Confessions of a Grandma

The Jacaranda trees are blooming early this year.  It was a warmer than usual winter here in Florida as well as other parts of of the country.  A Jacaranda in full bloom is a lovely sight, but some trees are more lovely when they are not on your property. There was a very large Jacaranda tree in our yard.  When we arrived in December, we met our neighbors on the other side of that tree.  They had already trimmed a lot of branches off, which needed to be done, but they asked if we would be willing to just take it down completely.  They really hated that tree! I was quite hesitant at first, but over the next couple of months I could see that it was a nuisance for them.  Black seeds covered their car port, roof, and rain gutters.  Little trees took root in their completely clogged gutters.  Then long spiky things started falling off the tree and covering the lawn--a walking hazard if wearing, as one typically does here, sandals or flip flops. ...

On a recent post, MerCyn wrote about house cleaning before taking a trip.  I happen to agree with her fully.  God forbid a burglar breaks into our house and has to cart off a dusty TV set, and I am quite sure the house sitters wear white gloves to test for dust on the door sills. Since we are planning a return trip to Vermont soon, I have started the housecleaning process.  Yesterday I dragged a step ladder in and took down each ceiling lamp (twelve of them), wiped out the bugs, washed and dried them, and put them back up. All the speed cleaning and efficiency advise says to go room by room, circling to the left and dusting, wiping, polishing, scrubbing, sweeping as you go.  But if there is an efficient way to do things, I am bound to think of a more cumbersome and difficult method, then stick to it like glue -- or whatever that patch of foot-trap is on the floor between the refrigerator and the sink. Ick I do one job through the whole house and yester...

It's hard to pick an absolute favorite flower, but I do know that the iris has to be up there. It is certainly one that I take pictures of over and over again. The second picture is the only I took recently.

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One of our friends here in Florida has been inundated with guests this year.  It's one thing when your children arrive with the grand kids for a week, quite another to have a constant line of in-laws and neighbors from the the north keep arriving to be entertained and fed for one week after another.  We, too,  have been bothered by unwanted visitors in our Florida home this winter.  We wouldn't mind a few human guests, but what we have is white footed ants. White footed ants are an invasive species that hitched rides here from Japan thirty years or so ago.  The have now reached full on pest status here in Florida and definitely in our yard.  They live in colonies that can reach into the millions-- yes, millionsss.   They appear to have no shortage of troops to send on scouting trips into the kitchen.  They love sweets.  Miss a cookie crumb, a tiny drop of orange juice, when wiping the counter and in they march.  Fail to rinse off a pla...

 The Sunken Garden was built about a hundred years ago and has been restored.  At one time this portal framed a view of the cove.  It is a beautiful lawn with several kinds of palm trees lining it.  Spanish moss.  The water garden has not been restored.  That is not pond scum, but tiny leaved duck weed.

Spanish Point, in Osprey, Florida, is an historic site and museum preserving some of the life and death of indigenous people who lived in the area over five thousand years ago, the pioneer settlers, the early developers, and the native plants, and the coastal landscape.  It makes for an interesting mix along the walking tour. This is the pioneer cemetery for the Webb family who arrived in the 1860's.  The land juts into the Gulf of Mexico and is raised by a large burial ground and shell middons that were created by the detritus of daily life from earlier inhabitants thousands of years ago. Graves on top of graves.  The fuzzy looking log is covered with resurrection fern.  When it rains, the ferns turn a bright green. A glimpse of the packing house, where the Webb family who farmed this area for many years packed the citrus fruit for shipping: The dock from the packing house: Mangroves in the cove: A gnarly tree near the old boat yard. Farming must ...

While Linda of   A Slower Pace  has been working on her sock and baby hat knitting, I have been up to a much smaller project.  I guess you could say I made two little hats, but they are much too small for a baby or even a doll. Each of the bathrooms has a mirrored medicine cabinet to the right of the sink and a larger wall mirror over the sink.  I would sometimes open these cabinets with a bit more vigor than was really called for and I would hear a disconcerting "CLINK."  Since I am well known for my propensity to break glass things, I decided to take a proactive step.  So I made little covers for the knobs on the medicine cabinets to cushion any future blows.  Sometimes I just astound myself with my creativity. ********* I just read Star Island  by Carl Hiassen, a Florida writer.  His book, Sick Puppy,  which I read the first winter we came to Florida made my laugh until tears came out my eyes.  Actually, his books ...

