2007 Hurricane season

I’m waiting with bated breath for the final hurricane season forecast. First they’ll remind us that hurricane season isn’t over until the end of Nov. although we all know that if nothing is happening by mid October, nothing is going to happen. And then they’ll predict a below normal season. duhhhhhhh.

What I wonder about is why they bother to make predictions at all. I understand that the complexity of forecasting weather even a few days out is high so making a forecast 6 months out is crazy. Crazy to make the forecast and crazy for anybody to pay any attention to it. For the life of me, I can’t figure out why they do it. What are we supposed to do when they forecast an above average season, or a below average season, or even an average season. Do I go out and buy 2 generators for an above average season or more batteries or what? You’re either prepared for a storm or your not. I can’t see how you’d prepare any differently for a forecasted bad season.

This year’s predictions were particularly interesting since this is the second year in a row that above average seasons were predicted – in fact this one was projected to be the worst on record. Why it’s most interesting is that the forecasters were challenged openly after missing the 2006 season so badly – another record bad season predicted; another below average actual. They had a definite scientific reason why this season would be bad and why the previous season had not been. It was the el Nino, La Nina thing. The 2006 year was La Nina and even though they had forecast a horrible hurricane season, in hindsight they realized just why they had missed it. And since El Nino is the opposite of La Nina, it was scientifically clear that this season was really going to be the worst. What I enjoy is how they can make these statements so positively and just can’t bring themselves to say, “hell, we don’t know”. What hubris.

So why do they do it? Some possibilities are:

1. The American Meteorological Society and the National Weather Service have a pre season pool. The forecaster who wins the pool gets to pick the names for next season’s storms. If the winner has a large family, then he projects a big season so all his relatives can get a storm named for them.

2. The budgets at the NWS and AMS are based on the forecast. There’s no upside at all to predicting a quiet season since it probably means a budget cut and no overtime.

3. There’s a big Fantasy Hurricane league that we don’t know about and you can’t play if there’s not enough storms in the forecast. I only offer this possibility because I’ve noted that the number of hurricanes forecast has increased over the years as the success of Fantasy sports games has grown.

4. Women lib groups got pissed off that hurricanes all had female names. So when males names were added, the name pool doubled and it became necessary to increase the forecast to accommodate that fact.

To make the missed forecasts a little less noticeable, they started naming weather systems that would have gone unnoticed in the past. Have you noticed how many storms form or at least seem to be forming, are named, and then just go away? I think the first storm of this season that got noticed was a “C” name. The “A” and “B” storms only existed an hour or so. Enough to name them for the 5 PM news and cancel them by the 8 AM news the next morning. Deep down inside, I believe some storms really never existed at all but the bad forecast is so embarrassing that the predictors need some face saving cover. You’ll notice that they form one day over an area in the middle of nowhere, far from any shipping lanes, and then, as if by magic, they go away. How about when they point out a storm area in the Caribbean and then to show you a center of rotation where none exists. You are looking at the radar track and see absolutely no sign of a center of rotation but they are pointing one out about a jillion miles from the storm. In Florida we’re further treated to the scene of an intrepid reporter on the beach in full weather gear while the natives are swimming and surfing. I’m not making that up. We’ve reached the point where normal, Florida afternoon rain storms are tracked as intensely as hurricanes were 50 years ago. Back then, each hurricane season you acquired a hurricane tracking map and then plotted each storm yourself based on new coordinates given out by the weather service twice a day. That was it. When a storm really looked like it was tracking your way, you started calling around to find out who’s turn it was to have the hurricane party.

But the thing to remember is that the same guys (scientists) who are doing the hurricane forecasting, are among those scientists pimping the global warming scare. Of course they have developed computer models that show exactly how things will look 50 years from now. Same modelers, using the same data that forecast hurricanes. Or for that matter, next week’s weather. Of course the local weather has the advantage of good historical averages and the advantage of saying there’s a 20% chance of something happening. Who can argue with that. Here in Fla, even when it’s raining hard and wide, the forecaster will be giving it an 80% chance of rain. Or when there’s not a cloud in the sky for 500 miles in every direction, they give it a 20% chance of rain. We’ve had a cold front dropping temperatures 5 days out for about a month now. Eventually we’ll actually have one and as we all know it will be in October or November. Same modelers, same data. And I suspect the same motive – no problem, no budget; big problem, big budget and lots of face time on the tube.

