark did find a great present, which I'm totally satisfied with: the latest copy of Mother Earth News, Guide to Growing Your Own Food (food and garden magazine) and a five-pack of the nicest Wells-Lamont gardening gloves I've ever seen, a different pair of gloves for different tasks. They fit so nice too!

Today will be filled with lots of opportunity to wear my new gloves. I have big yard plans!

I got a water barrel!

2010-04-19T10:29:00.003-04:00

I've always wanted a rain barrel, and finally I have one! My cousin makes them from barrels that were used to ship food to the United States. Although they were washed out, driving home with the barrel in the back of my car, enclosed and warm from the sunshine, it smelled so good, it made our mouths water! I think this one may have had pickled banana peppers!

Here's Chuck's site: Barrels For All Your Needs

We got a rain collecting barrel, complete with small screened hole on top and a spigot on the bottom. It fits conveniently and hidden in the bushes near our front porch, right under the roof where the water pours into the bushes. I'm excited about this barrel because we don't have a water spigot close enough to water the front porch plants; I always end up running in and out and dripping water between kitchen and front door. The photos are from Chuck's website. Ours is the brown color. The hole is small to control algae growth from sunlight, yet it is big enough to catch the fast and large stream of water that pours from the corner of our roofline.

(photos are taken from Chuck's site)

Exciting Spring Planting

2010-04-19T10:06:00.002-04:00

This winter was a hard one on Florida. Normally 2-3 freezes (lasting only a few hours each) is the worst of our winters, but this year Central Florida had 13 hard freezes. So many of our beautiful tropical plants have perished. It's been a busy spring, cleaning up the dead plants and upgrading and replacing. We have purchased a lot of plants, but haven't really come together on a planting plan. First and foremost, we lost our gorgeous hibiscus, with its huge amazing flowers, so Mark bought three to replace it with. The area we had the last hibiscus has grown two small oak trees, which Mark has kept small by trimming like boxwoods. OUT THEY MUST GO! I'll transplant the oaks into the back yard before we plant the new hibiscussesesesss. Hibisci? Hibiscue? Hibiscus plants - yellow, peach and a red flowering beauties.

I started a large lot of bell pepper plants, which were growing wonderfully until I transplanted them in what has become clear to me - inferior soil! Never again will I buy store brand! MiracleGro is the best, no exceptions! Today I plan on transplanting the healthiest of what's left of my bell peppers. I have six tomato plants, ready for a bigger pot too. I got one of those "upside down" tomato planters and will put one in that to compare how well this works. Should I hang this from an oak tree's limb? Or should I hang it from the porch hook? I'm thinking, porch, as I want to keep a potted tomato nearby for my control group to compare.

While collecting donated plants for this past weekend's family reunion in St. Augustine, FL, I was able to purchase a fig tree and two large trays full of sweet williams and petunias (maybe totalling 40 plants!) at a very low price, direct from the green house. They usually won't sell to locals, but because I was there anyway...(I think the employee may have pocketed the $10 she charged me.) A fern farm donated a bunch of small potted ferns, plus two huge hanging ferns. Unfortunately for the reunion sale, the big hanging ferns wouldn't fit in the car with the dozens of other ferns, ivy, draceannae, gardenias, and orchids. The two big ferns would have fit, but there wouldn't be room for the box holding the hot food. Gotta bring a covered dish to the reunion! This year I brought a large pot roast, cooked down to shreds with onion, garlic, and a larger amount of big mushrooms, all swimming in gravy. If you don't like mushrooms, you wouldn't like this! A second large pot was filled with Jasmine rice.

After bringing so many plants to the reunion, I bought a datil pepper plant for myself, and I also bought one of the ivy's I donated. The datil pepper will go into a big pot and hopefully grown into a small tree on my front porch, getting the morning sunshine. All the proceeds go to the reunion fund for mailing and rental of the St. Johns County Fairgrounds.

Before I can plant the sweet williams and petunias, I want to transplant my many flowering lillies. It's time to dig them up, split the lillies up, and make more. After they're all dug up I plan on having Mark cut back the hedge. I learned that this is the perfect time of year to prune my oversized viburnum hedges down to the small size they are supposed to be (to me), so our pretty house won't look like like a girl, hiding behind bangs that are way too long. According to the plant guy, we should cut the bushes down a foot shorter than I want it to grow, then it will fill out and behave once again. If only Mark can keep the hedge size under control in the future!

