WAXING CRESCENT

                         Waxing and waning every month ad infinitum goes the moon.  It's lunacy to change daily adding and subtracting light from the sphere in the sky.  The sun stays the same except at sunrise and sunset.  The stars are always rising and falling.   Sunrise,Sunset softly go the days.
                            CROISSSANTS,bagels and donuts.  Don't forget cruellers.petit fours and elephant ears.  We call Entemann's Pecan Coffee Ring Roach Cake because of the little brown nuts in it.  Strudel,fruit cake and pfferneuse are disappearing from the grocery store shelves.
                                    Mind you beeswax means mind your own business.  You can have wax in your ears.  They used to tell us to clean our ears or potatoes would grow in them.   My thoughts are starting to wane.  At dusk the sunlight will wane and the moonlight wax.

                                      

BICYCLING

A FOURSOME ON THE 6TH GREEN ON CHRISTMAS DAY 2011

                                 I bicycled on every street in my neighborhood today.  I was well fueled after a Christmas dinner of salad,Southwestern corn,black beans,tomatoes and olives salad, Publix five grain Italian bread,jumbo shrimp and sea scallop on the barbie and filet mignon.  For dessert we had homemade apple pie with Double Vanilla ice cream, egg nog ice cream and Key Lime pie.  We ate at sunset on our back patio on the 6th green.
                                    There was no figgy pudding,pumpkin pie or turkey or ham.  No one ate the baked potaotoes or sour cream and chives.  They barely ate the Key Lime pie.  Only a few had the filet mignon.  There was no rain but the clouds kept the normally blazing setting sun out of our eyes.  A few golfers rolled by.  When dinner was ready, we were safe from any errant shots to the green.
                                      So it was good ride through these mean streets around the country club.
                                    

MUM'S THE WORD II

EVEN

                      This is the Seven Sacred Pools Waterfalls in Maui out of focus.  We drove the Hana Road.  It was getting dark when we reached Hana,but we forged on a sunset to see the seven waterfalls on a winding road outside of town.  Fortunately the National Park Service whose hand reaches 3000 miles across the Pacific doesn't allowing swimming in the pools since a tourist dove in and drowned.   Still pitch black dark approached so we headed back to Hana to find a hotel room.  There were none to be found.  We ate dinner after an hour wait in the only restaurant open.  We were their last customers of the night.  We gave the accommodations search one last try.  A bed and breakfast that hadn't answered earlier said they had a room.  at 10 pm, they lead us up the hill to their rental house.  So we didn't have to sleep in the car in Hana.

MIDWAY AIRBOAT RIDE

SWAMPED-ST. JOHN'S RIVER-CHRISTMAS,FLORIDA

                                             Oh give me a home where the cattle roam and the alligators and egrets play. Where never is heard a discouraging word and skies are cloudy today.
                Home, Home on the St. John's River where the airboats travel each day.
                You see gators, Cypress trees and knees,egrets,Great Blue Heron,and cattle grazing away.

We paid $30 each for a guided air boat ride with Midway Air Boats at noon on the St. John's River outside Titusville,Florida on Rte 50.   It's called midway because it's halfway between the
St.John River's source near Vero,Florida and its mouth near Jacksonville,Florida. The St. John's is one of the few rivers in the world that flows north.  It often looks like a swamp or even a dried up river bed.  This year there's plenty of water for the cows to graze in.  

Our $30 was well spent as we zoomed around the barely 10 ft. deep water in an air boat full of ten people wearing headsets to muffle the motor noise and to listen to the captain conduct the nature tour.  We stopped and saw cows free grazing on the grasses in the river.  Unfortunately they add to the nitrates build up in the water which hurts the fish.    Ten foot and smaller alligators were sunning on the islands in the river.  One opened his mouth and showed us his teeth as a warning to stay away.     Great Blue Herons along the river have been known to eat baby alligators.  Alligators in turn will eat them and also the calves of the grazing cows.  The air boat zoomed through a raft of coots but the driver slowed down so one slow one wouldn't be mowed down.

Eventually toward the end of the hour long tour we ended up in a cypress swamp in the Tosohatchee National Forest.  It was very still and peaceful when we turned off the motor.  The Cypress  knees are roots which stretch into the water.  The knees are an adaptation for drought periods to sustain the Cypress.  On the way back to the  Midway Air Boat dock, we passed an island which had been an Indian Mound in pre-Columbus days where the first peoples in Florida sought high ground during storms.  There are many of those islands in the river from Vero to Jacksonville.

Back at the dock, our guide let each of us have our picture taken holding a young alligator with its mouth tied shut.  Midway has an extensive gift shop.  As we were leaving we met the local muralist AL RAO who painted illustrations of the animals seen on the tour all over the outside of the gift shop.  Mr. Rao is originally from New York City and later the Catskills.  In Titusville, Florida he specializes in Florida landscapes,birds and animals. His murals are all over town including The Sunrise Bakery.  I own three of Rao's Florida landscape paintings.