Fall Garden Report

Time for the first fall garden report.

I have high expectations for the fall garden because of the amount of time and effort (and money) I’ve put into straightening out the basic soil problems. I’m using a dual approach of organic and chemicals to cover all bases and have systematically added new patches in increments of 10-20 SF in which I work the soil deeply to get rid of imbedded gravel and building debris and add home grown mulch, purchased manure, ashes from the burn pit, and heavy duty chemical fertilizers. I work a patch then let it sit a couple of weeks to “cool” it off.

The other major improvement is the watering system. I have a portable automatic sprinkler system to water the garden. Last year it was mostly hand watering on a catch as catch can basis. I’ve set this system to water daily for 90 minutes early in the morning. That should make a large difference.

In parallel with the garden mechanics I start plants in plastic containers for transplant into the garden at a later time. From seed to garden is on the order of 4 weeks depending on the particular variety. I also did some direct seed plants into the garden.
The first in the ground was a set of 9 tomato plants. All but one survived the first week. The lone drop out ran afoul of some kind of critter who nipped off the stem about an inch above the ground and consumed all the foliage. Interestingly, I checked yesterday and leaves have sprouted off the stump so I’m back to nine tomato plants although one is a dwarf at this point. I would say the plants were on the order of 4” tall at the start and have more than doubled in size so far. At about the same time I put in 18 pepper plants – 9 jalapeno and 9 bell peppers. The same buzz saw critter got one of the jalapeno’s immediately and 7 of the 9 green peppers. So from that you could formulate that green peppers plants are the tastiest.

Being fall, I loaded up on the cool weather stuff and planted 18 cabbages and 18 broccolis. They all seemed to take well with no immediate overnight losses. But I did notice some holes in the leaves. Within a week it was clear that something different was gnawing through the leaves, in some cases leaving nothing but a bare stem. I’m not an insecticide kind of guy but that was too much so I hit Lowes and got something that was a combination insecticide, mildicide, and fungicide. But supposedly you could eat the veggies within 24 hours of the spray. So I gave everything a good soaking and that seemed to stabilize the lunching. One thing of interest was that the broccoli was the preferred meal. After 2 weeks only about 6 broccoli remain in good shape as compared to about a dozen cabbages. These are planted side by side so it’s easy enough to tell which is most susceptible. It looks like I need to spray weekly instead of every couple of weeks as I had planned. And perhaps I’ll have to go to something a bit more lethal. The label said that this was ok to use on organic gardens which may be code for t’s too wimpy. What’s also interesting is that suprisingly, I had no bug problems at all with the spring crop.

The good news is that I have already started replacement seedlings and will fill in the blank spots in a few weeks and I’ll spray the stuff before I put it in the garden. In addition to new broccoli, I have started cauliflower and kohlrabi that I plan to load into the garden at the end of this week.

I mentioned direct seeding. That would be zucchini and cucumbers. Both of those crops are going gangbuster with no critter bites at all. So I guess the empirical evidence is that broccoli is the number one tasty veggie followed closely by green peppers and cabbage. Tomatoes, cucumbers, and zucchini seem to be the most immune to leaf eaters.

Next month I break out the lettuce, spinach, peas, carrots, and beets so by January I should have a great handle on exactly what works and what doesn’t.

Fairhope

Years ago, in the 50’s, we lived on Patrick Air Force Base. Our next door neighbor and good friend, Cliff Lewis, used a term that I latched on to. He called the local newspaper “the Mullet Wrapper”. A mullet is a fish and the term referred to the fact that the primary use of the newspaper was to wrap fish. Fast forward to last weekend. We were invited to another friend’s 50th wedding anniversary in Fairhope Alabama. Nancy found a quilt shop in Foley about 15 miles from Fairhope. With the help of our new GPS navigator we found it flawlessly. As I waited outside I noticed a newspaper dispenser. I had to take the picture above. By the way, Cliff Lewis was from the Mobile area, a few miles away from Foley. I wonder if they picked up the name from Cliff too or was Cliff referring all the time to the Foley paper.

