Sunday Afternoon

My sister Rosalie has traditionally baked a fruitcake each Christmas for Dad and he always shared it with me. It always was delicious and I have missed it lately. This year my dear wife got the recipe from her and baked one for me.  It came out very well and we have be enjoying it.

Christmas was a quiet day for us, we slept late and then opened a few presents that we had gotten for each other. We talked to most of the kids on the phone, and both of us missed them very much, but we were glad that everyone was healthy and having a good Christmas.

Yesterday was laundry day, we decided to save money and do it here at Ordway this time to save money. They have one washer and one dryer up at what they call the Butler Building. Normally at the laundromat we use the large machines and do it all at once. Using the one machine, it took us 7 hours. It wasn't wasted time however because they have wi-fi at the Butler Building, so Janice could work on an online quilting class there. On the way there (about a 7 mile drive here in the station, 15 mph speed limit) we spotted a raccoon crossing the road and heading up a tree.  I couldn't get the camera ready fast enough to get a good picture when he was looking around the tree at us, but I did get this.

This afternoon we went out on the Polaris Ranger to take the garbage cans up to the north gate. Whenever we do that we usually spend some extra time exploring the station and checking the numbered poles marking the intersections to see if they need paint or repair. We spotted a pair of Sandhill Cranes who let me take their picture.  For more information on these large birds, click here. They have some resident pairs here and some that migrate through.

 On the way back, we spotted several deer, but only one who stopped for a picture.

It's really hard to believe that we have been here for eight weeks already!  We are enjoying our time here very much.

A Few Critters

We are done with shopping, the decorations are up, presents are wrapped and we are ready for Christmas. We had a potluck Christmas party here at noon on Friday. It was in the cabin that I had put pictures of on here with Janice on the porch. Plenty of good food there.  Janice made her foil potatoes and onions and a pecan cobbler.  Nice to have some informal time with all of the workers here. I went to the mall in Gainesville on Saturday to finish my shopping. It was packed of course, but I think that all of the Christmas music and displays helped me to get into the Christmas mood. We picked a few more oranges yesterday, they are still delicious. Here are a few pictures of the critters that I run into here. They call these fence lizards, I see a lot of them on fence posts when working on the fences.  They have pretty good camouflage. Can you spot it in this picture?

How about now?

I was driving along today and this guy was right by the road.  By the time I got the camera out, he was leaving.  He was about 8 ft long.

They have a lot of fox squirrels here, They are much bigger that the squirrels at home.  They will run away in a hurry, but they usually stop part way up the tree and look around the tree at you.

They call these walking sticks, the big one is a female and the little one is a male and that's all I'm going to say about this picture.

Merry Christmas to everyone.  Wish we could have you all here with us.

A Little Walk

I had a little friend on top of a post that I was stapling wire to the other day.  Scorpions are real common here, they like to hang out under the bark on pine logs that you pick up.  It sounds like they have a nasty sting but I hope to avoid it.

Janice and I walked down to the cabin by the gate today and picked a few oranges. Sure is nice to be able to pick them fresh from the tree and they taste great.

The cabin near the front gate is used by students and others some times when they stay here. Most of the time it is empty, so we used the front porch for a little while to enjoy our oranges.

We are both having a hard time getting into the Christmas spirit without snow.

A Quick Visit to St. Augustine

We have been looking at some attractions over at St. Augustine which is about 60 miles from here. Yesterday we had to go over to Palatka to pick up a delivery at Staples,  Palatka is about half way to St. Augustine, so we went on over there to do a little scouting around. We drove through the historic downtown area and then went out to Anastasia State Park. We had a little lunch at the park and checked out the beach there.  This was my first time seeing the Atlantic Ocean since about Jr. high. Hasn't changed much from the way I remember it.

There were some nice flowers blooming under the walkway to the beach.

We went back downtown, but they were having a big celebration there and it was very crowded and traffic was bad, so we headed home. We will for sure have to go back some day. On the way back through Palatka, we spotted Florida's oldest diner. It is an actual railroad dining car. Who could pass up a place like that? Certainly not us, so we stopped for supper.  I had to try their famous black bottom sandwich.  Click here for more information about this.

A quiet Sunday here, we took our trash up to the North Gate (about a ten mile round trip) on the Polarus Ranger this afternoon.  It was a little cool here today.  Tomorrow we are supposed to get some new neighbors, another volunteer couple will be joining us.  We are looking forward to meeting them.

Purple Chicken

I have not put anything on here for a little while, because we have just been relaxing and enjoying the nice weather and the peacefulness of the woods here. Work has been mostly prepping areas for prescribed fire and fence repair. Not very interesting to write about.  I took a few pictures of some lichens on some logs near the campsite here the other day.  

Every day, I pass by deer and turkeys on the way to work.

Janice and I did this puzzle yesterday afternoon.

