Day +17 – return to Winnona

Thursday August 2, 2012
Quail Run RV Resort Lot 15

 

 

FIRST:

Happy Lammas to those of you who celebrate the wheel of the year.

It’s Mid-summer, Half way to Fall Equinox, a first harvest celebration.  Bring on the ripe juicy tomatoes and corn!!  YUM!!   Great excuse for a party!   I particularly like RED RED tomatoes and white corn.  But white is hard to come by unless you grow your own so lately I’m having yellow or at best “bi-color”.  Makes me miss my garden.

 

 

Today is the day for corn and tomato salad for dinner or maybe tomato and corn tortillas (with some avocado thrown in for fun).   What do you think??   Both?

 

 

 

SECOND:

HEADLINE Tampa: 
Pink Mass identified as villain.

 

And now for the educational portion of this post - Educational  in some way other than medical.   I must advise  you that none of us managed to guess the real identity of the pink bubble gum/fungus on the cypress tree.  David stopped this morning at the Lettuce Lake Visitor’s Center to inquire.  They are all too aware of the presence of the exotic invasive Channeled Apple Snail.  This is a BAD guy.  They lay so many eggs so quickly that it is nearly impossible to keep up with eradication.  They eat native aquatic vegetation at a rapid rate and have spread throughout Florida.

In tests, they have been shown to consume almost every submersed aquatic plant species offered.  Young snails may become reproductive as early as 2 to 3 months of age. In Lake Linda in Lake County, they have removed essentially all of the aquatic plants present in the lake.
Like native Pomacea, channeled apple snails possess both a lung and a gill, as well as a snorkel-like siphon through which they can breathe atmospheric air, at the same time reducing the risk of attack by terrestrial predators. They can resist desiccation by closing their shells using their opercula, as well as by estivating (similar to hibernation) in sediments for up to 5 months. They can tolerate salinity to 8 parts per thousand, and seem unaffected by nutrient enrichment and low oxygen levels. 

This is one tough customer.  If you see them or their egg masses.  Report them or remove them.  I’m going to carry gloves on my hikes from now on along with my ever present trash bag to clean up after the less thoughtful.   How about you???

 

THIRD:

After a total of TWENTY long days, David has returned to Winnona!!

We get up this morning and have our last scrambled eggs and accompaniments breakfast courtesy of the Residence Inn.  David takes a morning walk over to Lettuce Lake where he checks on the pink fungus question while I pack everything in the room for our departure.
Somehow I manage to stuff all the stuff into the car and to squeeze David in too.  It is AMAZING how much stuff we had between the things he took to the hospital, the things they sent him home with and the things I brought to the half way hotel.

 

David gets the food back in the refrigerator while I bring the rest of the stuff into the rig and work on putting it away.  I had to take the J-M-C along to the half way hotel of course, so he’s making it fit back in the freezer.

Time for lunch.  I make him a milk shake to go along with his sandwich.  Wish I’d gotten a picture of it.  Although since you couldn’t taste how good it was, you probably don’t want to just look at it.

Then he goes back to the new normal of watching the Olympics while I continue to empty bags.  This time he watches Table tennis and declares it to be “amazing”.  As you can see, he hasn’t put “all” his things away.  But I have gathered them together in the front of the coach so he can see what he’s up against.  :-)

 

Lunch, milkshake and Olympics make him sleepy so he naps for an hour while I have my lunch, work on the blog and our financial spread sheet. 

When he wakes up, he gets MOST of the piles put away.   I’ve had a very light lunch so I begin dinner preparations for an early dinner.   It is a Lammas 1st harvest celebration.  I have the light version, he has the more calorie pasta version.  One of the benefits to me of being back with Winnona is not being tempted by all that not so good for me food.

But this dinner was delicious and very good for me.  You can see which first harvest dish I chose.

 

 

mmmmm good!

 

After dinner David does whatever he’s doing on his laptop, grumbles that he missed Beach Volleyball at 5:00 and Handball at 6:00 and then falls asleep.  It’s now 6:50 and I don’t eat dessert after 7:00 so here’s what he is doing and here’s what I am doing.  He’s too busy to take the picture.  HA!!  Who’s having more fun????

 

 

 

 

When he wakes up, he does the dishes while I read and then we go out for a short walk.  His energy is best in the morning and even with frequent naps it runs down hill all day long.   Today fatigue has been his biggest side effect.

 

We end our walk over at Jo Beth and Catherine’s where Karen and Al have joined them for a “happy hour”.

 

 

It’s been a busy day and he needs to get more rest so we don’t stay long but it is good to be back with Winnona and our friends.