I haven't decided where to put the fig tree yet. It's only a foot tall, so maybe in a pot this year to let it grow a little bigger. I'm hesitant to plant it in the back yard, as the wild animals from the woods behind our house would eat all the fruits before they even ripen. Mom says to plant the fig near a pine tree, which would limit me to back yard planting. I'm just not sure I want it there.

I have a bunch of wild flower seeds and plan on having someone (David? Mark? A hired person?) clear the small tree saplings that have appeared at my fence line out back, and loading that area up with seeds and mulch. It would be a good idea to mulch heavily so we won't have a repeat of weeds and saplings next year at the fence. I want to be able to see the deer walk past! I'd also like to mulch under the batch of oaks next to our driveway and load that up with wild flower seeds. I used to plant them every year there and always got so many compliments.

A Busy Weekend

2010-04-13T23:51:00.000-04:00

On Saturday we webt to Lowe's Hardware store, where we bought 3 hibiscus, lawn fertilizer, and lawn bug killer. We've been troubled by sand gnats, plus we saw a couple of tiny ticks on our dog, and so the bugs had to go! David spread it, but he's so fast, I'm afraid he may have run the spreader in record speed, thus not covering enough ground with the poison. Time will tell. The weather station said rain, but none has come yet. Hoping the stuff we spread doens't burn the grass. I don't look forward to standing outside with a hose.

Mark and I had the nicest Sunday. We started out with breakfast at the Woodshed, which wasn't anything to write home about. Next, we took a pleasant drive, windows open, to Mount Dora. We ended up at a waterside park and enjoyed watching the ending of a sailboat race. Kids were having a ball in the park and I wondered out loud if I could still hang upside down from my knees. Mark was quick to warn me not to, or I might get hurt. He probably had an image of my head hitting the ground. I still feel like I can do anything, but Mark's got a point!

A typical stop for us is at the RV store, where we looked for the millionth time at campers and RVs. We finally decided that a fifth wheel would be the wisest choice, as it has plenty of head room for Mark's 6'6" crown. Now that we have that decision made, we will spend many enjoyable visits figuring out what is important to both of us in a camper. We probably won't buy one until we sell our Florida house and move to our North Carolina home. Having a nice-sized trailer is a good idea so we can bail out when we tire of snowy winters and also so we can be in Central Florida during Spring, so I can coninue with my tour escort job, accompanying high school marching bands. I love it. The camper store was having hot dogs and hamburgers, so we ate lunch there.

On our way home we drove through Winter Garden, where the main street was closed for a Spring festival. Oh fun! We walked up and down the street looking at all sorts of plants and displays of ecologically sound strategies for better gardening. We bought six nice-sized azeleass in dark pink with freckles, 3 cast iron plants, and a plumeria stick. I planted my plumeria today, and look forward to the day when it is as big as the huge one I lost this winter to frost. We have lots to plant; replacing plants that we lost in frost this winter. We normally get 2-3 freezes, but this winter we had 13. Hoping Florida won't have such severe weather next winter.

Class Reunion

2010-04-06T11:56:00.000-04:00

WHY would I stand next to skinny Bonnie in a picture?

Most of you know that I work for my friend Bonnie at her travel agency, VIP Vacations. Bonnie and I have been friends since we were 15, and I'll soon be 53! My, how time flies! We attended a small class reunion for old classmates that graduated between 1971 and 1975, that gather in facebook. Bonnie and I went and saw a handful of old friends there, and had such a nice time. More people would have attended if it weren't the last day of Passover, and also if it weren't the day before Easter. It was so nice to reconnect with old friends. "Best Alive In '75".

2010-03-30T16:54:00.000-04:00

Spring is Birthday Time for most of our family. I turn 53 on April 20th, David turns 23 on April 24th, and Robert turns 26 on May 12th. My Big Sweetie Mark will be 54 in October. For the six months following his birthday, I get to razz him on how very very old he is until my birthday comes around and I catch up once again.

