Welcome to another Photo Safari Report!  I'll call this one the Quick and Painless hike because it was both.    Due to time constraints it was a short hike and probably because it was a short hike, nobody's feet required icing afterwards!  Woohoo!  It was still absolutely worth the time to be tramping around in nature for a little bit and Joy and I always enjoy time spent together so it's all good.

Obviously, since it was a shorter hike, I don't have very  many photos.  Add in the fact that most of the (very few) pictures I actually did take, didn't turn out very good. Not sure what the dealio was on that. I mentioned it to Joy and she said many of her pictures didn't come out well either.  Odd.  Just one of those days I suppose.  Luckily at least One of Joy's pictures was a really good one. It's the one at the top of the page  :)

The rest of the pictures are mine, such as they are and I reckon we can go through them together it you like. Honestly, it'll only take a minute or two.  Very few photos today.  Very Very few pictures. (sigh)

I think this was one of only two pictures of birds that I ended up with, and it was hard won!  Woodpeckers move fast and the tree was quite full and lush which means lots of hiding spots.  I am actually surprised that I got this one! It's far from  perfect, but you can tell what it is.  

The only other bird picture was of cardinals, Mr and Mrs both, which makes it an unusual photo on it's own. We saw dozens of cardinals zipping through the foliage like little missiles - zooom!  Impossible for me to capture even on my best day. But then we came across these two, way way way down the trail ahead of us and we were still and quiet so as not to disturb them, used telephoto lenses and.... success (of sorts)

I did get a couple of caterpillar pictures of my own too. They were everywhere, we had to keep an eye out constantly to keep from accidentally stepping on any!  Here is one of them.  Watching them eat their way through the forest I keep hearing the "hungry hungry hippos" song in my head.

I have a couple of botanicals that aren't too bad. I'll throw them in the mix too. Why not!  At this point, every half way decent photo counts!

And that's it.  The entire lot.  Sad, but true.  

It was still a great day. In fact, as far as weather goes, it was a perfect day!  Dry (in fact very dry. Our weather bulletins are in bright red, reporting a critical lack of humidity. critical!)  but low temps, 60 to low 70's.  Just about perfect. Far too nice to spend time indoors.

Thanks for coming along on the Quick and Painless Hike.  Wishing all of you a terrific weekend. Hope we meet here again next week!

​Hugs all 'round

 That looks like a hard working hand, eh?  Well it's my hand and it is, indeed, filthy.  And the reason that my hands were so very dirty was that Tim and I were working on the "future garden" over the weekend!  

The so-called "future garden" had kind of reached mythical proportions. It was sort of one of those things that we day dreamed about but were beginning to believe was never truly going to happen.  Sort of like winning the lottery or flying to the moon!

Should I back up and remind everyone about the "future garden"?  Ok, quick time out then.  In front of our house is a walled courtyard. 

For whatever unknown reason, the people who lived in the house before us created a very nice pavered area on one side of the courtyard but not the other.  We have since cluttered up the side that has the pretty pavers very nicely with wooden seats and tables, a grill and a load of potted plants.  We have pretty much ignored the other side of the courtyard because we have always been working on the inside of the house, one project after another for literally years.

Last year (I think) I got so fed up with the gravel and sand and awful looking weeds and scraggeldy stuff on the non-pavered side that I shoveled up buckets of gravel and spread it in the driveway (which is also mostly gravel and shells) and pulled/dug/yanked and cursed the weeds and whatever the heck else was in there, out.  I wasn't 100% positive what we were going to put in there, but I knew it was NOT going to be the crappola that already existed.  Which left only a decent hedge on one side and what looked like a desert on the other.

Tim and I gave it a great deal of thought, first leaning toward one idea and then another. We knew we wanted a garden of some sort so we referred to it as the "future garden", very hopefully. Meanwhile, we attempted, repeatedly to "amend" the soil.  But since the "soil" was actually just sand, it didn't work.  Over and again, we would amend and plant and the plants would immediately keel over and die.  It was all very sad.   

