GOOD/BAD DAY AT THE PARK…

My Home Park…(good)
my refuge …I go here to get away and be alone…I am so use to living alone (35yrs.) it has been very hard moving in with my elderly father…that I have not lived with since I was 18..I  am soon to be 69…in the pic below is the view out my front door the other day…

On this day it was very busy must have been a weekend…Sat. I think…a lot of boats…big boats and little boats shown in the pic below…

This is the second time I seen this …a couple 12/13 year old boys out for a day of kayaking and fishing…mostly its all about the fishing by looking at their  gear….they were gone all day…

The (bad)….
My heart had a sad sinking feeling when I seen this boat towing this gray thing behind it…I have seen this a couple times before ….

and my thoughts were right…I dead Manatee…it was so awful…so sad…poor little thing…was not an adult…but not a baby …was floating on his/her back  with little flippers across chest…made me cry….

The lady (seen her before also) from the Florida Wild Life came with this pick up truck to get him/her… the truck had a wench on it …so she was able to lift the Manatee out of the water and on to the truck alone…as sad as it was it was a very interesting process..
I did not take anymore pix of this…it was just to sad..I had to walk away and watch from the other side of the boat launch…there was a crowed of people watching…this is the fourth one I have seen that died in this area in the last 6 months…they do an autopsy on all of them…but what the news is saying all along the intercostal water way (the Indian River) it is probably pollution that is killing Manatee, dolphin, fish, birds and water animals…there is a big push to clean it up..I hope it succeeds and works… I haven't been posting because of the IE thing..but decided to bite the bullet   and down load a different browser…old habits die hard…any way did the Google Chrome and it works ok…but having problems with email with it…I will leave it here…thanks for looking and come back soon…blessings to all G&M

THE BACK YARD….

A few ….
before pix of the back yard…sometime this year I hope to do some “fixing up” of said back yard….This is looking thru the window in my craft/art room…rain drops on the window… it was raining and wind blowing that day …That little brown patch is where I want to have herb garden…it will be in pots as dad put weed killer on it and sorry to say I don’t think that it would be wise to plant in it…don’t think anything would grow…

One day when I first came to FL ..I was walking at the home park..and found a section of cactus about the size and shape if my hand I stuck it in a pot too see if it would grow and now 4 years later..it is about 8ft. tall and has a base of at least 6 in around…and many arms…and this year a ton of blooms…this pix is just one of the arms with blooms I want to show you..some are spent and some are just budding and coming out…don’t know what kind it is…anyone?

All his life…
My dad was a hunter and fisherman…total outdoors guy…when he moved to Florida he got rid of all his hunting gear…except these two duck decoy’s …they are in the back yard at the base of a palm tree…the other day I was sitting in my craft room and into the middle of the yard flew two female mallard ducks…they were looking at these male mallard decoys…and let me tell you the strutted or should I say waddled right  in that direction…they were women with a one track mind…it was so funny I could not take my eyes of them…when they got close they then made a circle around them keeping their eyes on them the whole time…they did this for about 5 min…then guess they figured they were dead beat ducks and flew off…I tried to get a good pic but too many shadows …but here are the decoys…and gezzz I did not notice until I was putting labels on this post and checking it for typos...there is what looks like a peanut in that air plant...good grief I am over being attack by run away peanuts!!

Well that’s it for the back yard for now…I have my frog garden to show you some time and will up date the herb garden…if it makes it thru the summer…going to ask dad to water but not sure he will…sometimes I am not sure what to post about on this blog…I am not sure I will even make it to  PA this year…I have had a couple incidents with my dad this winter…the last one a couple weeks ago ending up with …he will no longer be driving…I am really stressed out at this time..I pray and trust in Jesus …and try not to worry…I guess I should say “don’t worry” .. I better go for now thanks for looking and come back soon..
blessings to all G&M

QUILT STUFF….

After the fiasco ….
of the oil changing…I went directly over to JoAnne Fabric & Craft to a quilt block class I signed up for a few days before.. did not have time to even eat..The two girls next to the wall are fellow students and the lady in yellow is the teacher Aggie…

Hard at work…I forget their names…but they were a nice couple girls to play quilting with…my seat is beside the lady in the foreground.. you can see my cute little vintage sewing basket on the table…

This is the quilt block we made….this one is mine in pic below…I was so stressed out that I did not get it finished at the allotted class time…Aggie was telling us about her crafty church ladies that meet every Tues.  evening to work on various project that they have going..not a church project but something of their own…she invited me to come over and she would help me finish up…so that’s what I did…I also went the next week and took my baby quilt blocks I am working on for my new GGD…also on Wed. all day they work on items for the church bazar held every Nov. I think I will be joining that this week also…you bring stuff to make and donate the finished product to the bazar…I am still looking for a church to attend this might be the one…

This last year…
I have been thinking a lot about doing some sewing…I even broke out my 35 yr. old sewing machine…no luck with it seems to have died…so I went out and got one on sale at JoAnne’s..
My sister has been talking about a crazy quilt she is repairing for one of her girls…that made me want to check out a bag of material scraps I brought with me…(I have many more in PA) so found those and started to iron them so I would know what I have..