Robert moved home for a year and a half to go to law school, but decided he needed his own place, got a bigger loan and moved out. We are good with that. Robert is producing. He has a goal, goes to school, works in summer. Mark and I have worked so hard to be "fair" that we've enabled our younger son to become lazy. Wish we realized this a few years ago!

Our younger son David went to college, dropped out. Had a great job, got fired. He has been attending tech school for 18 months, has worked only a couple of months out of the year. The computer classes he is taking should be completed in around 18 months, but he isn't finished because he rarely goes five days in a week, and when he does, he arrives late and leaves early. David stays up all night and sleeps all day. He ignores Mark and me and hides out in his bedroom. We are tired of this and have dropped the work bomb in his lap. He's very angry, and for good reason! We pay for his car insurance, health insurance, dental bills, prescriptions, cell phone, and we feed him. He does his own laundry with my detergent in my washer and dryer. Why wouldn't he want to stay forever?!! We are crimping his style!

Here's the arrangement Mark and I presented him with:
April 11th - have a full time job by this date, two weeks is plenty of time to find something/anything.
May 1st - all bills are his to pay. Save what's left for deposits when he moves into an apartment.
July 31st - move out day.

We told David about this on Saturday morning. He was mad because I woke him up at 9:30. (It's not unusual for him to sleep until 3PM.) This week is Spring Break from school. He hasn't gone job hunting and it's Tuesday afternoon. David blames me for the new rules and is acting childish, won't talk to me, put "a NICE mother" on my grocery list. I'm not saying anything else.

I want to cut off the internet and the cable TV. Mark is resistant. He's the one that's allowed David to get to this point. I may just go ahead and do it anyway. I can take my laptop to a neighbor's house, McDonalds, or the library if I need to go online. I don't care if the TV is on or off. We should have done this a long time ago. What are your thoughts?

Potting Pretty Pepper Plants

2010-03-21T18:46:00.014-04:00

Last month Mark brought home some of the most delicious yellow, orange, and red bell peppers ever! They were so good, that I saved the seeds from all six peppers. Will my home grown peppers taste as good? A few days later I poured most of the dried seeds into a big pot of fresh soil, stirred them into the top inch of soil and covered with plastic wrap, a homemade greenhouse. They sprouted so quickly and look so healthy! I bought a new bag of soil especially for vegetables, and today I repotted all those little plants into individual 2-ounce paper dixie cups. First I poked a hole in the bottom of each cup. After I filled a bunch of cups with soil, I added a seedling. I filled five boxes and a table full of lovely little bell pepper plants, 282 plants total. What a surprise that every seed I planted sprouted! I'll share these with everone I know, and think I should bring a batch to the family reunion next month too! Do you like bell peppers?

Info: From seed to maturity: 75-100 days. Germinated March 1, should begin to produce in mid-May. Peppers turn from green to light yellow and then a golden yellow, OR green to orange OR green to red when mature. (I mixed the seeds from three varieties before planting, so it’s a surprise!) They’re edible green, but sweeten as they mature in color. Transplant into 5 gallon well drained containers. I suggest using soil for vegetable growth. A 20-quart bag of Lowe’s “Kellogg Patio Plus Natural” organic soil is about $3. Water weekly, keeping soil moist, but not soggy. Plants should grow to 16-20” tall. Tie to stakes. When your pepper is first growing, it needs a fair amount of blood meal (nitrogen), but once it starts producing flowers, it needs bone meal (phosphorus), using half-strength every other week. Peppers are related to tomatoes and have similar growing requirements, so an organic tomato fertilizer should work fine. Peppers thrive in plenty of light and warmth, but burn easily, so eastern sun may be best.

