Good Thing I’m Not A Real Birder

Well, Bird Lady Judy has spoken and my bird photo last night was not the elusive Florida Scrub Jay but just a plain old mockingbird!  Dang good thing I don’t make my living as a birder!  I’m not even going to attempt to name this one, I will just wait for Judy to tell me what it is!!  I think I know what it is???

Even the mushrooms have sand on their tops.

We managed to stay on the right path while walking this morning and Michael didn’t make any more “get in the doghouse” comments.  As Al from the Bayfield Bunch pointed out, there are no mountains in Florida to use as reference points.  The area where we are walking has very dense undergrowth making you lose sight of almost everything on the horizon.  There is a cell tower in Cedar Key that we can see sometimes and use as a guide. 

An anonymous commenter asked what camera I was using to take photos—it is a Canon SX30IS and I love it.  Since I became a digital camera user all but one of my cameras has been a Canon.  I’m familiar with the location of the buttons and their functions.  I love this camera but I said that all ready didn’t I!

Karen In The Woods has mentioned in a comment about how much her husband Steve loves the boiled peanuts you see for sale on almost every corner, in every convenience store and at every produce stand here in Florida.  Michael wanted to try a bag—he picked the Cajun kind—YUK, double YUK!!!  Those things stunk up the whole jeep on the way home, he ate two of them and threw the rest out.  I didn’t even try the things.  We will leave all the boiled peanuts for you Steve!

We have guests coming for dinner tomorrow night, Elaine and Mark.  Drove into Cedar Key this afternoon stopping at the bank for laundry quarters—when I entered the bank this pleasant southern speaking woman says, “how you doing honey?”  I replied, “just fine, how are you?”  I could hear my southern drawl getting really southern!  The people down here are the nicest!  Stopped at the local market, same thing, “how you doing honey?”  Managed to snag a couple more bottles of that great wine I took to Elaine and Mark’s in Ocala the other night.  Really good stuff and less than $15 a bottle—Pascual Toso Cabernet Sauvignon, 2009, made in Argentina. 

Who turned off the heat down here???  Emmi hardly ever gets us up in the middle of the night—this morning at 3am Emmi and I were stumbling around outside and the wind was howling.  That wind brought some cooler temps and when we took our walk this morning the wind was downright cold.  It has remained cold all day and the wind has a bitter touch, too.  But as Karen says, “a cold day in Florida is a dang sight better than a winter one in Wisconsin or Montana!!”

I did some cooking today—made a delicious appetizer from the Pioneer Woman Cooks cookbook. Barbecue Jalapeno poppers.  Oh, my are they good—made a few extra so we could sample. 

And that’s about it for our day in Florida.  LoraLee sent our mail and we got some delayed Christmas cards with those nice long newsy letters—we enjoyed those and the local weekly newspapers we get when home. 

We did see on the news where they found the body of the 43 year old Sidney, MT school teacher who went out for an early morning run Tuesday and never came home.  Our hearts go out to her family and friends, too sad!