Olivia joined a sorority, ADP. I thought ADP was a 50‘s data processing company but I guess they expanded out into the sorority business somewhere along the line. So at this point she’s 100% committed between a freshman college load, an off campus job, and a sorority. I think she’ll make it all work.

Simon decided to just hole up on Sunday, enjoy the river camp and recover from an overload of sun, mosquitoes, and sore arms. Then on Monday he put on the last 5 miles to Lafayette Blue Springs where Tina picked him up. All in all a successful trip since it ended up with a pledge to do the lower half next year – from Lafayette Blue Springs on down to the Gulf. On Friday he headed up to the Coosa River Science Center for his next wilderness gig.

The pole beans I planted the first of August are already 5 feet long with tendrils climbing up the trellis, more than halfway to the top. No matter how many times I experience this growth, it still always blows me away. The plan is to put in a second batch the first of September. The cucumbers planted the same time are adding leaves but are way too short to reach the trellis. I’ll plant the second batch of those also on the first. So with any luck with respect to the weather, we should be set with both crops until near Christmas.

We’ve got a few wild guava trees in the jungle. My neighbor planted some years ago and the birds, squirrels or whatever have dropped seeds hither and yon so between us we get a pretty good crop. A few days ago Barbara knocked on the door and asked if we minded if she picked the ones in our jungle. No problem. Today, as if by magic, a few jars of guava jelly showed up. She said they will take a few days to set up but I could notice a big difference in just 12 hours.

Joanne was in need of some lake time so she joined us this weekend. We (she and I) did a cheese and wine social (sans cheese) on the dock Saturday evening. It was even nice enough to rain and storm a little while we were out there.

So a journalist gets his head chopped off by bad guys in Iraq and we have a Chicago community organizer in charge of responding (or not). I can see where he would feel more at home when an unarmed thug gets shot by a cop for resisting arrest and the local merchants are looted. Send in Al Sharpton and Eric Holder after a week of rioting. I think Big Al and Eric should be sent to Iraq to protest the activities there. Do a little community organizing maybe.

If you’re interested in seeing Simon’s kayak trip, check out this site- http://www.floridastateparks.org/wilderness/Maps.cfm. He started on the upper right side of the map, White Springs, the green triangle, and made it to Woods Ferry River Camp, the green square just to the left of White Springs. To calibrate you, that’s about 9 river miles. He spent about 6 hours on the river but was doing as much drifting as paddling. On Day 2 he picked up the pace and made it to Holton Creek River Camp, the second green square, about 19 miles. The day included a stop at the second triangle on the map, Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park. He said he felt just fine at the end of day 2, not sore at all. If I had gone and slept overnight on a hard floor and then paddled a kayak for 8 hours, you’d have had to carry me the rest of the way. Day 3, Suwannee River State Park, 17 miles downstream so by my crude reckoning, he’s logged 45 miles so far. Last night he ate beef stroganoff; tonight mashed potatoes made from powdered potatoes. I think tomorrow night’s destination is the Troy Springs River Camp. He said he’s still feeling great, a little arm weary but not too much. Ran into his first gator today, a six footer and also a small herd of deer.

Day 4 and another 15 miles. He’s spending Saturday night at Dowling park. He sounded tired on this leg and may cut the whole thing short a day. I’m guessing after a good night’s sleep, he’ll stick it out the way he originally planned it. The adventure today was a stretch of the river that was loaded with leaping sturgeon. These are really monstrous fish and he said he could hear lots of splashing ahead and wondered what was going on. He rounded a bend and there was a stretch where they were leaping 3’ out of the water and belly flopping back. These guys can weigh over 100 pounds so if one landed on the boat, it would be a day to remember. And another gator.

Saw something awesome today. I’ve mentioned the family of turkeys that I spot on an off. Well today when I rounded the corner towards the mail and newspaper box, there was an adult turkey and 6-8 half size ones. I stopped and they slowly walked onto my neighbors property where I spotted another 6-8 smaller ones merging into my original group. Then another cluster appeared so I estimate there were close to 20 of these half size turkeys and one adult. I went back to the house, called my neighbor and he went up to take a look. He confirmed they were there and said the small ones were called “jakes”. I’d never heard that term and I’ve never seen such a large cluster. I guess when they grow to a certain size they leave the small family and cluster into groups of teenagers or tweens. Neat. I see so many different things on my morning walk to get the paper that I really should get in the habit of carrying my camera.

