CruisinHudsonBackroads

Dear neighbors across the street from my house invited me on a motorcycle tour of the backroads of the area. I was awarded the sidecar - and what a great way to see the area!! There is so much hidden away and they knew all the details from their 20 years of living here. The trip was cut short by an impending storm but I am hopeful that I didn't wear out my welcome with this trip. In addition to being really nice people, they have an amazing array of toys appropriate to the area - including this Harley and side car, bicycles, a golf cart, and an impressive pontoon sailboat which they will be sailing down to the Keys at the end of April. They truly have mastered the art of canal side living in Hudson.

APerfectDayToFish

It made me realize how lucky I am to live here when I saw this man fishing a few feet from my dock. He had motored into my canal when all I have to do is walk onto the dock. Several times my neighbor Bill has given me fried fish that he caught from his dock just an hour earlier. It doesn't get any fresher than that.
On a sad note, yesterday one local man went swimming in the canal and drowned because he had no way of climbing back on to his dock. Ironically I had already called Mike (Handyman Extrordinaire)to build a small ladder for the dock so that I can go swimming.

SamToTheRescue

Nine baby ducks were stranded on my neighbor's floating dock when Sam, the neighbor on my other side, ran to rescue them. She pushed a hole through the wire fencing enclosing the dock and one by one dropped them into the water to reunite with their Mom.I took this photo before the last straggler could catch up with them.
On another note, in a previous email I mentioned Chuck Ball's best selling book "Mingo's Cave," available through Amazon.com. He asked that I mention that his book is also available on Nook and iPad. All procedes from the sales go to charity.

ZorroRedux

This morning at the break of dawn I was able to snap this photo of Zorro, who, by the way, is a Yellow-crowned Night-Heron. I ran out of hot dogs but he seemed pleased to have spam instead.

OBXFriends

Chuck and Leslie are friends from way way back. What a pleasure to have them drop by on their whirlwind trip from Key West to their home in the Outer Banks of North Carolina.Leslie is an amazing entrepeneur and Chuck is a best selling author on Amazon.com's Kindle list. I highly recommend "Mingo's Cave," by Chuck Ball (action, adventure, and romance in the Carribbean). He is already working on his next book - so stayed tuned....

Drying Time

 
The cormorants spend most of their time diving under water to catch fish. When they come up they spend almost 30 minutes sitting in the sun drying their wings. It starts with them shaking their wings for almost five minutes to get most of the water off and then they sit like statues with their wings spread, enjoying the sun.

Canal Visitor

 
Sitting on my back porch, I saw this lovely woman and her dog paddling down my canal. I promised her a copy of the photo.

First Christmas in Hudson House

 
When I returned from our last trip to Timor-Leste, I found these flowers and the watering pot sitting on my front porch. My wonderful next door neighbors Sam and Bill had bought them and placed them there to welcome me home.

.....And After

 
Andy and Adrian were able to tear out the cabinets in under 15 minutes and I now have a million dollar view of the canal.

Before.....

 
The view of the canal from the kitchen was blocked by a row of cabinets that crossed above the sink. It felt like working in a hamburger place with a small opening where people could place their orders.

Zorro

 
This is another of my backyard visitors and I can't find out what kind of bird he is. Any help is appreciated in identifying him. I call him Zorro because of the mask.

Back Yard Beauty

 
I call her The Queen and when I feed the egrets and herons in my back yard she makes sure that she is first in line.

Serious Power Tools

 
Tim Allen would have been envious!

Tile Done

 
It is amazing when everything comes together and you can see the finished product.

Creative Hauling

 
In the middle of all the tile installation Andy decided that we needed some thinner molding and sent me to get it. It took a bit of creativity to get it back to the house.

Tile Installation

 
Andy is a tile installation expert who agreed to leave his family in the middle of the Christmas holidays to help me tear out carpeting and install the tile. The job was a bear and he lost a pound a day over the almost 2 weeks that he worked. I tried to record all the steps that he went through to hopefully learn from the master. He did an incredible job and made me realize that it is even harder than it looks.

Arrival of The Tile

 
One of the first things I did after moving in was to arrange to have the entire house tiled. The arrival of the tile was quite dramatic. It arrived on the longest truck I had ever seen.

I'm Not So Ugly!

 
Folks here call the Muscovies Ugly Ducks and perhaps they don't have the beauty of some of the other duck families, but this one was enchanted with his own image in a broken mirrored door that I had placed in the trash. He would stand staring at himself and then walk away. Seconds later he was back for a second and third look at himself and he seemed really pleased with what he saw.

The New Floating Dock

 
The floating dock was covered in rotting wood so I called in Mike, handyman extrordinaire, to completely replace all the covering. He did a great job and the dock is the perfect place to relax with company and watch the sky change colors at sunset. It begs for a boat, doesn't it???

