12 Oakdale

  A miniature cool front must have slipped through, because night temperatures now in the mid to high-60s and the daytime cool enough to leave our doors open and the AC off. I am considering a screen for the front door. With cooler weather, I am able to work longer in the garden without exhaustion. I have weeded most of the front beds, putting down more newspaper and pine straw. In the back, on the north garden, I’ve cut back the maypop passion vine, finding several passion fruit on it, to uncover the roses, sugar berry, and non-native blue porter weed. I’m removing more of the last to have room to add native shrubs.  I’ve found 3 sweet potatoes from the vines I started, with probably more waiting for me to dig up. Very reinforcing.The white potato plants disappeared under the weeds while we traveled this summer. I wonder if they will resprout next year. They are on their own, because, if I do try more potatoes, it will be in a basket with hay, thus no digging. The corn, Silve...

Peg, Betsy, and I went to Venice Beach for sister time and to hunt sharks teeth. Success on both fronts. Our base was the Venice Beach Villas, a non-beachfront old Florida-style motel on Venice Avenue, within walking distance of the beach, restaurants, and shops. Initially, I was disappointed not to be right on the beach, but I changed my mind. Owner Craig provided bikes (which we never got around to using), scoops and sieves to sort sand from treasure, beach chairs, and lots of towels. Perfect. The Gulf was calm and warm. We spent hours sitting in the water, just at the shore’s edge, looking for teeth. To find really big ones, we probably had to snorkel along the backwater riverbank, but mangroves do not appeal to us. Two young women said they’d found more than 200, but we weren’t as diligent. Oldsters stopped by and reminisced about finding teeth while just walking the beach. Since these teeth are from prehistoric sharks, I think there are just as many as there were 30 or 40 years ag...

Poor Patten. Wednesday, he had a bad stomach ache and the usually accompanying GI distress. As he says, he gets E. coli a couple of times a year, so not unexpected. By 4:00 AM Thursday morning, he was in such pain, he went to Broward Health’s emergency room. Cat scan and the doctor confirmed nothing to see, so they gave him a drug to stop his vomiting and avoid dehydration. He wasn’t any better and still in a lot of pain all Thursday. Friday, he went to Plantation General, where his appendicitis was diagnosed, and he was scheduled for an appendectomy, which happened about 9:00 PM. All night, he was still in agony whenever his pain med wore off, about every 4 hours. When the surgeon saw him mid-morning Saturday, the doctor realized no one had made Patten get up and pee. When he did, the pain went away. I guess the nurses thought Patten would just go to the bathroom on his own, and he was either knocked out or in terrible pain, so he laid in bed.  All this reinforced my plan to be su...

 I’ve had trouble sleeping the last couple of nights, which is very unusual for me. My normal state is that I can sleep anywhere through anything. This is a good trait, because with Grant snoring like a jet, perhaps a F35 fighter, on one side of me, and Annie doing little kitty purrs on the other, I’d never get any sleep if the noises bothered me. I know when I can’t sleep, there is something going on in my brain that keeps me awake and listening to my bedmates. At first, I blamed it on jet lag, since we’d just visited Spaulding and Molly in Salt Lake City for 6 days, but then I realized that was the wrong way for time change. I was just awake, thinking about all the work I want to do in the yard and house. Weeding, planting more vegetables, needing to decide which vegetables to plant where, how I want the safe installed, whether or not to buy more shelving for the garage, etc. Not obsessing, just excited about what’s on my plate. While we were in Utah, sleeping was not a problem. ...

Feeling like being run over by the proverbial Mack truck after getting the Covid booster shot yesterday, but thankful this is available for us old people. Our appointments at Publix had to be rescheduled from the previous day, because Grant had infections in two fingers and needed to see a doctor. Before we went to South Florida, I created a garden tunnel of pig wire and my anti-bird netting. This was to keep the rabbit I’ve seen from eating my new corn plants. I weighted down the edges with bricks. When we came back, no bunnies in the corn, but a dead black racer snake was tangled in the netting. My first thought was to lay the net out in the yard and let the ants eat away. That idea stank. Next plan, hang the net off the dock, so the fish could nibble. Good idea until I saw a big turtle investigating. I couldn’t face have it also caught. I hauled the netting up and only let a little part with the snake pieces hang in the water, then I obsessed all night. There wasn’t much snake gone ...

After no beach forms year, now a second trip in one week: 10 days with 8 at the beach. This time, a shore bird trip in South Carolina with Orange Audubon Society, lead by Craig* from US Fish and Wildlife. In three days, we visited 6 sites, recorded 100+ species, and saw thousands of birds. Firsts for me were greater and lesser black-backed gulls and Wilson’s, golden, and piping plovers. I learned how to distinguish a Sandwich tern by the color at the end of its bill: either mayonnaise or mustard, but I haven’t leaned what sex and/or age has which one. Perhaps I’ll look that up. My big accomplishment was learning that sitting down to use my scope is absolutely the way to use it. My back appreciated that. We birdied at a gated community, Harbor Island, with fantastic but private beaches. Would that it were a state park, open to the public, rather than just those with enough money to live inside the walls. I guess from the birds’ view, private might be better, with fewer people able to di...

I now live as far from the coast as I ever have except for the years I attended Georgia Tech in Atlanta. I need my beach. Not being able to come down next weekend to celebrate Patten’s birthday, we headed south on Friday and spent 4 days at the Hotel Sheldon on Hollywood Beach, old but maintained. Betsy calls it the dodgy Hotel Sheldon. Our plan was to go to his house Saturday night for dinner, but communication missed, and he had tickets for the first UM home football game. Instead, we joined him and Ryan for lunch (the usual Big Daddy’s hamburgers and fries), and they came to the beach Sunday morning for a swim and breakfast. The first 3 days, the water was warm and clear. Almost no waves. Like floating in a bathtub. Absolutely perfect. That morning, the wind was onshore, so waves and sargassum seaweed. Not as pleasant, but Patten spotted a baby tripletail fish while snorkeling in the weed. Friday night we joined other cabin camping friends and supped at one couple’s home, seeing the...