Some of these are a little on the old side could call them vintage…found on dotted blue swiss that I had made a blue dress for my DD back in the early 70’s when she and DS were in a Tom Thumb Wedding at the rec. center…she was the mother of groom and he was an usher..I will dig out some pix sometime and post…so cute…

Doing some …
laundry this AM…have ham bone in the crock pot for ham and bean soup…then at 5 I will go over to the church and craft with the ladies…so better get at it…
blessings to all G&M

OIL…AND OLDIES …

Needed to get the….
oil changed the other day…in prep for our trip to PA…I was walking around the RV repair shop and looked at few old RVs …they also have RV storage…it looks like this fellow has been here awhile…there were things growing out the back side of it…obviously it has not been moved in many many years…I wonder if someone is still paying to store this or …if it were me and no one was it would be gone cause the way I look at it …that’s a rental spot …look how far the wheels have sunk in the sand!

And here is an oldie but goodie…looks like it still can move and is used….

Another useable oldie but goodie…when I was looking I looked at the names of these rigs…but now I don’t remember them I know I recognized them at the time…old names…

Here is a row of newer RV’s in the storage area…

and another row…they had about 5 very long rows of rigs in storage….I should have counted them…I was there long enough!!!…RV storage is at a premium in Florida in the winter…in summer not so bad because the peeps that live here take them out and head for cooler climate…what kind of birds would you call them?? lol

Here is SweetDream with her mouth open waiting for her drink of oil…it was a 5 hr. wait!! Grrrrrrr…..

I was hanging around the oil change and work area ..watching and looking…and found this lying on the engine….What! ….a peanut!!!…

And the rest of the story….
I have decided that when my rig is being serviced or worked on I will be watching and paying attention to what they are doing…I was not happy with the last oil and lube so this time went to another place…he did some caulking for me and I was happy with the work…and I was happy …the other guy charged me $200 for oil change and I am not sure but what they put the same oil back in….I check my oil all the time and this time it was much darker than normal and didn’t even have the 3,000 miles on it…so made me wonder…my appointment was fore 9 am…got there they took it right out back…lifted the hood and it stood like that for about45 min…finally after walking around I went over and took a look…they had the dip stick out lying on top of the engine…bugs were flying all over the place I could just imagine one falling down the hole or something else falling down it….so I put it back in…I did this twice…finally seen a guy doing the lube and other stuff….there were about 4 guys working on and off various rigs…. finally got to the point I was going to be late for my quilt block class at JoAnn’s on the other side of town…if they didn’t get a move on…finally seen the man come with a case of oil…started to put the first can in and stopped…looked and said it was wrong oil…now keep this in mind…they do not keep many cases of oil on stock…for what reason I don’t know…maybe they don’t do many..he went to talk to the boss …boss called the distributer said they would send case right over…20 min no oil…30 min no oil…finally went into office …they called again…its on the way…finally came…and I was out of there after 5 hrs.…walked into the class at 1pm…straight from the garage…no lunch …no change clothes…very rushed…and not happy camper….and oh…I found a peanut on the engine…thought maybe the workman was eating them…he said no wasn’t him…he wondered where it came from also…I think a squirrel down at the home park put it there…peeps feed them…I will be on the look out for them…don’t need a squirrel in my engine wrecking havoc…all for now..thanks for looking and come back soon…
blessings to all G&M

MARCH 29 2014

On Sat…..
this showed up in the afternoon on the TV screen…a very nasty storm system was coming thru central Florida…tornado watches and warnings all over the place..including Melbourne…I know this is old but had to wait for some free wifi…out of GB’s with Verizon again…grrrrr at Panera Bread hope it works

In the middle of the storm I opened the front door and tried to take a pix of the wind,rain, and lighting…but it did not show up…maybe if I had a better camera might have got a better pix…anyway thought it was a cool pix of the rig..looking like it might be parked in a camp site….oh..I forgot it is..camp drive way….

