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Recent Entries to this Blog
THE BATTLE OF OLUSTEE
Posted: 07 Dec 2020 Posted: 23 Nov 2020 Posted: 16 Nov 2020 Posted: 12 Oct 2020 Posted: 07 Sep 2020 All Entries |
The Eclectic GardenMaking a little bit of everything look just right.
Onion Houseplant?
Category: Gardening | Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2014 9:45 am I work behind a desk all day and I have a small plant that I keep on my desk. To be honest I'm not exactly sure what the name of it is, but it has flourished under the fluorescent lights. The fact that the little plant was doing so good made me wonder if I could grow a vegetable at work. I've been kicking around trying different ones and have finally decided on an onion. The reason behind choosing an onion is because they don't get very big. A tomato would be awesome, but somehow I just can't imagine my employer appreciating a tomato plant setting on my desk, even one of the smaller determinate varieties. As I mentioned, the office has fluorescent lighting, but there is a window across from my desk that also lets filtered sunlight in. I'm thinking that is one of the reasons that the plant has done so well. A couple of weeks back I started some onion seed and now I have a couple of tiny seedlings growing. I'll let them get a little bigger, pick the best one and put it in a nice pot just in time for the very first "take an onion to work with you day" (yes, I made the day up myself, but I'm thinking it could catch on... well, maybe not). I'd like to keep a photo journal of the onion from start to finish. Once the sun comes up I'll post a picture of the two seedlings (don't ask me why I'm posting about growing onions at my desk at 5:30 in the morning). This little experiment may or may not work. The fun is going to be finding out. I'm pretty sure this is why my daughter calls me a garden nerd. 
( photo / image / picture from eclecticgarden's Garden ) 
Office Onion - 8/28/14 ( photo / image / picture from eclecticgarden's Garden ) Last edited: Thu Aug 28, 2014 11:04 am This blog entry has been viewed 514 times
Kids Are Growing Too
Category: Life As I Know It | Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2014 11:19 am My oldest son headed to Fire College yesterday. He's already gotten his EMT certification and after Fire College he's going to pursue being a paramedic. I can't believe how quickly this time has gotten here. How does it go by so fast? 
( photo / image / picture from eclecticgarden's Garden ) 
( photo / image / picture from eclecticgarden's Garden ) This blog entry has been viewed 577 times
Chickens Are Growing
Category: Chickens | Posted: Sun Aug 24, 2014 12:25 pm The chickens should be laying any time now. We have quite the assortment of breeds. We have two of each with the exception of the silver ones. We have four of those. 
Austrolorp ( photo / image / picture from eclecticgarden's Garden ) 
Rhode Island Red ( photo / image / picture from eclecticgarden's Garden ) 
Gold Laced Wyandotte ( photo / image / picture from eclecticgarden's Garden ) 
Silver Laced Wyandotte ( photo / image / picture from eclecticgarden's Garden ) 
Brahma ( photo / image / picture from eclecticgarden's Garden ) Last edited: Sun Aug 24, 2014 12:41 pm This blog entry has been viewed 575 times
Close Call
Category: Life As I Know It | Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2014 9:00 pm The light turned yellow just as I got there so I was the first one in the lane to turn left. For some reason I wanted to know how long the light was going to stay red so as I rolled to a stop I glanced at the digital clock on the dash. It read 7:29. I'm normally by myself on the way to work, but my youngest son, Joshua, started at the local college this week and it's right across from my work. It works out well because we can ride together and it gives us a chance to talk. Joshua is pretty good about talking to me. It's normally about computer stuff, but that's what he is into and hearing how much it excites him makes me happy. At 7:29 Joshua was explaining something to me about static and dynamic RAM. To be honest, I didn't understand completely and I was concentrating so hard trying to comprehend what he was saying that I missed it when the light turned from red to green. It had probably only been green a second or two and once I noticed I took the time to look at the clock. It read 7:30. I remember thinking, "One minute, that's not too bad." I took my foot off the brake and pressed the accelerator. I had only gotten a couple of feet when I noticed something moving to my left. I hit the brakes and some knucklehead in a Ford F-150 pickup truck blew through the red light and whizzed right by the front of my car. It took the better part of the day for my pulse rate to go down. I thought about how close of a call we had all day. If Joshua wouldn't have been talking to me would I have pulled out quicker and gotten hit? What if I hadn't been timing the red light? I mean, it did take me a second to glance at the clock before I took off. Was that enough time to prevent an accident? And there's something eerie about me glancing at the clock. In a worst case scenario I could have been timing my own death. I know that is morbid, but that's where my mind has gone with this. I'm very thankful that an accident was avoided this morning. It has made me think about how quickly things could go bad though. I always try to be a careful driver, but I will be even more careful now. Maybe this close call has prevented something worse from happening. Last edited: Thu Aug 21, 2014 11:55 pm This blog entry has been viewed 514 times