Somewhere along the line the idea of a raised bed garden came up.  Not sure who said it first, probably Tim. He is the sort of person who comes up with good ideas.  I did some reading about raised beds and agreed that this was probably The Answer.  I left the actual construction of the beds to Tim as that is NOT in my wheelhouse and I focused my research on how best to have a successful raised bed garden here in Florida.

Turns out that prepping the bed prior to the dirt being loaded in is key!  After reading copious amount of information, I began saving paper towel and toilet paper rolls (as this is organic material that easily breaks down) cutting them up and stuffing them into a big old garbage bag in the utility room to save.  I also saved stacks of newspapers and multiple bags of the Shred in Tim's office.  This was a great start.  I knew when the day finally came, I would be ready!

That day came on Saturday.  We were up bright and early and Tim was building the raised beds.  It was a sunny gorgeous day that turned hot very quickly with the sun beating down so hard that the sweat was running into our eyes as we worked. No Bueno!  Tim had the smart idea to set up our Canopy over the worksite.  The actually setting up took a bit of time and work itself but once it as done, Ahhhhh! Much better!

There is a curve you can see in the courtyard wall that made construction tricky, but it all got sorted out.    Once the beds were fully constructed and secured to the ground, I immediately started emptying in the carboard rolls, followed by layers of newspaper and then wetting all of that down.  Next up was loading in the bags of soil that we found, ON SALE (woohoo) months ago.  Who knew that dirt would be so heavy!   We really got our exercise.  Each bag got dropped randomly in the first bed, cut open and then emptied.  I laughed out loud when I realized that all of those bags, at least 8 of them probably more(I forgot to count), barely made a dent. 

So I swept up and we put the tools away, threw away the garbage and binned the recycle and I assumed that we might head back to the garden center the upcoming weekend for more bags-o-dirt to finish filling at least that first bed.

To my great surprised yesterday a huge truck from Home Depot pulled up and dropped off a pallet of soil and compost!  Wow!  Tim anticipates me ;)

Gosh! I am so excited! It's like Christmas Morning for me right now.  I cannot wait to get out there and open one of those bags of compost so I can work it into the soil, then another bag of soil followed by more compost, etc.  Woohoo!

I think I'm going to just concentrate on ONE bed at a time.  Let's get the first one completely prepped, then get some plants/flowers in and see how they do.  If they do well, then I'm on the right track and I can just repeat the same process however many other times necessary for however many other beds we have.  If, however things do not go well, then I can figure out what went wrong and fix it before I spend beaucoup bucks foolishly!!

My hope is to find colourful bee and butterfly friendly plants and flowers, hopefully fragrant ones as well, that tolerate full sun coz that is a doggone sunny side of the courtyard! The canopy cannot live there forever guys.

The long range plan is that once all the beds are complete, then I can put landscape fabric down in the "walkway", topped with gravel and stepping stones of sorts.  Tim already put in a watering system so I think we are nearly done. NEARLY DONE!

I'm ready to get out there and get filthy all over again today!   Dirt for a glorious cause! My mother would be proud.

There we are, two intrepid explorers, out in the wilds of Florida, attempting to capture true representations of our adventures!  Yay!

Obviously I'm finishing up this week with yet another Photo Safari Report.  I'm calling this one the "Ditto Hike" because we kept seeing new versions of the same basic thing over and over again.  You might think that makes for boring photos but I say, "nay, nay". I believe, instead, it gives a more multi-dimensional view of each individual thing. 

I'll start with the cardinals. Or perhaps it's just a whole lot of photos of one cardinal, I have no clue.  What do you think?  Was he following us around, hoping we'd take more photos of him OR does he just have a lot of friends and a big family?

And then there were the hawks.  Not even positive if they are all the same kind or different kinds.....I am no hawk expert .  At least I do know a predator bird when I see one and I'm equally grateful that they do not see me as prey.  *shiver*

There were the "ditto" amount of the same sort of woodpeckers too.  Here's a few:

Let's see, there was also one lone bluejay, several scrub jays, a dove and maybe a thrasher.