I have finished The Glass Castle  by Jeannette Wall.  I really enjoyed it and thank the bloggers who recommended it to me. Having been a special education teacher for thirty plus years I wasn't necessarily shocked by some of the incidents described.  Still, it is sad to remember and think about the conditions of some people's lives.  Some of the stories in this memoir are pretty bleak, but they are told without whining and self-pity. There is no shortage of tales of gruesome childhoods.  Sometimes I have to wonder if that is what it takes to become a writer--an abused or neglected background.  This author is a natural story teller, though,  and I particularly admired her writing style. Now I am off to the library to look for something in the mind-candy genre to give my heart a little rest.

You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother. Albert Einstein We were able to see the planets after sunset last night--Venus and Jupiter in the western sky and Mars, looking quite red in the east.  I had just started reading a book that has been on my list for a very long time-- The Glass Castle  by Jeannette Wall--and was at the part where her father gave her Venus for a Christmas present. We made another trip to Myakka State Park today.  Mike's 19 year old grandson is visiting so we wanted to show him some alligators.  He was lucky and found a really big shark's tooth at the beach on Monday.  He had French fries for lunch.  That's about it for spring break excitement here in Venice, but at least he can truthfully say that he was in Florida for spring break.  

Do you have difficulty adjusting to the time change?  What is the purpose of this fiddling around with the clocks again?  They say it is a lost hour.  Well, it's a heck of a lot more lost time than that.  Every single *%#@ electronic appliance has a clock on it.  The car clock needs to be changed.  Then, of course, there are the actual clocks.  Every single one of these time pieces has a different method of modifying the time.  Some are pretty obvious, others require finding manuals and then locating the time setting procedure somewhere within.  No wonder I feel a bit wobbly and lost today. Fortunately for us, we are the organized types who know exactly where to find the owner's manuals to everything we have in the house.  Unfortunately for us, we will have to go abut setting clocks once again when we get back to Vermont. I am the queen of three ring binders and plastic page protectors.

This bougainvillea has been in constant bloom since we got here in December.  I have pruned most of the rest of the bushes around the place, but I am not prepared to tackle this one.  I'll need long-handled lopers and lots of protective leather clothing before I attempt a haircut on this baby. Now that Mike is on so much medication, including blood thinners, I hate to even allow him to help with these pruning tasks.  One little cut and he looks like that old Saturday Night Live skit about Julia Childs.  (She cuts her finger and blood is spurting everywhere, if you haven't seen it.)  I did just read in the local paper, though, about a product--I think it was called Wound Seal, but don't quote me on that--that is a powder that you pour onto a cut and it forms an instant scab to stop the bleeding.  I'm thinking I will get myself to Walgreen's down the road and stock up on some...just in case. ****** I was severely irritated to read this in an article in W...

I have just finished reading: THINK Straight Talk for Women to Stay Smart in a Dumbed-Down World by Lisa Bloom. I have to admit that I did not know who Lisa Bloom was.  In my defense, I don't know who the Kardashians or Speidi are either.  She's been on Dr. Phil's show.  Perhaps that is why she hasn't appeared on my radar. Anyway, there were some thought provoking issues discussed in this book.  It's a worthy topic.  I would have loved this book and slept with it under my pillow if it had been written by someone else. I didn't care for the style of writing and I thought there were quite a few disconnects and inconsistencies--the least of which was her perfectly air brushed face, with gleaming white-toothed smile on the cover. But, like I said, it has worthy topics to consider--the anti-intellectual bent of our culture,  the pandering to the lowest common denominator, the truly awful conditions in the lives of far too many of the world's female popula...

For years and years I have burned my fingers getting things in or out of the oven.   I've written about that before . Well, why didn't anyone ever tell me about this handy little kitchen thingy: It pulls out the oven rack or pushes it back into the hot oven.  Genius!! I pulled out some baking ravioli to sprinkle on some cheese, pushed it back in to brown, pulled it out again...AND never once burned a finger. It's the height of strawberry season here in Florida--although, in truth, we have been eating Florida strawberries since January.  We get nice, sweet strawberries in Vermont.  The season lasts about three weeks.  And usually they do not get to monster size.