23rd Anniversary, Tree Trimming, Geocaching & More

Well, there were a few things that happened, to include Luann & I celebrating our 23rd wedding anniversary. I'll let the pictures do the talking.

To begin with on Thursday the 22nd, we dropped off one of the zodiac coins for the geocaching contest we are putting on. Lost It 2 (in the middle) found the coin in a park where the only information she had was a series of pictures I had placed on the geocoin's webpage. Along with Lost It 2 is her son & daughter, Lost It 3 and Lost it 4.

After Lost It 2 found the coin, Captain Biggins came driving up and after she ''dipped' the coin into a cache in another park then handed it over to Biggins and he drove over to a parking garage to hide it in the container there.

Eventually, Captain Biggins found it...

While Captain Biggins searched, Luann took advantage of the height we were at to take some pictures of the setting sun.

It was neat how the sun was banded by the clouds as it receded.

What a nice view from up here...

And when she turned around, what do you know? The moon was up too!

On Saturday morning, I wasn't paying attention to the fact that it was our 23rd wedding anniversary and I rented a 'Man-Lift' in order to trim the trees in our side-yard. One had grown so big that it was resting partially on top of our house and our neighbor's too. So, here are Katrina and I, going up in the lift so we can start cutting the branches down from over our roof.

I dropped her off, and moved into position. Her job was to grab ahold of the sagging branches I would partially cut and when she had them properly positioned, I would finish cutting them all the way through so she could toss them off of the roof.

The wire you can see hanging down from the bucket of the man-lift is for the electric chain saw I was using on the tree. I have a gas powered chainsaw, but it was much more convenient to use the electric one. Two thumbs up from Katrina!

And here's the electric chainsaw, hard at work.

When I was finished, all of the low branches were cleared away. It looked like half of the tree was laying on the ground... I'll have to spend next Saturday hauling all of this to the dump.

So, Luann and I went shopping for each other's anniversary gifts and we ended up at one of the "Big Box" clubs to see if they had what we were looking for. When we got inside, we saw that they had an Optometrist in-house, so we had our eyes checked in order to get new glasses. When I showed Luann this picture, she was kinda mad at me, but I think it was because she didn't think to take some shots of me while I was in the chair...

Can You See Me Now?

For this shot, Katrina borrowed my camera so she could take pictures at the Anime convention, but all she got was this picture of Melissa (with her new haircut) and Philip when they arrived.

As for the garden we planted over Memorial Day weekend the wildflowers in the lower tier are finally blooming. These are plants that come from a box of seeds I got from Mom and Dad's storage unit in Arizona. This is a picture of the very first bloom to appear. I don't know what it is though...

We also planted several other flowering plants in the second and third tiers. This plant is constantly flowering. And it looks like the metallic-green wasps like them too.

After we had enrichened the soil, the remaining rose bushes are blooming again. This one is called Saint Patrick's Day which has something of a greenish tinge to the petals when it first opens, then they fade to a yellow color.

Well, that's what is going on so far. We'll post more as things tend to happen around us.

Katrina Goes To Work

Katrina applied for a job, went through the interviewing process and was accepted for a computer tech position! Her first day on the job was today and here is a picture as she was climbing into the van to drive to work this morning.

She looks all chipper and 'raring' to go.

And... here is our exhausted warrior after a full day of work and a maddening drive through rush-hour traffic...

Welcome to the workforce, kid!

The Tall Ships Have Come To Tampa Bay

Hey! It looks like the tall sailing ships have come to Tampa Bay! I see masts behind that sign...

Remember, "Click-On-A-Pic" to see a larger version.

Yeah, that would be one of them. I'll tell you about this ship in a bit.

You see, when we first arrived, the closest ship was the ARC Gloria, so Luann and Katrina climbed some stairs to get a shot or two looking down. Look at the line of people waiting to tour the boat.

Obvioulsy, the Gloria is from Columbia.