The trip was fun. My sister Eileen joined us as far as Pensacola where her son, our nephew Glenny, lives. We took a side track though Destin and Fort Walton to find Nancy a quilt shop and to let me see an area I hadn’t visited in 35 years. Of course it was totally unrecognizable. Once again the developers have turned quaint, Gulf towns into Fort lauderdale. So I guess from that standpoint, it was totally recognizable. Along with dropping off Eileen at Glenny’s, Nancy brought the long awaited quilt she had made. He was the last close family member to get his quilt – a long time in the making but really worth the wait.

From Pensacola we went directly to the hotel – or almost directly. Madge (the navigator) gives a voice notice when you reach the final destination. Sometimes she’s off by a few feet. We were staying at a Holiday Inn Express and Madge alerted “you have arrived”. I looked and Nancy looked – no hotel. Wind back to the recent trip to the Outer Banks. We had reservations in Kitty Hawk at a Holiday Inn Express. No navigator to aid us and it was just turning dark. On the main road down the banks there are prominent mile markers starting with 1 and working down to 12 (if I remember correctly). All the places are referenced to the mile markers. So, for example, the AAA tour book showed the Holiday Inn Express at MM 4. We started looking at MM 3 and went to MM 7. I finally pulled over and called the hotel. Julie told me that it was at MM 4 next across the street from K-Mart. Ok, we remembered the K-Mart. We slowed down as we passed the K-mart but saw no Holiday Inn Express. Did a U-Turn and tried again. No luck, so I called Julie again and she gave me an even closer landmark, a restaurant which was directly in front of the Inn. Did this 3 times before Julie said, “oh , wait, maybe the lighted sign is out. That time change thing”. Sure enough she pops on the light and we were a few hundred yards away. The Inn sat back a few hundred feet from the road and the restaurant she referenced was closed and totally dark. Julie and I became good friends. Back to Fairhope. Having experienced Kitty Hawk, I pulled over the first place I could and called. The clerk said they were right beside the Burger King. We remember the Burger King and drove back the 1/2 mile and sure enough there it was – set back from the highway with a nice lighted sign on the road. I asked the clerk if he had just turned on the light after I called and he said “yes, haven’t got used to that time change thing”. So if any body from Holiday Inn Express is reading – hello, daylight savings time is over. The clerk put us on to a great restaurant, Wintzel’s Oyster Bar, that had Yeungling on draft and 25 cent oysters. I had some fantastic spicy seafood gumbo and a half pound of boiled shrimp. Nancy had a dozen raw oysters and a fried oyster salad. Not a fancy place but maybe the best seafood on the planet – at least the shrimp and oysters.

The next morning at the hotel breakfast, hooked up with Emory Ketchersid, his companion Ida and a few other people going to the anniversary party that night. Joe Richburg showed up about 9 AM and gave the four of us a grand tour of Fairhope. Fairhope is a very wealthy community on the Gulf with incredible homes and a quaint, old fashioned downtown. Maybe 2x Cocoa village in size but with more upscale shops.

After the tour, back to Wintzel’s for lunch with Emory and Ida. I had a soft shell crab po-boy; Emory had a crab meat omelet Po boy; Nancy had a classic oyster Po Boy; Ida had a roast beef Po-boy – she doesn’t like seafood – but there’s just something wrong about a roast beef Po-boy. Six Yeungling’s and 2 ice teas. Nancy and I broke off to go to Foley and the mullet wrapper.

That evening we went to the Anniversary party at a community center – the likes of which you have never seen. It would be the type of reception center you would expect to find at the top of a Trump Tower or something like that. I could go on about the place but won’t. Well maybe a little. In addition to the large ball room, there was a room with half a dozen pool tables and a bar – these would be those huge, antique pool tables worth $10 each; a card room with about 30 tables and a long bar. The tables and chairs were the heavy, almost red wood and leather – at least $3K per setup. An exercise room with a few hundred grand worth of equipment. Exquisite art and exhibits scattered throughout. It was the kind of place where you automatically whisper as you roam the halls.

The party was nice. There were about 80 guests of which we knew 5. Interestingly, the only people there who knew everybody were Joe and Joan, the celebrities. But it worked. Joe and Joan, have had a rich life which included 4 kids and several moves around the country. They are very social folks so have made friends all over the country, and as we expected, all the people would be highly social and easy to meet. I think the farthest travelers were from Las Vegas with a New Hampshire couple coming in second. At 44 years Nancy and I came in second among couples long married. Lots of good food, drink, music, and people.