Here’s another garden factoid that you probably never find useful – it takes 2 months for corn stalks to decompose into useable compost. I cut down a whole, 6’ tall stalk and then cut it into pieces about 8” and pitch them into a compost pile. The thinking around me is that it will “never” decompose or never in any reasonable time. Fact is that I’ll be using it the end of this month; so less than 3 months. That’s just about when I need it for transplanting tomatoes into the garden. For each tomato plant I dig a 1 CF hole and fill it with fresh, newly made compost. The soil that I dig out of the hole goes to raise the level of the row, improving overall drainage. This time of the year that’s a big deal and a plant saver.

Simon is off on an adventure I’ve always wanted to do – kayaking the Suwannee River – that’s Suwannee as in “Way down upon the Suwannee River”. I drove him up Wednesday to a put in spot north of Gainesville, Stephen Foster State Park, and Tina will pick him up on Sunday down stream at Troy Springs, a paddle on the order of 60 miles. There are strategically placed primitive camp grounds or full fledged state parks along the river so he’ll be semi roughing it. I’d love to go but that long in a kayak would kill me. I can do about 2 hours before my back cramps up. Tom and I talked and we’re not as experienced (or tough) as he is with respect to really roughing it – sleeping on the ground or hanging in a hammock or whipping up a meal from dried beans. Our camping has always been closer to a motel in terms of creature comforts. Last minute update – he called this evening and made it to the first river camp just fine. It was about a 10 mile run and he said he just drifted much of it and checked out the wildlife. He got underway about 10:45AM and was in the cabin by 6PM. The cabin is a single room, screened, roofed, platform that would sleep about 5 people. He’s the only customer tonight and used hooks in the wall to hang his hammock. There’s electricity and running water at each cabin (I think he said there were 5 cabins) and a community hot shower. He made pasta for din din. I’m done worrying – he has it totally under control.

I took a walk on the wild side. Some guys ride motorcycles, some guys sky dive, some guys swim with great whites. I planted lettuce in the garden in the summer. I must be an adrenaline junkie. Actually I’ve been lucky so far with light rain for the first couple of days which kept the temp below 90. All of the tomato seeds I planted have germinated and I’m starting to transplant them into flats for my “customers”. Ditto the broccoli. I’ve been worried about the corn drifting away but so far, it seems to be thriving in the wet soil.

Sure ready for this rain to stop. We seem to be averaging an inch each day, mostly light, but mostly constant. The lake has reached a peak such that adding rain temporarily raises the lake but within a few hours it recedes to the peak-so the lake must be draining at the north end. There’s another lake a few hundred yards to the north which in turn drains into a large lake, Disston, to the north and west. These drain areas are normally high and dry but must be all connected into one large water system now.

We had a major rain the other day – 2” in about 30 minutes. Lighting, hail, and big wind accompanied the rain so it was a serious storm. When it was over I went to the garden or should I say the pond. Not sure what long term impact that will have but the bottom 1/4 of George’s property, down by the lake, is now looking like a pond itself. Maybe I should be growing rice instead of corn. But that isn’t the real disaster. For years there’s been a large pine tree down by the lake tilting over. No more – it crashed and created a natural bridge over the path. It took several trees and large branches with it so I’ve got a real mess on my hands. If it was just that, I could live with it but when I went up to get the paper and mail I found that the bear had broken into my shed, pulled out the garbage can and dumped it on the driveway. Cleaned that up and continued up the driveway only to find my way blocked by a large, 4” diameter, branch which had come down in the storm. That size is quite manageable with my wimpy chain saw.

Remember those Muck Boots Nancy got me a few months back, the real heavy ones that were killing my legs. Well those have turned out to be perfect under these wet conditions. No wet sneakers to contend with.

This week Nancy moved her bridge operation from Palm Coast to Tomoka on Tuesday and to Flagler on Friday so I moved my tagalong surf fishing operation to Ormond Beach and Flagler Beach respectively. I found a quiet stretch about 5 miles north of Ormond by the Sea and caught 3 fish – none worth much but kept me amused anyway. At Flagler I fished just south of Gamble Rogers State Park, a stretch I’ve fished several times before with reasonable results. This time nothing but plenty of sun. It was fun but the tides were wrong or something. One thing I saw was a guy flying one of those 4 prop camera drones. That’s the first one I’ve seen up close and personal – very neat.

