The World Mourns

It is not very often that an event is of such magnitude that there are people around the world, either directly or indirectly affected, however, the death of Queen Elizabeth II on Thursday, September 8th, is one of those events. Even those who hate the idea of a monarchy are still feeling sad, in some cases, much to their surprise. How could you not like her? I realize that is maybe a bit of a generalization, maybe a stretch, but not by much. The longest running female leader in history! It is mind boggling thinking of the history she witnessed over her long reign, in many cases, first-hand. But I don't need to tell you all that do I because chances are, you already know it. What some know, while others don't, is that your favorite blogger, along with her beloved husband and eldest son, saw the Queen pretty darn up close and personal. If you've not already done so, you can read all about it here. 

So that was the biggest news of last week. But, on a much smaller scale, and I emphasize the smaller, FSU is now 2-0. Ten years ago that statement would have elicited a puzzled expression on a readers' face, but these days it is a pretty big deal. The best start to the football season in years. Beating LSU was so exciting, in part because it was so unexpected. We are cautiously optimistic. :)

In a first for us, we watched a whole lot of the US Open tournament, marveling each and every day at the athleticism and mental fortitude it takes to play tennis at such a high level. Bravo to all who even made it to the tournament! 

Perhaps it is because we are now involved with a paddle made to hit a ball over a net? Is that why we watched? I have no good answer to that question, but I can say that we are still at it bright and early most mornings. Today we arrived a little later because Bruce had some blood drawn first thing. The sun was blinding as we drove to the courts.

What's missing in the above photo? Any ideas? How about the power lines being empty of crows??? Where are they you wonder? So do I! We shall see tomorrow morning when we leave at our regular time.

Do you want birds first, or pickleball? 

Birds it is! The hawks are coming out in full force after a quiet summer. This guy was just outside the back door, staying perched for about 30 minutes. 

The above is a Red Shouldered Hawk which is quite common around these parts. For weeks I've had the photo below on my desktop to share and now seems appropriate. The only trouble is, I'm not quite sure what kind of hawk we are looking at.

Duh...that's what Google is for. Turns out it is an immature Red Shouldered Hawk. Or is it? Now you know! Another beauty perching in the trees out back was this Egret, a bird you've seen countless times before but the light was so pretty, I could not resist.

Before we head over to Dover Shores, here's a little something to talk about. I think it was Friday morning, while Bruce was reading the newspaper, that he exclaimed..."you are in the newspaper!" Indeed I was, having written a Letter to the Editor the previous afternoon. 

Seeing the open paper laying there much later in the day it occurred to me that there was a time when people I knew read the newspaper and might call or text me when they saw my name, but those days are long gone. Well, Mary saw it so there's one person. At any rate, I have been sending letters to the Sentinel for years and now you can as well because I've included their email address!! In reality, the older I have gotten, the less worked up I get about things I have no control over, thus my letter writing has diminished over the years. Not entirely though.

No pickleball yet??? Almost time!

But first let's talk about how cool Bromeliads are, shall we? There are hundreds and hundreds on the grounds here at Lake Pineloch Village, a whole bunch of which are just outside the back door.

File this factoid under the heading of "learning something new every day" because who knew that a pineapple is in the bromeliad family? 

Having written my last post where I extolled the virtues of pickleball and the wonderful people we have met, I mentioned that I needed to bring my camera along more often. When I grow up, I hope to hit the ball like Kathy who is cool and calm on the court, not to mention, wickedly accurate.

The gang is all here...well not really, but a few of them anyway. 

That would be Lisa (l) and Cindy in the front and Karen and Debbie in the back. Not a one of us would have never met if not for pickleball. While I don't think it holds true for any of these ladies, it is not all that uncommon to read something like this post where a person proclaims that pickleball saved their life. While I know that sounds crazy, I do know a few people who might say the same thing.

Also last week, a new woman came and invited her friend to meet her and she would teach her how to play. Shockingly, Gigi was keeping score in no time, something that is more often than not, a stumbling block for new players. Jake, a super sweet young man and great player is looking on.

On Friday we went to watch Greg and JC in the fall tournament, both of whom are pictured below on the far side of the net. (Mr. Peck looks on from his chair.)