Even the bunnies were in 'ditto' mode!  Wow!

There must be some sort of Xerox machine out there hidden in the forest because there were duplicates of some of the botanicals too! (You will know it when you see it) Crazy!

I'll finish up with a couple of rando's if you do not mind:

So there you have it, the Ditto Hike!  Hope you enjoyed this repetitive Photo Safari Hike!  We did!

Have a terrific weekend, Catch ya again next week!

Here I am, a day later than normal (sorry about that) with yesterday's blog post. I know I know, normally I post on Tuesdays and Fridays.  I don't know what my deal was yesterday but I just couldn't get out of my own way.  And therefore, Tuesdays post is, this week only, on Wednesday.  I've just messed up my own entire week!

Oh well.  I'll start again.

Welcome to today's Blog post, The Fashion Edition!  Actually since I haven't cracked open a fashion magazine in literally years.....I have no idea at all what is currently in style.   But I do know that I was overdue buying a couple of new pieces for a number of reasons.  #1 and most importantly, I wanted to. I'm going to be very honest and say that sometimes I just feel like being self-indulgent. So when Tim suggested a little shopping trip, I did not do my usual, "no thanks honey",  "I'd rather save the money", "there's nothing I really need" or the very simple, 'I'm good'.   Instead I was all in.  Greedy little bug that I am.

Secondly, I genuinely did need to replace a few pieces.  Lately I've had to throw out quite a number of things. Girl clothes are not made very well.  I am not certain what the reason is behind shoddy worksmanship but there it is.  Truth is truth.  Possibly it's to encourage us to buy more clothes, or to keep prices down, or maybe I just tend to buy cheap stuff. Okay that part is true.  Many of the Quality Clothes that I bought years ago, I still have now that I think about it.  

Thirdly, my body keeps changing on me.  The shape of it I mean.  I will be the first to admit that I need to lose about 5 to 10 pounds.  It probably won't happen as I like food too much, but facts is facts and the fact is, I can now pinch an inch.  It is a reality that I don't care for, but hey there it is.  I don't eat any more than I used to, and in fact, I actually eat less.  I still work out, I still walk but those stubborn ell-bees have refused to vacate the premises sooooo I gotta work with them. Which also means that not every single article of clothing in my closet fits properly anymore. Oh I can get every thing on my body, I can button, I can zip and I can even breathe while doing so, but when I look in the mirror, yeah, I can see it and it ain't pretty.  Dang.  And that unfortunately limits the number of garments that I am comfortable wearing.

The last reason is another facts is facts sort of thing.  I am 72. I will be 73 this year. Yuck. Time life and gravity have done terrible things to my body.  Such terrible things in fact, that even if I were able to shed a few pounds, some of my clothes would not look the same way on me that they did however many years ago.  And that sucks, but it's the truth.

So when I was whining about all of that a few weekends ago, Tim said it was probably time to do a little shopping.  I was both excited and trepidatious. It's fun to have new clothes but sometimes the shopping experience is horrible.  As you may, or may not, recall, my last shopping trip about two years ago, did not go very well.  Nothing in the petite section fit properly not matter what size, it all cost the earth and by the end I was so irate that I just wanted to go home. (and so, we did)

We knew not to go to any of those stores. We would start all over anew, somewhere else - Sarasota!  Initially while my attitude remained positive, I wasn't having much luck.  We started with Kohl's.  Back in Colorado I often shopped there with great success.  But history did not repeat itself. There just wasn't anything that "spoke" to me, nothing looked like my life, my taste, my price point!  Then as we continued to drive north we drove past a JC Penny store.  I haven't even thought about Penny's in years.  But sure, why not. The worst that will happen will be that I find nothing and we move on, elsewhere.

As it runs out,  they were having a sale!  In SamSpeak that reads as Yahoo!    Not just a sale but a SaleSale!  We were each given a scratch off when we walked in the door and told that whatever percent the scratch off indicates at check out, it applies to the entire purchase.  Sounds good to me.  And on top of that everything. I mean every single solitary thing that I selected to try on, was on sale already.  Awesome.

