Uncategorized

I was getting bored with doing the Friday holiday. (I admit it, I get bored easily!)

Then my niece posted that today is SNEAK SOME ZUCCHINI INTO YOUR NEIGHBOR’S PORCH DAY.

Had to do some fact checking but she was right! How could I skip a holiday like that!

So, if you have any zucchini. You now know what to do with it. Here in Florida, zucchini has already been harvested but I bet my kids in North Dakota could sneak some zucchini to some unsuspecting neighbors porches!

Okay, now it’s time to talk about the Old Homosassa Learning Center. It’s turning into the center of our great community. The fitness classes are crazy popular. The Homosassa Ukers group is fun, fun, fun. The Sew Cool! Workshop is a gathering place for creative people.

I have met so many people through the OHLC that I would have NEVER met! Such a diverse group of people. LOVE IT!

For instance, Amanda came to the OHLC last summer inquiring about how her four children could benefit from our learning center. A year later, Allora has her Gold Award from Girl Scouts and her daughter Natalya is the young lady working on her scallop project for her Gold Award.

This week’s pics…

Both Natalya and Allora have learned ukulele at the learning center and are part of the Homosassa Ukers. And they volunteer at OHLC. The younger two girls go to all of the after-school enrichment programs and one of them gets extra tutoring from our favorite tutor. Oh yeah, we have piano lessons that one of the young girls takes, too.

Did I mention that all classes for the kids are free????

And. Summer camp. Free. Six weeks with two teachers from our school district. And I wish I was 10 years old and could go!

The Homosassa Civic Club just started a new scholarship for the kids that volunteer. The first recipient was Austin Price, a Key Club member that volunteered for all three years of the Summer Camp. The kids LOVE HIM.

OHLC is changing lifes.

Can you tell that I’m excited to be part of the change?

And on to other stuff. We took a day trip to Cedar Key for lunch. Why all that way? Cause we can! And we have a cool car.

And I’m going to close with some butterfly pics. I believe it wasn’t all that many weeks ago that I was whining that I wasn’t getting any butterflies. Still not as many as I have had in the past but I do have butterflies and moths visiting again.

Oh. I gotta have a damn squirrel pic!

I hope you have a great weekend!

Kathy

Stick Out Your Tongue Day!

Suggestions for celebration are

• Stick out your tongue at people. Just let them know why you are doing it, lest they think of you as a terribly rude person.
• If there are things that are bothering you, take this day to stick your tongue out at them.
• If you are overdue for a general check-up, perhaps today is the day to visit the doctor and get a clean bill of health.A

Actually that doesn’t really sound like a FUN holiday at all. Think I need to find a different source!

Let’s talk about scallops–or the lack thereof. Since we don’t go scalloping, it shouldn’t really matter to us but this year I am “mentoring” a young lady that is working on her “Gold Star” Award for Girl Scouts. That is the highest level you can get in Girl Scouts. Similar to Eagle Scout. She came to me to ask about doing something with scallop shells to better the community. Her first idea was to create a cleaning station. I said noooooo. There are many other better things that you can do.

While I am NOT a scalloping expert, Terry and I do know a few people in the area. We introduced the Girl Scout to Steve and Cyndi Minguy, the couple that started the Old Homosassa Restoration Project. Steve is also on the board of the Homosassa River Association and the Homosassa Civic Club. Both are members of the Old Homosassa Heritage Council and were responsible for getting those lights on the Old Homosassa Water Tower.

Steve and Cyndi had many ideas for the Girl Scout such as how to properly dispose of the scallop shells. The shells could be used in landscaping, driveways, art–there are a myriad of ideas to use the shells. BUT THEY REALLY STINK! Cyndi said that they are testing the idea of having the tiny creatures in the river clean the scallop shells for them. She had already put a crab trap full of shells in at her place to see how long it takes to clean them out. Naturally.

We are now 19 days into scallop season and it’s been a slow start. The problem we were having with this project was that we didn’t have any scallop shells! Finally last week, a captain showed up with enough scallop shells to put them in a crab trap on the Homosassa River. In four days, the shells were clean.