Me And My Honey
Category: Bees | Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2014 10:00 am I had a pretty exciting day at the bee hives on Sunday. My wife has always been on board with the bees, but this time she wanted to dive in with me and learn more about the inner workings of the hive. I am not an expert by any means, but I was anxious to show her what I knew. I have two bee suits so we both got dressed. I hate wearing that thing, but after the allergic reaction a few weeks back I have come to accept the fact that I need to wear it. We have no idea if my wife is allergic, but she has no desire to find out. In fact, she went so far as to wear rubber boots with her suit so that there was no chance of one getting her on the ankle. With the suits on and the smoker in hand we headed out to the hive. Both of my parents tagged along to watch as well. I have extra veils so they both put one on. The first hive that we went into was the one that I was working in when I got stung and had the allergic reaction. I thought maybe I had done something wrong that day to rile them up, but after pulling the top off it was pretty apparent that this hive is a little on the "hot" side. They were dive bombing us from the get go. In fact, even though my mom and dad were standing back both of them ended up getting stung on the hand. Thankfully the suits did their job because neither Donna or I felt the wrath of the angry ladies. Despite the flurry of activity around us we inspected the hive and took it all the way to the bottom brood box. There was a lot of brood (both capped and uncapped) plenty of pollen stores and some honey. I wanted so desperately to show her the queen, but I just wasn't able to locate her. I was on the lookout for hive beetles, but didn't see any. I also did my best to look for the dreaded varroa mite, but didn't see any of those either. The bee club recommends that we dust the bees with powdered sugar this time of year to help with varroa mites, so we did that. We also placed some Better Beetle Blaster hive beetle traps in the hive. As I was placing the frames back in my wife was brushing away the bees so that I wouldn't smash any. Her concern over their welfare was touching. The second hive is at my brother's house so we drove over there. It is amazing how different the temperament is between the two hives. I honestly believe that I could have gone in without using the smoker. These girls were docile and didn't seem to mind that we were there at all. When I pulled out one of the frames something caught my wife's attention. Upon closer inspection we realized it was a bee that was just hatching. I held the frame in my hand and we watched with delight as she worked her way out of the cell. It took about ten minutes, but she finally pulled free. She was just a little bit lighter in color and she took a few minutes to catch her bearing, but it didn't take long for her to fit in. In fact, there was another bee that kept impatiently walking back and forth as the hatching was taking place. I jokingly told my wife that was the head worker bee telling her to hurry up because there was plenty of work to do. I was joking, but I can't help but wonder if there is a grain of truth there. Like the other hive this one seemed very healthy. I did see one hive beetle, but smashed it with the hive tool. I know if there is one there are probably more, but I didn't want to set up the Better Beetle Blaster in this hive because I'm planning to move it back to my house this week. The traps are filled with vegetable oil and I don't want to spill any when I move the hive and inadvertently kill some of the bees. Once I have them home I'll take care of putting the traps into this hive. All in all it was a successful afternoon working in the bee hives. The best thing about it is that I got to share it with my lovely bride. It can't get much better than that. This blog entry has been viewed 547 times
National Honey Bee Day
Category: Bees | Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2014 11:03 am This past Saturday was National Honey Bee Day and our club sponsored an all day event to celebrate. We had guest speakers, vendors, a kids area, an observation hive, an open hive demonstration, food and a fund raising auction. I'm happy to say that we raised 2000.00 that will go to the University of Florida for bee research. It was a fun day spent with fellow beekeepers and we got to talk to plenty of beekeeper wannabees (pun intended). 
