Chores and Choices

We never really did find out what happened with the fire that we saw on Caladesi Island.  I hope that it was planned, but with the way the Fire and Police boats left the Dunedin Marina, I have my doubts about that.  However, the island remains and nature has a way of taking care of itself.

Did you ever look around your house and see lots of little chores that your mind registers as "someday" projects?  That is what we both faced on Thursday, so we decided to tackle them while the weather was good.  Actually, I started in the house by scrubbing down the kitchen and bathrooms; that chore was one I usually do each Tuesday, but it escaped me this week.  Then I attacked the dust bunnies.  The bunnies in Florida are a different breed than those in Wisconsin.  My Wisconsin dust bunnies are big, fluffy, and white.  The ones down here are smaller, more dense, and brown.  It must be the amount of sand and dirt that we bring in with us.  At any rate, the cleaning took most of the morning. Dang bunnies!

Rick adds paint to hide the faucets on the front of the house.

While I worked inside, Rick started on the outside.  We needed to do some touch-up paint on the house.  In some cases that meant covering the paint that chipped off probably due to our over-zealous yard man with his weed-whacker.  In other cases, it was to cover some cement that crept up the wall from our cement work, or to cover the spots where the paint had chipped off the front plumbing pipes.  Rick also painted the blue knobs on the front faucets so they did not so boldly stand out against the yellow walls.  To end his task, he painted the white pipes he installed on the north side of the house.  This was done to protect the plastic from getting eaten away by the sun.  In Wisconsin we are always worried about how things will be affected by the cold and snow; down here, we just worry about the sun.

White paint now protects the PVC pipes outside.

Speaking of sun, the longer days are starting to give our grass in the front time to grow.  It still grows more slowly than Rick would like, but at least we can see more and more of it coming up each day.  Our daily watering seems to help.  A little warmer temperatures would be helpful also.

The race is on to see if the grass or the weeds will
fill in first in the front yard.  Any wagers?

On Friday we decided to drive to Plant City (about 35 miles inland from here) to attend the annual Florida Strawberry Festival.  As the city's name implies, the area is known for the produce they provide for Florida and for America on the whole.  Right now is strawberry season, and for the past 80+ years, the folks in the area have celebrated with the Strawberry Festival.

We found that the Festival is a combination of a State Fair, a street festival, a craft festival, and an all-around entertainment venue.  The children seemed to not have school Friday because as we drove into town, people within a six-block area of the Festival grounds (including numerous middle-school aged children AT the middle school) were trying to wave us in to their parking lots or driveways with offers of parking for only $10.00.  It reminded me of properties around Lambeau Field on Packer game day!  Of course, Rick had checked everything out and knew that the official parking lot for the Festival, although a slightly longer walk than from the middle school parking, was only $5.00.

Our walk from the lot to the Festival grounds was delightful since I had remembered the sunscreen and the temperatures stayed in the high 70s all day.  The Festival is known for its strawberry shortcake which happened to be offered in at least four different areas by four different companies.  We were warned to choose the one booth where we could make our own shortcakes rather than some places where the whipped cream far exceeded the amount of strawberries served.  We built our own shortcakes with biscuits instead of the sweeter shortcakes, loads of sweet, juicy strawberries, and just a little whipped cream on top.  Wow!  Were they good!

Rick poses by the largest John Deere in the display.

Afterward we did a lot of walking and looking around at all of the vendors.  I got a good idea from one of the craft booths about making a small holder for my cell phone when I want to take it with me but don't want to carry a purse.  We also viewed an interesting exhibit that showed all of the machinery and how the strawberries are grown, watered, and harvested.  We took the tractor pictures from the exhibit just to show our tractor-crazy grandson.

The rows of strawberries behind this tractor were in full bloom
with lots of fat, red berries.

We did not bother with the livestock exhibits although I understand the pig race was quite entertaining.  If I wanted to watch cows being judged, I do not have to come all the way to Florida to do so.

The live entertainment was varied, but we also did not stick around to see that.  At one booth selling strawberries and strawberry products (bread, cookies, preserves, etc.) I asked about sugar-free jam.  The woman gave us a pamphlet with directions to their strawberry farm and retail store which was about half a mile from where we were parked.  She told us we could find sugar-free preserves there.

As the name on the box shows, we got the berries and the preserves
at Parksdale Market.

We took the drive to the very crowded store.  At the store we found preserves sweetened only with fruit juice (no granulated sugar  or artificial sugar added).  We bought two jars: one strawberry and one made from Rick's favorite fruit-- blueberries.  Our last purchase was half a flat (six heaping pints) of strawberries.

Yum!

Once home, I cleaned all of the berries.  We have a huge bowl full of them to munch on, a second bowl of crushed berries, and a third bowl of crushed berries that we put into the freezer.

The day was  fun and different.  We spent way too much money on shortcakes and lunch, but since we do not get out too often, our budget will survive. I am so glad that we went on a weekday instead of the weekend.  I am sure that the grounds are packed today with thousands of people.  However, the Festival is held from now until March 13, so smart people will have lots of time to see the Festival during the week if they choose to do so.

We came away with some delicious fruit and knowledge of where we can go in the future for a day out to find wonderful fruit preserves.  How sweet life is!