Gainesville to Hawthorne Trail

Earlier I mentioned we went to the Hawthorne Trail today. We've been there several times since we've moved here but only recently began bringing our bikes. This has allowed us to venture further down the trail and today we discovered there is much more to this trail than we thought.
Overlook of Paynes Prairie...
The area was a former hub of activity for several railroads from as far back as the 1880’s, hauling miscellaneous freight including vegetables, fruit, lumber, and passengers. The state acquired the trail property in 1988-89 and converted the railroads into bike/hike/horse trails. And it is an amazing place to do such things. We biked about 9 miles round trip only b/c we weren't aware, and therefore prepared, to do the full 32 (round trip). We plan to do so one weekend this summer... so stay tuned.

Happy Hiking Peg and Russ

Hi mom and dad! Hope you are enjoying your trek. I know Dianne and Don are thoroughly enjoying listening/reading about your experience on your blog. Today I went for a hike with them to San Felasco Hammock. It was fun but those kids of theirs stop too much. I can't wait until you get home so I can hike another 10-15 miles with you!
Love, Jake

Our neighbors, Peg and Russ Hall, are currently trekking the Camino through France and Spain. We get to enjoy their most lovable dog Jake while they are gone. For those of you who don't know about this famous trek, this interesting information came from their blog...

According to the legend, St James was a disciple who tried with little success to spread the faith in Spain after the death of Christ. When he went back to Jerusalem, he was martyred and his followers spirited his body away. Miraculously a stone boat appeared and carried them back to Spain where they buried him.

Fast forward to the 9^th century. The remains were “found” and Christians were encouraged by the local Spanish archbishop to make pilgrimages to the site to earn heavenly rewards. Some medieval courts also sentenced evil-doers to make the pilgrimage. Or, there were professional pilgrims who would make the trip for you for a fee, and you’d get the heavenly rewards.

A network of refuges became established to care for the pilgrims’ needs. Your bishop would issue you a pilgrim passport, which gave access to the refuges and assured your rewards at the end. It needed to be stamped at many points along the way, a tradition that continues. We have our passports stowed with our other important papers for the trip. The scallop shell, a symbol of St. James’ miraculous trip, became, and still is, a symbol of the pilgrim. There are journals and “travel guides” written by pilgrims as early as the 12^th century.

Many routes became well established. Four are prominent in France and three in Spain. We will walk parts of the most often traveled ones in each country. On this trip, at least, we will not arrive at the end-goal, the cathedral at Santiago. According to my Lonely Planet guidebook, in the first half of the 10^th century Santiago rivaled Rome and Jerusalem as pilgrim destinations. Now about 100,000 “pilgrims” trek the route annually and about 2.5 million people visit Santiago’s holy sites.

The Day of the Gopher Tortoise

Today we went to the San Felasco Hammock and the Hawthorne Trail to enjoy the gorgeous Memorial Day weather. We are always delighted with the sights and today was no exception. We spotted not one, not two, but THREE gopher tortoises. Gopher tortoises belong to a group of land tortoises that originated in western North America nearly 60 million years ago. Only four species remain today - three are found in the western United States and northern Mexico. Only the gopher tortoise occurs east of the Mississippi River. They prefer dry, sandy, upland habitat.

The gopher tortoise is a listed threatened species... mostly due to loss of habitat. However, armadillos are a known predator of gopher tortoise nests.... hmmmm... Mu Shu Armadillo anyone?

Enjoying some scrub plants for dinner in Paynes Prairie.....
A burrow (they can run up to 40 ft in length and 10 ft deep and provide shelter for lots of other animals).....

Armadillo Attack

Caught red handed! A Nine Banded Armadillo. These little buggers have been digging up our yard on a regular basis lately. Not having lived with armadillos before, we weren't 100% sure that they were to blame... until last night. Don heard them grubbing around while he was grilling. They could have cared less that we were there, right next to them with our camera and flash light. Shooing them had no effect either. Apparently they have poor eyesight and hearing but can sniff out an insect 8 inches underground. And they make a huge mess of your yard while doing it.