And the winner is…………………..The Coosa River Science Center in Alabama. Simon was offered and accepted the job a day after making application so he’s set for the next 8 or so months. I think he starts in about 2 weeks. He would have preferred the Minnesota job but we like him being closer to home and not so brutally cold. He applied very late for that opportunity so maybe next year he’ll start the process a little earlier. We’ve been kicking around a fall trip to the Carolina’s so Alabama would only be a few hundred miles out of the way…………

The Edwards’, Megan, Brandon, and Allie, spent the weekend with us and it was really fun. It was Allie’s first swim in a lake and she was not the least bit shy hopping in and wasn’t too happy about getting out. It was also Brandon’s first visit to the lake but I’m betting it won’t be the last. He’s into swimming and kayaking and we’re long on both so I’m guessing their next visit will extend for a few days. They didn’t realize how close to the beach we are, about 30 minutes, so the next trip has to include some beach time.

On Sunday afternoon I planted the other seeds for the fall crop – the tomatoes etc. I plant these in special seed starting soil in small styrofoam cups and usually keep them indoors in an air conditioned environment until they’ve germinated and put on enough leaves for transplant to individual containers and eventually outside. I have a grow light so they have adequate light for growth. I decided to do it a little differently this year and keep these seeds outside on the back porch-a warmer, more humid environment than usual. I checked on them first thing Tuesday morning and much of the lettuce, 2 varieties, and the broccoli had germinated. That’s way faster than I’ve typically experienced. Don’t know if that’s good or bad long term. The tomatoes made their first appearance on Wednesday. The interesting thing about that is I planted 6 different varieties at the same time, 2 different cherries, 2 different plums, and 2 different rounds and all germinated within hours of each other.

I mentioned how fast the corn seed germinated. I checked on the other seeds planted directly in the garden and found that both cucumbers and zucchini had popped out a day after the corn. The next day the green beans and cantaloupe made their appearance so it’s all good. No doubt the soil is warmer in August than in March when I usually plant directly into the garden and that must be accelerating the germination beyond what I had expected.

Another possibility for Simon, the COOSA River Science School at the Alabama 4-H center near Columbiana, just south of Birmingham. All of these places look good to me and I suspect the bass fishing at this one will be excellent.

http://www.aces.edu/4-H-youth/4H-Center/crss /

Something should break in the next week or two since all of them will be up and running for the Fall season toward the end of this month.

The fall garden has officially started, a month earlier than I had planned or ever done before. That’s a result of the Volusia County Extension Service publishing an article in the local paper detailing exactly what we’re supposed to be doing in the garden now. So yesterday I planted pole beans, cucumbers, cantaloupe, zucchini and corn directly in the garden and broke out the seeds for starting in the house. The surprise was the county said I should be planting collard and broccoli seed now along with the tomatoes, peppers and eggplant. I would normally hold off until October to start the green stuff. I’m also going to try to start a couple varieties of lettuce that supposedly can handle the heat. I tried it last May and they certainly weren’t up to it then but this time I’ll try starting the seeds inside and moving them out to the garden early next month. Maybe after the stock market crashed last week, we’ll need the earlier crop to survive.

I had preplanned where all of these things would eventually go in the garden but this early start put me on the horns of a dilemma regarding the corn. Since you have to plant a good size section of corn to get proper pollination, there are only two places in the garden that can handle it. I try to rotate crops but the area I had planned to plant is closest to the lake and a bit dampish. Damp could easily become swamp if we continue with the wet summer and I’m not sure how corn does with wet roots. I’m going to take the chance since I have left over seed from the spring so not much to lose. I’ve never been successful with fall corn anyway. Already something different – some of the corn seed started germinating in 3 days. I planted it on Aug 1 and there were some shoots popping up on the 4th.

Grandkid news – Little tommy pitched an original video product to his management at the Trib and they gave it/him the go ahead – and the funding. Olivia has had a part time job for a couple of years as a sales person for young ladies fashion ware. She has planned to keep the job while going to UCF and got a promotion to assistant manager – quite a bit more responsibility. No news yet on where Simon will set up shop next month but we all have our fingers crossed for Eagle Bluff – his first choice. So exciting for us to see them making such progress and being so happy. Great futures. Tom and Tina must be doing something right.