And who could resist having their picture taken with a big purple chicken?

A Little Rain

We had a little storm pass through this afternoon, thunderstorm and tornado warnings for our area, but it didn't seem too bad here in the trees at our site.  We made a pot roast with potatoes and carrots outside in the dutch oven for lunch today.  It was done right before the rain came.  I made a run to the post office this afternoon to pick up our new Visa cards, our old ones were compromised again.  Could be from the Home Depot hacking last summer.  Last week was good as far as work goes.  Some invasive weed removal, some fence repair, some prescribed fire prep, and Friday was spent on the tractor mowing the roadsides.  All enjoyable with the nice weather here.  Every day brings more sightings of deer, turkeys, and fox squirrels on the roads.  Saturday we went up to Waldo (now we know where Waldo is!) to a big weekend flea market and spent most of the day.  Yesterday we drove around after Mass to see some more of the area.  Back to work tomorrow!

A Long Friday

This morning they had me scheduled for a medical screening for the job here.  We had to go into Gainesville to the University medical center by 9:30.  There was a long wait for the doctor who was tied up with an emergency, so finally a nurse practitioner did the exam.  After the exam, she said that she didn't know why they sent me in for it because it wasn't required for my position.  We stopped for lunch on the way back and finally got to work about 1:30.  Janice went out with me on the Ranger to pull an invasive called Natal Grass.  We took the camera along and got a few pictures to let everyone know what the station looks like.

This is sand hill country so most of the internal roads are sand.  4 wheel drive is a plus.

Most of the roads are lined with oak and pine trees.

There are several lakes here, not all as beautiful as this one.

We both like the spanish moss hanging frome the trees.

Our "work truck".

This is a plant called Florida Rosemary.

Mosses are everywhere.

The spiders here seem to be a lot bigger that the ones at home.

Many of the pines here have what are called cat-faces.  They are an injury to one side of the tree caused by them being tapped for their sap to make turpentine early in the 1900's.  See this link for more information and pictures.  When preparing for burning through a section of the woods, we have to rake around these to keep the fire from causing more damage to the tree.

After work today, we loaded our trash into the Jeep and took it up to the Conservation Center which is about 20 minutes into the research center from our campsite.  After unloading there, the Jeep wouldn't start.  Dead battery.  We tried a battery charger and jumping it with another truck.  When that didn't work we just pushed it to start it.  Gotta love manual transmissions sometimes.  I guess we will try to get a new battery tomorrow.

Work on the Station

I am having a great time here so far.  I will be working Tue-Fri each week, so we will have Sat-Mon to explore.  The people here are great, I am working with Andy so far, preparing units for prescribed fire.  This involves trimming trees along the roads and cutting down and clearing dead trees from near the roads.  These are the areas that will be burned this winter to clear out the undesirable vegetation and help restore the land to its original form.  The areas are mostly long leaf pine sand hills and oak hammocks.  The areas that have regularly been burned look fantastic, almost park like.  They have prescribed fire training here for crews across the country. Click here for more information on the Training school.  I will try to get some pictures this weekend and post here. Janice has been to town to check mail and grocery shop.  Today she was organizing cupboards and watched a buck walk around our back yard.

We Are Here

We finally arrived at our destination for the next three months.  We got here early in the afternoon and were met at the gate by Andy who led us to the campsites and let us pick one out. Really nice sites, wide concrete pads, picnic tables, grills and fire pits.

He gave us a beautiful basket of goodies to welcome us here.  Cap, T-shirts, mugs, a can of peanuts, brochures on the local attractions, and an Audubon field guide to Florida.

Then he took us on a tour of part of the research station and introduced us to some of the staff. Looks like a great place.  We are excited to be here. I start work here tomorrow.

Quincy, Florida

We are at a campground in Quincy.  We missed the turn coming in and had to drive quite a ways to find a turn around.  After we got set up we took the Jeep into town to find the church and stopped for supper at a Pizza Hut.  Went to Winn Dixie on the way back for a few supplies.  We will be here tomorrow night also.  We stopped at a really nice visitor's center on the way into Florida.  We fixed sandwiches for lunch while we were parked there.

Another Night in Bay St. Louis

We drove over to a unit of the Gulf Islands National Seashore today. I had been talking to them when we were in Georgia about a possible RV volunteer opportunity after we left Florida, so we went over to meet them and look it over. I do't think that it would be a good fit for us. We are staying here in Bay St. Louis again tonight. Tomorow we hope to make it close to Tallahassee, FL. We will probably stay there for two nights also to make it easier to get to Mass on Sunday. That will only leave us about 130 miles on Monday to make it to Ordway-Swisher and get set up.  I took a few pictures on the beach here in front of the motorhome this afternoon.

This is a picture of the Casino here, they were working on the hotel on the left when we were here in January.  Looks like slow progress to me.