Old Homosassa Heritage Council

Friday Meanderings

March 24, 2017 by KTgreen

Happy Friday!

It’s been a great week!

Shrimpapalooza was last Saturday.

So much fun!

And our first time in the Shrimpapalooza Parade!

The day started with breakfast at the Old Mill–the only day of the whole year that they serve breakfast!

Breakfast at Old Mill — (yeah, breakfast and bloody marys)

Shrimpapalooza

By now, you might know that the Shrimpapalooza is all about celebrating everything SHRIMP!

It starts with a parade. Since Old Homosassa is a golf cart community, there might be a few golf carts involved, or maybe 50!

OHHC golf cart

Shrimpapalooza

That looks kinda creepy but it’s SHRIMP COCKTAIL on top of a golf cart!

And friends.

Here’s a bunch of walking shrimp and monkeys from Monkey Island!

I have no idea why there is an Ape in the Shrimpapalooza! But he was very popular!

And then there was a festival! Lots of fun and food vendors selling SHRIMP!

Terry and I took our turn at working in the Old Homosassa Heritage Council Booth. We have three really great raffles, new 2017 t-shirts, and THE AMAZING RACE!

Shrimpaplooza

The AMAZING RACE starts on April 23rd with a kick-off party at Village Toyota-Cadillac. $25 and you get into the race and a free t-shirt or poster. This is going to be FUN! Clues will be given every week. The race ends on June 11th. The winners will be getting CASH! And I’m not on that committee so you can’t bribe me to get the clues early!

So what else went on this week????

Terry and I went to the Citrus County Mosquito Control Board’s Open House. Now, this sounds like a lame outing, but it was great! I thought we’d see some displays and there’d be some handouts. But this was a walking tour with a guide. We got to see all the inner workings of their operation. Even the helicopter! This is a group that is doing a great service for our county. I’m sorry I didn’t get any photos.

Spent some time at the Learning Center. No. I spent a LOT OF TIME at the Learning Center. But it was fun. We have a new little girl that came in on Wednesday to learn how to sew. OMG! She was so excited and listened to everything I said. And that kid was sewing! Her brother is in the guitar class and he is the best guitar student.

Also started our new adult “Sew Cool! Workshop”. Faith Peix, our instructor was a bit worried about leading the class but did a great job. We still have room for a few more sewist! Doesn’t matter what level you are at in the sewing world, you will fit in! Thursday, 12:30 – 3:00. At the Learning Center. Right across from the Homosassa Elementary School.

Have a great weekend!

Kathy

Just another day in Perfect

January 16, 2017 by KTgreen

So I planned on putting a post up today BUT keep getting distracted.

My son called last night.

Mom, do you see what they are saying about Terry on FB?

Yes, yes, we do.

Oh, the wonders of social media.

Someone named Grace L. Cooley said that “the man I just met there had a red nose and cheeks and the smell of alcoholic on his breath. ” We looked at her photo on FB and Terry said, I’d remember her! Really young person. Everyone is like over 60 that he usually talks to. And we remember the young ones because we want them to join the civic club! And that description? Really? Was she talking to W. C. Fields?

Okay, let’s forget all that bad stuff and remember the good. Last week was really busy. Starting on the Friday before…..

We went to a legislative session with Representative Dr. Ralph Masullo and Senator Wilton Simpson. They are supporting the “Access to the River” committee and the working waterfront park on the river and there should be some money. The committee has been working on this for two years. This might be the year that we actually get our park!

Yippee!!!

Then on Monday evening, Terry was sworn in as president of the Homosassa Civic Club.

Another Yippee!!!!!

Tuesday morning I attended the County Commission meeting about RESTORE funds. The county is all about building the park. They are calling it the “Sunset Park”. Same park that the “Access to the River” commitee has been working on. But we’ve changed the name to “Old Homosassa Heritage Park”. Doesn’t matter. Just fund it. And they are putting RESTORE funds towards it. How great is that?

There were also discussions about another park at “Sportmans Cove”. We are now calling that the “Old Homosassa Water Tower Park”. Because it’s the property behind the water tower. Duh! Name it. And they will fund it. That’s our new theory. But seriously, how great would that be?

Finally–the county and the state are noticing OLD HOMOSASSA!