I found so many things that ultimately I had to decide on which were my absolute favourites instead of ending up with, "well this one thing sort of fits even though it's horrible". Big difference.  I ended up with 4 new outfits and once I got home and "shopped" each piece individually around my closet, so many more possibilities!

As we checked out and Tim did the scratch off (30% off the entire purchase!) the receipt revealed that ultimately we saved more money than we spent.  What?  Yes that's what I said.  For example, if we spent $100, we saved $150.  That's insane. But also Marvelous!    Less wallet ouchie than I anticipated and that is a very good thing.

Oh, also found two pair of sneakers (by one, get one half off) and one pair of sandals!  Mercy!

I am so tickled now to have so many choices about what I will wear each day.  Love it!  

Want to see what we bought?  Ok, bear in mind that the model is me and I have tender little feelings, so be kind!

TaaDaa! 

Tim has been on vacation this week, yahoo!  A staycation-vacation and there ain't nothin' wrong with that!  We've done some day trips (as you read earlier this week) and some home projects and even had some good Total Blob time too.  Perfect Balance!

Yesterday was another day trip which was awesome.  We didn't go far, just up to Sarasota which is only about a half hour away. We went specifically to visit the Botanic Gardens.  We've visited before, of course, but it has literally been years!  And since we last were there, they have done a lot of renovating. A Lot!  A lotta lot!   And they aren't done yet either.  There is one whole area fenced off that has big Phase II signs on it.  (That sounds like future fun!)

On the drive up we talked about what we supposed might be new and different and what might be familiar from before.   Speculation conversation :)

The first thing that was very new was the parking garage.  Prior to this  was a series of tiny very crowded, parking lots tucked in here and there between other buildings in the area necessitating winding wandering wondering walks before ever reaching the start!  The entire walk would be wandering around wondering if we were going the right way as we wound around trees and shrubs!  This time was much easier. Enter Parking garage. Find an empty spot, take elevator (or stairs) to the first floor and follow the signs.  Easy Peasy.  The view from the top floor (where we finally found a spot) was pretty amazing by the way.

That's Sarasota Bay that you see in the photo by the way.  This particular Botanic Garden sits right next to the water and they have cleverly incorporated that fact into their garden plan, including a Mangrove Boardwalk.  As we strolled along that part of the garden we not only saw the mangroves, of course, and the bay but also had a lovely view of downtown Sarasota.

This particular Botanic Garden ( as do many others) always features a particular artist along with the gardens.  This season was  Alexander Calder and it was called, "The Nature of Movement".  Apparently he was one of the first artists to work toward the development of kinetic (or moving) art! Very cool.  A lot of his work was on display in one of the old houses and I did not take any photos inside, but I think I got a few from outside. Let's see:

Ok it appears that I only took one.  But there it is folks.  He had quite an amusing sense of humour that really appealed to me in his pen and ink drawings. The sculptures?  Well, I appreciated the concept a least, so that must count for something.  

There was a lot of "art" throughout the gardens and most of that I truly enjoyed.  Here is some of that:

One of the things I truly loved were all of the archways, some man made and some natural. Partly I like that it's a visual separation from one area to another and the other is the childlike open eyed wonder of wondering what magic exists through each new portal:

It makes perfect sense to me that any botanic garden would have an number of water features of one sort or another. This one is no different on that theme.  Loved them all.

Even saw a wee bit of wildlife. Heard far more, manage to capture these.  In one you can see an orange blobby.  That particular orange blobby is a butterfly that photo bombed. I had NO idea it was there until after I saw the picture. I was trying to capture the bird at the far end of the shot. heh

At this point you may be asking, were there any actual flowers at this botanic garden?  Heh.  Were there any flowers?  Of course there were flowers. I was just saving the best 'til last.  Hold on to your botanic seats coz here we go. (obviously this isn't all of the flowers, just a sampling)

What a great afternoon!  We capped off the day by having an early dinner at our favourite BBQ place which we haven't visited in over a year (not sure why since it's our favourite, just how it worked out, I suppose). Miraculously, I managed to get Zero BBQ sauce on my clothes! Shocking but awesome.