A couple of asides. Turns out that Joan’s sister married a guy I graduated high school with and hadn’t seen since 1958. Sammy Staples ( he’s now Sam) lives in Indian Harbor Beach but just never attends reunions. It was fun hooking up with him again and comparing notes. The other funny one was that we ended up seated with 3 nieces. Over the course of the evening we found out that they were from Slapout Alabama. The gal had to repeat it about 7 times because I couldn’t quite understand what she was saying – spoke Alabamese. She went on to explain that a long time ago the only thing there was a small general store. Patrons looking for specific items would often hear “we’re slap out of that”. After a while, the area became known informally as Slapout and eventually became a town. I couldn’t find it on a map so it must really be tiny.

The trip back was uneventful; all Interstate amd three unsynchronized bladders.

fall garden – already

The last garden started out with a bang but never came close to meeting expectations. We were concerned about the quality of the soil going into it. In an earlier life George had a pigeon coop overtop the area which became the garden. One possible thought was that with all the pigeon droppings, the soil would be very fertile. Counteracting that was the fact that George had liberally used lye and asundry chemicals to kill fungi and other pigeon related critters. In the end the garden turned out spotty – some ok patches and some sterile patches. We had a good broccolli crop, good green beans in some spots, japapeno’s and banana peppers. But the tomatoes, cucumbers, and squash were a big disappointment. The one good thing that we accomplished was to till up the soil and remove tons of rock and gravel that had rimmed the coop.

Knowing that the soil was seriously deficient, we started a significant mulch/compost pile – 4’x3′ x 3’h – and picked up 40 forty pound bags of manure at a sale midway through the season. So in preparation of a fall garden I started cleaning out areas of the garden – that means pulling out the weeds. I turned it all over by shovel and then worked in several loads of compost and several bags of manure into each area. Took about 4 hours to do the first third of the area I intend to work so I’m projecting having it all ready for planting by this weekend. Certain areas we planted before were so disastrous, I’m going to leave alone. Those areas are so hostile that even the weeds were unable to grow there and will be a project for the future. I suspect we’ll literally have to shovel out that sand and replace with top soil – more than I’m interested in attacking now. For the time being, I’m guessing the planting area will be maybe 300 sf.

Before we took off on vacation, I planted some seeds in starter containers. We were gone 10 days and the seeds were mostly sprouted by our return. I transplanted them from the starter trays into larger containers and plan to move those to the garden in a couple of weeks. I want to get just a bit further into the storm season until I’m confident we’re in the clear. I’ve started tomatoes, jalapenos, cabbage, and broccolli. Those along with bush bean, squash and cucumber seeds that will go in directly, should fill up most of the garden. Towards the end of October, I’ll plant spinach, peas, beets, carrots and lettuce seed and probably more broccolli. These late plantings should do ok through our coldest weather.

And I refilled the mulch/compost pile. That’s a fairly easy thing to do here. I just roll up my chipper to the front of the compost bin and start clipping and trimming trees and bushes.
A few hours of cutting and chipping restored the pile to it’s original volume. That pile will season over fall and winter and be ready for use next spring. For the area that is totally devoid of nutrients, the plan is a bit more radical. George has a 2 acre grass/weed field that gets mowed every month or so. The John Deere mower has two humongous grass catching bags. The plan is to dump those bags onto the sterile area every time he mows and then cut it all in next spring. I’m guessing that will result in a 6′ high pile of grass clippings. Maybe it will take a couple of years but I’m determined to get it all working.

A Ferry nice trip

Just got back from a 10 day visit to New Jersey. We decided to take a different route than usual. Rather than using Interstate 95 all the way, we exited just inside the VA border and headed east to the coast. There we crossed the Chesapeake Bay using a 25 mile bridge and tunnel system. Staying along the coast, we ended up in Lewes Delaware where we caught the ferry to Cape May New Jersey and on up the Garden State Parkway to Lavelette. The ferry is an 80 minute ride across the Delaware River Bay on a boat that holds about 100 cars and is equipped with several bars, lounges, and decks for viewing the sights. Very relaxing, especially when compared to driving the interstate through DC, Baltimore, and Philadelphia. I think the trip may be a couple of hours shorter this way assuming normal traffic conditions on 95 and when we arrived, we were totally relaxed and not worn out from fighting it.