The crazy thing is that the two men on the near side are guys we met earlier in the week when they came to check out the courts. Paul and Walt are a couple who moved down from Louisville, KY and are deeply immersed in pickleball which has allowed them to make friends, many of whom came from Davenport to cheer them on. 

Should you think it is only old folks that play, the youngsters bracket was going on at the same time and provided some highly entertaining matches. We even met a young man who said he is on the University of Florida team.

I learned from the wife of the young man on the left that he is a wedding photographer who spends every weekday playing pickleball. It's a crazy phenomenon how addicting the game is, that's for sure. 

Okay, the courts are great, but the bathroom closest to the courts, not so much. The city needs to do something with this place, sooner rather than later.

In excellent news for me, birds are plentiful around the courts with an eagle sighting last week and today a Red Tailed Hawk watched over the proceedings.

Inflation, particularly for food and other consumer goods continues, seemingly unabated. I am always in shock seeing the carts filled to the brim at Costco.

I noticed today that while regular gas has come down a bit, diesel fuel is still crazy expensive, adding to the cost of all of those goods.

So I began this post talking about the Queen and her place in history over the last 70+ years, and it makes me wonder, what next for Britain? As most of you know, we have family there, thus my heightened interest. Let us hope it is not a cold winter because how in the world will people pay their heating bills what with an 80% rise in energy costs? Will the new Prime Minister be effective? How about King Charles? Will the pieces go together as neatly as a jigsaw puzzle? (this was fun btw)

While I fear not, hope springs eternal doesn't it?

your friend,

Gail

Blame it on Erin

Actually, blame has a negative connotation, however, in this instance, the better word would be not blame, but inspiration. In spite of having Discovery+ which allows us to watch HGTV shows without commercials, rarely do I watch it, mostly because there's only so much time in a day! That said, recently I did some binge watching of my favorite HGTV show, Home Town. While some television makeover designers have no affinity for color, Erin Napier is one of the few who embraces not just color, but whimsy along with sentimentality. In other words, her style is right up my alley. 

So it was that while watching the show, I thought to myself, "self, it's time to do some decorating" now that both of us are in better spirits and shape. As has been documented before, when we bought this place we were in a hurry to get things done before the big move to Vancouver. Three years later, the room that we call the sunroom looked the same as when we bought the place. Over these years we've discussed many ideas about how to make it more like a room and less like a porch, but none of them took root. In the end, we turned to the easiest solution to any decorating dilemma, new paint that is happening as I type. As a refresher, here's what it looked like yesterday morning.

Following some discussion about accent wall versus whole room paint, Bruce began preparing the room.

During my binge session I decided rather than introduce something entirely new, why not use the accent wall color from the dining room? Bruce got the paint can down and did a little sample for me to hold up in the room.

Because most of the room is actually sliding glass doors and other glass, Bruce figured we had enough to get this project going. While we may have had enough paint, a trip to Ace Hardware was needed to purchase tape because, unfortunately for Bruce, there is a lot of taping required.

Making matters more difficult is the texture of the wall and joints, along with the quality of the previous painting job which left paint on the window frames and extremely uneven painting lines. Here's where the famous Bruce Peck patience comes into play. Then again, there's the added difficulty of 10" ceilings. Another trip, this time to Lowes for caulk to prep the areas that were so uneven. That part is hard to describe, but it turned out to be the best solution. 

Note the corner is unpainted as yet because it waiting for the caulk treatment. Pretty bold, right? The above was taken in the late afternoon when the sun is in the West. This morning, on the other hand, the sunrise highlighted the warm nature of this color which is Sherwin Williams Sun Bleached Ochre. The effect I am going for is some warmth and coziness. Here's hoping that can be achieved.

Out of the blue last evening, a massive rainstorm dumped a little more than two inches of rain in about twenty minutes, soaking everything and leaving much humidity in its wake, thus the sliding doors covered in condensation until the morning sun burns it off. Speaking of the weather, on September 1, while not cool in the morning, it was maybe less hot? Having spent a lot more time indoors than is typical, maybe I'm mistaken but to date it seems as if the summer has been less horrible than normal? That said, sometimes September is the worst month of all in part because we are just so sick of being hot!