So, we decided to put a crab trap in our brackish water off of our dock. The same captain provided six gallons of scallop shells this time. Some went into the crab trap on our dock and the rest went into the crab trap on the river. Here’s our shells ready to go into the water:

And here they are on the second day. Almost clean. And we caught a crab. We will let him go after he has all the shells clean!

That’s it from me this week! And I will close with a snap of some ibis in my back yard. Just hanging out, aerating the grass, doing what comes natural.

It’s July!

And that means the hoards are coming to Old Homosassa for scalloping….

except it wasn’t quite as busy as last year’s opening weekend. (At least at 8 am there were a reasonable amount of trucks waiting in line at the ramp.)

Word has gotten out that the scallops are out in the deep waters. And not as many. Theories abound. Over fishing. Salinity of the water. Too much rain.

Terry and I rode our bikes down to the boat ramp yesterday to see what we could see. The American Legion Post 166 is parking trucks and trailers at the Homosassa Civic Club this year–all proceeds go to them. There are at least three private citizens that park vehicles on their property. They raised the parking fee from $10 last year to $20 this year. The civic club voted to keep theirs at $10. The parking area is further away from the ramp than the private yards so the members didn’t think a 100% rate increase was justified. The American Legion parked about 38 trucks and trailers on the holiday. They will continue through the weekend working at the parking lot so if you need to put your truck and trailer somewhere you should check out this parking lot. All of these men and women are veterans. They need the money to keep their post open.

On the other hand, perhaps the private land owners also need the money. I really can’t make a judgement call on that. One of them decided to curse Terry and I out when we rode our bikes by her house. I was really surprised. She very LOUDLY shouted some very bad words at us in front of people that were parking their vehicles. I’m assuming that she was upset about the civic club’s parking charge. But it could be something else. I wasn’t going to ask. She’s bigger than me. I could probably out run her but who knows what she could do when the adrenaline kicks in!

Anyhow, I’ve got lots of photos today.

Went to Palm Beach Gardens last weekend for one of the grandkid’s state championship game. The team won one game out of three. All of the teams were REALLY GOOD! These kids are only 8-years-old and really love to play. It was fun watching.

I had planned on going over to the coast in West Palm to get some ocean photos but it rained a good bit of the time while we were there. I did get out and about in Palm Beach Gardens.

We stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn and there was a boardwalk around a large lake that led to “Downtown”.

It didn’t rain on Friday night so we walked over to Downtown. Fun! Music, people, food, dogs in the hood….

I took a walk in the rain on Saturday since the game was postponed. You guessed it—rain delayed. The flowering trees are always amazing in South Florida.

Walked back over to Downtown for dinner after Jack’s team lost their Saturday game. (Insert sad face) Ate at the Yard House. A very cool, very loud, and very expensive sports bar. I had a “Beyond Burger” which I have been wanting to try. I don’t eat beef and very little pork. No religious or dietary reasons. I just don’t like it. The Beyond Burger is plant-protein. It was very Good. But. Expensive.

Walking back to the hotel.

One more walk on Sunday morning…

I also saw a very large lizard that I SWEAR was running on its hind legs with it’s little arms tucked in. Just like a dinosaur. But it would not repeat that action for my camera.

So we got home Sunday evening and this was the view (Du Du Du) looking out my backdoor.

Terry and I just bought a “traveling car” so I’m hoping we find the time to go to some fun places and I can start posting again about “Traveling with the Top Down”.

And on a personal note, Terry’s mom passed away in the wee hours of July 4th. She was 94. I’ve posted about her here many times. Her heart just wore out and she decided that she didn’t want to do any extreme measures like surgery to fix it. She lived in Colorado most of her life but after her husband died decided to move to Tampa to be closer to her grandkids. A few years ago she moved to Phoenix to spend more time with her son that lives there along with the grandkids that visit. She will be cremated and her ashes will be buried in Colorado where she really considered her home.