There Will Be Rain – The Sequel

It is raining. We have had weeks now where except for a couple of extremely hot days we’ve had rain at some time during the day. But Friday and Saturday were complete washouts with constant rain all day—sometimes quite heavy—sometimes accompanied by distant rumbles of thunder. All outdoor events were cancelled including the high school football games. Tomorrow, Sunday, is supposed to be the same.

The best thing one can do when it's raining is to let it rain.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Fortunately I have only indoor plans—housework. We have a couple coming tomorrow so it’s time to get the place straight after all our travels upset the normal routine.

I bought a bird feeder when I was in NC that I am now using to feed dry cat food to the birds. It’s working, too. The jays, cardinals and doves all have found it and gotten food. I haven’t seen a mockingbird yet. I did see a hungry hummingbird visit it in between rain storms. It looks enough like a hummingbird feeder to attract him. I felt sorry for him. Maybe we should hang a feeder since the hummingbirds are migrating through our area right now. The funny thing is I have a feeder that was given to me when I retired. It was attached to a hard hat in such a manner that I could wear the hat and the feeder would dangle out in front of me. I was told that now that I was retired I’d have time to just sit back and watch the birds feed.

Tomorrow is also the fantasy football draft—another good indoor activity.

The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.
~ Dolly Parton

Still Catching Up

The carnage continues as I clean up the weeds and overgrown vegetation from the yard. I made good progress today even with the high heat index.


Some things that happened during the past couple of weeks that I haven’t blogged about:

During our staycation we had lunch at Cheeseburger in Paradise. My burger was excellent except for a couple of small pieces of waxed paper that were in my burger. I mentioned it to the waitress just to let them know. A short while later the head cook came out and sat at our booth and apologized for the paper. He comped my meal—and I didn’t resist. I’ve learned not to make a scene in these situations and if they offer something I will usually take it. It was nice of them. Penny wanted to know why it was always me that gets some foreign mater in my food.

We had an “Us” day on Tuesday and thought we would begin it by taking pictures at the new Navarre Pier. We lasted outside about 10 minutes. The heat index was up in the 110s and there was no breeze at all. We gave up on pictures after only a few and headed to Pensacola for shopping and lunch.

Yesterday we had just started out in our kayaks when Penny remembered she had a hair appointment. We got in about 20 minutes on the water before returning so she could make the appointment.

Our short break of FOCCUS couples is over. We are seeing another couple this weekend.

I seem to have adjusted to both of the new meds the doc has me on. Dry mouth in the morning, a little bit of dizziness, difficulty focusing sometimes—especially with that computer screen and feeling tired all the time. If I drink plenty of water and ignore the tiredness I can get stuff done—with less pain in my thumbs and a normal heart rate.

Destroyer of the Ecosystem

Over the past few weeks I’ve done nothing to the garden and the weeds and grass took it over. It became a wonderful environment for all sorts of critters—and I messed up their cozy little lives today--I cleaned it up.


I expected to see many lizards and I did. I saw big ones and baby ones. I also saw a slug or 2. What I didn’t expect was to find a small turtle. I’m hoping there is still enough water and shade and its type of food around for it to remain. It was sort of cute.

A Tale of 2 Kitties (or 3 or 4)

(This blog is approved for a certain 3-year-old)
It was a dark and stormy night. Meredith sat outside looking sorrowful. Maybe they will let me inside their nice dry house if I look sad enough, she thought.

They didn’t.

The next morning after the rain ended Buzz and Velcro napped in the relatively cool morning.

Old Mr. Woodpecker anxiously watched them. He wanted the food in the tray on the fencepost.

He knew about that cat sitting on the ladder, however, and was being careful.

Later after the cat left the dove family ate and ate.

Meredith thought that her people shouldn’t feed the birds. They should only feed her. Maybe if she slept right outside the door all day, she thought, they would come out and feed her.

They did.... All 4 kitties showed up for dinner: Meredith, Velcro, Buzz and the oldest cat Marmalade.

As Meredith ate her supper she thought that maybe her people were not that bad after all.

Blog On

Not a lot has happened that is blog worthy so I haven’t been writing. I need to keep the writing going or it will drop out of my normal routine.
Our staycation saw a great deal of on and off rain and that weather has kept up since we’ve ended the vacation time. Yesterday each time I went outside or prepared to go out it began to rain. Finally late in the afternoon I was able to do something even though a light rain kicked up while I was working. I once again reclaimed the garage for my car. I had put the kayaks, bikes out there temporarily when we were through with them for the staycation.

I was keeping up with the house pretty well before our trip to NC and the staycation. Now it’s a mess. I’m slowly catching up and the rainy weather has helped keep me inside. On the negative side I’m finding a lingering side effect of my new pain med is to be tired all the time. I could curl up and take a nap any time. I’m trying to fight it with the hope that as I get in better shape I will be more alert. I’m also drinking much more water because I’m plagued with dry mouth from the same med. The benefit of less pain in my thumbs is worth it to me. It’s just hard to get motivated. That may be another reason I’m not blogging.