Brandon, Megan and Alli spend Saturday and part of Sunday at the lake – super enjoyable. Allie couldn’t get enough of the lake and wore us all out taking turns swimming with her. She was a little spooked when a baby bream would take a little nip but mostly she was just fine. We’re hoping that next time they come it’ll be for a little longer and we can add a day at the beach to the social calendar.

I cracked up when I heard that Facebook had crashed and that people were having meltdowns. Sort of like holding off their Oxy.

A/C crisis over. It turned out to be exactly what I thought – a bad starting capacitor on the compressor motor. My next door neighbor’s grandson is in the A/C business and came over last night after work and put in a new capacitor and also changed out the main contactors which were still working but looking fairly close to the edge. $100 cash. I’m not sure I could have handled another night with the three women in an overheated condition.

Simon has another iron in the fire for his next job. There’s an environmental training place in south eastern Minnesota called Eagle Bluff, just south of Rochester. I checked it out on the internet and other than being unbelievably cold, it looks like his kind of place – similar to Tremont in the Great Smokey Mountain National Park where he’s interned/worked for two seasons. This would be a full 12 month opportunity and, looking at the existing staff, he’d fit right in. One specialty there is raptor study – eagles, hawks and the like so that would be interesting. The other possibility is a similar position in central Georgia at a place called Charlie Elliot State something or other. You can find that on the internet also. He has inside connections at both places and would fit into either but the MN opportunity seems to be the bigger place.

Update to that: He actually has three irons in the fire. He came up yesterday to spend the evening with us and we learned that he has an application into an environmental place on an island in the Chesapeake Bay. His expectation is that he should hear from all of them within the next couple of weeks, the MN opportunity being the most imminent and the one he’s leaning towards the most. So I can see us visiting Chris and Little Tommy in Chicago and then swinging over to Minnesota (or Virginia or Georgia).

All of a sudden the news is full of stories about people leaving babies and little kids locked in cars. My take on that is it’s a consequence of modern technology and practices. Car seats for one. If you have a kid sitting in the seat next to you it’s hard to forget. Not true if the kid is asleep in a car seat in the back and probably, behind the driver. Out of sight, …………. It’s also more than a little possible that the driver is either talking on the cell phone, texting, listening to music from an ipod or phone which is tied into the car’s speaker system or into ear phones. Or dialing up an app to check something. Even though they’re sitting in the car, they are mentally somewhere else.

Chris’s house hunting trip to Chicago was a quick success. He ended up in a community a little west of downtown called Oak Park. It’s fairly close to public transportation, little Tommy, Trader Joe’s and Costco so what else could a guy want. The apartment is a 2 bedroom, one bath just remodeled place overtop a retail store – a typical city setup similar to the place we lived in Philadelphia when I was a kidling. It includes a garage which is a major bonus there and it’s half the cost of his Jersey City dwelling. The plan is to sell most of his furniture and just move selected pieces in a small U-Haul and bank his relocation moving allowance. Great plan. He’s got a one week training stint in Houston, a one week corporate meeting in Las Vegas and then opening in Chicago by the end of August. Nancy and Joanne already have plans to visit in early October, before the snow flies. Chris really sounds happy with everything so it’s going to work just fine.

I’ve mentioned that we’re getting more than typical rainfall. According to the weather folks, we’re already at levels last seen in 1944 and we’ve got a week left in the month. I’m ready for it to stop and let us dry out for a few weeks.

The new grill is really getting a workout. Without a doubt the old one had deteriorated some time back but did so gradually and it wasn’t noticeable – until the new one came on line. It’s cooking much hotter and the product is back to being picture book material. Good thing too – this has been the busiest guest month ever. The Brosan’s, Barbara and Renee came for a few days, Joey and Mark came Saturday, Olivia on Sunday, and the Edwards’, Megan, Brandon, and Alli arrive at the end of the week. The weather has been cooperating, giving us plenty of lake time. What hasn’t cooperated is the air conditioner – it crashed. What makes it particularly bad is that one of our guests is in a constant state of hot flashes. I suggested she just hang out down at the lake and take a plunge when it gets to hot. She’s gotten in the water a couple of times but is uncomfortable sharing space with turtles and fish. She just knows there are gators lurking and that we are just not telling her. Last night we ate at a place on the St. Johns and a large, large gator swam up very close to the restaurant which, she said, proves her point that there could be large gators in our lake. I suggested that 7 miles was a long way for a gator to travel overland but don’t think she accepted that.