A little research online turned up some interesting information including armadillo recipes. But of course! Why didn't I think of eating them?!?! Here are some we could try...

• BBQ Armadillo
• Armadillo meatballs
• Mexican Armadillo Casserole
• and even Mu Shu Armadillo and for desert, Armadillo Pie!

If food prices continue to rise, we just might consider it but until then, since the yard has survived and healed itself after each attack, we will just try to coexist. Our grubs are their grubs.

Too pooped to poop

or even finish leftover birthday cake! Day 4 of potty training really wore him out I guess. He is pooped out - literally and figuratively. Good night!

And more birds

In addition to wrens we have cardinals nesting in our yard. Each spring (although it's only our second here) we see Papa Cardinal come to the feeder with his young. They are a lot of fun to watch because the babies shake fervently just before the father feeds them a seed. They aren't as shy as the wrens so we can watch them up close.
I should give props to the feeder... it is a hand me down from my parents. I think it has been around since 1972 when we first moved to Virginia. I adore it.


Ornithologically, it's been a bit of a change living here compared to south Florida. I do miss the flocks of VERY loud parrots that would occasionally fly by but I think I prefer the owls that hoot all night long.

pArTy in the pOtTy

It's a party in the potty! Grant is potty training like a champ and apparently we (Don and I) have only ourselves to blame for waiting so long. I decided out of the blue to just do it this past Wednesday - cold turkey, no more pull-ups. We did the same with Olivia when she turned 2 and she was "trained" in just a few days, minus a few accidents now and again. I thought there was no way it could be as easy as it was with her so I just put it off. Well, well, well, Grant proved me wrong. He sits, he stands, he is even sleeping through the night with success. In fact, just today he decided to go off and do it all on his own - and it's only his fourth day on the job! Happy, happy, joy, joy!

cars, Cars, CARS

Grant loves cars!! So for his birthday party at school I made these adorable car cupcakes. I can't take credit for the idea - found it online - but I fell in love immediately. Don helped make them until he was sick of hearing me say, "they are soooo cute!" Three Musketeers with Kissables pushed in the sides for wheels. And #3 for Grant's 3rd birthday. I was so enamored that I forgot to take pictures of his party at school!

Blueberry Picking

Blueberry season is arriving in Gainesville. There are lots of u-pick farms around but most crops don't fully ripen until late May or early June. However, some have varieties that come on line in mid-May and SouthMoon is one of them. Unfortunately that variety peaked the previous weekend so pickings were slim. And by slim, I mean S-L-I-M. We still had fun and even found a local blueberry festival down the road. And by local, I mean L-O-C-A-L.... complete with a rebel flag t-shirt vendor. Don got bit by the blueberry bug and bought two plants so we can attempt our own crop next year. We have a few wild blueberry plants in our woods but it will be nice to have some big yummy ones. Now whether we can grow them or not, we'll have to see.

It's a quaint, organic farm with lots of bushes...
The end result....

Fly, be free

Our baby wrens flew the coop and we missed it!!! How is that possible?! (See Bouncing Baby Birds). I felt so bad for stressing the parents out by stalking them that I decided to lie low for awhile... I guess it was too long. I even checked for what I thought would be the inevitable dead runt that got booted out of the nest, but nothing. The nest is quite high off the ground and doesn't look disturbed by a predator. I did some research and I've learned they can be out of the nest in as little as two weeks. It appears the parents decided to speed-raise their young and get them out of the nest before I came back.

Happy 3 years old Grant!

Grant turned three on May 18. We surprised him with decorations and gifts first thing in the morning. Luckily he takes after his mom and likes to sleep in so it was easy to do. It was nice to have a party with just the four of us. He raked in a lot of loot - cars, books, pirate shirt, tball set, bubble gun, Thomas Trains, puzzles, football, basketball and more cars. And his favorite: a nerf gun set from his Papa. Or maybe it's Papa's favorite??

Happy Mother's Day

I had a GREAT mother's day - cute cards made by my cute kids, yummy breakfast made by my yummy husband and the prettiest 3 heart necklace - one heart for each! I also got to choose what we would spend the day doing and with a not so subtle suggestion from Olivia, we went hiking.