And then there were more meetings. And more meetings. The second week of the month has meetings morning, noon, and night.

Oh yeah, and lots of nasty posts and comments on FB.

Oh yeah, articles in the newspaper.

Here’s the second article of last week’s series.

2017_01_13article

We also made the Citrus Chronicle’s week in review.

The Learning Center is OPEN. Never closed. We have volunteers that will be there Monday through Wednesday. 3:30 – 5:30. More programs coming.

And we will not respond to those nasty comments on social media. What a waste of time.

And there are a lot of questions about missing tech equipment from the Learning Center that the Civic Club paid for. We have the receipts. Lots of receipts. 7 laptops. Surveillance equipment. Projectors.

That’s not a social media threat. That’s a FACT.

Like I already said, the Learning Center is open. We are tutoring the kids from the Homosassa Elementary School. They need to pass the “test” to keep the A rating of the school. I have mixed emotions about that whole testing thing, but for now, we will help the school make that rating.

Because that’s what we do.

Friday Meanderings

September 16, 2016September 16, 2016 by KTgreen

That’s the debris in front of the house three doors down from us.

And that’s what is in front of every house that is sea level on both sides of the river. And most of the entire Nature Coast.

I was at a “happy hour” last week which was more like a “get together and commiserate hour” and one of the women said, and I paraphrase, ” it could have been worse. it’s a car. i’m alive.” and then she said ” but i might have lost my roses.”

My house is 8 feet above sea level. We had minor minor minor damage.

But I did lose my purple coneflowers and blue salvias. They don’t like to be immersed in brackish water for 12 hours.

My roses are fine.

A lot of people have “storm flu” around here. Probably partly from exhaustion, having storm water touch bare skin, taking cold showers, total stress of losing more than you thought you would.

Just want to make one more statement before I finally get beyond this whole hurricane storm flooding total life changing fiasco.

Like I said, we lost very little. But those that lost a lot keep hearing, “Why didn’t you prepare? Why weren’t you ready? You live on the water. Didn’t you know better?”

No. We didn’t. We watched the weather forecast that this storm was approaching for TWO WEEKS! The day of, we got a reverse 911 call from the Sheriff’s department in the early afternoon that there would be NO mandatory evacuation. If we were worried about flooding, that the local storm shelter was open.

Then around 8 pm, we got another reverse 911 call saying “Whoops, looks like we got a storm surge coming. Possibly 8 feet! Sorry. Hope you’ll be okay!” No, that’s not verbatim, either. Totally made that up. But that was the message.

Okay. Like I said, last post about the storm.

Moving on…..

Terry and I have been to many meetings this week. Getting ready for the Festival. Monthly meetings of the groups that we are in.

But we also had a talk from the Citrus County Mosquito Board.

We mainly went because friends of ours asked us to set up the meeting at the Civic Club. So we had to open up the building anyhow! But it was amazingly informative!

Can I bore you with some facts?

There are 84 different mosquito types in Florida. 47 in Citrus County.

Zika has already been here–travel related. But, if that travel related victim is bit by a mosquito, it travels all over the place. When they have a report of Zika, they do not know the exact location because of privacy issues. But they do know the cross roads.

So they fog one mile around that location.

For three days. And go door to door.

There was so much interesting info. You would not believe. Like, all the bromeliads I have are just mosquito breeding chambers. I have to flush them out every three days with water.

I need to put mosquito dunk thingees (yes, totally technical term) in my four rain barrels. Even though they have lids, if we don’t put silicone around the pipes and net across the top, it’s a mosquito breeding ground!

And I must scrub out my bird baths every three days. (Okay, I already knew that and have been trying to keep on that schedule)

So….

What’s going on?

There’s a scallop festival this weekend.

Next week is the “Party with a Purpose”. (Instead of the Homosassa River Raft Race–still don’t know why?)

But Terry and I will be at the Old Homosassa Heritage Council Booth with raffle tickets for a Golf Cart and we will have some really great t-shirts. All money goes to painting the Old Homosassa Water Tower.

Scheesh. Everyone wants to get beyond that whole Water Tower thing. It’s been rebuilt. We need to get this thing painted so I can quit talking about that project and start on a bigger and better one. Yeah, we have other things to save!

Okay. That’s it for this week.

Have a great weekend!

Kathy