A Day Brightener

Our youngest son, Darby aka The Darb, flew down from Columbus, Ohio last week to visit.  He was looking forward to a week of sunshine, shorts and exploration.  What he got was record breaking cold temperatures, rain and wind.  The only good news was that our weather here was consistently 40 degrees warmer than back in Ohio where one morning the temperature was -11 degrees.  So the kid wasn't complaining too much.

Friday, the last day of Darb's stay, had a weather forecast of sunny and 80 degrees so I planned a stop for lunch at a restaurant on the banks of Lake Weir, followed by a visit to Blue Spring State Park to see the manatees and then Denny and I would take him to the airport to return to Ohio.  Oh the best laid plans....the day dawned foggy, dreary and cool.  Crap!

Determined to make the best of it, off we went for a very tasty lunch at Gator Joe's.  On a nice day, we would have sat outside on the deck over the water and enjoyed the view.  This time around, we simply enjoyed the company and the food.

 About an hour's drive along county roads took us to the Blue Spring State Park where a large group of manatees had arrived during the frigid Florida weather.  The spring that feeds into the St. John River here dumps about 100 million (read that again) gallons of water into the river and the water temperature from the spring is a constant 72 degrees.  You see, manatees will die when they are exposed to water temperatures in the 60s so they search out areas where there are warm springs.  On this day, the staff had counted 264 manatees in the river.

I have to admit, in the madness that precedes a person packing up and preparing for a flight out of town, I forgot to toss my camera into the car so the following photos were taken with the camera in my phone.  Which is never an acceptable substitute but it was all I had.  Sigh.

I have no idea what a group of manatees is called, but a magnificence of manatees would be good.  If you click on the photo below you might notice one manatee grasping the tree limb with his flipper and pulling the leaf-filled branches to his mouth.  Manatees are herbivores, eating the grasses and algae available in the waters and leaves that they can reach. 

 Manatees surface every few minutes for air and can remain underwater for 20 minutes or so.  The largest of this group were noisy blowing out water and sucking in air while the babies were virtually noise-free.

 A lovely statue of a manatee done in mosiac tile.

 Slow, massive and peaceful, manatees grow up to thirteen feet long and can weigh as much as 1300 pounds. 

 The river is also home to several species of fish.  We watched tilapia flashing their silvery sides and these Florida gars kept the manatees company.

 The worst enemy the manatee has is man and his power boats.  On the manatee on the left you can see the scars from the boat propellers.  This one is surfacing for air while the other manatee rolls while luxuriating in the warmth of the water.

 The obligatory tourist shot; me, Darb and Denny.

 Mama and baby; as we approached the deck where this pair was resting I overheard a lady say she saw the mother nursing the baby.  Darn!  Notice once again the propeller scars on the mother's back.  A simple cage over the propeller would help prevent a lot of the injuries but boat owners apparently aren't fond of this fix.

 The manatees seem to derive a lot of pleasure in rolling over and over in slow motion.  They are just so much fun to watch in their placid movements and obvious pleasure in the warmth of the water.

In the winter you can't enter the waters of the St. John's River near the Blue Spring but in the summer the river is open to swimming, canoeing and kayaking.  There is a campground with water and electric hook ups, nature trails and the Louis Thursby house can be toured several days of the week.  The Thursby family was one of the first to settle in the area and to plant orange groves.

Despite the cool temperatures and overcast skies and the fact that Darb had to return to Ohio, we had a really nice time at Blue Spring State Park.  

The Convertible Club Does the Mt. Dora Christmas Walk

There's nothing like going to look at Christmas lights while driving around with your top down.  (insert very big grin)

In December, one of our scheduled Convertible Club trips was to the annual Mt. Dora Christmas Walk.  The city blocks off several blocks of downtown Mt. Dora, the shops stay open late and the town has bedecked itself with lights and has a party with live bands in the streets, musical Christmas trees and lots and lots of people wandering around.  Denny and I had a great meal at a Cuban restaurant and then headed out to explore the various antique shops, boutiques and great places to have ice cream.

Carolers.

Lights.

Jazz band.

There is a history attached to this stuff polar bear but I'm having a senior moment and can't remember it.

Musical tree with sunset over the lake included.

A rescued cockatoo that was out for some air.  A CC member who was not familiar with how hard a cockatoo can bite was pushing his luck here.

We'll have to do this again.