The kids are swinging on a vine in the San Felasco Hammock Preserve - one of our favorite places to hike. We then headed down to La Chua trail in Paynes Prairie, a famous place to get upclose and personal with gators. There is a sign when you enter that says "This is not a theme park. These alligators are wild and dangerous."

But my favorite sign is....
You have to be on your toes there - gators are everywhere! This is a gator hanging out by the water control structure and one in the water.














Other interesting animals... an "electric" caterpillar and a skink.

Griot Groove

Today we went to the museum to listen to Alhaji Papa Susso, Master kora (African harp-lute) player and oral historian from The Gambia, West Africa. Papa Susso hails from a long line of Griots (traditional storytellers) of the Mandinka people. He was taught the kora by his father and has been playing since the age of five. The kora, a 21-stringed harp-lute, evolved from earlier hunter harps used by the Mandinka people of West Africa. It is the preferred instrument of Griots, who were traditionally attached to royal courts where their duties included recounting the tribal history and genealogy, composing commemorative songs and performing at important tribal events.
He is a goodwill ambassador, traveling around North America to share his culture with others.

It was a lot fun and Grant and I got our Griot Groove on.

Bouncing Baby Birds

Our baby wrens hatched! (see New Neighbors post). I'm not sure when... I checked today and this is what I saw so I am guessing they started hatching over the last few days. They are tiny little balls of gray feathers with closed eyes. I didn't want to linger too long in case mom and dad were near but I was there long enough for them to start peeping for food. As soon as I stepped back the parents approached with food but they were none too pleased that I was there. Neither of them would approach the nest. Eventually one of them was brave enough (probably the female) so I snapped my photo of the feeding and then let them be.
In this photo, one baby has it's mouth open at the front of the nest, beak pointing up.


Here, one baby sprawled over the rest. If you look closely, you can see the whole bird. The beak is lined in yellow.


You can clearly see a wing and legs here.
Feeding time. I think it is a cricket.

The Perils of Daytime Blogging

I quickly learned the pitfalls of blogging during the day time. I thought the kids were being a little too quiet but I was consumed by picture placement and font color. I should have known better. To Olivia's credit, she did tell me that Grant was "playing with the foam stickers" but I was too deep into post labeling and photo resizing to make my usual quick translation into "Grant has dumped five boxes of foam stickers all over the room and peeled the backs off 50 of them and stuck them to the floor." The photo doesn't quite capture the extent of the mayhem but his face says it all. Either that or "Take one step closer lady, and you'll get the glitter glue too."

Dazzling Daylillies

In our continuing pursuit of yard beautification, our nice neighbors, Peg and Russ Hall, gave us some daylillies a couple months ago. Olivia and I planted them not knowing what colors we would see when they bloomed. So far we have yellow, maroon and orange. They are beautiful and have been blooming every day for nearly a month.

And one fell out

We removed Grant's crib gate so that he can get himself out of bed in the morning without launching himself across the room. We decided to balance it against the crib until he gets used to not having 'walls.' It appears that this will take some time and that he doesn't mind falling out.

Fancy Nancy

Grandma Berger made Olivia a new dress. It has a pretty, sparkly dragonfly pattern. She immediately put it on and began twirling. We are on day 3 of wearing the dress and she is still twirling.

New Neighbors!

We have Carolina Wrens nesting in a hanging basket on our deck. I'm so excited, I feel like an expectant mom myself! I spied the nest sometime around April 12. On April 17, Olivia and I peeked in and saw eggs - 5 of them! We've spent the last few weeks watching the male bird bring insects to the mother bird as she sits on her eggs. Olivia, Grant and I did some web research and found out the following about our newest nesting neighbors:

• Wrens will mate for life
• Eat insects and spiders
• They are territorial and will continue to nest in the area
• The male will feed the female while she nests
  
• Olivia's favorite: The male begins to build nests in several locations until the female chooses her favorite. She will help him finish building it.
  

Nest (note piece of Easter grass)..............................
Eggs.......................................

Mama Wren.....................................