My dad and the American Honey Princess ( photo / image / picture from eclecticgarden's Garden ) Last edited: Mon Aug 18, 2014 7:11 pm This blog entry has been viewed 530 times
A Clever Way To Label Plants
Category: Gardening | Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2014 10:32 am A few years ago my wife was in a wholesale store and ran across a large bag of orange plastic knives for a ridiculously low price. When she got home and handed them to me I shrugged my shoulders in confusion. She explained ,"You can use them to label your plants." And she was right. I use a sharpie to write on both sides of the handle and then shove the blade portion into the soil. Eventually the writing fades off, but since I normally use them on my seedlings I don't have any problems. After holidays is a good time to find them marked down. Knives don't sell as good as forks so there always seems to be an overabundace of them. Color doesn't matter... green for St. Patrick's Day, orange for Halloween. I used white ones this year for some of the seeds that I started for my fall garden. 
Using plastic knives to label plants ( photo / image / picture from eclecticgarden's Garden ) UPDATE: Only a few days after posting this I came across some 30 count bags of plasticware in Walmart for 75 cents. It had spoons and forks too, but I don't see why they wouldn't work too. 
( photo / image / picture from eclecticgarden's Garden ) Last edited: Tue Aug 19, 2014 10:15 am This blog entry has been viewed 525 times
Water For The Chickens
Category: Chickens | Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2014 12:36 pm I've been wanting to get an automatic waterer for the chickens. Not too long ago I saw one at Rural King. It was simply a 5 gallon plastic bucket with watering nipples attached to the bottom for $30.00. Being a cheapskate, I set out to build my own. I bought the nipples for $4.99 and used a bucket and float that I already had on hand. It took all of about 15 minutes to complete and works great. 
Automatic Chicken Waterer ( photo / image / picture from eclecticgarden's Garden ) 
( photo / image / picture from eclecticgarden's Garden ) 
( photo / image / picture from eclecticgarden's Garden ) 
( photo / image / picture from eclecticgarden's Garden ) Last edited: Mon Aug 18, 2014 7:15 pm This blog entry has been viewed 538 times
The Proposal - The Long Version
Category: Life As I Know It | Posted: Fri Aug 08, 2014 8:51 pm Okay, this is rather long, but I wanted to get it down on paper before I forgot some of the details. Cast of characters: Donna - my wife Cory - my son Carsen - Cory's girlfriend Amanda - my daughter So, Cory asked Donna to help him find an engagement ring a few months back. It was quite the ordeal and they looked at a lot of rings, but he finally ended up finding the perfect one. Then, the planning for the engagement started. Cory wanted to ask her on the beach and Carsen had expressed in the past that she wanted pictures of the event, so plans were made to do it at Marco Island where my daughter lives. Amanda knew the perfect place and someone that could take pictures so it all seemed to be coming together. Unfortunately, Carsen couldn't make it on the weekend that was planned and they just couldn't get the dates worked out. Amanda even tried to guilt her into coming by making up a story about a family picture, but that didn't work. Cory called up Carsen's mother to see if she could help. Out of that conversation came the plans to do it at St. Augustine. There are two things that make that location really special. For one, that is where I proposed to my wife, but it is also the place where Carsen's Mom and step-dad were married and where they had their honeymoon. Actually, there is one more thing that makes it special because it was at St. Augustine, on the grounds of the old fort, on the 4th of July, 2007, that a certain young man asked me if he could marry my daughter . Needless to say, my wife and I both were pretty excited about the location. There was a lot of chaos leading up to the event. For starters, it really didn't start coming together until Wednesday, but he wanted to ask her on Friday. In addition, Cory had orientation all day Thursday for Fire College so he wouldn't really be around to help plan it. So, to make it easier to work out the plans Donna went to orientation with him on Thursday so that they could discuss everything between his sessions. In between all the planning and Fire College sessions Donna was texting her sister and Amanda to help with our hotel reservations and to find tourist information and maps of the St. Augustine area. Between the four of them they finally came up with a plan. Now we just had to do it. A big part of the plan included setting up a tent on the beach with sides that would allow Donna and I to hide inside and take pictures. When Amanda got married in December of 2007, we bought a beautiful tent for the occasion. After the wedding we moved the tent to our back yard, but I failed to secure it properly