A Day Trip to De Leon Springs State Park and the Pioneer Settlement in Barberville, Florida

After living seven months in TV (The Villages) being busy with nesting and settling in, Denny and I joined TV Convertible Club and our first outing was scheduled for Thursday.  After months and months of hot, sunshine filled days, Thursday morning dawned dreary, overcast and COLD--or at 48 degrees what is very cold to a Villager.  No top down driving today; Denny and I dressed in jeans and sweatshirts knowing we would be wandering around outside where winds were forecast to be in the 25-30 mph range.  Brrr.

  Our first stop about one hour away was the Old Spanish Sugar Mill Restaurant in the De Leon Springs State Park in De Leon Springs, Florida. Built as a replica of the sugar mill that had been on the grounds in the 1800s, the restaurant features long tables with griddles built into the middle of the table for cooking your own pancakes and eggs for breakfast. The staff provides the meat choices of cooked bacon, sausage or ham slices and bring two pitches of batter to the table along with a bowl of eggs. Honey, molasses and syrup are provided and you cook and eat at your leisure. We sat with MaryAnn and Tom and Larry and Janet and had a good time. After eating Denny and I wandered the grounds because we had about 45 minutes to kill before we hit the Pioneer Settlement. As I was waiting for Denny to come out of the restaurant I wandered over to the springs to take a photo of some people in scuba gear and asked one of the young men preparing to go into the water if it was a scuba lesson class or practice? He said the group was from the Orlando Fire Department Rescue Squad and they were there to practice deep water rescues since the spring was 30 feet deep in one section with very clear water so they could practice safely. The water felt like it was about 75-76 degrees and of course they were in full wet suits but the idea of that cool water made me shiver. There is a small visitor center in the building behind the spring with information on the original Native American tribe that lived in the area and how De Leon Spring was once a big resort area in the late 1800s but now is a state park that connects to a wildlife area for great boating, canoeing and kayaking opportunities.

It was time to move on down the road (much too far down the road due to lousy GPS directions) to the Pioneer Settlement for the Creative Arts. Once simply the grounds of the Barberville High School and Elementary School, the Pioneer Settlement is now run by a non-profit organization as a recreated village of historical buildings and their related artifacts. Our Convertible Club group was broken up into three groups, each with a docent dressed in outfits appropriate to the late 1800s/early 1900s. The main building of note is the former Central High School building which is in the National Historic Register. Now used as a living history museum and teaching center, local students are brought in for a day of class, shown how cotton and wool were made into yarn and thread on spinning wheels and hand spindles and have natural dyes explained to them. Students sit in an actual classroom at desks taken from old schools in the area (and have no clue what the holes in the top right corner of the wooden desks might have been used for!) and learn how to do spelling and sums on small chalkboards at their desks—in other words they learn as students did at the turn of the century. There are demonstations on candlemaking, rug weaving, pine needle basket making, quilt making, butter churning and more.

Dotted about the thirty or so acres are various historic buildings that have been moved from other locations before they were destroyed. Some buildings were built new on site, like the barn, but when they built the barn they cut logs, hand sawed the logs to make planks, a blacksmith made the hinges for the doors and carpenters hand cut shingles for the roof. In other words, it was similar to an Amish barn raising and the craftmanship is astounding.

We saw buggies and wagons and learned that the wheelwright who comes to the festivals and crafts demonstrations is 91 years old and still hand forges the metal rings for the big wagon wheels he creates from wood. Two weeks ago at a festival on the grounds he made ten wagon wheels from scratch and we saw the fire pit where he heated the bands of metal he forged for the wheel rims and the docent explained to us that once the rim was placed around the wheel water is poured on the metal to cool it quickly which causes it to shrink tightly to the wood. Apparently measuring the metal to get it the right size for the wheel is a very exact science.

There's a turpentine workers's shotgun house on the grounds, wallpapered in newspapers for insulation. In the back yard is the cast iron cage that was the sleeping area for convicts who were brought in to work at the turpentine distillery and slept outdoors in the metal cage, six at a time. The turpentine still looks like an oversized kid's fort.

The longer you wander here the more you see. They have a kitchen and row garden to show how families grew their own vegetables and herbs and a small livestock area with a mule, goats, chickens, geese and sheep to represent the types of animals that would be found on farms back in those days. They also have peacocks, not that folks normally had those around, but they apparently make great watchdogs and they hate rattlesnakes and will kill any that come into the yard. Who knew??

There are many more buildings where actual demonstrations are given for the print shop, the blacksmith, the cooper, the wood wright shop, the pottery room, the wheelwright, etc. during the various special events. At Christmas time they are decorated for the season and have children's activities, demonstrations, music and visits from Santa.

This was a great way to learn a bit about Florida history and industries from the turn of the century and nice day trip.