Meanwhile Karen and her boys stayed with me on the docks. This was a good time to get a memorable picture of the boys by the rail. Kylor struck a nice pose, but unfortunately, Brendon decided that this would be a great time to 'face-palm'.

Here they are, contemplating what they see.

Luann made it back down from the stairs, Kylor took this picture while Brendon chose to continue his sulk. C'mon, smile dude!

While all of that was going on, I was working in the 'photographer's pool', trying to set up that perfect shot.

And this is what I got. When I snapped this image, I noticed there was something else with masts in the background.

Could it be???

Yes, it is! Our own version of a 'tall ship', the Jose Gasparilla.

Ok, back to the Gloria. This is the masthead on the front of the ship.

The Capitan Miranda from Uruguay was supposed to be at the docks too, but seemed to be having some trouble, as evidenced by the tug boats, Florida and Endeavor (not seen, but on the other side).

Yeah, the crew doesn't seem to be too happy.

After viewing the first 2 ships, we strolled down River Walk and came across this one, (pictured above). This is the USCGC Eagle (Click Here), a 3-masted, square-rigged barque which is with the US Coast Guard.

Here is the masthead, representing the Eagle's namesake.

There was a ton of people waiting in line to tour the boat, but we decided that waiting for 2 hours in the sun just wasn't worth it.

I mean, look at the line...This is at about the halfway point.

Yeah, a nice sailing ship, but the wait was just too much.

So, we headed back to the parking garage to get into the nice, cool air conditioning of the van. See, the gang's all here.

We came acrooss the sign during our trek, so I took a picture and I'll read up about later... Everything must fall, in the name of 'Progress'. Or, in the words of a song; "They paved Paradise and put up a parking lot"...

4th Of July Photo Shoot

We decided to go on a little photo shoot on the 4th of July since we didn't have anything planned, so not much else was going on. We had a nice time visiting an old, historic sugar mill site in Homosassa, then visited a couple of spots that caught our interest along the way back home. Remember, 'Click On A Pic' to see a larger verion of the image.

This is the old mill with this image taken in a format reminiscent of the photographs taken back in the civil war days. It seemed fitting, since this sugar mill was used to make sugar, syrup and molasses for the army of the south in the "War of Northern Aggression".

There were signs around the Yulee Sugar Mill, explaining what the equipment was that we were viewing.

I was a bit surprised to discover that the sugar plantation in its busiest time was spread over 5100 acres.

This is pretty much what is left of this very mystical place. The 'park' is all of 6 acres now and only has a few bits left in it. The chimney to the left is for the steam engine that powered the rollers for crushing the sugar cane, which is explained in the following pictures.

If you look at the first picture, it looks like the sugar cane pressed by the rollers may have poured down the face of the stonework, causing the stain that has lasted all these years.

This is the business end of the boiler for the steam engine. I looked up the Stillman, Allen & Co. Novelty Iron Works and it looks like this boiler was forged sometime between 1842 and 1849 (when the mill became operational), just in time for the Civil War to set in...

This photo explains the function of the steam engine and how it drives the rollers.

On the other side of the steam engine are what is left of the cooling kettles used in the sugar making process.

You kind of have to imagine a wooden building surrounding all of this.

This image explains the drying process for sugaring and how they caught the runoff for syrup and molasses.

Even from this angle, there are stains on the side of the roller pedestal that do make you wonder if it comes from decades of crushing sugar cane.

And this is an image of David Yulee, owner of the Yulee sugar mill, brought Florida the first cross-state railroad, served on the Florida Territorial Counsel and helped write the State's first constitution (as it says in the picture above).

After we left the sugar mill site, we stopped by a nearby park, looked unsucessfully for a geocache and photographed the 'wildlife', such as this golden orb web weaver spider.

And this anhinga, which seems to be staring at its reflection in the water.

And here's a picture of a pair of green hornets that Luann got.

So, that's how we spent the 4th of July, how was your day?