nature coast

International Beer Day, National Coloring Book Day, and most important……National Ice Cream Sandwich Day!!!!!

I believe that I will need to celebrate each and every holiday today. An ice cream sandwich for lunch, washed down with a Guiness, while I am coloring.

Today I have a bunch of photos!

Brand new fake water tower at the park in Inverness

Monarch butterfly — Monarch Butterfly on Chinese Pagoda Plant

scallop cleaning — Our Girl Scout continues her scalloping project. She needs a LOT of scallop shells and stops by every few days to put more in the crab trap. Even in the rain.

alligator — We have another gator in the canal. The water is brackish here so we really shouldn’t get gators. But we do.

Palm trees — When we moved to this house, all of these palm trees had fronds. Now only two.

Friday Meanderings — Just some pretty flowers

Have a great weekend!

Celebrated each year on July 26, National All or Nothing Day allows people to throw caution to the wind and go for broke.

And that’s how I feel about peach pie. I’m either going to eat it all. Or nothing. Therefore, there is never peach pie at my house.

We’ve had a LOT of rain this week. The Old Homosassa Learning Center’s Summer Camp theme this week was Nature and they had a lot of field trips planned. They made it to the Salt Marsh Trail on Tuesday but Wednesday’s boat ride was canceled due to thunderstorms. Then on Thursday they all went to the Homosassa Wildlife Park. In the rain. But I heard they had lots of fun! Today is the last day of summer camp since the leaders are teachers and have to get back to school next week to get ready for the new year. I heard rumors that there will be pizza and an ice cream sundae bar for the campers. Best camp ever!

School starts on August 12th. The Old Homosassa Learning Center will be starting the after-school enrichment program shortly after. Just like the camp, all the programs for kids are free!

Our Girl Scout is continuing her scallop shell experiment. Last week she put a gallon of shells in a crab trap off of our dock. We found that the shells were clean by day 3. Two crabs were inside when she checked the trap.

As part of her project, she also put a mesh bag of cleaned scallop shells in a dock on King’s Bay in Crystal River, one off of a dock on the Homosassa River, and a third off of my dock. She plans to leave them in the water for six months to see how the shells fare at the different locations.

Today I have some pics from Tuesday–the only day it didn’t rain.

red-shouldered hawk — It is a bird feeder, right?

The squirrels do not seem too concerned about three hawks hanging out in their yard!

Terry and I went to Blackwater Grill in Yankeetown one afternoon last week for lunch. That’s the restaurant in the Izaak Walton Lodge. This place has changed hands many times. The first time we went (many many years ago) it was a very upscale restaurant and we could only get in with reservations. The next time the food was served on paper plates with plastic eating utensils. So we took it off of our list. We recently heard that it had changed names and the food was better. So we had to check it out. Our lunches were very good. The kitchen was a little slow and our server offered us a free dessert but, unless it’s peach pie, I’m passing.