and the next day a windstorm blew it up against a fence and destroyed all the metalwork. We were devastated, but we saved the canopy and all of the sides because we knew they could be used again. This was our opportunity to use them. We have a 10X10 pop up tent and the sides would fit perfectly. My job on Thursday after work was to get the tent sides out of storage. I thought I knew where they were, but after over an hour of looking I finally gave up. I hit up Lowe's and Home Depot, but didn't have any luck. Finally, out of desperation, I bought some flat sides at Wal-Mart and headed home. Donna was just getting there when I arrived, having purchased the food for Cory and Carsen's lunch that would be served in the tent. I knew it when I bought them, but Donna let me know that the sides that I had purchased at Wal-Mart just wouldn't do. In her mind the sides had to be at the storage, so after taking care of some things around the house we headed back to the storage. Two hours and what seemed like hundreds of boxes later we still couldn't find them. I came around the corner about 10:00 that night and found Donna sitting on a cardboard box, nearly in tears. She looked up at me, "We have to have sides. The whole plan revolves around it." So, It was back to Wal-Mart, this time to find curtains. My wife, being the creative, resourceful person that she is managed to find four tan shower curtains (not the plastic ones) and six sheers that she thought would work. We also purchased shower curtain hooks, a ball of twine, a couple packs of wooden clothes pins, zip ties and some rope. Then we headed back home to pack it all up. They had checked the time for high tide and determined that the proposal had to take place somewhere around 11:30 am. It's a two and a half to three hour trip from our house to St. Augustine and we figured at least two hours to set everything up. With that time frame in mind the alarm clock went off at 4:15 am on Friday morning. A couple of things happened to jeopardize the proposal before it even started. It seems Donna had developed a urinary tract infection and she was in terrible pain by the time we finally got to St. Augustine. In addition, I have this weird thing with my left side that gives me sharp pains sometimes. Of course, that started acting up. So, picture us getting out of the car at Publix in St. Augustine. Donna is doubled over in pain and I'm jerking like a some kind of spastic freak because of the sharp pains that keep shooting through my side. With both of us in so much pain I wasn't sure how we were going to pull off setting everything up. We got Donna some medicine, picked up the croissants and flowers and made our way to the beach. Thankfully, just walking around Publix helped my pain to subside and although Donna was still in some pain, she felt like she could go through with it. We made it to Anastasia State Park where everything was to take place around 9:30 am. We scouted the area and found that there were two wooden docks that meandered across the dunes and out onto the beach. We decided to use the second dock so that we could tell Cory to park by the first one. What I didn't realize was how long that blasted second dock was. Thankfully, I had the presence of mind to bring a moving dolly with me because I had to carry the popup tent, a cooler, 40 pounds of weight (to keep the tent from blowing away) a wooden table and chairs and a few other odds and ends. I piled as much as I could onto the dolly and started up the dock. By now the sun was up and it was getting hot. I'll bet the dock was at least a half mile long. When I got to the end of it my heart sunk because there was a small flight of steps leading down to the sand, which was much thicker than I had anticipated. Using the dolly was out of the question, so I threw the tent over my shoulder, grabbed something else and left the rest sitting at the end of the dock. Donna managed to find the perfect location, but it was a long ways from the dock. Carrying all of that stuff through the thick sand was a bear. I drug the cooler because it had a handle, but it definitely wasn't easy. What almost killed me was the weights. Like a dummy I didn't put them on the dolly to begin with and I didn't think that I would need it so I carried them the entire way from the car to the tent. I definitely had to take a break after that. So, after reinserting my lungs back into my chest Donna and I started setting things up. The tent was easy and the shower curtains weren't really that bad. Actually, we had all of the sides up in a fairly decent time. The problem we ran into was that the wind kept blowing the sides back into the tent area. The twine proved to be invaluable because I was able to string a couple rows of twine that kept the curtains from blowing in. We also used a heck of a lot of the clothes pins. When we were done it looked rather nice. We set up the little wooden table and chairs that Donna had purchased, covered the table with a table cloth, set up the good china