We spent 4 days with Nancy’s cousin on the beach. Fred and I went surf fishing every day about a block from the house. Unfortunately I can’t confirm that fish live in that particular part of the ocean. Nancy and Martha shopped. The weather was perfect, the food great – all in all a good vacation. The one thing I always hate is that the pizza and deli’s are so good there, that it takes me at least 6 months before I can eat here again and enjoy it. As much as I dislike the NE in general, I have to admit – there’s no place better for Italian food and there’s no food I like better than Italian food. If I lived there I’d weigh 300 pounds in a heartbeat.

We decided on a very relaxed trip back. I have always wanted to drive on the outer Banks in NC – see Kitty Hawk, Nag’s Head, Cape Hatteras, Ocrakoke Island. And Nancy had a grundle of quilt shops from Delaware on thru the Carolinas. We got underway about 8AM to make the 10:30 ferry from Cape May. As we found from the first ferry trip, you absolutely need to make reservations. The boats were full and those that try to wing it, end up having to wait 2-3 hours for the next ferry, assuming they can get on the that one. The Delaware end is Lewes, which markets itself as the “first city in the first state”. It’s a historic little town with great restaurants and, I guess, a great quilt shop. Next trip we’ll plan to spend a full day there. From Lewes we drove to Kitty Hawk and spent the night. We got up the next morning and visited the Wright Brothers National monument where I really gained a greater appreciation for just what an accomplishment that first flight was. We stopped at the famous Hatteras lighthouse and then caught a free ferry from Hatteras to Ocracoke Island. No doubt Ocracoke needs a return visit. It’s a walk around town with so much to see that no way you could do it in a day. And it was raining so walking around would have been a bit uncomfortable. From there we took a ferry to Cedar Island. That’s a 2+ hour ferry ride across Pamlico Sound. We spent that night in Morehead City NC and found a great restaurant on the beach.

The next day was scheduled to be a big quilt shop day in Jacksonville and Wilmington NC with a plan to end in Charleston. The procedure is that we find the address in Nancy’s quilt shop book which normally includes a small map. Then she goes in for 30-60 minutes and finds stuff that she’s been looking for forever. The problems arise when we try to find some of these very obscure shops using the little maplets included in the book. The maps leave much to be desired and we often end up totally lost. After a few hours of frustration, I decided we needed to stop this hunting around and get ourselves a navigation system. I called Tom and he found a Best Buy with just the model we needed. As it turned out, there was a Costco in the same shopping center as Best Buy and we elected to pick up a different navigator there. What a difference. Although we had some cockpit troubles learning the equipment, still we were able to have it get us to whatever address we plugged in flawlessly. It absolutely made the rest of the trip a dream. If you spend most of the time on Interstates, no big deal. But if you get off and do the local towns or use back roads, the GPS system is a Godsend. We normally have maybe 100 navigation arguments per trip. We were on target to beat that until we got the Magellan. Not one after that. That alone was worth the $350.

We ended up not getting as far as Charleston but rather made it south of Myrtle Beach at a place called Pawley’s Island. Pawley’s Island is famous for having a shop that makes world class hammocks. We found that shop in a little village of shops. Didn’t buy a hammock but Nancy found a quilt shop which more than made up for it. We got to Charleston about noon and decided to spend the rest of the day doing the tourist thing. We ate a great lunch at the Noisy Oyster and then browsed through the old Slave Market. Finally we took a horse carriage ride to see the sights.

We got up Saturday morning and made it back to the lake just in time to catch the kickoff of the Gator game. What a great finish to a great week.

In summary, without a doubt this was the most relaxing drive we’ve had going from Fla to NJ. Keeping off the Interstates and using the ferries just removed so much stress. Traffic moves just a bit slower and there is generally no traffic to contend with. And no trucks. They are all on the Interstate. The ferries and bridge/tunnel system are expensive but I think it saves gas and prices off the Interstates are lower. Next trip up we’ll plan to spend a day in Lewes and maybe 2 or 3 on Ocracoke Island.

