My Busy Day

Since I'm not at Tamara's this week I'm getting all kinds of things done around home. I had promised myself that I was going to get my garage empty again so that I could put my car back in there. The car has been parked in the driveway ever since I emptied out 303 this spring. Yesterday I had cleaned up the little garden by my back porch so today I "replanted" all my glass bottles as well as some colorful flowers. The rooster was very interested in my gardening. I had been wanting to move my mailbox to my own property, and Eric (the new owner of 303) was very upset because the mailman kept driving over the new driveway they had put in so he wanted to move his mail box also. I was very glad for his help. I called the postoffice and found out we could put them closer to the road than they had been so the postman won't have to drive over the lawn to get to them. That was my busy day.

What happened?

Okay, now we need advice. Did Elmo swallow Samantha feet first, or is Samantha wearing an Elmo costume? I was taking pictures of Luke Michael with his new Christmas gift. (Because his initials are LMO Alex's friends nick-named him Elmo) Since there is a delay once I click the camera I kept taking pictures and then couldn't stop laughing when I finally downloaded the pictures onto the computer and could really look at them and saw this one.

Christmas Eve Afternoon

Oh Christmas Tree???????

Now for the Christmas tree. Although it really isn't a tree, it's a bush. I remember one year Aunt Tina decorated a small tree for Dr. Markwald's family. They had never had one because they were Jewish. I guess she just felt that since everyone else had one they should too so she delivered it completely decorated to their front door and called it a Hanukkah bush. Actually I decorated my "tree" on the first day of Hanukkah, so who knows. The straw star on the top I've used for years. I got it from the Swedish family that I stayed with in the summer of 1963. The feathers are from all over. Some from England and Holland, some from Granville, but most from around here. I have an owl feather and a red hawk feather among them. I bought the bush last Christmas with the intent of planting it in the yard after the holidays. I just couldn't decide where I wanted it so I brought it back inside. It is sitting on a bar stool which is covered with a piece of Christmas fabric.

It's Beginning To Look........

I've made stollen and Leibkeuken to give to the neighbors, but I wanted to make something for the girls I work with at the coffee shop. Cindy and Inga inspired me with their lollipops. I have even more admiration for them now that I have tried it. I will never do it again without molds. What I wanted to make was sea turtle lollipops so I tried making a mold out of aluminium foil, and then I decided to just try using plastic cookie cutters, so I gouged out a place for the stick. I went out and bought a candy thermometer, which I broke while cleaning it. I now understand why they compare making hard candy to making glass. I thought I had ruined my favorite sauce pan, it was coated with hard green candy and looked like glass. Thankfully a good soak in the sink took care of it. I have some very strange shaped lollipops but hopefully the girls at the coffee shop will appreciate the humor, and the effort. I had thought of throwing it all out, but decided against it. I keep meaning to put a picture of my Christmas tree on my blog, maybe tomorrow. At the moment I just needed to tell Cindy and Inga that I really appreciate their handiwork.

My New Alarm Clock

Meet Charlie. At least that is how I think of him. About a year ago a couple of roosters, each with a couple of hens started wandering around the neighborhood. No one seems to know where they came from. When the people were working on the house next door they started feeding this fellow, but they are not there all the time so when I'm home he tends to hang out around my house. One day I threw him a few sunflower seeds, so now when I'm in the house he spends most of his time looking in the screen door on my back porch. The other rooster is still around because when he crows Charlie jumps up on my porch railing and answers him. This afternoon a woman walked by talking on her cell phone and I could hear her saying, "can you hear that? he's sitting on some lady's back porch crowing." Actually he doesn't wake me up in the morning, and I kind of like having him around, but I have heard others in the neighborhood complaining.

Chrismtas Lights

Well, I have finally got my lights up!!!! NOT! We drove to this house last night to show Luke Michael the lights. He was speachless, it was like Christmas light over load. The man has signs up answering questions that I'm sure everyone is asking. There are 100,000, plus 110,000 lights (not sure why he puts it that way, maybe he started years ago with 100,000). It takes his entire 3 week vacation to put everything up and that is with help. His electric bill is $800. That in itself is one good reason not to have such a light display. As you can guess there is a tremendous amount of traffic, (I'm glad I'm not a neighbor, but I guess by now they are used to it since he has done it for a lot of years. It is quite amazing when you see it.

Running of the Santas

In Spain they have the running of the bulls. In New Smyrna they have the running of the Santas. If I had know that it was one block I would have run myself, instead I tried to get pictures. It was too dark to get the hoards running from the beach to Cooper Street. The run was in aid of Toys for Tots. You could dress in any Christmas theme. A lot of people just added a Santa hat and ran, but as you can see others got rather creative.

Sinter Klaus

Well, some of you have seen this already, but Bill kindly took the bar on my screen door out of the picture and I can't figure out how to edit so I've just deleted the page and am doing it over, using the picture that Bill fixed. It looks much better. Just got back from the Christmas parade, but that will be for another blog.

Another Biology Lesson

Alex and Samantha are off to school, Luke Michael is still sleeping and I'm here with my blog. Wasn't sure what to blog about so I went through my pictures and came up with my picture of a horseshoe crab. When I looked it up online it doesn't mention Florida as a place where they are found, but in April they mate in the river and quite often we find them on the beach when turtle season begins in May. Unlike their name suggests, they are not related to crabs. They are distant relatives to spiders, and one of the oldest classes of marine anthropods. Anthropod means having jointed feet. Horseshoe crabs are often refered to as living fossils since they have changed very little int he last 445 million years. In certain areas of the world they are actually on the endangered species list. They also have the ability to regrow lost limbs just as star fish do.