"A Comedy of Errors" or "Tour Escort Hell"

2010-03-18T11:33:00.005-04:00

I work for three companies as a tour escort to high school bands and choral groups that come to Orlando for theme parks and competition throughout the spring break season. My first spring break group of the season was last weekend. They were supposed to spend last Friday at Busch Gardens in Tampa, then leave at 6, arriving in Orlando at 7:45. I was at home when I got a 4 pm call, "We're on the road!" (not "we're leaving the park!") My group was tired of getting rained on and decided to head out early. I was going to leave at 4:30, but instead jumped into my work clothes and hit the road within seconds! It's a 45 minute drive to the Universal Studios area from my house without Friday traffic and rain. I was on the road for an hour and a half, averaging 15mph on the expressway. I met two busloads of high school band students at the hotel just as I arrived. The director, his wife, the chaperones, and the 60 kids were all great! They spent two days in Universal Studios parks, competed and won top honors, saw Aretha Franklin and Blue Man Group, and went to Arabian Nights dinner theater (my fav of the many).

This was the most error-riddled event I have ever hosted!!

The hotel they were reserved months ago closed for renovations, so they were moved to Rosen Plaza. I called Plaza on my drive down Friday and they "had no reservations for this school group." (see #2) WHAT?!! A heart attack and some fancy footwork later, they announced that Rosen Plaza didn't have room, so without telling the company I work for that organized this trip, Rosen Plaza moved our group to Rosen Center. It's just a few blocks away, but 65 parents had all the info for Plaza.
I need to be at the hotel at least an hour advance to make sure all the rooms, details, etc. are handled and make adjustments, if any. I didn't get this as the director didn't call me until they were already on the road a while.
Rosen Center said the busses could unload at the front. They moved them to the far end of the building, a long hike from elevators. (see #2)
Rosen Center put the boys in odd numbered rooms, girls in even. This means that they were across the hall from each other. You put high school boys at one end of the hall, the girls at the other! (see #2)
My request for a 6 am wakeup call never came to fruition. They lost ten minutes of morning time.
Our pre-arranged 6:30 breakfast buffet wasn't ready until 6:45.
Leaving the hotel at 7 was delayed by fifteen minutes. (see #6)
Competition location was 1/2 hour away. We were going to be late! The bus driver wanted "no toll roads" and so we had to take the long route. When we got to the turn, I said to the driver, "Turn right immediately after Home Depot." She didn't turn. "You missed the turn, take the next road." She missed that turn too. We had to go down the road, turn around, make a u-turn on the highway (2 big busses!), and try again. We were late, but their performances were amazing! The director was a retired Army band director, wow.
I looked forward to seeing Aretha Franklin for the first time. Her performance was immediately after Universal Studios closed, which was when I had to take the senior class to see Blue Man. Nobody was there to stamp my hand for re-entry, so I was out of luck. Instead, I went into Blue Man with my group, enjoyed the show for the hundredth time. It was great as usual, but still...Aretha! *sigh* Toward the end of Blue Man, a call came in that sat my director straight up, and he rushed out of the theater. One of the freshmen boys was caught shoplifting in City Walk! Director finished watching the show and then we handled the delimma at hand afterwards.
Students spend the day at Universal's Islands of Adventure, sans the boy that got in trouble, as he is banned from the park for a year. A chaperone had to stay at the hotel with him all day. I met them after a great day and rode over to see Arabian Nights dinner show with them. We were sent in for a group photo, then sent into a holding area and told to wait there. Ten minutes later, nobody came to seat us. I asked at just before showtime and our forgotten group were seated quickly as the lights went down.
My alarm clock was set for 5:30 am., but on the last morning of my group, it failed to buzz! (Clock has since been replaced!) My planned 7 am arrival (coincides with their wakeup call) was delayed by a half hour. It's a good thing I'm naturally an early riser.

Even after all that, I love being a tour escort. But was it me? After 5+ years of tour guiding, I certcertainly should know not to believe/trust anybody, lest they make me look like a bumbling unprepared escort! The director and I kept laughing and shaking our heads, saying after each problem, "This HAS to be the final bump!" Thankfully he was soothed by my calm demeaner and said that he'd definately request me for his school trip next spring. Oh job security!

