12 Oakdale

Four day staying at birding friends Launa and Kyle’s condo in Bonita Springs. Each morning, we’d drive to the beach for a couple of hours, sitting in the shade most of the time, then floating in the water for a short time. The first day we struggled to remember how to put up our little cabana, which just goes to show we haven’t been doing it enough. The beach was gorgeous: air temperature was low 90s, however the water was cool and calm, my kind of beach. We watched paddle boarders, jet skiers, and a man on a hovercraft zip back and forth. Only a couple of pelicans, gulls, willets, and terns flying past, so my scope stayed, once again, packed up in the car. Next winter, I’m coming back for all the shore birds. One morning, Sally, who joined us for trip, and I walked on the beach for a while. The rest of the time we were shore potatoes. I am proud both Grant and I can get up from our low beach chairs. I can just use my hands for balance, then get right up. He needs more help, but still!...

With Gracie’s help, I’ve finished the wool neck scarf I started a while ago. I’d ordered the kit from Mountain Meadow Wool Mill in Johnson County, Wyoming, a place we visited when we took Clara to Yellowstone. They buy wool from the local ranchers, trying to keep that industry alive. They also buy wool from university herds, then weave blankets in school colors. The alums love it.  I checked, but University of Florida’s sheep are grown for meat, so no blankets from them. Not surprisingly, University of Miami and Georgia Tech don’t teach agricultural so no sheep. Besides, I have no use for this warm scarf I’ve knitted, much less a heavy wool blanket. Now I’ve started a baby blanket in a washable wool for Molly and Spaulding’s baby, due late November. They are coming in mid-September for a baby shower, so I have an earlier deadline. The pattern isn’t as complicated as the scarf, however there are a lot more stitches. Only 1 more stage of the Tour de France to knit through, but the To...

My July schedule is up at 5:30ish, pee, start coffee, feed cat, exercise, then turn on the Tour de France. Broadcast starts at 6:30. I watch for a couple of hours, eating breakfast while I sit, then out to work in yard until it rains, or I get too hot.  I am finishing the bed by the boathouse from the path over to the rose by Nancy’s fence. The area had already been cleared for a squash bed last year, abandoned until the guys were finished with the deck. I had to pull weeds and all the branches we’d tossed in when we removed the Brazilian pepper from the canal’s edge. I put down new cardboard which Grant covered with the oldest compost we had. Now I’ve planted 5 dwarf Fakahatchee grass (Tripsacum floridanum)  about 18” away from the boathouse fence. I hope their roots will grow deep enough to hold any dirt that would like to wash away. There was one more obvious hole at the deck edge, so Grant dug in some of the leftover tongue and groove boards to fill it.  In front, I l...

I’ve just about recovered. Red eye home from Vancouver after a day at the aquarium. I was fascinated by the giant octopus in their big tank. It would peek up along the bottom edge, then sometimes crawl along, with just the top of its head and eyes visible. Other times, it would climb the glass wall and goof around at the top of the water. A beautiful animal. We also watched trainers move a Steller’s sea lion from one pool to another by having it hop into a large rolling cage while we tourists and the other sea lions and seals watched. It seemed perfectly happy to go, however the handlers had a job to push its 2000+ pounds along the concrete path to the next lagoon. A short distance, but a little uphill. I’d think the sea lion could have walked. But I guess not best zoo practices. I’d slept on the plane and, when we got home, went to bed for a nap until about 1:30 PM. Still tired, but needed to get started for the weekend. First up, throw our clothes in the laundry and put away our suit...

Although advertised as a train ride through the Canadian Rockies, this is actually a moving cocktail party and marvelous buffet with good scenery. But first, I walked a short block in the drizzle to Tim Horton’s for coffee and a couple of Tim Bits. I must not have spoken distinctly because I ended up with a couple of doughnuts. Which Grant and I ate to tide us over to boarding the train across the street from our hotel. While we waited in the train station’s lobby, a First Nation woman told stories and sang, accompanying herself on a small deerskin drum the shape of a tambourine. She also showed us a picture of Brutus, the huge local grizzly, which, if I’d known about, probably would have discouraged me from taking our walk in the woods behind town.  Once on board, we settled in to watch gorgeous scenery as we rode. We had opted for the Gold Leaf level, with raised glass domed train cars with the dining room below. My thought was this was a once in a life time trip, * so I was goin...

One of the stops to pick up riders on our way from Banff to Jasper was the Chateau Lake Louse. I was there 50 years ago when we traveled home from our Alaska trip. (The slides are in the garage.) The Victoria Glacier has retreated since then, however the view is still spectacular.  Along the way, we saw 4 black bears, including a mom with  cub. Memories of going to the Smokey Mountains and bear jams, where everyone would stop their cars and get out to gawk at bears. Even feed them. The rangers have put the kibosh on the latter, but we still all stop and look. We also saw 2 moose, but far away on the other side of a wide marshy area. The Rocky Mountaineer’s info said lunch would be a box lunch, but in fact it was a delightful buffet at the ice field’s headquarters. Halfway through the line I discovered all the dishes were labeled by cards in the overhead covers. Before that, assumptions were made. Peg ended up with egg salad which she thought was mustard potato salad. I took my...

After getting up at 6:00 AM to have breakfast and our bags packed and outside our door by 7:00, we zipped around the corner to pick up coffee at Starbucks and be ready for our bus to Banff. The rain had continued all night and was still dripping in the morning. Good for the area which had been in a drought, medium for our sightseeing. On the other hand, it was a bus travel day rather than a walking around day, so it could have been worse. By the time we arrived for our boat ride on Lake Minnewanka, the rain was practically stopped. When the captain turned off the boat’s engine in the middle of the lake so we could hear what it sounds like away from the noises of civilization, the rain falling on the lake was the only sound we heard. Absolutely charming. At the gondola on Sulphur Mountain, the rain had started again. The attendants were squeegeeing the droplets off the gondola cars so we could see out. A futile gesture. We did see a couple of pairs of sneakers tossed over tree branches ...