As for us, we were back for lunch in Titusville at The Italian Fisherman on US 1 on the Indian River across from the Kennedy Space Center  in ten minutes.  The Fisherman serves breakfast,lunch and dinner like a diner at reasonable prices. 

Gopher Tortoise

DECEMBER BEACHING

                                I DROVE WITH MY TOP DOWN TO THE BEACH THROUGH THE WILDLIFE REFUGE.  RAINDROPS STARTED TO FALL.   I HAD TO PUT ON MY WINDSHIELD WIPERS.  BUT I DIDN'T STOP AND PUT THE TOP UP.  SOON THE RAINDROPS THAT WERE FALLING ON MY HEAD STOPPED.  THE SUN CAME OUT.  IT WAS CLEAR,FRESH AND BEAUTIFUL AT THE BEACH-ALL 24 MILES OF IT IN THE CANAVERAL NATIONAL SEASHORE.
                           THE WPA WAS ABOUT TO RESURFACE ALL THE ROADS AND PARKING LOTS.  I'VE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING WRONG WITH THE ROADS BUT I GUESS THE FEDERAL MAINTENANCE FUNDS MUST BE USED UP BY THE END OF THE YEAR.   SO I GUESS THEY ARE ABOUT TO REPAVE PARADISE INCLUDING THE PARKING LOTS.  TOMORROW IS THE LAST HOT DAY SO HOPEFULLY THEY WILL WAIT UNTIL THEN. 

CANAVERAL NATIONAL SEASHORE

TITUSVILLE,FLORIDA

                        USUALLY THEY DO CONTROLLED BURNS ON BEAUTIFUL DAYS AT HE NATIONAL SEASHORE AND WILDLIFE REFUGE.  THEY WILL TORTURE US WITH THAT SMOKE NEXT YEAR.  PAVING PARADISE IS THE PRIORITY RIGHT NOW.

BEFORE I DIE,I WANT TO............

SEE SOMETHING NEW EACH DAY
EVERY DAY IS A NEW DAY.  I SAW THE ATLANTIC OCEAN WITH LOTS OF FISHERMEN TODAY.  BUT I'VE SEEN THAT BEFORE.  IT'S GREAT TO GO TO THE SEA.  IF YOU'RE LUCKY ENOUGH TO LIVE BY THE SEA.  YOU ARE LUCKY ENOUGH.  THAT'S WHY I HEADED TO THE OCEAN ON A WARM DECEMBER DAY IN MY CONVERTIBLE MIATA WITH THE TOP DOWN AND THE RADIO BLASTING IN MY EARS.
WHEN I GOT BACK TO TITUSVILLE THERE WAS A TRAFFIC JAM ON WASHINGTON STREET.  SURE ENOUGH SOMETHING NEW HAPPENED RIGHT BY THE SEEDY PINK MOTEL CALLED THREE OAKS(THERE ARE NO OAKS THERE ANYMORE).  A FIRE ENGINE,AMBULANCE,POLICE CAR AND BORDER PATROL VAN WERE PARKED ON THE STREET BY THE MOTEL.  A SLIM VERY DARK SKINNED NUDE FROM THE WAIST UP MAN WAS BEING ARRESTED.   SOME WOMEN WERE THERE TOO FROM  JAMAICA OR AFRICA OR SOMEWHERE.  WE ARE FAR FROM THE BORDER ALTHOUGH FLORIDA IS A PENINSULA SO THE OCEAN IS OUR BORDER I GUESS.  UNLESS THEY CAME OVER THE GEORGIA BORDER.  IF SO I SAY DEPORT THEM BACK TO THAT STATE AND PUT UP  A FENCE. 
                          THE ARTIST PAINTING A PORTRAIT OF THE BEATLES IS THE NEW THING I  CAME UPON AT MENAUHANT  BEACH IN FALMOUTH,MASSACHUSETTS THIS SUMMER.   THE ARTIST LIKES TO DO PLEIN AIR PAINTINGS.
SO THAT'S ALL FOLKS. 

MY BOUGAINVILLEA

MY BACKYARD

                              FINALLY MY BOUGAINVILLEA IS BLOOMING.  I'VE HAD IT FOR FOUR YEARS.  I USED TO HAVE IT IN THE FRONT NEAR THE WATERING SYSTEM BUT IT TOOK OVER THE WHOLE ENTRANCE GARDEN WITH PRICKERS AND VINES ALL OVER.  SO I DUG IT UP AND PUT IT IN A POT IN THE BACK BY THE GIANT OAK TREE ON THE SIXTH GREEN.  THE ROOTS HAVE DUG INTO THE SOIL THROUGH THE BOTTOM OF THE POT.  THERE WAS A LOT OF RAIN THIS SUMMER PLUS I GAVE IT SOME MIRACLE GRO AND SUDDENLY SOME RED BLOSSOMS APPEARED. 
                               THERE ARE ONLY THREE RED BLOSSOMS BUT IT'S A START.  BLOOM ON MACDUFF FOR OUR CAUSE IS TOUGH.