Round-up

Round-up
One of my most important tools here is Roundup. I guess you can call it a tool since it replaces pulling weeds. Let me explain why I’ve become so up close and personal with Roundup. We have a gravel driveway from the road to the house and then a circular area for turnabouts. To scope it for you, the driveway is about 500′ long, 10′ wide, and 4” deep. The circle has a diameter of about 30′ which is equivalent to nearly another 100′. The problem is that even with 4” of gravel, the weeds find a way to pop up and if left alone for a summer, the driveway would turn into a weed field. Picking the weeds by hand is not an option. In the summer, new ones are sprouting at just higher than my maximum pick rate so it’s a losing battle. So every few weeks I have to hit it with Roundup. Actually Roundup is very expensive so I hit it with a commercial generic that, if anything, is slightly more potent. Pierson is the Fern Capital of the World so we have a major league fernery supply store catering to the local farmers. I went there and explained my need and they happen to have a super potent, stronger than Roundup, concentrate. Concentrate means 5 tablespoons for every gallon of water. The smallest size is 5 gallons so I’m thinking one purchase is a lifetime supply. I bought a sanctioned 2 gallon Roundup spray dispenser so I’m set up properly. I recognized right away that pouring a tablespoon of this highly potent, toxic stuff from a 5 gallon container was just not so simple so I came up with a great idea. Nancy buys her liquid detergent in a 2 gallon plastic jug that has a push button spout that just happens to dispense about 1 tablespoon per push. I transfer the herbicide to the detergent container and totally have that problem under control. Just set the Rounder spray bottle under the dispenser and pop the button 10-12 times. Very slick. All was bliss for about 3 months and then gradually the spray got weaker and weaker until it just dribbled out. It would take an hour or more to do the driveway. I disassembled the Roundup jug and blew out all the hoses with an air pump; cleaned out the nozzle with hot soapy water. Then it would work just fine. Maybe not quite as good as new, but much mo betta. I’d get maybe half the driveway done and it would start sputtering. So I either had to work at an incredibly slow pace or stop every 50′ and blow out the pipes. I lived with this situation for a couple of years because I kept fairly well on top of the weeds and it wasn’t worth it to buy a new bottle. But I got behind in the past few months and after we finally got some rain, the weeds were quickly taking over. I decided to maybe take a drill and ream out whatever was clogging this thing at the risk of destroying it. I had looked at a power unit recently and thought maybe it was time to step up the game. So I took it apart one last time and then tried to get into the nozzle itself. Low and behold, it came apart in a place I never thought separated and there was a filter – totally clogged. Apparently when I blew out the tubes, I would temporarily move the crud from the filter but it would eventually works it’s way back. I swear now it works better than it’s maiden voyage. After each treatment, I take the nozzle apart and sure enough the filter is starting to accumulate crud. I’m so happy that I have nailed the driveway twice this week and may go next door and do my neighbors driveway just for the thrill of it.

The reason I’m putting this out there is that a couple weekends ago a friend visited and in casual conversation she mentioned that she hated to spray the herbicide because her Roundup dispenser just sputtered and dribbled no matter how hard she tried to clean it. I showed her how to access the filter and she was blown away. I’m sure I have a permanent place in her prayers now and I know for sure that I wasn’t the only dumb dumb who hadn’t found that filter.

