I didn't say banana

Orange you glad?



This is the first ripe orange we've picked off of our blood orange tree in the backyard we inherited from the previous owners. It was quite delicious - very juicy and a perfect blend of sweet and tart.

40 miles = 500 years

A fun day in St. Augustine today, with enough pictures taken to last almost an entire year if we post one per day. They aren't all blog worthy, but enough are that we have blog fodder for some time to come.

It was especially exciting because today was one of those fun days when they had "living historians" walking around - but not just a handful... no, today was a special day and there were somewhere in the neighborhood of 150-200 people dressed in period costume from the British period in the 18th Century. Men, women, children. Soldiers, sailors, politicians. Rich, middle-class, poor. Everyone and everything was represented.

At one point they held a private, period-only reception of some sort in a garden area:




The climax of the evening was a nightwatch parade / grand illumination where all of the soldiers lined up on St. George street and lead a parade of all of the period persons to the governors house behind the town square, complet with the Brits playing their fifes and drums and the Scottsmen playing their pipes. Civilians carried lanters or candles. There was to be a ceremony of sorts at the Governor's house but the crowd was heavy and we were at the other end of the street and quite tired after trapsing around uneven roads for 7 hours already...

And just for fun, a compliment to Sharon's seagull from yesterday, here is a gull coasting on the ocean breeze just north of the Castillo over the Mantanzas river inlet:

Sky Watch Friday

On this the last day of November 2007 the sunlight fades looking up from our backyard at a few whispy clouds and a contrail left by a passing jet.

And in honor of my new blogger friend Kathleen (Poetikat):

Sunlight kissing with its golden hue, we bid the penultimate month, "Adieu".
(I'm a poet and was not aware of that fact.)

I will spare everyone on my attempts at iambic pentameter. :)

St. Augustine Inlet

Something from the archives... a view from the NE corner of the Castillo de San Maros looking north along the marshy banks of the St. Augustine Inlet which is here also part of the Intracoastal Waterway.


If Erin is feeling better by Saturday we hope to go down and get pictures of the Christmas decorations and the "Nights of Lights".

And the outside lights

A closeup of our giant lawn penguin and smaller string of path light penguis:

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree...

Sky Watch Friday

Since this is our first official foray into Sky Watch Friday, a trio of photos from this evening near the river when the moon was full and low in the twighlight sky... oh for a giant, mack daddy lens and a tripod...