As you look at the photo above, when I say the owls are very close I really mean it. Only once this week did I find the two of them in the trees, just to the right of what is pictured.

More rare than seeing owls is seeing Ospreys on our lake, leaving me surprised to find this one in the shadows.

Just as I was moving around trying to get better lighting, this happened. Not a great shot, but still pretty fun watching it snag a fish out of the water.

One morning I went for another walk at the small park I told you about before.  

While small it is quite pretty with pretty much wide open sidewalks for walking.

It won't be long before the annual bird migration begins, the most exciting time of the year for birders. Aside from the Coopers Hawk I saw, mostly the usual subjects can be found--ibises, herons, Muscovy ducks, and in this park, Peking ducks.

In addition to what I could see, it was what I couldn't that was really amazing. Cicadas, or so I think, were both invisible and incredibly loud! While walking along this bridge the sound was overwhelming coming from all sides.

Hasn't this post been refreshing with no talk of our health issues? Bruce is feeling fine and back to playing pickleball three times already this week. I am steadily improving, maybe not as fast as I would prefer but I am finally accepting that it takes much longer than I ever imagined. One persistent problem is some nerve issue in my hand whereby there is a funny tingling sensation all of the time. It may just be a coincidence but while on a longer drive with Bruce behind the wheel, I squeezed this spongy ball over and over and this morning it seems like my hand feels a little more normal. 

Wouldn't that be something if it works long term?

Here I go again, can't keep my thoughts to myself!

Not my best effort but here it is anyway. During my walk in Demetree Park I received a text from a friend who told me that a couple we know are in hospital, one in ICU and one in PCU. You guessed it, not vaccinated. While we are hearing about break-through infections in vaccinated people, we are not reading about them being in intensive care. Have you read about the oxygen shortage? Imagine our surprise when we received a mailer from Orlando Utilities asking us to conserve water. Not because there is a water shortage but because there is a shortage of liquid oxygen which they use in the water treatment process! Can you think of anything that has not been impacted due to the pandemic?  This is just maddening! 

Because Bruce is still painting, the room remains underway. Turn to Camera Crazy again soon where you never know what you will find. Oh wait, yes you do.

your friend,

Gail

A Thursday Field Trip

You may recall  that we cut our December camping trip short as I was feeling a wee bit pressured to get my Christmas cards out, especially to our international loved ones. Well that was a misguided move as I've just heard from Matthew that the card I mailed on probably December 10th arrived today!!! At least it got there, right? 

 I heard from some of you who were happy with the new format and some who were not. It is very hard for me to judge because I always forget that others are not reading it on a computer screen. Here's what it looks like on mine, so no issues whatsoever with font size! 

As it turns out, Michelle tells me that you can adjust text size on your phone, so maybe that will help those who had trouble? I sure hope so! Nonetheless, I've enlarged it some, so let me know how that works.

In lieu of our canceled camping trip this week, we took a Thursday field trip over to Blackpoint Wildlife Drive near Titusville, about an hour away. I was hoping to see a lot of birds and my hopes were most definitely fulfilled! Oh my, there were a lot of birds to see. At first things were a bit slow as the water level is very low due to our almost completely dry January. Early on though, I did spot a Belted Kingfisher, a bird I'd seen out behind the house but could never get a shot of, as they move so quickly. Not this time as this female, according to this from the Cornell, was quite cooperative. Perching, diving, and up she comes with a fish!

As you can well imagine this was an excellent beginning!

It was a cold and windy day, so much so that as I walked to this bird blind while "you know who" took a little nap in the warm car,

I wondered if I could even keep the camera steady enough to take photographs! Let's just say there was a huge flock of birds, more so than I've ever seen at any one time. That is, of course, if you don't take into account the time we saw the Snow Geese in Canada. (link to post) It was a good thing that I had my super zoom lens as they were way out in the water although that camera is one that is really hard to hold steady in the best of conditions.

Even with the long zoom it was hard to make out what they were, but once they took off en masse, I realized that they were mostly shorebirds, including loads of sea gulls and terns.