last weekend

Had a fun, interesting, educational weekend. On Saturday we hooked up with Joey at Canaveral National Seashore. He had a weekend charter and planned to anchor in the New Symrna end of Mosquito Lagoon where the river and the ocean are only a few hundred feet apart. They anchor about 500 yds from shore and ferry their passengers over to the beach for a day of sun and fun. We go to that same beach quite often so it sounded like fun to meet up with them for the day. Along with their clients, two other couples from the Marina joined along with their own boats so when all was said and done there were 11 of us. We were quite lucky to get a parking space. When we got there the smallish parking lot was totally full and only by luck, we decided to hang back and wait to see if anybody pulled out which happened. When we unloaded the car and walked over the dune to the beach I was very surprised to see no one on the beach. With all those cars, I assumed it would be mobbed. I looked down the beach and maybe 1/4 mile down there were many beach umbrellas and obviously lots of people. I wondered why they would all leave the immediate area where the bathrooms and showers were and trudge down so far to set up camp. I’m thinking maybe there were some shark sightings, some jellyfish, or maybe bad currents where we were and the people had all moved down to safer territory. Mark and one of the customers had got there a bit ahead of us and set up a nice sun canopy so we headed a couple hundred feet down to there and put up our umbrella and chairs. A bit later the whole crew arrived and we just started doing the normal beachy things – drinking beer, surf fishing, and some swimming. I mentioned that I wondered what was the big attraction down the beach and was told “oh, that’s a clothing optional area”. OK. After drinking a brew, I went down to the water’s edge and started gathering sandfleas for bait. One of the couples with Joey’s party walked down to see what I was doing and then dragged me along with them for a walk – toward the nudie area. OK. I’m focused intently on finding and capturing bait so I was mildly surprised when I looked up and noticed that the gal I was walking with had already taken off her top. It wasn’t a big piece of clothing to start with so only a few more inches were exposed but they were in fact totally exposed. By this time we have arrived at the population center and sure enough, nobody was wearing anything – but me and the gal’s husband. I noticed a decided absence of tan lines. I can honestly say I’ve never been around so many nude people and that’s about all I’m going to say on the subject except to add that I know for sure that I don’t have any heart problems.

And we caught quite a few fish.
We left the beach about 4PM and headed for a small Italian restaurant/wine bar called Romesco’s to use a gift certificate we’d received last Christmas. That experience was as surpising as the nudie beach. Joey had told us it was good so we were expecting good food but the surprise came when we got the antipasto we ordered. Real antipasto is not a lettuce based salad with some meat and cheese as it is often served in lesser, pseudo-Italian restaurants. The real stuff as served in Italy, Philadelphia, NY and other advanced Italian food places is mostly olives, cheeses, and thinly cut, fine cold cuts. Along with some marinated onions, perhaps roasted peppers, pickled cloves of garlic, dried tomato – all drizzled with a fine olive oil and seasoned with oregano. And that’s exactly how it was served along with crusty Italian bread. There were probably five or six different varieties of olives, that many different cheeses and the thinnest cut prisciutto, mortaldello and genoa salami you could have. It had been so long since Nancy or I had experienced the real thing, that when it came we just looked at each other and smiled. The antipasto and a couple of glasses of nice wine hit the spot perfectly.

yard stuff

For the past few years I’ve been planting bromiliads along the path to the lake. Bromilads are air breathers rather than soil based plants with exotic, tropical looking blooms. There are literally hundreds of varieties and I probably have a dozen or so. Normally they’re considered house plants but I’ve just placed them in trees and along the path in places that just look like they need something exotic. They almost never bloom but when they do it’s spectacular and very long lasting – a bloom can last months. I walked down the path this morning and counted 7 blooms. For me that’s a world record since I’ve only ever seen one at a time – except in the nursery. Each variety has a totally different style bloom and the picture above is one I particularly like.

Another piece of garden breakthrough news – the yellow grapefruit has some brand new fruit. It bloomed as usual in March and has a few dozen nice fruits with maybe a 4” diameter. They’re starting to turn from dark green to light greenish yellow. I was blown away yesterday to spot a few brand new micro grapefruits popping out of new blossems. If they hang in, that means we should have grapefruit on into next May – a four month extension of the vodka and grapefruit season. How great is that!!

And the guava’s are ripening. I have guava trees all over the place. My neighbor planted some way back in the past. Squirrels and birds love them so it’s a scramble to get some but the critters spread the seeds which must be indigestable. Consequently I have trees sprouting all over the property. I think the only regular use for guavas is guava jelly but I’m not a jelly person so I just pop them down the hatch like eating a strawberry. I have to get them just on the early side of ripe since the critters nab them as soon as they fully ripen so they’re not quite as sweet as you might like.

