Holy Week in the WG

I love Winter Garden. I might be biased in that statement, having lived here for over 30 years. However, it doesn't change that simple fact: I love Winter Garden.

City of Winter Garden website

It's been years in the recovery process.
I remember when Russ, Elisha, and I used to walk from school at Dillard St. Elementary to Julie's house. We had lots of options on which direction we could go, but invariably we would take the route that went through downtown Winter Garden. Back in 80's it looked nothing like it looks today. Most of the shops were empty. McClung's still had a store open on Plant St. at the time, and we'd go in and get a slushie if the three of us could scrape together enough change. Or we'd drop by the corner drugstore (on the southeast side of Main and Plant) and get a handful of chiclets from the penny gum machine. As disgusting as this sounds, we actually drank water out of the sprinklers on "water day", which was what we called the infrequent times when the downtown area would be irrigated.
There was very little going on in the downtown area at the time. Part of our entertainment was peeking into empty storefront windows and imagining what used to be in there. A particular favorite was the storefront of what is now Sweet Traditions French Bakery.
In the window was a little ice cream salesman and his ice cream cart.

We'd stare at that thing and wonder at the idea of having an ice cream parlour in the downtown.
Of course, now there's several places where one can get such a confection.

I tell you all of this because this week is Holy Week, and we've put together prayer stations again. We've sized it down considerably, so it took us a lot less time to set up. However, we still have to sit at church and man the stations all day on Thursday and Good Friday. So, lunch has to come from somewhere close by.
Enter in one of the reasons why I love Winter Garden.

Like I said, it used to be that NOTHING was downtown. For a brief period there was a restaurant called "The Orange Crate Cafe".  They had pretty good burgers, but they didn't last long (especially after having to recover from a fire in the building).

Now however, there's all kinds of options downtown.

Moon Cricket Grille

JR's Attic Door

Harry and Larry's BBQ

Winter Garden Pizza Company

And this is just a select few. I left out the Thai restaurant, the French Bakery mentioned earlier, Urban Flats, The Chef's Table (as well as A Taste of the Chef's Table), Scoops, Jojo's Smoothies and Frozen Yogurt, Pilars Martini Bar, Al Fresco, Axum Coffee shop, Miss Bee's Gourmet Popcorn and Candy, and Sweet Ashley Ray's Cakes.

All of these are a block away from my office. A short walk, and I'm there. Not only that, but the whole aura of the downtown has changed from bleak and drab to welcoming, vibrant, fun. Add in a kid's splash park, the West Orange Bike trail, and the Winter Garden Farmer's Market (voted America's Favorite) and the whole place is COMPLETELY different from the WG that I grew up in.

But it's still Winter Garden.
My home, the place where my friends and family are.

Fancy this?

I got the harebrained idea a little while ago that I wanted to dress up the area around the entrance to my yard. The problem was that the ground there is very hard from years of the clay road washing into that area. Also, my current water hose does not reach that far, so any plants that I planted would have to be somewhat drought tolerant.

Also, I have very little money to dedicate to such a project.

So. . .here's what I came up with:

I divided some of my African Iris that were in another flower bed.

Then I picked up two large bulbines from Wal-Mart.

I might add that it was EXTREMELY difficult to plant the iris. The ground was so hard that when I finally got done digging the holes, my shoulder (injured back in August) was KILLING ME. Therein, I let the flowerbed simmer for a few days while I iced both my shoulder and back.

Now my dilemma was what to use as a border around the bed. I wanted it to look kinda funky, because my yard is full of quirky art and cool plants. I looked on Google for unique flower bed border ideas, and this was one of the images that came up:

Those are mostly wine bottles, and I knew I'd never be able to drink anywhere near enough wine to save bottles for a full border of them. Well, maybe, but it'd take years and years.

So I mulled over it for a while.

I was lying in bed early one morning trying to convince myself to get up and take a shower, when it hit me. 
What if I didn't use all bottles?
What if I used some stone and some glassware?

I had some patio stones already in my yard, left there by a previous tenant. They were large enough that I would only need a few bottles to use as spacers. But I didn't want to use just any old bottle, beer or wine.
I wanted to use blue bottles. Which meant. . . .

Just so you know, I did not have Bud Light Platinum bottles just sitting around my house. Had to go buy some. Even then, it still didn't end up being enough, so I had to go buy more. But, two runs to Walgreens was enough.

I dug a trench around the plantings (the digging was done after about three days of rain. . .softer clay by then) and plunked in the stones so that half was left above ground. In between each I placed a blue bottle (sticky labels removed) neck-end down into the dirt. This left the thicker body part sticking up out of the ground, and VOILA. . .

