Grandma's butterfly garden

Sometimes grandma wakes up in the morning with the announcement of a bright idea she got in the middle of the night. Of course, I shudder a bit as I know it will be a "simple" project for me. This week her idea was that we needed to build a butterfly/herb garden for all the plants she has been storing behind the shed for the last 2 years waiting for the cabin to get finished. She even had a master plan in mind. So here you can see grandpa digging the fence posts and the view from the dining room of the finished first stage. We'll post more as we get ready for the butterflies to move in.

Landscaping begins

As we planted the magnolias, we thought, "We'll run over these in the dark if we don't make them more visible. Why not make stone planters and plant flowers around them?" So here is the result and the beginning of our fancy landscaping.

Cabbage harvest

We've been watching the cabbage fields grow for the last two months as we look out the windows to the west. As a reminder, here is what it looked like as the crews planted the fields the beginning of February and what it looked like as they harvested the fields this last week towards the end of April. They may be using some machinery but it still is a people intensive process. They have already gone through the fields three times cutting out heads of cabbage and tossing them into the wagon and as you can see, they still have plenty of cabbages left to harvest in another pass through or two.

When the wagons full of cabbages race past our house to the packing shed about two miles away, some times cabbages bounce out as the wagons bounce on the unpaved road. Here is an example of a "road kill" red cabbage that we picked up in front of our house. Looks like we'll be having German Sauerbraten with Rotkohl sometime soon. Yum, yum!

Last set of workers

We just send off the last set of workers who have come to make our cabin a great place to visit so that this isn't what will greet you when you come to visit.

My brother Spancer arrived to wash windows and plant trees while Donna was evaluating a college in Tampa.

We then did the International Speedway in Daytona.

Donna then joined us. While Spencer went fishing with Troy, the rest of us played at the beach at Ft. Matanzas.

We sent them home to Texas this morning. Now we have to get back to work to finish up the cabin.

The family fun continues

The family reunion activities shifted to Joe's condo for sea shell collecting and other fun.

One day we spend exploring the lighthouse at St. Augustine.

Today Troy took us with David and a friend deep sea fishing near Ponce Inlet. Check out our catch. (Those are just the legal ones we could keep.) We can hardly wait to eat the filets.

Workerbee exchange

Last week we sent home our gardener, electrician, and floor laying worker bees and welcomed our mechanical workerbees to help fix up the log cabin.

Caroly's brothers Dondavid and Larry came to teach us some gentleman farmer skills like changing the oil, getting farm equipment ready for use in a new season, and building useful farmer things from kits.

Of course, we've been eating lots of Florida fish, shrimp, and gator.