Hope you enjoyed our visit to the Botanic Garden!  Have a wonderful weekend and we can catch up next week!

​Hugs all 'round

A boat?  What's the deal with the picture of boat?  Hang on,  I'm here to tell you all about it!

Yesterday, Tim and I had quite the adventure and to properly explain it, first I have to back up all the way to Christmas 2025 which honestly, is just a few months ago.  Tim and I were so fortunate to be on the receiving end of so many wonderful gifts!  All of our human kids and their wives were thoughtful, generous and so very sweet with what they choose for us and we LOVED every single gift.  LOVED! So much so, in fact, that we (or the kittyboys) have been using and enjoying these gifts for the past few months endlessly. And every time we do, we smile and think of the sons and daughters in law that gave that gift to us. Love it:)  Gifts that keeps on giving!

All of the gifts got used right away, with one exception. The gift from youngest son and his wife was one that we had to wait to...hmmm not sure how to say it.  To use? To utilize? To enjoy  perhaps?   That's it, we had to wait to enjoy.  At this most recent Christmas my stupid foot was still a problem and this particular gift required me to be more physically present. No holding back!   And soo we waited. And waited. AND WAITED!

What was this gift?  It was the gift of adventure! A day cruise to a private island and how cool is that? Answer?    Yesterday was the day and it was awesome! So exciting!

We got up bright and early, and stowed our beach bag and Tim's backpack in the car before heading down to Ft Meyers in the early morning fog, hoping against hope that the prediction of showers for the day was wrong.  We arrived in plenty of time, lined up, checked in and boarded the bright yellow pontoon boat (with a potty - critically important).  Our fellow passengers were right behind us and we were loaded up and heading out before we knew it.

Our hosts, two very pleasant young men, not only piloted us expertly but also narrated the trip, pointing our things of interest in every direction as we zoomed about 30 minutes away from the dock.  We chatted with some of our fellow day cruisers who were mostly tourists and every age from babies to oldsters like us . All of us dressed super casually, many in bathing suits and beach coverups and hats.  Almost everyone had some sort of carry on. Most of the kids also brought floaties, beach balls, sandpails and the like. We were all ready for a good time.

We were told in advance to bring whatever you need coz there is nothing on the island: no food, no bathrooms, no shops. Tim and I gave a great deal of thought to what we should bring. We wanted to make sure we had everything necessary but nothing extraneous.  Sometimes that is a tricky line.

We ended up with Tim's backpack for the boat but also packed a beachbag which we left in the car. The backpack held immediate essentials like food: I made two PBJ's and wrapped them individually in waxed paper then put both in one zippybag, threw in some crackers and called it done but there was also a giant thermos of iced water, an empty zippy bag for phones, sun screen (more on that later) and two beach towels   The beachbag in the car held another big thermos of iced water, a change of clothes for each of us and two more beach towels.  I had my camera, we both had hats and we felt prepared.  Surprisingly, we actually were good!

Once we arrived at the island and I had gotten past the skittish part of descending the boat ladder to the sand, we found a Gorgeous beach that was covered in shells of every size, shape and colour we could possibly imagine!  The water was crystal clear, cool but not cold with small gentle waves. Walking through the water we could see so many fish and even a manatee that swam right up beside everyone in the water!

The one and only disappointing part was that most of the big trees had died. There were the bones of massive trees, long deceased, yet still remaining.  But most of the vegetation was ground cover and a few small, obviously very young, palm trees.  We were told that the tree loss was part of the destruction caused by the bad hurricane season two years past.  Very sad, but it makes total sense.

We carefully explored the carpet of shells, marveling at all we saw but I secretly was hoping to find a piece of sea glass to add to my collection.  It's hard to find nowadays as most people use plastic everything so there is very little actual glass to be found. HOWEVER, I did find one small piece of white opaque sea glass and it's already been added to the jar. Yahoo!

