Saturday, June 20, 2009

Watermelons a go go!

For those of you who do not live in Jefferson County in Florida's panhandle, today was the 59th Annual Watermelon Festival. Everyone for miles comes out in the blistering heat to shop local vendors booths, watch skits, listen to music, sweat, and eat delicious watermelon. It's a shame that watermelons are celebrated during one of the hottest times of year, but that's what they get (and what we get) for celebrating them at all, because like it or not, this IS their "season".

Harley and I scored free passes to see the children's play being presented at the famed Monticello Opera House, so we were very excited about that. The show was called "Hot dogs and Cool cats". It was written, produced and directed by local talent. I have to tell you, it was precious! They even had their own tee shirts for sale to raise money for the Opera house. The tees were designed by a child, who I believe was 11 years old. It was incredible! I would love to post a pic, but sadly, I do not have one. The play was fun-tabulous! And Harley, he was lit up in the way only a child anticipating the magic of live music and theatre can be. I felt so blessed to be witness to the whole thing. The wonderful kids prancing around in their beautiful costumes and Harley's wonder and glee as he took it all in~ eyes as big as saucers, leaning forward to the edge of his folding seat, holding breath and smiling from ear to ear. ( Did I leave out any cliches?) Please feel free to add your own. They are all true.

Unfortunately, while ole Harley totally dug on the cool cats shtick, he completely broke down towards the end of the play because he was bit afraid of the rather mischievous, naughty/impolite hot dogs portion of the show. They were sort of mean to each other, calling names and such and they were really loud, and well, Harley is 3, so... there you go. He also said he was hungry. So we did not get to see the end, which was disappointing to me, but we enjoyed every minute of what we did see. (Not including the hot dogs, naturally)

So, off we went, in search of food. We could not find anyone selling anything except hot dogs and funnel cakes. I would have broken down and let Harley have a dog, but I think living as mostly a veggie kid, he'd have gotten sicker than sick. Which was just as well because it gave us a good excuse to duck into a little cafe and get into some a/c. Whew! I ordered us something to share, which he did not like, so he ate his left over pbj sandwich that was in our snack bag, and I ended up eating an entire club sandwich minus the ham. And fries. Oh the fries. I'm still paying for those fries and it's 9:20pm. We topped it off with a slice of home made chocolate cake with dark chocolate goo icing and cream cheese fluff layers! That was the high point of my lunch experience... maybe even the whole day. Na, Harley's love of theatre was the high point, but this was most definitely a close second!

After filling our bellies, we checked out some vendors as if we had money to spend! Nothing too spectacular to report about this... although, I did rather stealthily avoid the model car booth with every instinct I posses. (Another mommy disaster averted). I think I deserve some sort of award for the tap dancing I did despite my wicked heat delirium. We did catch one fun booth toward the end of our adventure. It was the motorcycle safety society's booth (perhaps the wrong name) , anyway, they charmed us and chatted us up. They gave us free bracelets, key chains and bumper stickers. "Watch for motorcycles!" They were very sweet and obviously taken in by Harley's cuteness, sporting his engineer hat and shades, which he calls his "cool". Yea, those motorcycle enthusiasts appreciate cool on a hot day like nobody else.

This marked the end of a lovely morning/afternoon for us. I was so sure Harley would pass out on the ride home from all the excitement and jungle heat, but, ah not so much. Unfortunately, when we arrived home, I was the one passing out! Mother nature has a twisted sense of humor. Luckily papa wasn't too far behind us getting home, so no harm was done to the cat, the house was not burned to the ground and momma got a peaceful nap on.

Strangely, we consumed no watermelon...? Maybe next year.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Fruitflies, splashing and weeding... must be summertime.

Hey Ya'll,

We took our first trip to St. Geo in forever. Harley's very first trip to the island. We had some old friends visiting from Arkansas who rented a house for the week. This was also first time Harley has seen the ocean at an age that he can actually remember it.

We had a fine time building castles, and what we discovered is that Harley is the kind of kid that gets more joy from "crashing" them than from building them. Maybe he will be a demolition expert? Anyway, it was a bit tricky keeping him from demolishing Ravi's creation. (Our friend's son) And let me take this moment to say, that Ravi's castle was nothing less than sand sculpture! It was HUGE and magnificent! It was one of the largest I've seen, but as I said, I don't get out much, so... there is that. Anyway, he and his poppa, Geoff had been working on it since the day before and when we went out the morning after, it was still there! Whoa! Anyway, we played on the beach, and I went swimming in the salty womb from whence we all came. An activity which Harley did not want to participate in. He did get his toes we though~ I remember feeling that way at the beach, but my brothers were not quite as understanding with me. They took me in anyway. Which turned out ok, they held me and reassured me, etc... I just was not ready, and being teenage boys, they had no way of knowing. Besides, our family is the jump right in and ask questions later variety. Well, everyone but my amazing sister, who actually does practice what she preaches. And she preaches things like "Look before you leap". But that's another whole post. So we did have a wonderful day in the sun and ate up at least a half a watermelon. Our neighbors, who are also farmers keep us in fresh produce... thank the Goddess for them and for their yummy nutritious produce! So we dined on Watermelon and Mac and Cheese, splashed, chatted, played twister, caught up on the last 6 years or so, and the boys, Ravi and Harley hit it off like gang busters. We had fun just watching their shinanegins.

Also, we've been splashing in some other friend's pool the past week. Harley is learning all sorts of tricks and splashing fun. He now jumps into the pool from the side wearing his inner tube to my outstretched arms. So far so good... as in, no trauma.l

The time has also come for taking back my kitchen... at least in part. You see, this is the time of year for bulwievles (msp), moths, knats and fruit flies to take over my kitchen. And that means war. Last year was bad enough with just the fruit flies and knats, but this year they've told their other friends,(The moths and bulwievles), about the new B&B they've found and how great it is. So, this year we find ourselves cleaning cabinets and throwing away at least 75$ worth of grain items which said moths decided would make a great place to cocoon. sigh. We've only seen a few of the fruit flies so far, but they're coming. I can feel them coming as sure as I can feel a storm coming. The truth is that I don't ever really even get these populations down to a tolerable level on my own. normally they die out as the fall arrives. They are just too clever and quick for me, and we will not spray our house.... as much as I hate navigating around them and their mere presence is crazy-making...like having too many people in a room! I am thankful, however that despite the ongoing war in my kitchen, I am enjoying a cease fire on the back porch. No more spider poop on the appliances, no more mosquitoes biting me, no more frogs, June bugs or moths found in the washer~! This is big stuff to me. I'm very very happy that hub screened in the back porch. Hmmm.. wonder if we could just set up a grill out there and just skip the kitchen till early Oct.?

Well, we've lived in our beautiful residence since 2005 and we have just planted our first make-shift garden. We have: 1 tomato plant, 2 basil plants, 1 butternut squash(which resides at the Moon Hacienda) and 1 papaya plant so far. We are planning to throw a bunch of wild flower seeds and some sunflower seeds into the mix so ole Harley can get his jollies watching them grow and bloom. He does love to check on growth, he loves to dig around and pull things up when they need pulling. He is the perfect gardening assistant.

I have no idea why I've written this except to say I have surrendered my kitchen, we are all splashing as much as we can, and now FINALLY gardening too. Summer has officially begun.