Made In USA

2010-03-16T08:15:00.002-04:00

This article was sent to me from my sister Patty, who rarely forwards email. It's well worth a 'copy and paste' into emails and into your own web blog. I had just bought ZipLoc brand baggies and checked the box. No "made in" on it, but instead "packaged in". Ziploc is owned by the Johnson Company, whose did a tap dance of 'packaged in', but never mentioned where their baggies are made, which leads me to the conclusion that it was not in my now struggling country. Maybe the baggies were made in the United States, but if a company is not proud enough to announce MADE IN USA, I am not going to buy!
Marty Wise Watson, Made in the USA

One Light Bulb at a Time

A physics teacher in high school once told the students that while one grasshopper on the railroad tracks wouldn't slow a train very much, a billion of them would. With that thought in mind, read the following, obviously written by a good American... Good idea... one light bulb at a time...

Check this out. I can verify this because I was in Lowes the other day and looked at the hose attachments. They were all made in China. The next day I was in Ace Hardware and I checked the hose attachments there. They were made in USA. Start looking.....

In our current economic situation, every little thing we buy or do affects someone else - even their job. So, after reading this post, I think this lady is on the right track. Let's get behind her!

My grandson likes Hershey's candy. I noticed, though, that it is marked Made in Mexico now. I do not buy it any more.

My favorite toothpaste Colgate is made in Mexico ... now I have switched to Crest. You have to read the labels on everything...

This past weekend I was at Kroger. I needed light bulbs and Bounce dryer sheets. I was in the light bulb aisle, and right next to the GE brand I normally buy was an off-brand labeled, "Everyday Value." I picked up both types of bulbs and compared the stats - they were the same except for the price.

The GE bulbs were more money than the Everyday Value brand but the thing that surprised me the most was the fact that GE was made in MEXICO and the Everyday Value brand was made in - get ready for this - the USA in a company in Cleveland, Ohio.

So throw out the myth that you cannot find products you use every day that are made right here.

On to another aisle - Bounce Dryer Sheets... yep, you guessed it, Bounce cost more money and is made in Canada. The Everyday Value brand was less money and MADE IN THE USA! I did laundry yesterday and the dryer sheets performed just like the Bounce Free I have been using for years and at almost half the price!

My challenge to you is to start reading the labels when you shop for everyday things and see what you can find that is made in the USA - the job you save may be your own or your neighbors!

If you accept the challenge, pass this on to others in your address book so we can all start buying American, one light bulb at a time! Stop buying from overseas companies!

(We should have awakened a decade ago!)

Let's get with the program... help Americans keep their jobs and create more jobs here in the USA!!

The Amazing IKEA Maze

2010-03-08T13:46:00.004-05:00

Mark and I went to IKEA yesterday to buy furniture for Robert's empty room, now my sewing and guest room. If you've never been in IKEA, it's an experience. There is a childcare area, complete with buzzing light up mommy notifier if baby needs a parent. Up the elevator everyone goes to start shopping! Bring comfortable shoes, because you can't just run in for the items you plan to pick up, instead you follow a flow chart, big arrows on the floor and all. First you walk through the couch and chair department, then office setups, kitchens, dining, bedrooms, etc. Once you've run the maze, you can go downstairs for gadgets and doo-dads (I bought a new silverware drawer tray, a coffee scoop, and a chocolate bar).

We originally went in to look at trundle beds, but chose instead to get a sofa bed - a couch-sized cross between a futon and a click-clack couch. It has a five-inch thick firm foam mattress, and unlike a futon, this feels nice to lay on. I plan to purchase a mattress pad and pillow cases that will accent the pretty mural on the wall behind the sofa. Total price $237 plus about $15 tax.

Here are the links to the items we purchased:

Ransta sofa bed in dark gray with two pillows $200

LACK side table in brown/black $8

Uplight floor lamp $7

A paper lantern table lamp $10

Two bed pillows $1.00 each (I got these are for decoration and not to sleep on)

While we were there, we had dinner, $1 for ten Sweedish meatballs in sauce, mashed potatoes, and a taste of lingonberry preserves. Mark paid a dollar for five additional meatballs and a dollar for a bottle of water. He couldn't pass up a big slice of apple pie, $2. Six bucks for two delicious meals!

I love visiting IKEA and want to go back to buy some sort of artwork or maybe material to stretch on the opposite wall of the guest room for decoration. There are also some ambient lamps I would like to look at, but Mark was anxious to go. Next time, I'll arrive earlier and leave Mark behind!