One funny thing about this particular time is that a "birder" was leaving the blind and I asked in a friendly way, "what are they?", to which she grudgingly replied, "they are many things." Well, thank you very much!! Sometimes folks are just plain grumpy, aren't they? 

White Pelicans flew overhead as I scrambled back to the car.

These little guys were scurrying in the shallow water as I passed by.

As we drove along, the sheer number of birds out in the water was striking, most of them out too far for close ups though. It is so thrilling to watch them take off at once and you have to wonder why? Or at least that is what comes to my mind.

Finally I was able to get a photograph of the female Hooded Merganser. The mate to the handsome black/white/brown duck in our lake. She never comes close enough here, but because she was out in the full sun on this trip, I was able to get this shot showing you the differences.

I'm still hoping to get a shot of "ours", but for now this will suffice. Around another corner we saw some young Roseate Spoonbills feeding.

Around yet another corner, Mr. Eagle Eye spotted a huge gator sunning. Unlike the Lake Apopka Wildlife drive, here, alligator sightings are apparently few and far between. It had been far too long since last we visited, maybe even as long ago as my 66th birthday when we followed the drive with a stop over at Playalinda. We did the same and take a look at how crazy my hair looks in the strong winds.

Wearing the same shawl Matt made for me last Christmas, I had Bruce take my picture, followed by us hustling to the car to get out of the wind and blowing sand. 

Along the side of the road, what should we see but an Armadillo, digging in the sand. Now, I've photographed loads of creatures, but I do believe this is a first for me. Ugly and fascinating at the same time, we marveled at the symmetry of the tail. How do you feel about them? Do they creep you out. One thing is that they have crazy small eyes, hardly even visible they are so small. I wonder why that is? I always have so many questions and so little time to address them. Oh wait, I don't work...

That is if you don't count what Tom and Matt like to call our work....getting better at pickleball. 😀Actually, this morning neither of us played, with Bruce doing a project at  church, while I worked on some bathroom stuff. 

On our trip back across the bridge to Titusville, we pulled off at the riverside park where I was thrilled to find the darling sandpipers again. The strong wind caused white caps on the river with a few hardy windsurfers taking advantage of the conditions. These little guys are so fun to watch scurry back and forth as they search for food.

With my hair whipping in my face, it was back to the comfort of the car for me, followed by a  McDonalds search, a place I've not visited for at least a year. No one beats their french fries! If not for being the time of Covid, we might have visited this place with the very fun name.

Thinking about the coast, our friend Pam has moved over to Cape Canaveral, joining another couple who have moved away from Orlando in the last few years. According to her account, they are very much enjoying their beachfront condo, walking along the beach while observing the birds AND loads of dolphins playing in the surf.  Count me jealous on that front!

Making our way home on HWY 50, lo and behold I spotted some buffalo, or what I thought were buffalo as we traveled by at 60MPH. Bruce turned around so we could confirm my passing glance. Sure enough.

All in all, who could complain about this field trip? Not I, that's for sure.

Completely off topic, what made me think of Pam was the text I received early Friday morning, saying she'd seen this in the newspaper.

So few people I know read the Sentinel anymore, so I was surprised to hear from her. Our booster vaccine is this Friday and while I'm happy for that, I can't say that I'm not a little nervous after hearing the accounts from two people we are close to. It is a small price to pay though. One funny thing about the letter is that I rose from the kitchen table, went to my computer and just typed out that letter, hitting send immediately. Much later in the day, in addition to the usual stock thank you for writing email, I had one from a specific person asking where I was from in case they wanted to publish it. Well duh, I wrote back, I'm from Orlando and have been in the business of writing letters to the editor for a long time now and most definitely should know that they want to know your city. His reply was, I thought it was you after looking me up. I got a chuckle over that. Many years ago, when the paper was more widely circulated, I would receive a phone call saying they were going to publish my letter. As well, one year they had a big dinner for all those who had written what was then called a "My Word" piece. Now that was great fun. Oh how times have changed.

We've just gotten the quote for the new counter top which is the good news. The bad news is that Herbert will not be starting next Monday as planned, however, he will come this Friday to remove the wall of mirrors and the old countertop so it is not all bad.

It's starting to get real!

As always, I remain, your friend,

Gail