You Talkin To Me?

 
One of the many egrets that hang out on my roof, waiting for a hand out of hotdog pieces.

Dolphin In My Canal

 
It is so hard to photograph a dolphin as it jumps through the air and during their recent visit, this is the best I could do to take a photo.

Dolphins!!!!!!

 
If anyone along the canal spots dolphins, the cry goes out to alert everyone. This is Sam and Bill my next door neighbors. I lucked out in the neighbor department. They are so kind and giving. There is a tradition of sharing food over the back fence which I love, since Bill is such a good cook and tends to cook everything on his outdoor grill. The first meal he shared with me was trout caught that day in the canal behind our houses.

My First Overnight Visitors in Hudson

 
Janet, Lee, and Vixen are friends from Norfolk Virginia who visited me and officially became my first overnight visitors. I couldn't have asked for better "first company" in the new house.

Home in Hudson Florida

 
This is the view from my back porch in Hudson Florida. You can see why I don't get anything done, even though the house needs so much work. This week 2 dolphins swam into the canal chasing the mullet to trap them at the end of the canal for lunch.

MovinOnToFlorida

Fingers crossed, this is a view of the canal from my new house in Hudson, Florida on the Gulf of Mexico. The big structure is one of my 2 davits for lifting a boat out of the water. Now I just need a boat! Closing is scheduled for Sept 27 and Kitty and I will start the drive from Santa Fe on Sept 23 and, hopefully, get there in time for closing and furniture arrival. It will be wonderful being back on the east coast with good friends! I am hoping the two storms heading toward my new home decide to veer off and go back out to sea!

The Ultimate Travel Destination

This is a travel blog after all, and there can be no greater travel adventure than going into outer space. If you haven't been watching the live coverage on the NASA TV channel on your computer, you have been missing an awe inspiring adventure. It is like actually being there. The site also has videos of all the things you have missed (including lift off) and a schedule of live events to come. Today was the hook up of Atlantis with the International Space Station and I was there live as the door to the space station opened and the Atlantis crew floated in through the doorway for the last time. Throughout all of the filming - I saw the earth in the background, as I have never seen it before.

To log on to the NASA TV site - cut and paste the link at the end of this blog entry and travel along with this last historic flight. This is an quote from the NASA TV site:
__________________________________________________________________________________

Earth Image of the Day
Atlantis Rides Into History →
On July 8, 2011, the Space Shuttle Atlantis lit its rockets and roared into space for the 135th and last flight of the U.S. space transportation system.
__________________________________________________________________________________

Enjoy the ride! from RamblinMe

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html

Timor Mornings

 
There is a rhythm that I fall into almost immediately after arriving in Timor.

First, we were incredibly lucky to have discovered the Arbiru Hotel on the seashore on the western side of Dili. It has become home and the people there treat us as family. This photo is taken from our balcony at the hotel.

Every morning at exactly 6:15 am the first outrageously loud rooster crows and sets up the beginning of an all morning competition with the 1000s of other roosters in the city. I can almost tell the time, just by listening to the number of roosters crowing.

Sitting out on the balconey having morning coffee, there is an "Apocolypse Now" phase when you see passenger jets clearing our roof to land at the Dili airport nearby. At the same time a huge cargo helicopter flies directly overhead, taking workers out to the oil platforms. Sometimes charity and military groups join in the air traffic.

As the roosters begin to quiet, the goats and pigs take their turn. All of these sounds were a bit startling during the first week of the first trip. After three trips, they are part of the rhythm of life for me in Timor - and I miss them.

Oops - Please Forgive

 
As usual, I learn everything the hard way - so the animal photos to follow are both individual and combined in a photo collage. The lesson I learned is that you MUST empty your tray of photos before publishing your collage. Lesson learned.

The photo above is the cement wall along the beach highway in Dili. The little kid is looking out across the Timor Sea to a freighter that probably holds the tonic water that we couldn't find in our entire month in Timor. Because of all the red tape, the stores are continually out of something and that something is usually sitting on a freighter within sight of the harbor, like some sort of cosmic tease.

Stay tuned for future blog entries. The entries below are about the Timor Independence day Celebration held during our third visit to the island. The next sets will be about our trip to the eastern part of the island and also the crowning glory of our volunteer work - the opening celebration for the school library that we (mostly Doug) built. Before and after photos are dazzling - so stay tuned!

And Happy USA 4th of July! (and Miss Sandy's Birthday, Sandy and Adrian's Anniversary, Pat and Roy's Anniversay, Shammy and UBend's Wedding, and Lynn and Wayne's move to Los Angeles) from Ramblin Me

IntraSpeciesCelebrants

 
 
 
 
 
Along with locals and Malay, there were quite a few other species that seemed to enjoy the Timor Independence Day celebration.