Almost Heaven South & Mobile Photos

Kathy and her three daughters are here from Texas for their annual visit and she decided to take some photos to show her friends back home where she goes every year, so I decided to put them on here as well.

This first shot is while she is laying in bed in the downstairs sun room which is the bottom left of the second shot.

Than she walked around the yard and got some of the house and plant life.

She went up on the neighbors hill and shot this one of the whole place then the second one through the trees at the road.

One of the things she wanted the Texans to see was what real trees look like - of course the folks from California Redwood Country might say the same thing about ours.

This shot is of the Mobile Almost Heaven South - it's being prepped for our upcoming trip.  So far it has gotten a power surge protector, an upgraded fan in the bathroom and several little odds and ends items fixed on the coach and the front end was aligned.  What remains is having the chassis and generator serviced this week then start packing up.

As you can see by the tracks in the rocks, the driveway is not quite wide enough.

And finally, she got this shot of our cove and wished she had a ski boat to tackle the glassy water.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

6/28/15 event date

A Nice Snow Fix

Some of my fondest memories as a kid growing up in northern West Virginia involve the snow and to this day I still enjoy it and need an occasional fix.  I love how clean it makes the ground look and how sweet it makes the air smell when all of the pollutants are removed. 

Last Tuesday we awoke to the results of the ice storm, but this Tuesday, we had a nice, beautiful snow cover to look at with the official total of 4“ here at Almost Heaven South as measured by a yardstick on my deck railing. 

I don’t believe the RV was quite as angry about this event.

Then, after a day of melting, winter storm Remus rolled through beginning on Wednesday evening and we even had the outside floodlights on so we could watch the snow falling in the dark. As pretty as it was on Tuesday morning, we got up Thursday to these beautiful sites and a moderate 30F temperature.

With a total of 7¼“ now on the railing, I can definitely say my snow fix has happened and I’m glad we were here to enjoy it.  This is the view from my chair as I watched the birds have their breakfast.

This was the perfect snow for me as it was deep enough to cover everything and followed by a 41F day that melted nearly all of it from the roads.  And now that the snow fix has happened, I'm ready for spring.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

2/24 & 2/26/15 event dates

Winter Arrives At Almost Heaven South – Lots Of Photos

After some pretty mild weather the first part of February with six inch tall daffodil leafs, winter storm Octavia finally touched us in the worst way on Monday.  As the storm moved east, it provided snow to its north, rain to its south and freezing rain in the middle – we are in the middle.  In case you are not a Weather Channel watcher, the freezing rain often begins as snow at the cold, high altitude, then changes to rain as it passes through a warm layer and shows up that way here.  Unfortunately, with the outside temperature in the mid 20’s the rain freezes after landing.

This had several impacts for us but most importantly it glazed any untreated roads and made them totally impassable and it stuck to trees and power lines.  I originally didn’t know what caused the problem, but our power went off about 10pm Monday and fortunately we got to use that generator we bought a couple of years ago – it now seems worth the money.

The RV is definitely angry at us for leaving Florida as the rain turned to ice all over it.

Our fine feathered friends kept busy at the feeder even though it developed icicles.  

It looked even worse Wednesday morning and this is the look before I broke off the icicles - only the small birds were getting in.  The birds can hang on the icicles and walk around the icy dome with no problem.

Strong preference for thistle seed at the other feeding station. 

So far we’ve identified the following visitors to the feeders and the ground beneath them: Carolina Chickadee, Tufted Titmouse, Gold Finch, House Finch, several Sparrows, Wren, Cardinal, Nuthatch, Downy Woodpecker, Rufous Sided Towhee, Pine Siskin, and Dove.

I walked around the yard on Tuesday and got a few shots of the ice coated vegetation.

When the roads cleared, we had to make a run to town and got these shots including the one creating our power outage.  The ice laden pine trees were snapped off everywhere, including three across our road, fortunately our neighbor with the big tractor had it cleared in short order.

This one was across the road when we returned.

Fortunately we were set to go after a propane tank refill (for the generator) and 25 gallons of diesel for the RV heater just before the power came on after an 18 hour outage – it was off several days longer for some.  So we just settled it and waited for the snow showers on Wednesday - we got less then an inch but the RV is even angrier.

The sun came out on a very cold Thursday and the trees glistened like they were glass covered and many now had icicles from the sun hitting them.  Unfortunately, I didn’t know how to set my camera up to catch the real beauty of them so I lifted the last shot from my friend Kathy's Facebook post as ours looked just the same.

Even the weeds glistened.

By Friday this very unusual event happened - our cove was frozen over.  Looks like a little trimming will be required to access the dock, but at least no trees laying on it - whew.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

2/16 - 2/20/15 event dates

2015 Florida Trip – Day 18 – The Beach & Quesajitas

Even though we were near Port Charlotte, it was still about a 25 mile drive over to the nearest beach at Englewood, FL and since we can’t come to Florida without at least seeing the water, off we went.  It was a sunny, 80 degree day and the public beach was pretty well full of sun bathers – Pat and Bev checked it out while I got a shot of them.

These shots are further north in a low populated area.

The plan was to go out for supper per Bev’s desire, but then she decided it might be better to cook at home and use the meat and avocado we had in the fridge.

Bev had purchased some thin sliced (about ¼“) top round called Beef Milanesa and from what I read it should have said beef for beef Milanesa which is a dish and not a cut of meat.   We discussed whether to have fajitas or quesadillas and based upon the large size of our tortillas and love of crispy ones, we settled on fajita makings made into a quesadilla and named it the quesajita.

We used the ingredients as we would for fajitas and prepared them as follows:

1. Make up some seasoning from Chamayo chile powder, smoked paprika, onion powder, garlic powder, & cumin (the stuff we had on hand).

2. Slice or shred some cheddar cheese (or your favorite)

3. Julienne some red & green bell pepper and slice some onion into half-moons.

4. Slice the meat into ½“ wide strips.

5. Add the vegetables to the pan, season with S&P and the above spice mix and sauté them until about almost done then remove and keep warm.

6. Add the meat to the pan, season it as the veggies and cook until just done.

7. Add the veggies back to the meat, mix thoroughly, remove from heat, and keep warm.

8. Wipe out the pan (we only have one 12” skillet) and turn heat to medium.

9. Lay a tortilla in the 12” skillet, add cheese to one side, and the meat/vegetable mixture to the other side and add a lid if you have one.

10. When the cheese is melted and the tortilla bottom is crispy, flip the cheese half over the meat half and remove to a plate.

Bev made the guacamole by adding some jarred salsa, cumin, and lime juice to a Florida avocado.

My quesajita only got topped with a nice amount of guac.

For a throw together with stuff we had on hand, they were pretty darned good.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

1/13/15 event date