12 Oakdale

We were supposed to be meeting Mary and family in Raleigh this week. Ryan would take his anesthesiology board exam, we would celebrate Mary’s birthday, we would visit Trish. Three birds; 1 stone. Until our dear leader started his war. Ryan was tapped, as they say, February 24th to fly out with other Navy medical personal to set up a field hospital god knows where. Back in a month, or 7, or whenever. To add excitement, before he left, they called us: Mary is due mid-October. That explains the extra level of emotion. I have spent much of the last month on video calls with Mary and pouring over the war news. If there will be no boots on the ground, why, and where, are we setting up field hospitals? Plus I’ve wasted my time emailing my senators. I am so far behind on what I am supposed to be doing. Bottom line, I opted to stay home this week, sending Grant on a solo trip to see his sister. Just his getting on the plane was worrisome, because our TSA agents are not being paid because our in...

Home after 4 nights in cabins (#2, 3, 4) at Silver Springs State Park. The usual crew of Zumsteins, Barkley, Lade/Schwatz, our newer members Giblin-Davis, and first timers, the Gonzalez. I was especially pleased that Tuesday I threw sense away and signed up for the 5.2 mile kayak paddle. Of course, all downstream, but I was able to get in and out of the boat and keep up with the group. Alligators and turtles on the banks, manatees in the river, including 1 swimming directly under me. What a lovely trip. I recorded 16 bird species, including 5 pairs wood ducks who remained calmly paddling at the waters edge as we drifted past. Never have seen that before. Only 1 pair did their usual explosive flight, and that was after we’d gone by. Did help my saying that they were usually very shy. Sally drove down Wednesday for old home’s sake. We walked the board walk from the north entrance and discovered the new bridge across the spring run. Now there is a safe and pleasant way to get from the cam...

 Another year of tiny paintings from Kristian Van Leuven: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 2 3 4 5 16 7 8 9 10 21 2 3 4 5 26 7 8 9 10 31 2 3 4 5 36 7 8 9 10 41 2 3 4 5 46 7 8 9 10 51 2 3 4 5 56 7 8 9 10 61 2 3 4 5 66 7 8 9 10 71 2 3 4 5 76 7 8 9 10 81 2 3 4 5 86 7 8 9 10 91 2 3 4 5 96 7 8 9 100

For some reason, I can no longer add my pictures to this blog. Google keeps telling me to sign in, which I am. Remove cookies. Done. Etc, etc, etc.   Maybe it’s Chrome. No, doesn’t work on Safari either. Maybe it’s just my iPad. No, doesn’t work on my phone. And I still haven’t figured out how to grab photos from Google on the laptop without downloading each individually. (Update 2/14: it is suddenly allowing pictures. I’m quickly putting them in before this magic goes away.) Next frustration up: adding photos of my watercolors to the bootcamp group. I’ve downloaded the Google Slide app, but can’t create a new slide in the group’s deck. I just want these things to work. In any case, I did all 30 of the bootcamp projects using the huge quill brush the instructor recommended. Not easy for me. However, I am proud I stuck it out. My plan is to redo all them, then bind the before and after into a book. I am also frustrated with myself because I’ve been eating like the Olympic cross coun...

It is 25° at our house. I fear for our bananas, but have done all I can do with watering. Now time will tell if they survived. No trimming for a month to see any green shoots. I am in California, visiting Mary for a week. Grant is home, managing plants. He moved the potted ones deemed cold-intolerant into the garage and put sheets over my bat plant. The vegetable beds are on their own. All of the native plants should be fine.  This our third round of cold weather, but the previous 2 only got down to the mid-30’s. This is the coldest winter we have had since we’ve moved to Windermere. I wore the sweater I made years ago from yarn  Betsy brought me back from their scouting trip to Australia in 1985. Grant is also caring for the turtles. Yes, plural. A couple of weeks ago, we got Robert, a 21yo box turtle from Matt, whose wife died 5 years ago. Matt decided time to re-home Robert and put a Free notice in our Nextdoor app. I fell for it. Robert is more red than William, so I don’t...

Since we have forsworn tent camping, I am pursuing staying at cabins in all the Florida state parks that offer them and visiting all the parks I’ve never seen, especially the new ones. First up: 2 nights at Lafayette Blue Springs State Park (became a state park June 1, 2005) near Mayo. (I did have to cancel our original first night so we could stay home and see UM’s heartbreaking loss to University of Indiana of the national football championship, 21-27, on an interception in the final seconds. Just like my Ga Tech did in the PopTart Bowl. Ah, well.) We were the only people in the campground for the 2 nights we were there. Nobody else in the other 4 cabins, no one in the 10 walk-in tent sites, not even the campground host around. Eerie, but nice. The second morning, back from our walk, we did see a park employee working on cabin stairs and said hi. There was also a car parked which I think belonged to the kayakers we saw off in the distance on the Swanee. We drove to the north entrance...

I knew eventually it would happen: my work pants finally wore so thin that a split across the thigh area appeared. Bought many years ago at Bass Pro Shops, these were my least favored pair because the zipper didn’t stay up and the pocket arrangement was meh. My favorite ones went on the 2019 Moroccan trip, lost when my suitcase disappeared between Madrid and Rabat.  But good enough pants for working in the yard. Into the trash, and another pair demoted (promoted?) to daily use in the garden, sprayed with bug spray when the mosquitoes get too annoying, washed periodically. I am keeping up with fertilizing by using the weakly, weekly, actually mostly biweekly, method, starting with the powdered mix, except for the strawberries. Those get 1/2 teaspoon tucked into their pockets on the plant stand. So far, only the white ones are producing. Flowers on the red ones give me hope. The papayas are flourishing, and the Roma tomatoes are growing well, with little flowers appearing last week. ...