71 Degrees Today!

I awoke this morning to some rain but it had quit by the time I went to work.  The sun came out later in the morning and we had a beautiful day.  Next week we are going to be having real cold weather.  They have even been talking about upper teens!  Brrrrrr..

The grass is still pretty green, but I guess that will change very soon.

My pumpkin finally croaked.  It had hung in there even with all the cold weather but it now has a soft spot in it. It never did turn orange.  I guess next year I should plant it earlier.

Home for Christmas

It was about 50 degrees this morning in Georgia when we left for Tampa.  The skies cleared up nicely as we traveled south.  It was in the mid 70’s when we arrived.  We went to Sam’s Club and Target for some last minute Christmas shopping then to Mom’s for our traditional Christmas Eve dinner of home made pizza. 

There is some severe weather in Louisiana heading for south Georgia.  Rain is predicted in Tampa, so we may not be able to go to the beach for our traditional Christmas morning at the beach.

Well we did make it to the beach Christmas morning.  We went to Fort Desoto Beach in St Pete.  It was cloudy and rained some but we had a beautiful morning.  It was pretty warm except for the wind blowing off the gulf water. 

 

We spent the rest of the day with the family and had to head home on the 26th so that Al could get ready for his trip to North Dakota.

Here are some photos from our ride back to Georgia.

This is just one of a lot of billboards that flood the highway from Tampa north on I-75.  I think they are in poor taste and don’t speak well of the state.

Isn’t that a nice sign for children to see.  Some of the signs are more explicit.

There is another series of signs that is on the other end of the spectrum. They are anti abortion signs stating different things that a baby’s heart beat starts at 18 days.  Much more tasteful in my opinion.

Foxes, Cardinal, and Frost

Yesterday while inside, I heard a loud thump on the front window.  It sounded like the familiar sound of a bird hitting the window.  Unfortunately, it was.  I went outside and found a female Cardinal on the porch.  She was sitting there with her head up but was obviously stunned.  When we went outside this morning she was dead.  We had debated on how to help her. We thought about trying to catch her and put her inside in a box overnight, to give her a chance to heal, but we though that may have caused her too much stress.  I don’t think anything we could have done would have helped.  She hit pretty hard.  We felt so bad.  I have since readjusted the blinds in the windows so the birds can more easily see the windows.

This morning is was COLD. The thermometer said 30 degrees. The ground was white from the frost.  I think it was the coldest weather we had yet.  Of course our heat pump wasn’t working and the house was getting cold.  It turned out we had a bad breaker…95 dollars later.

Here is a picture of the ice ring Al took out or the birdbath!

The grass is still green close to the house but further away is getting pretty brown.

Last evening we saw two young foxes playing in the back yard.  At first we weren’t sure what they were because one had a short, crooked tail. One would stalk the other, then playfully pounce on him.  They were really having fun.  I wasn’t able to get any pictures because it was already dark.

We spent the day finishing up Christmas shopping and getting Al ready for his trip to North Dakota.  Oh, and Al got a new chainsaw for his Christmas present.  He needed a new one to cut up some wood for the fireplace!

Flying to Fargo

Just spent the past hour researching and booking a flight to Fargo, North Dakota.  Al has an uncle there that he needs to go see.  I don't know why we always seem to have to go to North Dakota in the winter, but we do.

Flying used to be an enjoyable thing to do, but now with all the restrictions it is nothing short of aggravating.  Just trying to book a flight will drive you crazy. 

The flight is booked and paid for,  but I guess now we have to pay later for the cost of the bags??  I don't know why that couldn't be included when we booked the flight through Orbitz.  Anyway, it is done and we have a flight on Delta.  Now I will have to check and see what we can bring and the sizes.  What a hassle. Now I see why I haven't flown for a while.  Traveling in the RV is much easier.

Getting Ready for Christmas

We had our annual State Farm Christmas party on Friday night  and the night before we had our annual planning meeting.  Two long days in a row and I was pretty tired Saturday, but we had Christmas shopping to do, so off we went to Tallahassee for the day.

We have pretty much finished our shopping as we aren’t going overboard this year.  I guess I will have to do some wrapping today.

We made a side trip to Coe’s Landing Campground in Tallahassee.  It is right on Lake Talquin, which is a pretty large lake.  The sites are $27 a night, and many of them right on the lake.  They are pretty small but we could get into a few of them easily.  It’s a fairly nice CG but there are better ones just as close, so we will probably not be camping there.

After rain and storms most of the week, we have a sunny day today.  The temperature was 34 degrees when I woke up but it’s now 50 degrees at 10:30 am, so we should get a little warmer. 

Al is planning on doing some gardening today.  He wants to get some Sugar Snap Peas planted and I want to get some lettuce and spinach planted.  They do well as winter crops here in South Georgia.  It’s nice to go out and pick some lettuce for your salad.

We Saw the SUN!

We spent yesterday in Tallahassee.  The temperature was mid 70’s, muggy and foggy but didn’t rain.  About 5pm it looked like the sun was trying to peak out but it set before it did.

We went to the seafood market yesterday and got some shrimp and Mahi-Mahi.  We fried that up today along with a few french fries and had a nice fish sandwich for lunch.