Sun.  morning….
I borrowed dads car …had a few errands to run including getting some flea med for Maggie…it was to hot for her to stay in the car so she stayed at dads…While I was out with the car I decided to look for a couple geocaches close by.. I cant cache much in the RV because of parking…in the pix below is one on the cause way…there are more but on out farther on the bridge… but you wont find me out there…I am lucky I can get across by vehicle…let alone walk...

I found the little bison tube pretty quick…

A pix of the log inside the tube…signed it and put it all back for the next cacher….all together I found 3 of the 3 I looked for…the other two were park & grab …on guard rails…I like it that they do hide some like this for old Grammy's like me that cant hike and climb things….I can hike flat trails..and find those but not some of the ones that are hard to get at….

Awww….
Two cuties…Maggie and Joey…Joey is my daughters dog..he has a little Papillon in him…he is a rescue and is the biggest mama’s baby there ever was….

I will leave you with this…while I go find something else to blog about…thanks for looking and come back soon…
blessings to all…G&M

A FLOWER KIND OF DAY….

It is a gray cloudy….
with rain in the forecast day…so I thought I might brighten up the day with some flowers…Here is Maggie on the front porch in PA hiding behind the roses…the porch is one thing I will miss when the house sells….thinking positive the house will sell….not sure what these will look like this year ….I really cut them back before I left…

And my beautiful vintage Holly Hocks… these were hiding when I moved here and they were dormant for over 30 years while I was in work mode…then when I retired I let them grow and I love how they turned out…but since I have been in Florida they are back in the dormant stage….I wonder if HH grow in Florida? These grow on both sides of my basement door …the main door I use…

And these are roses that my daughter had growing over her kitchen window…what a beautiful site while doing dishes at her home…but they are no longer…one winter the ice and snow broke them down…sad…

She woke up!!

And the rest of the story….
I guess this is a pretty lame blog..but I have free WiFi at Wickham CG so thought I needed to up load something….not traveling or camping there really is not much to blog about…I did stay last night here at the CG to do the tank thing but that is really not blogging material…the CG is only about 1/2 full…it was mostly empty when I drove thru on Tues. because of the music festival they had here last weekend…I expect it will not be that full again until the snowbirds come back ….I got the results of the ultrasound of my legs…I have bad veins in both legs…probably will need surg. at some point but Medicare says not now..have to do other things first….ware stockings, elevate legs, more exercise  etc, etc…first…so will do that…glad I know that I don’t have blood clot or something really bad like that… and all my blood work was very good that made me happy..I will keep on trying to eat better to keep it that way…guess I will hang around here until check out time then go look for a couple geocaches…they are still taking down the buildings and stuff from the festival…so the caching might not happen… will leave it here for now thanks for looking and come back soon…
blessings to all G&M

THIS & THAT…..

My strawberry short cake …
I ate at the festival last weekend…there is cake under all that….was good…but there is no strawberry like the ones up north in PA…homegrown…sorry Florida…..

This is a trail …
we took from the parking lot at the festival…I was thinking it would take me to the camp ground and I was right…

We also then took a walk around part of the main park…they were setting up for the Run Away Country music festival they were having this weekend…they put up this chain link fence around the main stage area…today I road by Wickham Park main gate and the whole place as far in as I could see was jam packed with RV’s all boondocking….the campground and park  was closed to the public,…only ticket holders could camp there or enter the park..….first come first serve…hence the boondocking ..this is one of two events they close the park to the public each year.…

Today Sat (22nd)….
I used dads car today and did a little exploring…I want to find some other day camp parks that Maggie and I can spend time at…I was looking at Google maps and seen some south on US-1 …while on the way I ran into this…..

but when we got out and checked it out..found it was more of a mini craft show…seen these cute Fairy Gardens…I have been wanting to make these for a couple years…

Click the pix to check out the details….

I talked to a couple of vendors and they said it was well attended each weekend and they did pretty good..only $20 a day or $30 for the weekend…this is something I might try and make some extra $$$ this next winter…they said lot of snow birds come every weekend…at this point in time I cant afford to set up at a reg. craft show…so this might be the answer for me…I did find some other parks along the intercostal water way that I plan on checking out…I will post pix and tell about them when I do….hopefully next week…as usual I am really tired of camp driveway ….looks like all my RV friends are on the road…happy for them but makes me sad …as it stands now I will be heading to PA…the middle of May or first of June depending on weather…I cant wait…on the medical front I have appointment on Monday morning to find results of test….I will leave it here for now…thanks for looking and come back soon…blessings to all G&M

THE LAST FEW DAYS….