We wandered around on the island, waded knee deep in water, walked over to the other side, admired all of the birds and eventually returned, intending to just sit and relax in the shade of a long dead tree. But as soon as it appeared that we were going to plant our butts on the sand, our hosts came running over with a beach umbrella and two very comfy folding chairs!  Wow! What service!  They also provided a large bin for garbage and an enormous cooler filled with ice and bottled water for us to use. So thoughtful.

We relaxed.  Any stress, any tension, any thoughts of obligation or work just lifted up and drifted off. It was glorious.  The weather could not have been better, sunny with big puffy white clouds dotting the sky but not hot and not humid.  It was perfection.

All too soon, it was time to pack everything up and reboard (back up the scary ladder).  All aboard!  All of the babies fell asleep, the children were drowsy and quiet and the rest of us content and smiling on the trip back which came with two stops to ogle pods of dolphins that came right up to the side of the boat!  Wow!

We talked about how amazing the trip was and what a great time we had all the way back|!  10/10 recommend!!

Took some photos (of course I did!)  Ready?

A few shots of Tim and I enjoying he day

Side Note;  We were both really smart about sunscreen use.  Tim and I have each experienced serious sunburns, while on boats and/or on beaches and not only liberally applied sunscreen, but reapplied during the day.  We were thorough, faces, necks, arms, legs. We did great!  Except, We BOTH forgot to sunscreen our feet. BOTH OF US!  Ouche.  But our faults for forgetting and even so, totally worth it!

​Hey kiddos!  Thank you for the Christmas Gift, It Was Awesome!

This week's Photo Safari Report was easy to name.  There is one particular Preserve that we have to time our visits to carefully.  The entire preserve runs alongside the beautiful Myakka River.  It's a gorgeous place but because of it's riverside proximity, once rainy season starts, it has a tendency to flood. So we always go there during the very very dry season (which is to say this time of year) ahead of the rains.  So in honour of this glorious but limited access preserve, we will call this one by it's actual name, The Sleeping Turtle Hike.  (Oddly enough we've seen very few actual turtles here, awake or asleep)

Joy and I hiked along our usual familiar trails until, at one point, we noticed a trail that was kind of tucked in behind a covered pavilion (said pavilions dot the preserve here and there). And in fact, we weren't absolutely certain at first that it actually was a trail but maybe a rocky/pebbled corner or a spot where the grasses had been worn away.  Happy news. It was. Yay!  A new hike!  Well not really.  Eventually here and there we noticed little bits of things that seemed perhaps a tiny bit familiar and by the end we realized that yes we had done at least part of that hike before but a Very Long Time Ago.  Long enough, in fact, that, yeah sure, call it a new hike.

Most of it took us alongside the river so there were, as there almost always are, various typical river photos of mirror-like reflections,  arching  elderly oak branches or fallen palm trees reaching out over the water and a few boaters:

The place was lousy with birds, seriously.  They were everywhere. But they were also constantly moving - and we all know that my best photographic abilities involve things that stay in one spot.  Therefore, very few bird pictures:

I did manage to find a few flowers here and there, or at least flowering shrubs.  Some of them smelled Amazing!  Others had, no fragrance at all, but pretty is still pretty, no matter:

The rest of the photos are just unrelated randos that appealed to me for whatever reason and but I'll share them anyway. Who knows?  Maybe they will make you smile too :)

I actually have one more rando for you but it requires a bit of explanation.  We were surprised to find, here and there as we went along, silk flowers and silk butterflies tucked into the oddest places.  It was such a funny, quirky thing to come across that I had to get at least one photo.  I have no idea why anyone would do such a thing, perhaps thinking they were improving on nature?  Regardless, it certainly caught my eye:

Thanks for joining me on this Photo Safari!  The Sleeping Turtle Hike won't happen again until next year sometime during the dry season, as per usual, but there will be plenty of other hikes, I assure you:)

Have a great weekend ya'll!!