Fall Color in Florida

He's got Shingles

My hubby, that is. Most likely caused by stress. :( I made him go to acute care tonight, I had my suspicions and I was right. Glad we caught it quick, AND that it's not in a horribly bad spot. (Not that ANY spot is good for shingles, but there are worse places than the shoulder area...right Dad?)

:o)

Field Trip

I went on a field trip with my Flickr peeps last Saturday. It was an awesome day. We started out at Egan's Creek Greenway, which I've posted about before . It was supposed to be rainy some of the day, but it started out absolutely gorgeous.







After stomping around in the marsh for awhile, we headed over to St. Peter's Episcopal Church Cemetery. It's a beautiful little cemetery, and we had a good time snapping away in the shade of the huge, old oaks.
All that photography works up an appetite, so we went to the Front & Center in Downtown Fernandina. It's a beautiful restaurant, right on the Amelia River. The seafood quiche was fabulous. :)It's always great to go on these field trips. It's so refreshing to be running around with your own kind, and you know NO one is going to roll their eyes at you for taking a picture of your food before you eat it, or whine if you make them stop for "just one more shot" :)
After lunch, the weather was taking a turn for the worse, but we took the opportunity to harass the pelicans on the dock.

All in all, it was a great day. I'm already looking forward to the next one! :)

Somewhere, Out there...

is a naked snake.

Skywatch Friday

Beautiful Blue Fall Skies here in FL, between rainshowers :)

Hope everyone has a great weekend, and for more skywatchers from all over the world, click on my post title above :)

Never Forget

RJ and I visited the cemetery this afternoon. We took a walk through the grounds, he asked questions and I answered as best I could. I told him about people he had never met, but are a part of him.
I come from a family running over with veterans :) My Grandfather and his brother both served in WWII and Grandpa served in Korea as well. My Father, brother, and sister-in-law are veterans of the Gulf War and spent many, MANY collective years serving our country in the military.

There's still a war going on, though it's gone on for so long now, it's easy to forget as we go on with our daily lives. I am guilty of failing to pray daily for those who now serve, and to be thankful for those who served in the past to protect the freedom we enjoy today. Let us not forget to remember...
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends ~ John 15:13

RJ's first Jack-O-Lantern

Friday Skywatch

We don't have a whole lot of Fall color here in Florida. Sunsets and and blue skies over the pines is about as colorful as it gets, Fall-wise.

We do have an abundance of wild flowers that bloom during all seasons. It's kind of like having Spring all year 'round, but I sure do enjoy the cool weather when it comes :)

Happy Skywatch, have a great weekend!

Click on the post title above for more skywatch from all over the world.

Miracles Still Happen :)

So how do you go from this...


to pie? Good question! LOL, Mrs. Merle brought us the pumpkin you see above. It's a sugar pumpkin, or Pie pumpkin. It's smaller and sweeter than the ones you usually see carved into Jack-o-lanterns. RJ helped to scoop out the guts and get it ready to cook.
We put it in the oven to roast until it was soft enough to scoop out of the rind.Cooked pumpkin:


Then we had to mash it up and get it ready to combine with the other ingredients that make pumpkin pie so good.
Once we got the filling ready, we had to get the crust ready to fill. I did shortcut, and my daughter said I was cheating by using a Pillsbury ready-to-roll crust. Hey! Martha Stewart I'm not ~ I'm more of your Erma Bombeck type. Just making the filling from scratch is accomplishment enough for me, thankyouverymuch! LOLFilled the crust, and then we put it in the oven and wait.
In the meantime, I tried some of the seeds I had roasted. They have a wonderful flavor, and they're extremely healthy and good for you, but they are like eating raw carrot. You chew and chew and chew and it never goes away! LOL

Voila! We have pie. It looks like pumpkin pie...and it smells like pumpkin pie...but will it taste like it?
Although the texture was a little different than your typical canned-pumpkin pie, it was fantastic, in my humble but most accurate opinion :)
And RJ agreed, and so did everyone else in the house, judging from the almost-empty pie dish.