When Hell Freezes Over

I can't report that all the water pipes burst in the night, or that my citrus crop was ruined (don't have one).  But it got cold last night.  Was at a friend's until after midnight and returned home to a house that was 45F inside.  Likewise this a.m.  The high today will be 46F so I don't expect the house to warm up at all today.

St. Augustine FL

I spent 12/27 in St. Augustine with daughter Maggie and our dear friend Deborah.  We had great fun in the cold wintry weather.  One highlight was eating hot borscht with pirogies, spinach/feta pie, and a greek salad, served up at a little mom and pop place on Aviles St.


Dooryard sculpture and wrought iron.

An old doorway arched in coquina blocks.

Old window with hurricane shutters.

Stained glass window, Catholic Diocese of St. Augustine.

Castillo San Marcos

Old arcade piece

Maggie and her doting father at the old carousel in St. Augustine.  Only $1 per ride!

Maggie and Deborah on the carousel.

Local Color - Florida

Winter hasn't quite arrived in Florida.  A cool snap during the last couple of weeks has brought out the colors of Fall.  Hickories and elms have turned yellow.  Sweet gums range from bronze to maroon to a decent orange color.  In this photo of an upland tupelo (Nyssa sulvatica) one sees a pleasing medley of hues.  This is one of my favorite Florida trees.

O Holy Night

The early evening sky was especially lovely tonight with a pink sunset graced by a sliver of moon. On nights like this one its easy to park the car in the driveway after the commute home and linger outside to watch the colors go away and the stars begin to glimmer.

Render This

I got to monkeying around with Adobe Photoshop and created a mock book cover. I hope nobody is actually writing this book, but I wouldn't be surprised if it has already gone through several printings.

The original image was a rather unremarkable photograph of some swirly foam making its way downstream from Big Shoals on the Suwannee River in north central Florida. The 4-mile hike the clog-wife and I took on that bright winter afternoon was far less chilling than the mock book cover would suggest.

Pat Your Little Foot, Sally Ann

Video of the Clog-wife flatfooting to the fiddle and banjo accompanied by yours truly on guitar in the sitting room of a friend's old frame house in Micanopy, Florida.

Pat Your Little Foot, Sally Ann

Dave Forbes - fiddle, Chuck Levy - banjo
The four of us as "Fear No Weevil" will perform two shows at the Florida Folk Festival next weekend.

Micanopy Florida, fiddle, banjo, flatfooting, Sally Ann

Gumbo Limbo

The Clog-wife, her son, and I walked/bicycled downtown to watch the hot north Florida Cajun band Gumbo Limbo play at the sinkhole bandstand at the High Springs farmers' market. Members of Gumbo Limbo are friends in the traditional music and dance circles we move in. All, including us, are former members of or are somehow connected to the Cross Creek Cloggers. It was nice to be outside on a bright summer day listening to good music and dancing a bit. We'll all see eachother again in a few days since we're all performers at the Florida Folk Festival next weekend. We returned home to a meal of meatloaf, yellow rice, and fresh green beans.

I photographed a couple of butterflies feeding on lantana in one of our gardens:



Giant Swallowtail




Zebra Swallowtail










technorati: swallowtail, zebra swallowtail, giant swallowtail, gumbo limbo, High SpringsFlorida

The Enigma of Returning

After a long hiatus I'm back again. Changes abound.

This past weekend the Clog-wife and I had some memorable experiences. We lunched with my daughters prior to their sojourn in Athens and Crete with their mother. We hiked in San Felasco Hammock and saw a 4-point whitetail in velvet, and hiked at O'leno State Park where we saw a 4' garfish; a young 3'-4' alligator who still had the orange-ish bars/stripes on his tail; and had a close encounter with a red-shouldered hawk who swooped through the woods at eye-level just 20 feet in front of us.

We attended the 2007 annual meeting/reunion of the local chapter of the National Association of Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Alumni at O'Leno. What a vibrant bunch of old folks they were! My Grandfather Baldwin served in the CCC in 1934 in Idaho. This being the Fred White/Gator chapter in north central Florida, and well-attended by elderly southern ladies, it was a treat to sample the great southern cooking during the pot-luck after the business had been attended to: Fried chicken, creamed corn, pole beans and ham, coleslaw, and some marvelous desserts.

CCC, Florida, whitetail deer, alligator, hawk

Today's Butterflies

Today scores of butterflies visited the sunny flower beds at west-facing Clog-House, Est. 1935:

Gulf Fritillary
Cloudless Sulfur
Long-tailed Skipper
another brown Skipper – 2-3 white checks on wings
Zebra Long-wing

It is truly pleasurable and amazing to this Idaho transplant that so many butterflies visit our north-central Florida flower beds this late in the season.