All Things Dog Blog

2010-03-07T12:24:00.001-05:00

Juliet and I met the creator/writer of the All Things Dog blog at the Apopka dog park yesterday. It was so nice to meet Carrie and her little Papillon Oliver, and as we humans talked and talked about anything and everything, the pups had fun romping with the other dogs. Because of Juliet's petite size, we chose to meet in the field reserved for the little guys, and so Carrie left her two big dog at home. For future visits with Carrie and all three of her dogs, we took Oliver and Juliet into the big dog park to see how my little yorkie would react, but Juliet was pretty intimidated by the curiosity and playfulness of the big boys. I am concerned that Juliet will lose confidence if I submit her to large dogs en masse again, as she exhibited quite a bit of fear. I didn't feel that she'd be injured, but I was worried that Juliet would get spooked and run, slipping under the gate and high-tailing across a busy road to the car, as she has done in the past. Oliver visits often with his dog family and walked through the yard like he owned the place. Maybe we'll give Juliet another try when there are just a few docile doggies in the big park.

Oliver and Juliet, making friends.

It's Official! The Turkeys Have Returned!

2010-03-05T09:17:00.002-05:00

Good Morning! All nineteen turkeys have returned to my front yard. I hurried out the front door and took pictures with my iPhone, sure wished my real camera was handy for this event. It's 45F, but my socks got drenched with dew and my feet feel numb, as if it were freezing weather. I know it was wrong to follow them, but they were close enough that I could have thrown a net over them! I just wanted a picture! BTW, they're back in the front yard now as I type, says my Big Sweetie Mark.

Looking out my front door as they graze in the front yard.

The big guns - check out the beards on these guys!

Following them into the wooded area around the pond with my iPhone. My house is the yellow/white one on the left.

Spring! Snake!

2010-03-04T17:56:00.001-05:00

Even Florida experiences Old Man Winter, this year more than ever! Today it was 54F and I cracked a window and enjoyed fresh air. I am ready for flowers, flowers, flowers! Thinking about the critters that will surface when the cold air departs for good, I remembered the time Mark found a snake in our house.

It was a late night bathroom visit; I heard Mark get out of bed, but he didn't turn on any lights. He went into the adjoining bathroom and he shuffled barefoot in the dark to the toilet. I was in a drowsy slumber until I heard a blood-curtling scream! Mark felt a snake slither under his foot, clearly a good reason to scream like a woman!

I lept out of bed and turned on the lights to find my 6'6" hero standing on the edge of the bathtub in wide-eyed terror. A small 2' snake of unknown origin was coiled on the tile next to the toilet, surely equally frightened after meeting Mark's size 15 clompers. I used a yard stick to lift the snake, and deposited it into the trash can, then covered it with a magazine. The snake and I went to the front door and I delivered it with a toss into the waiting dewey grass.

Mark had a hard time getting to sleep that night.

Beech Mountain NC with my cousin Julie

2010-03-03T13:55:00.003-05:00

North Carolina in the Winter was wonderful! Cousin Julie and I arrived and grabbed the snow shovels and started digging out the stairs before we could move in. Although it was only about 20F, I felt totally comfortable in sweat pants and a long sleeved tee shirt. (I should have worn gloves.) Isn't it funny that I freeze in Florida? Having Julie with me was so nice. We enjoyed girl time, stayed in our pajamas most of one day, watched movies, and cooked at home. We fed cereal to little squirrels on my back deck, experienced a blizzard, sunny days, lots of snow days, and pleasant cousin time. We arrived on Sunday, my car broke on Monday. I took it to the shop and they weren't able to replace the gear box (4WD) and emergency brake until Thursday, so we spent most of our week at home. We picked Mark up from the airport on Friday and with Mark, we went out to eat a lot, ran errands, they went snow tubing, and we visited Blowing Rock. More snow was expected on Tuesday, so we cleaned the house and departed on Monday afternoon. As always, it kills us to leave. One day we'll live there.

Juliet won the Fetching Fido Photo Contest!

2010-02-16T10:06:00.001-05:00

Thank you to All Things Dog blog for choosing Juliet's photo in the All Things Dog Fetching Fido Photo Contest. You can click on the link to see the article and picture. Juliet is excited and delighted! That's my girl!