Staycatiion-5 Days, 260 miles

Penny described our staycation well in her blog so I don’t have to give a day to day recount of what we did. The summary is that despite the weather we had a very relaxing week. Penny actually smiled at one point and said, “I’m content”. For Penny that’s very relaxed.
We got in Kayaking and biking in the good weather and shopped or napped in the bad. I got in a couple of hours of solitary beach time in (much too windy for Penny) and we did get in a beach walk together on day 1 complete with a rainbow.

rainbow

me swimming

We rented a 2 bedroom half of a duplex in Grayton Beach (where C&C got married). It had a nice Gulf view and was right at the beach access so any time I wanted to go to the beach I could just kick off my shoes and be there in the time it took to walk across the sand to the water.

the duplex

the view

nce again we ate too much. Penny said that I don’t want to weigh myself but we did enjoy some good food.

I had proposed we go to New Orleans for our anniversary but Penny suggested the staycation instead. We made beignets and café au lait for ourselves on 2 mornings to add a New Orleans flavor to things and we are listening to a book that is set in New Orleans. As it turned out New Orleans got washed out by the tropical disturbance. If we had gone there we would not have enjoyed it.

breakfast

While we were waiting for our table at Cheeseburger in Paradise we were chatting with some of the tourists also waiting.  We mentioned our staycation and a guy said  he'd never thought about where people who lived at the beach would vacation.



I took many beach pictures—mostly just for fun and had the camera for our kayaking. I’ll share some that I like here.

girl in sunset

kayking

rose-colored glasses

Penny

strong onshore wind

us holding hands

Smokey

I finally got the garage cleared out and got my car back in. Now the heat wave that has been baking it every day will end. It’s like carrying an umbrella keeps it from raining.

I really put my CRV through its paces these past 3 weeks. We drove 2000 miles some of which was through mountains (6000 ft) on unpaved roads. I probably put a year’s worth of wear on my brakes. The steep gravel driveway at the B&B was a test for it in itself. The car performed great. After discovering I had a 5-year old battery in Penny’s CRV I need to check how old the battery in my CRV is. Did I make this trip with a too-old battery?

I know I’m not going to have time now to relate all the wonderful experiences w had on the trip so I’ll just provide a picture summary of our Great Smokey’s adventure:

The Beat Goes On

Only a little slower. I went to the doctor yesterday for a follow up from my sore arm. The arm is essentially better. My pulse, however, was 108! I’ve always tended to have a rapid pulse—it’s the reason I failed my draft physical and didn’t end up in Viet Nam. The doctor explained to me that when the heart beats too fast it doesn’t expand completely and pumps inefficiently. So he put me on a beta-blocker, usually a medication to lower blood pressure. He says it should lower my pulse. I go back in a week to see if it is working.
Penny and I had an “us” day today that ended when the battery in the car died. I didn’t think the battery was that old but it turns out it was 5-years-old. We used AAA to get a jump and I replaced the battery. It had a 100 month prorated guaranty that knocked $25 off the price of the new battery. We did get in Harbordocks and shopping before the battery died.

A Dozen Days

I can’t possibly share all the experiences I wanted to during these past almost 2 weeks. I did write a quick blog about the first couple of days but I haven’t been on the computer much and you know how all those little things you note as they happen just slip away with time.
It was a fun trip. The order of events, apart from driving, were:

1. Deliver all wedding stuff I had in the garage to C&C. I had a trailer full of plates, cups, glasses, lanterns, lights and other stuff. Brie was also delivered to stay with them and Penny and I rested overnight at C&C’s.

2. Stop in at K&T&S&L’s to unload stuff from the CRV that was for the Sophie’s party in a week. We didn’t want to carry extra stuff with us to NC. We got a bonus here everybody was home and awake. We got to spend a short time with everyone before continuing up to NC

3. We got to the B&B in NC in the early evening and met the proprietors, Don and Debbie and their dog Scooter. The B&B experience we had was outstanding.

4. The wedding the next day was at 4 PM so we had time in the morning to shop. We went to the Mast General Store and played tourist then drove some of the Blue Ridge Parkway on our way to the wedding.

5. The wedding was held in a beautiful park in Blowing Rock in oppressing heat. The reception was held just up the street.

6. The last night in the B&B was comfortable.

7. On Sunday we left the B&B and hi church on our way to Gatlinburg.

8. The Hampton Inn in Gatlinburg was our home for the next 4 days

9. Day 1 we hiked to the highest point in the park only to be inside a cloud and have no view. We also took a nice mountainside drive .

10. Day 2 we saw lots of wildlife and wore ourselves out on a 5-mile hike.

11. Day 3 we took an easier hike and again played tourist on the arts and crafts trail.

12. Day 4 we headed to Jax to stay with Kerry.

13. Friday was our day with Kerry and Jack and Annie.

14. Saturday was Sophie’s party.

15. Sunday was church, Famous Amos w/the Feagins then down to High Springs and a late lunch with C&C. We picked up the trailer and the cat and headed home to a rainy 6-hour drive.

I will provide more details and pictures for these events later.

Back at home now for a full day and I’ve barely scratched the things I have to do. I did mow the lawn today and get half the laundry done. Beyond that I’m still a little tired from the trip.

For those who are interested the cat feeder worked fine. The only cat that has showed up so far is Buzz.

Party Pics

In the interim while I'm writing about the last 12 days I thought I would join Penny in sending out pictures from Sophie's party.