I'm still working on ideas for more yard dressing. I might even paint some patterns on those stones.
But, it's a start that I'm excited about.

Now if only the cold weather would go away so I could really get some dirt-digging on!

Palm Sunday moments

Today is Palm Sunday.
I share a few pics, just so you can get the general feel of my day.

Palm Sunday altar that I set up

Children processed with palms

Two worship services, filled with palm fronds, special music, and an infant baptism. It was a long morning.
Then, Danny and I  rescued a dog running around in the parking lot at Fowler Groves, went to Jersey Mike's for lunch, and experienced a sandwich made "Mike's Way". If you haven't tried Jersey Mike's yet, you should.

Upon returning home, I grabbed Toby to take him for a walk up the hill.

Horse and cow, braving the stormy weather.

This horse and cow are all alone in their pasture. Toby has desperately wanted me to let him meet the horse, but it wasn't all he thought it was going to be.

As you can tell, a storm was moving in. Not long after this, West Orange County was put under a "Tornado Warning". Toby and I were in my car on our way to Twistee Treat, so I made the quick decision to go park under an overpass. We watched as the rain poured down, the wind pushed the car backwards, and we avoided any hailstones.

So, today was fun.
Can't wait for the rest of Holy Week.

St. Patty's Day

So first off, we spent the day before St. Patty's Day driving down to cousin Peggy's on the west coast (South of Sarasota).  It's become a tradition to get together and have corned beef, cabbage, and potatoes. 

Jamie got voted to drive. I did catch a pic of mom sleeping in the back seat, lol.

She'll hate me for putting this up.

Donia (Peggy's daughter) and Peggy

Aunt Joyce, Bumpa, and Dad (who's behind Bumpa)

 The pics above are of the family gathered on the side porch. 

Mom can't get inside the trailer, 

but the weather was nice and very enjoyable. 

In other news, the amaryllis opened up, finally.

Oh, and I'm going up to visit Russ and Lana in July. I'm flying up on the 4th, hanging out with them for a few days and then joining up with the TNT youth group. They're going to be on a mission trip to Staten Island, NY.

So, I'll end with some Leya pics. The first is of her on the playground near Russ and Lana's place in Secaucus, NJ. She loves the slide!

 

She also loves to play with her mommy's phone! Leya self-portrait! 

Rainy Day Blogging

It was raining a little bit ago.
Soaking, light rain that made all of my thirsty plants shake off their dusty leaves and sigh in contentment.

Mom gave me this Amaryllis a few years ago. If you have never experienced the opening of one of these flowers, then you're truly missing out. I put hardly any effort into this plant. It gets watered just as much as anything else in my yard (which is very rarely by me. . .plants in my yard have to be able to mainly live just on rainwater). 
As you can see in this pic, the flower is coming close to opening up fully. I've shown pics of that before on my blog. It's always breathtaking. Simply beautiful. The kind of beauty that makes me stop and stare at it.

It'll probably open up fully while I'm at work. Oh well.

Other tidbits. 

Got a new bromeliad. My mother called it a housewarming present. Her logic was directed at the rental property that I just purchased. No matter, this pretty little plant will be gracing my front flower bed.  I love the gradient quality of the yellow center, green leaves, and blue pot.

 
Of even greater note, I bought myself a Lazy Boy recliner. For $150. It's brand new. With the tags.
Be jealous. . . :)

Went to another birding festival this past weekend.
Didn't see a whole lot of birds.
This osprey with his fresh fish dinner was a little ways off the trail that mom and I took.

The trail is relatively new, and wraps around the shore of Lake Apopka (which I learned on Saturday is Florida's 3rd largest lake. . .I had always been under the impression it was ranked 4th. . .hmm).

Noteables by Nancy and Jamie 
These are things that mom and I notice which most ignore.

Green Anole (in brown coloring) sunning atop a strange cocoon
of leaves. Mom spotted this one. Not sure what the cocoon was spun by. 

Branch that has partially broken off the tree on the left hand side of the pic. It is somehow supported by the Sable Palm in the middle. The tree at the far right of the picture has grown around the branch. The crazy thing is, the branch is still alive.

 The north shore of Lake Apopka used to be a prime spot for growing vegetables on what are called Muck Farms. The state purchased these farms a while back and reflooded them, with the idea being to restore the lake to its once pristine condition. I tell you all of this because the above pic is of volunteer mustard greens growing on the side of the trail.

If it hasn't been evident yet, I love nature. I love knowing about and experiencing nature. I love sharing that knowledge. I want to help others love nature just as much as I do.

 I'll end with this pic up the hill from my house.