Monday:  got lab work done finally…after office messed up with the billing codes….ins was not going to pay anything…then did 4 loads of laundry and did a little trimming on the bushes on side of back yard…did not get that finished…so another days work sometime this week…it is getting to hot for me here most days…this afternoon will work on re-arranging the rig and getting rid of some stuff…Storm warnings going on all day…right now mid afternoon we have tornado watch…

Sunday: got up and out the door early…Took Maggie and went over to the Strawberry Fest….here in Melbourne..it starts at 8 AM an since I was taking the RV I needed to go early and get parking where no one could park me in that seems to happen if you don’t pay attention…I went mostly to see the craft show…I talked to a couple crafters and they were not too happy…business was not good and they are not happy with the people running the show…one of the crafters even said that they treat the craft people as 3rd class citizens …I have noticed every year there is a big turn over…I seen a lot of empty spaces…they told me that some vendors left after only one day it was so bad…

Sat… after going to a few yard sales…I  tried to get the lawn mower stared…tried for several hrs.…enlisting dads help…finally figured we were not going to get it started…so we loaded into the trunk of dads car and he took it to get fixed,..never again will I go thru that …it really bothered my arm and shoulder that was finally getting better and ended up with sharp pains going thru the middle of my back …all from pulling the string and lifting it into trunk…told dad he will have to either buy a new mower or hire someone to mow… I am pushing 70 here and can not do the things I use to….I think I pretty much look the same as I did 10 years ago…so people think I can still do all that hard physical work… (and sometimes I have to remind my self I cant either)… when in the real world that’s over for me…that pretty much shot the day…but I did find time to give Maggie girl a bath…So that was the weekend ….will leave it here and be back later..thanks for looking and come back soon….blessings to all G&M

TRIP TO THE ANTIQUE MALL…

When Sarah and I were…
camped at Wickham CG…we took a side trip to a local antique mall close to dads and the CG…here is Sarah looking over a few treasures…

Here is a very nice patio set that I liked a lot…if I new what and where my life was going to be…this is something I would like to have…not for the patio so much but for a kitchen or dinette area…I don’t think it is old …

Loved the sign in this booth….having owned an antique/vintage store for 15 years…this is a good name for that type of store…sometimes I think that self employed people are always in a Poverty-Barn store lol…

Now I am an altered art craft person…but maybe this might be a  little off the wall even for me ..unless I had it in my work area …frame is an old paint pan with remnants of old painting jobs…

I did make a purchase …not antique or vintage…but something I have been looking for quite a while….one of those material or canvas back packs…this one was so perfect!!! It had a Florida motif and was reversible…and for only $8 I think it was a bargain…

And the rest of the story….
The name of the mall is Wildwood…it opened just a little over a year ago…I was in it last winter just a few weeks after it opened and now being there …wow what a difference …they had only a handful of vendors and now there is a waiting list…I talked to a lady at the flea market a few weeks ago and she said that she was number 40 on a waiting list…this place is on the main rt for me going to Wal Mart and other shopping in my area…so I see it all the time and notice that it is a very busy place…it is a nice store with quality merchandise …if I had the merchandise that I had up north…I would have got a booth when  it first opened up…but I have found that the merchandise vintage is not easy to find in Florida…and I have sold all mine off…oh well… so this is it for now thanks for looking and come back soon
blessings to all G&M

FRESH–FLORIDA-GROUPER…..

After the kayaking….
We had worked up an appetite …Sarah and Sandy had been raving about this fresh grouper they had …so not ever eating grouper I wanted to find out what it was…So off to Crabby Bill’s Seafood Restaurant we went….

Walking up to the door I saw this sign…looked over at the parking lot…although it is not large…we were there in the middle of the day and it was far from full….

Then I looked on the other side of the sign…and saw this “limo golf cart”how cool is that…but it did make me wonder just how far they would come to pick you up…

I was glad to see the Fresh Florida Grouper sign! After all that is what we came for!!!

Sandy told us that they had up-ed the price since last week….it went up $3… but I wanted it anyway…so I got the dinner..grouper grilled, crispy fries and coleslaw..

And Sarah got an order of hushpuppies for us all to share…I think that is the first time for those for me also…MMMMM good!!!

Here is a pix of the three of us…some nice lady at the table beside us offered to take it…so we took her up on it…

 And the rest of the story..
There is not much going on now…I stopped for over night to empty my tanks at Wickham CG…then headed back to dads and camp driveway…doing laundry and other housekeeping chores…by the weekend hope to be sitting at home park or Wickham park..just to get out and about…well that’s it for now thanks for looking and come back soon ..blessings to all G&M