Spring Cleaning

Well, we are back to gloomy March weather here.  It stormed off and on all day yesterday with some awesome thunder!  Not much we could do outside so Glenn and I did some decluttering and cleaning.  Amazing how much stuff we got rid of!  One large trash bag and two kitchen size plus a stack of outdated campground directories.  Glenn even parted with about a dozen ball caps he had accumulated.  So proud of him!  Still have a few cabinets to go through inside, but we made a big dent!  We still have the "basement" of the motorhome to go through, but that will have to wait for a nicer day.

Friday we made a trip to Lawrenceburg to mail the taxes to the accountant.  So glad that is done!  It's one of those things that hangs over my head and keeps me from doing other things.  We also made a stop at WalMart.

I had a piecrust lurking in the freezer which became a yummy pumpkin pie! Seemed appropriate for this cool, gloomy weather.

When things dry out a little this afternoon, we will pack up the chairs and grill in preparation for the move to Cave City, Kentucky.

Bluebirds for Breakfast

No, I haven't started eating bluebirds!!  But when I opened the front drapes of the motorhome, there was a male Eastern Bluebird sitting on the side mirror!  What a beautiful sight to start the day! 

Mr. Bluebird seems to have a problem with his reflection in the mirror.  He's constantly pecking at it!  There is a bluebird box in the campsite adjacent to us and they seem to be nesting in it, so I guess he's just protecting his territory!

I put out my birdfeeders the day after we arrived and with in 15 minutes, the goldfinches were all over it!

We are currently at the Natchez Trace Wilderness Thousand Trails Preserve.  It's in Tennessee, maybe 2 hours southwest of Nashville.  This is a huge campground with sites along a lake and filled with large trees.  The "season" here hasn't really started yet, but there are quite of few campers.  We arrived to beautiful weather in the low 80's but a cool down is on it's way.  I've seen forsythia blooming and the dogwoods are just beginning to bud out.  Now I wonder....in Ohio, the legend goes "three snows after the forsythia blooms".  Surely that doesn't hold this far south!

We will be here until the 28th when we will move to Kentucky to start our summer workamping job.  We will be at the Mammoth Cave Jellystone Campground.

I apologize for the big gap in postings.  We were at the FMCA convention and when you add 5000+ people to one small area, the cell towers are overwhelmed and the internet connection goes down the tube!!  I will try to fill in the gaps soon.

Once I get our tax info off to the accountant, I will get crafty again and have some new projects to post.

Seminar prep

I've spent most of the day working on the preparations for the 4 craft seminars I'll be teaching here at the Family Motor Coach Association's "Southern Homecoming and Reunion" .  My classes are on Tuesday and Wednesday next week.  I've been stamping catalogs, printing flyers and making lists.

It's a blustery day, but sunny.  Frost expected tonight, so I've had to tuck my flowers under the motorhome, just in case.  But starting tomorrow, it's going to warm up and be in the mid 70's for most of the convention.  Many years we've had very rainy weather during this convention, but it looks like Mother Nature is on our side for a change!

While working on my class prep, I've been keeping tabs on the news coming from Japan and the west coast about the earthquake and ensuing tsunami's.  Amazing photos and videos, but so sad to see the devastation!  I found a live update on weather.com that I have been watching.  Very interesting stuff there!

I need to take my class samples up to the Information Center on Sunday for the craft class preview and then at 7am Monday morning I'll be there for the class sign-ups.  With any luck, all the seats in my classes will be filled!

I have a turkey breast roasting in the oven and it's starting to smell REALLY good and making me hungry!  I'll probably make some mashed potatoes and gravy to go with it and maybe some corn, too.  I just hope Glenn doesn't get called away right at dinner time!

Pioneer Park Days

Across the highway from the Peace River Thousand Trails campground is Pioneer Park.  It's a county park in south central Florida.  We have wandered around this park on previous visits, enjoyed the wildlife refuge and the trail along the Peace River.  We had read of a festival held there each year but were always there too early or too late.  This year, luck was on our side and we were able to attend Pioneer Park Days during our stay.  We walked over on Tuesday night to have fair food for supper.  On the walk over we saw hundreds of turkey and black vultures flying in to roost in the trees along the river.

Unfortunately, we didn't find any food vendors open so we had dinner at a small diner across the street.  We walked back to the motorhome under a beautiful pink sky!

Saturday we drove back over to the park (needed to save our legs to walk around!). First we wandered around the flea market.  Not as much fun as it used to be - where in the motorhome can I put that?  Of course, we had to try the homemade ice cream!

Now that's an ice cream churn!  It makes 10 gallons at a time!

We found some barbeque for lunch and then waited for the afternoon Civil War Re-enactment.  We had see the encampment and watched a blacksmith earlier.

We had a nice conversation with a woman participating in the re-enactment.  We learned it is quite an expensive hobby!  We also had a chance to talk to her husband, a retired firefighter.  There were only about 20 at this re-enactment, but some are much bigger - as many as 1500 actors!  Now that would be a sight to see!  Actually, one that big was held in northern Florida earlier and friends invited us to join them, but it would have required an overnight stay and we didn't want to break camp at that time. 

Since it was a small "battle" there wasn't a lot of action, so Glenn and I started trying catch a picture of the cannon just as it fired.  We're glad for digital cameras because we took a huge number of pictures trying to get the shot!  Glenn had the best one! 

In the top picture of the cannon, you can see the fire of the charge just as it's leaving the barrel!

I'm sure if we are near another re-enactment, Glenn will be wanting to go!

Peace River

We are currently staying at the Peace River Thousand Trails Preserve. It is near Zolfo Springs and Wauchula, Florida. It's one of our favorites and we wish we had more time to spend here! The downside to this campground is doing the "sewer shuffle". Not all sites have sewer connections, so when you arrive your name goes on a list and each day you see what sewer sites are available and when your name comes up, you move to that site. But, we're only here for a week so we wanted a site with a view of the river. After the second day, one became available. We're so happy! We love to sit and just watch the river flow by. We occasionally see "Stumpy". She the resident alligator that is missing part of a leg. There are others, too. We know there is an otter, but have yet to see it. It's a great bird-watching area, too!
Another favorite activity is to sift the river for fossils and sharks teeth.  Hard to believe at one time there were sharks this far inland, but I guess this area was underwater a long time ago.  A couple of years ago, we brought Jeremy, Michele, Cailtin and Alex to do some fossiling.

Here's Glenn and Caitlin in 2009

We have had some really nice weather lately, with the exception of Tuesday's rain.  It has been windy the last couple of days, but afterall, it's March, right?