Al has to go to the doctor today for a cortisone injection in his heel.  He had both heels done a few weeks ago. He had been having horrible heel pain.  The injections helped but one is still hurting so he’s hoping this time will do the trick.

Tomorrow he has another appointment with the Orthopedic doctor for Synvisc injection in his knee.  They are very expensive…$700 each but have had some good results.  The jury is still out on whether or not the last injection helped.

The sun finally came out and stayed out.  We decided to take advantage of the nice day and did a little tree and shrub trimming.  It was mid 70’s and muggy, but very nice.  Some fall colors on our Cleveland Pear tree.

Blue skies!

Fall berries

Pretty sky

It ended up being a beautiful warm December day.  Hopefully we’ll get some more sunny days, the rain is getting real old.

Trip to Tallahassee

We are about 50 miles from Tallahassee and it is the closest large city, so when we need to do some shopping, we head to Tally.  Tallahassee is a beautiful city and the capitol of Florida.  It's hilly and the streets are lined with beautiful Live Oak Trees.  The people love their tree lined streets and the trees are protected, unlike Tampa.

It was very foggy, muggy and very warm.

The fall foliage is it’s full glory.

We're heading there today to this a fish market that ships seafood across the country. It's called Southern Seafood, they had a website but it has been down. We decided we’d prefer to check the place out first before we ordered anyway.

Another stop will be Sam's club.  We buy their "Oil Dry" for kitty litter.

One night last week when I couldn't sleep, I watched a few infomercials and decided I need a  Instyler rotating curling iron for my hair and a  Magic Bullet food processor/blender, for my kitchen.  Thanks to a subscriber savings account bonus check from USAA, I think maybe we’ll get those 2 items for Christmas presents.  I always like to buy “as seen on TV” items from local stores so that I can easily return them if I don’t like the item.  It looks like they have both items at Dilliards. 

Well, we ended up with 2 outdoor RV mats that were on sale at Target for $29..too good of a deal to pass up. We also ended up with a “Ninja” food prep center, a deepfryer, and a new coffee pot.

El Nino

We have had cloudy, cold and rainy weather for much of this past week.  The high yesterday was in the mid 40's but  felt much colder.  The rain started last night and has rained most of the day.  Tomorrow is supposed to be more of the same.  No severe weather or tornado threats, at least.

Last night was Thomasville's Victorian Christmas celebration.  Al had just gotten back from Tampa and I worked all day, so considering the weather, we opted to stay home.  I had been looking forward to the Chicken P:ilau (prounounced Perlu).  It was just cold though so we gave up the Pilau.

Whooping Crane Migration

Every year a dedicated group of people bring a group of Whooping Cranes from their summer grounds in Wisconsin to Florida for the winter.  These birds are hand raised with the intention of setting up new migrating colonies of these once almost extinct birds.  They use ultra-light airplanes to fly along side the birds so that they can learn their migration path.  It's quite an incredible.

Last year they changed their path a little and flew very close to our house.  They ended up staying a few days at St Marks National Wildlife Preserve which is just straight south of us by the gulf  coast.  We weren't able to get their for the flyover last year, but hopefully we can see them  this year.  Hopefully they will be there on a day when we are in town and I'm not working.

Here is a great link:

Operation Migration

Winter has arrived

We awoke this morning to a temperature of 31 degrees.  We may have lost all of our pretty green grass for a few months. The good side to that is, we can quit mowing!  With 11 acres, it’s nice to have a few months where the grass doesn’t grow.

The sun was coming up over the hill behind the garage and RV pad, and was really very pretty.

Al had some wood stored, by the side of the garage from some oak,  cherry, and Pecan trees that we had taken down.  He found this interesting worm there digesting our nice firewood. 

It’s an “Old House Borer” and evidently can do a lot of damage to old houses. Thank goodness it was just eating our firewood.  It was a couple inches long and kind of ugly.

He gave it a new home in the woods.  No sense killing it.  It’s just doing what it does.  Unfortunately our stack of wood has been sitting there too long and most of it is not in the best shape.  We had a large Pecan (Georgia pronunciation: Pee can) taken down because it was damaging the concrete pad around and in the detached garage. We have a stack of it in the pasture but  it needs to be cut up.  We’re told Pecan spits a lot when burned but it smells so good.  We’ll just have to put the screen over the fire when we burn Pecan. The cherry also smells wonderful when burning.

A cold December Day

The fall colors are starting to really peak but the temperatures have fallen and it’s very windy.  The sun finally came out after several days but it’s only going to get to 55 degrees today.

 

On Wednesday it rained pretty much all day. There had been a cold front moving in from the Gulf of Mexico and passing through during the day.  It was gray and rainy all day.  On my way home from work I saw the end of the front. In the sky there was a line showing where the front ended and the clear sky began. As you looked up the sky was dark gray on one side and a sunny yellow/orange on the other.  The sun was getting ready to set and was low in the sky causing the beautiful colors.  On top of that there was the most beautiful rainbow.  I pulled over and took a few photos with my cell phone camera but of course they didn’t turn out very well.  Al was at home and also noticed the beautiful sky and he actually saw a double rainbow.  He got a few shots but he isn’t too familiar with my camera, but I think he did a pretty good job.