charmin garmin

Our neighbor Rick recently bought a new truck and an off market Garmin navigation system. His brother George is on vacation for a few months so we’ve started taking Rick out to dinner with us. The other day he suggested we take his truck so we would see how nice it is and also get to see the Garmin in action. To make the event complete, we accessed the “food” selection on the Garmin and looked for a new place. We found one called Blue Forrest Water Company and told the nav system to take us there. It’s one of those that gives voice directions as well as displaying a map. It did a fine job for the first 10 miles. At that point we were in the middle of a conversation when the nav voice told us to make a turn. We missed it. Miss Garmin immediately told us to hang loose that she was figuring a new route. This new route took us through a housing development with hundreds of streets and turns. They came up so fast that Rick missed half of them – in engineering terms, the calculation time for the Garmin was longer than the drive time to the new solution – and the poor gal was having to constantly recalculate a new path. If the unit had been equipped with a hand, no doubt she would have reached out and grabbed Rick by the throat but she remained calmer than we did. In retrospect she needed to say “ yo, Rick – stop and give me a minute here to get us out of this mess”. We managed to finally get out of the development and onto the road we had initially missed. She said to stay on the road for 1.8 miles and then turn onto Green Dairy Road. We went right past Green Dairy Road even though she was telling us to turn. The reason for that is that the road is only a hundred yards or so before a stop light and we all assumed the stop light was at Green Dairy Road. U-turn. Green Dairy Road is a very narrow, but paved road. It didn’t have a sign so the only way we really knew we were on the right road was by looking at the displayed map. She told us to go 1.x miles and turn right onto West Kentucky. West Kentucky was paved to the left but a dirt road to the right. By now we’re fairly certain that this new restaurant was going to be very interesting and that we wouldn’t have a traffic problem. After several hundred yards the width of the dirt road was such that trees were going to scratch the sides of the truck and it started looking very soft. We backed out which gave Miss Garmin more headaches. We gave up on the Water Company and decided she wasn’t a good source of restaurant leads. We gave it another chance by plugging in a place we knew was in downtown Deland and let her guide us out. She did but not without one more hitch in the getalong. She took us back using the paved section of West Kentucky and telling us to turn left at CR4209 or some number like that. Turns out that 4209 is Plymouth Ave but there were certainly no 4209 signs. We all knew that Plymouth was where we wanted to turn and the visual said to turn. We went straight to downtown Deland from that point and faked her out one more time with a change in our restaurant selection. It was a fun trip but took us three times as long as it should have. My favorite part was that once we missed that first turn, about every 3 minutes or so Miss Garmin would chime in and advise us that there is a better route than the one we chose. If I could, I’d have returned the throat clutch onto Miss Garmin.

lake project

The low lake level has made swimming a bit more difficult. Not really difficult to swim but more difficult to get in and out of the lake. The last rung on the ladder too high with respect to the lake bottom. In the past you swam up to the ladder and simply stepped onto the appropriate rung, never touching bottom. Now the water is only 3′ deep at the ladder (normally 6′) and the last rung was just above the surface making that first step 3+ feet. That was a bit much for Nancy and to make it worse, the bottom is a bit gooey so you sank down into a few inches of muck. I had dumped about 10 or so wheelbarrow loads of sand but that didn’t really solve the problem for the more squeamish swimmers. This past weekend Joanne, Johnny and Edna came up and I was kind of embarrassed that getting in and out of the water was so difficult. Not that it kept Nancy and Joanne from spending about 6 hours floating and gabbing, but two fixes this week have solved the problem completely.

The idea came from across the lake where our trailer neighbors had built a boat ramp last week using bags of quickcrete on top of fill dirt. It occurred to us that we could just put bags of quickcrete underwater to form a nice solid base around the ladder. Johnny assured us that the bags would harden quite quickly and last a million or so years.

When George made the ladder he cut in a rung slot beneath the last rung. I was able to piece together a rung from bits and pieces of lumber I had around. That extends the ladder effectively about 10”. Then the bags of quickcrete around the base of the ladder would add another 8” of height and make the bottom nice and hard. My plan was to get little Tommy up to the lake when he got home from Utah and between us make the pad. I knew the concrete bags were 60# but figured somehow he and I could deal with it. As luck would have it, Joey called and said he was coming up to the lake for a casual visit. I said “great, and on your way up how about stopping by Lowe’s and getting 14 bags of quickcrete”. A few hours later he and Mark were on the scene. And I’m really glad. Sixty pounds doesn’t sound all that heavy but as soon as we started manhandling the bags down to the lake and into the water, I knew it would have been more than Tommy and I could have handled. It took about a half hour but the end result is first class with a nice 4’x4′ concrete pad so all our squeamish friends and relatives can now come back to the lake to swim. But now that the problem is solved, watch the rains come and fill up the lake again.