Faith, Family, Food and Dogs

****WARNING**** Lots of photos again. This was such a neat place to visit I got carried away and this is only a fraction of the photos I took. Everyone knows the song "The Old Folks At Home" which may be better known as 'Way Down Upon the Suwannee River'. But how many know who wrote the song? A young man named Stephen Collins Foster wrote that song. He was a rather prolific songwriter and, I found out on this excursion, wrote a whole slew of other songs like, Camptown Races, Oh Susanna, Beautiful Dreamer, My Old Kentucky Home, Jeanie With The Light Brown Hair and many, many more. In all he wrote over 200 songs. I never knew Stephen Foster had composed most of the ones I listed. Stephen taught himself to play the clarinet, violin, flute, guitar and piano. Stephen, it is presumed by many sources, never laid eyes on the river he made famous. He passed away in 1864, in New York, at the young age of 37. In 1931 a proposal was made to make a memorial to Stephen in Flo...

Today was the second time I went to the Jacksonville Farmers' Market. What is interesting is when I tell people I'm going they always ask "the one over on (what ever) street"? And then I politely correct them as to which one. But to be fair, there are a lot of Farmers' Markets in the area. None as neat as the one in Greensboro, which is really sad since this is such a large city, surrounded by lots of farm land. Anyway, the first time I went was back in April. I got a good haul. 5 ears of white corn on-the-cob for $2, artichokes for 3/$5, the zucchini were $2 for all four of them, the eggplant was $1, the plums were super sweet and I got all of them for $2. I blanched, wrapped and froze the corn for future use. Then I picked up some pine nuts and a red pepper to add to what I already had. My recipes also required some mushrooms, lemon juice and anchovies. Since I couldn't find anchovies, I used anchovy paste instead. I made a stuffing for the artichoke...

I am finally done messing with the beds around the entrance side of my humble abode. The leasing office loves what I've done with the place. I was at Wal-Mart a couple of weeks ago and saw these little clear plastic things. Turns out they are color changing solar lights, too cool. Since I took this the petunias have gotten even biger. I had to put slug bait around them as they were being eaten. They look fantastic now. The plant looks so much better since I whacked it down awhile ago and got all the dead growth and grass out of it. I dug up some edging bricks from near the driveway and put them around the plant. Turned out I had not one, but two Crepe Myrtle saplings behind the deck. I got them planted and then mulched the area. Unfortunately sprouts from the evil plants that were there are trying to come up, but I have vegetation killer. The small cedar tree got new growth on it, but only on one side, I have no idea why. The 3-tier planter is doing really well. A week ag...

***WARNING***WARNING***LOTS OF PHOTOS You can double click on any photo and be able to get a larger view of all of them Now that the disclaimer is over,,, Florida . The word brings all sorts of thoughts to people's minds. Hurricanes, hot and humid weather, Disney World, Universal Studios, The Daytona 500, miles and miles of awesome beaches, some may even think of all the college football teams and our three NFL teams. Sadly, very many of these people, tourists and Florida residents, never take the time to head off the beaten path. They never see the real Florida. Back when I first lived here I did a lot of camping and hiking and I got to see some really neat stuff, like Panther paw prints in the sand. On this particular weekend I was given the opportunity to see parts of Florida that I may not have otherwise seen, part of The Real Florida . There will be other posts about The Real Florida in the near future. On this weekend, I had been invited to a friend's condo ...