Happy Turkey Day!

To all our family and friends who follow our blog - We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. As you can tell from what we share here on our blog, we are very very blessed.  We are fortunate enough and so thankful to have the very best family and friends in the whole world!!

This Thanksgiving was a quiet one. It was just me and Rich!   But we cooked and baked like we were entertaining many. 

It started on Wednesday evening, when Rich made his traditional pumpkin pies.  He always makes three and generally finishes the first one for breakfast on Thursday morning!  

You'll see pretty quickly that when there are not a lot of people around I forget about my camera. No pictures of the pies OR the Turkey!!!!!   Fear not - I DID get a picture of the pumpkin pie!!  

Believe it or not we still have this much left on Saturday morning!  

Dinner was excellent.  The turkey about fell apart taking it out of the roasting pan. A typical dinner of turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, sausage stuffing, green bean casserole and cranberry sauce topped off with pumpkin pie with whipped cream!   Once again - no pictures of the turkey but Rich remembered to get one of his dinner plate!

Our friends Nick and Tonyia just moved into their new home this past week.  Knowing that they

would be working hard and not be ready to prepare a big meal we had invited them to our place, but with all the work to be done, they declined.  I had gone down and spent several hours a couple of days helping Tonyia, and knew she would not be preparing anything fancy for the two of them, so Rich and I told them not to worry - we would bring Thanksgiving Dinner to them.  And so we packed a bit of everything and delivered it along with a bottle of wine about 4:00 pm.  I'm sure it would have tasted better hot off the stove and fresh from the oven, but we hope they enjoyed their Thanksgiving Dinner. 

I tried calling my Brother Dave several times Thanksgiving Day - but I either got a message saying his voice messaging was not turned on...........or the phone rang and rang and no one answered.  While we had the windows and doors open and the sun was shining...............Dave was enjoying a REAL NY Thanksgiving Day!  This is a picture of his home in Kikrwood, NY - just outside of Binghamton.  A great country location; a beautiful picture perfect day!  

On Friday the Stock Market was open until early afternoon - so that's where Rich could be found.  A few errands to run ( No not shopping on Black Friday - never find me out there) and then he enjoyed the rest of the day (between the helpings of pumpkin pie and whipped cream!) fishing off the dock!  He caught a couple of real nice bass.  The first one was not quite long enough to keep.  The second went about 2 1/4 lbs!  Nice job Rich!  

The past few days have been busy!

One of the best things about this past week has been the weather ( although - I doubt that Rich would agree)  Tuesday and Wednesday gave us overnight temps of the low 50"s and daily highs in the 60's.  What  a welcome change from the 90 degree days that seem to have lasted forever.  I love being able to just leave the window's and doors open and let the fresh air in.  Too bad it only stays that way for a few days.  By Friday and Saturday the sun was back and temps returned to the mid 80's during the day.

The cooler weather also means that the Bass are spawning, which means they have moved from the deeper waters of the lake to the canals.

Rich had a few shiners left and fished off the dock one afternoon and caught this 2 1/4 lb, 17/ 1/2 inch bass.

 Nice job Rich.

On Wednesday, our very good friends, Nick and Tonyia became homeowners.  They have sold their RV/Bus, and their park model at Lake Glenada  and now have a small home in Sebring, FL.  We're excited - it's not as far to drive when we want to visit!  They have a lot of work to do make this the home they really want..........but they are both ambitious and hard workers and we know it will feel like home before they know it.  We visited on Wednesday afternoon.  They were both pretty exhausted (buying a house, packing and moving can do that to you!) so I snapped a few pictures of their beautiful yard and we took off to Hibachi Grill for dinner.  That side yard is going to make one nice area for a campfire and cookout!  Congrats Nick and Tonyia.

The house across the canal from us now has new tenants, Phil and Doreen. (bottom right in photo below)  We've had a few conversations across the water, learning their names and that they moved here from Broward County in South Florida.  Their home is actually diagonal from ours, but is directly behind our neighbors, John and Diane.  So we decided it would be a good idea to do the neighborly thing............invite them over and get to know them a little better. We had originally planned Saturday - but that was changed to Sunday afternoon.  We invited them AND our neighbors John and Diane (bottom left in photo below).  They all arrived about 4:00 pm and we shared a beverage and some snacks before dinner.    Rich put the Chicken Ka-bobs on the grill, and as luck would have it - we ran out of propane!!!  Phil had an extra propane tank - already full and saved the day!!!

Dinner was excellent.  I had made a cabbage and pineapple salad along with the chick ka-bobs.  Diane shared a delicious potato salad and Doreen a broccoli cornbread to die for!   For dessert we had coconut cream pie ( from Publix) and I had made some pumpkin/white chocolate cookies and some peanut butter/chocolate chip cookies.    John  - never the one to sit for long - wanted to get back to work on making his trunks, so they left shortly after dessert.  We moved to the family room and sat and talked until nearly 8:00 pm with Phil and Doreen before we all called it a day. So glad that we asked them over.  A very very nice couple that we are glad to have as neighbors.  It was a very enjoyable evening.

The Birds are coming back!!!

Sunday we tried our luck fishing for Bass off the dock.  It was an absolutely beautiful day; sun shining, a slight breeze and perfect temperature.  We still had some of those shiners left from yesterday, still nice and lively.  No.....we did not catch any bass at all, but Rich did hook on to a nice pickerel about 16 inches.

While sitting there fishing our neighbor next door was out planting his onions, and then the new neighbors across the canal came out to say Hi.  By the time everyone went back inside we had scheduled a cookout at our house for the the six of us next Saturday.  It will be nice getting to know the new neighbors; moved here from south Florida - Miami/Ft Lauderdale, I think.

And our favorite visitors are starting to arrive.  The birds and water fowl that make our backyard their home for the winter months.  For the first time since we've lived here the Sandhill Cranes made their way to our front yard,  The Whistling Ducks are back - not as many yet as last year, but they sometimes take over the back yard, or the roof of the boathouse.  Today they are lined up like a chorus line down near our windmill, along the water's edge.  And for the past couple of days this Anhinga has found his favorite place to dry his wings........sitting on the pole, on the dock, just behind the boat motor.  Love to see him stretch that neck and wings.

No Luck Fishing Today~

The weather recently has just been too warm to get out fishing.......but Saturday morning the forecast was for the mid/high 50's in the morning so just a few minutes after 6:00 am........we headed out with our minnow bucket filled with shiners, to see if we could bring home a nice bass.   Bundled in sweats and hooded t-shirts we braved the wind an headed to the north bay......... and then moved to the bay closer to home.........but the bass were just not hungry today!  The only thing that found its way to our net was this HUGE snapping turtle!   I thought I had a BIG one on the line as I reeled this in.  So did Rich!   Oh well..........no fish today. 

We did learn later in the day that it's now spawning time for the bass..............which means that we would probably have a better chance of catching one right off our dock in the canal.   Going to try that tomorrow!