12 Oakdale

Saturday, we drove to Fort Lauderdale to see our friend Diane in  Crazy in Love , the musical production her adult theater student class put on. While she had a non-speaking part, the lead was played by Sam, a young man we knew at our old congregation. He loves to dance, sing and act, and has hopes of a career. Tough life plan. Orlando is full of those hopes, but I guess a few pan out. As a confirmed audience member, I enjoy our local theater groups having a large pool of talent to draw from. I get plenty of stage time through my EarlyBird Toastmasters group, with my (self-induced) commitment to speak and to tell a joke once a month. Frankly, telling a joke is harder for me than speaking.  But we’re there to learn and practice. The other weeks I’m happy to take whatever role is needed.  September 16th, the club is celebrating its 60th anniversary. We are invited to come as we were in 1963. Way too early for hippies: the Summer of Love wasn’t until 1967. I found an origina...

Ninety eight percent of the time I figure out the daily Wordle. I’ve only had a couple of misses, and they were when the word was like match/latch/catch/watch, and I ran out of tries before I ran through the list. Mostly I finish in 4 tries, frequently 3 or 5 tries. I don’t have a favorite beginning word. I start by thinking of a 5-letter word that represents the day. Beach or plant or sandy. Not “weedy”, because it repeats a letter, or “ homes”, because I rarely see plurals as an answer. Today, I got it in 1! First time ever. I’m not sure how or why I chose my word. What was it? “Quest”. Still wonder about it. I don’t use “qu” often.  In any case, an unexpected start for my day. Patten drove up from Fort Lauderdale, and at noon, we picked up Clara to go to the Audubon Center for Birds of Prey in Maitland. At the Orange Audubon fundraising auction, I’d won the bid for a training session with Uff-da, a black vulture who lives at the center. I’d bought it as a birthday present for Cl...

Dang, it’s hot. Yesterday, our thermometer sensor on the boathouse got to 99°. And not a cloud in the sky. I’ve restarted sprinkling every morning, but the plants don’t seem to notice. By 7:30-8:00, I’m out working in the yard and quit at 10:00. My clothes are soaked, not just sweated on. When I take off my shirt, it’s so wet, it seems like it just came out of the washing machine. Even my belt is wet.  I’ve given up on the vegetable garden. There are 2 eggplants left, and I don’t see any more forming. The okra gave up after producing a couple of pods. The one bright spot is my southern peas, which our resident marsh hare has been eating. A couple of days ago, Grant restrung the monofilament lines to create bunny-proof fencing. The peas are coming back, so perhaps it’s working. Or the rabbit doesn’t like that I’ve cleaned out the huge patch of Spanish needle (Bidens alba)  that was its cover right next to my garden. Question: why don’t marsh hares eat that? It’s a native, alway...

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...