Nancy is whipping up a large batch of stuffed peppers. Green peppers are the last remaining crop of significance in the garden. The heat just doesn’t bother them and they keep putting out fruit until something gets them. There are two plants out there that made it through last winter making them almost a year old. I’ll start new plants from seeds next month.

Chris will be spending this coming week in Chicago house/apt hunting. It just so happens that Tom will also be there (on business) from mid week and, of course, little Tommy lives there so there will be more Carbone’s in Chicago than Florida. Something wrong with that picture!!! So far the one sure observation is that he won’t starve to death and has already found several exceptional feeding spots.

The rain continues with regular, heavy afternoon storms and the lake is rising fast. In the last couple of weeks we’ve logged 7-8” which is well above average. If you sit on the edge of the dock and hang your legs over, you’re ankle deep. Another measure – the water is half way between the top step and the next one down; If you’re in the water with a drink, you can just set it on the dock as a bar. That means we’re 2007 deep early in the hurricane season so there’s a decent chance the dock will be submerged before it’s over. George actually has standing water now in his yard up to the garden. In 2007 the garden was squishy and the plants died but I’ve built it up with compost since then and everything is still alive and looking good. My guess is that the pepper plants will not last much longer with their roots in the water. But the big impact is an explosion in the frog population – not down at the lake but in the jungle around the house. They start croaking right after dark and continue until sunrise. It literally sounds like they’re in the house, that’s how loud it is. Nancy doesn’t hear it but it drives me crazy.

I had a blood test the other day in advance of a routine annual physical. Usually everything turns out normal with one or two marginal exceptions- just slightly high or low – “nothing to worry about but something to watch”. They now post the results on a secure site and sent me an email telling me I could check there. As best I can tell, everything was “normal”. Nothing even close to the edge. I wonder if my ninja green drinks have had some impact or is it related to global warming. Maybe that new wine label we found – Low Hanging Fruit is the new factor. I’ve been doing more surf fishing and getting the Mocha Latte at McDonalds on those days. I’ve also been getting weekly fresh peach milk shakes from Chick Filet to go with the Spicy Chicken sandwich. I meet with the doc next week so I’ll get his opinion.

We had weekend guests and enjoyed every minute of it. My nephew Glenn and his wife, Lynn, moved their son Andrew from Hattiesburg down to Orlando where he’ll be attending Valencia Community College, working at Kay Jewelers and then, if all goes according to plan, transferring to UCF. We didn’t do much of anything but eat, talk, and sit on the dock but it was full time catching up. Grilled a pile of ribs, made a giant garden salad and a big bowl of green beans plus the obligatory pan of Mac and Cheese.

I’m starting the summer garden repairs which is mostly redoing the path’s between the garden rows. It doesn’t sound like much when you put it down in writing but each row takes me an hour or two and pulls about 2 gallons of sweat so when I’m done, I’m really done. Nothing much on the social calendar this week so I should be able to finish the job, weather permitting. In about 2 weeks I’ll start planting seeds indoors getting ready for fall. That will include tomatoes, peppers and egg plant to start. I wasn’t going to do eggplant again but Nancy made an incredible parmesan using a new variety and that changed my mind.

Big garden dilemma – soggy compost piles. We’ve been getting so much rain that the piles are literally too wet to turn. What we need is an old fashion hot, dry week. There’s not much growing in the garden and the beds have been mostly prepared for fall planting so a good solar treatment would roast the nematodes and get the compost piles cooking internally. You want the pile to heat up to kill weed seeds and decompose more thoroughly. If things are right with the pile, internal temps can be 150 degrees. With these soggy piles getting hit with cool water daily, not much decomp can be happening, just your basic rotting.

I read a new report on the penguin situation in Antarctica and it’s thrown my world into a tailspin. I thought it was a given that with this global warming thing, all iceberg critters were seeing the end in sight. For some reason polar bears have managed to increase populations but surely not penguins. But alas, the findings were record populations of both the giant Emperor variety and small Adelaides. Not just a few more but two to three to five times as many as expected. Combine that with recent reports of record numbers of whales and sharks, all endangered, and you have to wonder if maybe this warming thing is actually good for critters; or maybe it isn’t really warming. Another winter like 2014 and there will be another batch of scientists pushing the return to another ice age – and trust me they’ll have plenty of charts and statistics to prove it.

I think the reason soccer fans get so unruly is because they are bored to tears sitting in the stands waiting for something to happen.