and viola', the tent was done. Next, we set her camera on a tripod and found the perfect hiding spot that allowed us to view the beach. I walked out and she did a couple of test pictures. It was around 11:15 and we were done. Only fifteen minutes to spare… or so we thought. About that time Cory sent a text that they were running about an hour behind. At this point Donna and I were hot, tired and she had to go to the restroom. We really hadn't wanted to make the trek back to the parking lot where the bathrooms were, but the tent was just a little farther away from the beach than we had anticipated and I had forgotten to grab her large zoom lens out of the car. Since they were running late we decided to head back, go to the bathroom and pick up the zoom lens. We had just gotten back to the car when Donna got another text from Cory – they were there!! In fact, I looked up just in time to see them walking down the sidewalk to the second dock. We both dove into the car and she texted Cory to stop and turn around. She had told him to go onto the first dock, but unbeknownst to us there wasn't really a first dock that led to the beach. The dock we had seen only led out onto the sand as an outlook. There was a path that led to the beach, but no dock, so Cory was confused by the directions. Well, she managed to get him going in the right direction and then we made a mad dash to the dock and headed to the tent. By the time we got back to the tent we were both red faced and drenched with sweat. Unfortunately, we didn't get the zoom lens. Cory had been told to go twenty feet past the tent because that was where we had the camera pointed and where we had made the test shots. I watched them walk up the beach and gave Donna updates on how far they were. They were walking and talking. 300 feet… 200 feet… 100 feet… 50 feet… 25 feet… then… they stopped 20 feet before the tent instead of 20 feet after. Was this the moment? I wasn't sure. Then, I saw Cory turn Carsen around and I knew it was about to happen. I let Donna know and she had to hustle to get the camera turned around in time. She somehow managed to get in position and started taking pictures. I watched the whole thing happen from my little peep hole in the tent. Carsen had her back turned and Cory wrote something in the sand. Then, he told here to turn around. He was on one knee now and he was holding out the ring. I saw Carsen's hands fly over her mouth. I haven't told anyone this, not even Donna, but the whole thing almost moved me to tears. There was just something about seeing my son down on one knee, proposing to the woman that he loves that really got to me. Finally, after what seemed like forever I saw Carsen slowly nodding her head up and down and then they were hugging. It was very special to watch and I am so glad that I got to be there. Afterwards, they walked up to the tent. She was definitely surprised to see us there. We hugged them, sat them down and then served them lunch. Nothing really spectacular: chicken salad sandwiches, fruit, bottled water… and of course a bottle of champagne. Donna and I made the long trek through the thick sand and down the never ending dock one more time. We sat at the picnic tables in the shade by the restrooms until they called us. Cory said they didn't do much but look at each other most of the time… and Carsen kept looking at her ring a lot. I think they were both pretty much in shock over the whole thing. We spent a little time with them and then they left to do other things. Then, we got the joyful opportunity to clean everything up. Actually, it was easier to tear down than set up, but the trips back and forth were still grueling. At 3:30 pm, six hours after first arriving on the beach, the car was finally packed and ready to go. We made our way to our hotel, took showers and collapsed, totally exhausted. At approximately 6:30 pm Donna woke me up. Cory was going to surprise Carsen with a carriage ride through St. Augustine and she wanted to be there for pictures. I somehow managed to shake the sleep out of my eyes and we headed on another adventure… Last edited: Sun Apr 17, 2016 1:37 pm This blog entry has been viewed 608 times
The Proposal - pictures
Category: Life As I Know It | Posted: Fri Aug 08, 2014 7:28 pm Here are some pictures of my son's proposal. I've written a long version of the event and will post it soon. 
The long dock ( photo / image / picture from eclecticgarden's Garden ) 
St. Augustine Beach ( photo / image / picture from eclecticgarden's Garden ) 
Hiding to take pictures ( photo / image / picture from eclecticgarden's Garden ) 
The table and chairs ( photo / image / picture from eclecticgarden's Garden ) 
Just engaged ( photo / image / picture from eclecticgarden's Garden ) 
Me... exhausted ( photo / image / picture from eclecticgarden's Garden ) 
The ring ( photo / image / picture from eclecticgarden's Garden ) Last edited: Fri Aug 08, 2014 9:14 pm This blog entry has been viewed 573 times
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