Buying Big Bolts

Last week while I was visiting with my original family, I went with my brother to pick up a couple of bolts. They had been ordered and had arrived.  I knew they were for a tractor, but the size of them still surprised me.

Yeah, these are serious bolts.

It was nice to read they were made in the U.S.A. How many items do you buy that can claim that anymore?  Kinda scary how few things really are made here---how dependent we have become. Wonder how long before that comes back to bite us on the bolt.

Finding More Than Pizza at Blue Highway

For his birthday luncheon, D asked to go to Blue Highway Pizza in Micanopy, Florida. There were five of us who met in Gainesville and then went on down to Micanopy. It is a popular little place and we  enjoyed our lunch.

While we were there, we were surprised by a long-lost cousin of B’s (and of course also our sons’ cousin.) We had not seen her since a funeral about a dozen years ago. We learned that she lives in White Springs and had just finished her own lunch with friends. She came up and said, “You are a long way from Tallahassee!”  

Maybe so: but it is a small world.

Cool New Digs for D

On Saturday, we helped our younger son move a few things to his new apartment in Gainesville.  I had seen the outside last month but finally got to see inside. It is such a neat place---so unique, like our son.

The apartment is the downstairs of a house that the owner has built and decorated himself with a variety of unique materials. It is a very shady and private property in an older neighborhood, where the homes have been remodeled. The house is cedar and other wood and limestone, with beautiful tile flooring.

 

This is looking out the front door. (Below)

 

This is coming in the same entrance.

 

These are wonderful windows looking out on the yard. Notice the Florida limerock under the windows.

We hope D and the Roomba (his robotic vacuum) will be very content there!

Vacuuming: Jetsons Style

We went to our son’s apartment to celebrate his birthday and saw his Roomba for the first time.

That thing is SO cool!

It has a button on top that when pushed has a nice female voice introducing you to the Roomba while it demonstrates some of its moves.

It fairly quietly moves about the room vacuuming. It has little brushes that help clean along walls and baseboards. It goes forward and when it meets an obstacle, it backs up. It also can detect dirt and go back over it until it no longer detects it.

When the battery starts to run low, it goes back to its docking station that can be seen in the upper right of this picture.

Not sure if it is a comment on me or the Roomba, but it is really quite entertaining.

Holy Green Anole!

I was grooming a potted plant to move it to the deck when off jumped a green anole. It was in the  process of shedding its skin.

It found its way to a rough stem.  Here you can see the white skin hanging off on either side of the stem.

It rubbed itself on the stem to  scratch off the old skin.

I could almost hear it say, “Ahhhh. That feels so good!”

While I watched it grabbed pieces of old skin ---and ate it! So that is why we don’t find lizard skins about as we do snake skins and insect shells!

It was almost done in this last shot. Perhaps the sunshine felt good on the new tender skin. Perhaps the rays are needed to complete the process. I wonder.

Walking With Wildlife

 

There is just something magical about finding a feather. The blue-grey one I recently found floating on the river as I kayaked. The Wacissa was full of Little Blue Herons that day and so I am guessing it was from one of them.  The other feather I found on my morning walk around our neighborhood. This is a Barred Owl feather. We hear Barred Owls several times a week. We love  them and love to hear them, especially in the early spring when they are calling for mates and make quite the ruckus with their variety of eerie sounds.

I have been seeing quite a bit of wildlife as I walk this summer. If I am a “good girl,” I walk in both the morning and evening when school is out. This also increases the chance that I will see interesting things. In one day last week, I saw a grey fox (in the morning!), a Barred Owl and a deer. This was my fourth sighting of the fox, but the other times were in the evening. It was my first ever sighting of a deer in our neighborhood, though I have seen deer in areas around our neighborhood and with as many woods and wetlands as we have around here, I knew they must occasionally come into our neighborhood. The deer was in  the backyard of a house, browsing on the branches of a large oak that had come down in a storm. It was about 7:30 in the morning and I was downwind and we were both startled by seeing each other. She ran off and I walked on.

We have seen armadillos. Raccoons are common. There are always Red-shouldered Hawks and, in the summer, the Mississippi Kites are very visible, nesting in tall pines. Yellow-billed Cuckoos and Great Crested Flycatchers are commonly heard but rarely seen. One morning, I was surprised to see a Cattle Egret picking bugs out of a lawn.

So with all this entertainment, who would ever want to walk a treadmill?

Saying Good-bye

Saying goodbye is part of being a teacher. Students come and students go. Sometimes, I have been known to tell my kindergartners who are reluctant to leave the security of the known, that “I have taught you everything I know. And now you have to go to first grade to learn some more.” I am, after all, their school mama.

In my school, I have been blessed through the years to have had multiple children from the same families. It is a good thing to have already established a rapport with the parents, so then you only have to get to know the child. And the parents like knowing what they are getting, so to speak. Usually, these parents have actually requested me for the younger child.

So it is that I have taught a girl who is now ready to enter high school, her sister who is entering third grade and I was fully expecting to have the youngest sister this coming year. Sadly for me, they are moving to Oregon to begin a whole new adventure. Actually, it will begin with their cross-country drive to their new home. I am very excited for them ---and quite disappointed for me because this is one of my very favorite families and I have watched as the two younger ones grew from newborns. The parents are both natives of Japan and have trained their daughters to be exemplary students and a joy to be around. These gifted parents have highly gifted daughters.

Tuesday, they came to our house (at my invitation) for ice cream and a good-bye visit. They brought me a lovely plant, called a Kanga, Pink Kangaroo Paw. It is a new, patented plant and a new-to-me plant.

While saying good-bye may be part of being a teacher, it is never easy.  Sometimes, it is really hard.