Picking strawberries

On Saturday we went to a small farm about an hour south to pick strawberries. It was such a small operation that it sort of felt like going over to someone's house to pick berries. And pet their pig Copper and their chickens, which we did too.

The farmer was very welcoming and happy to talk about how everything works. These strawberries are grown in pots stacked vertically about 5 high, which was a welcome improvement from my image of us spending our morning hunched over row after row of earthbound strawberry plants. The strawberries are actually grown hydroponically though I didn't know that until well after we had left because it looks like they are growing in soil. The farmer asked us to use scissors to harvest only the reddest ripest berries. Emerson loved finding berries in the low pots and snipping them off with the scissors and a little help. Only once did he take off running while holding the scissors prompting the parental observation from Eric: "He's running with scissors."

The strawberries above, minus a few that got eaten along the way, turned into this much jam (plus another jar we gave away before I took this picture):

Won't you be my neighbor

Our neighborhood, The Shires, is currently embroiled in a heated referendum about whether or not to update the white, wooden mailboxes, many of which are actually green and rotted, with black metal mailboxes, which look like they were designed for mid-century central London as opposed to a Florida subdivision.

There was a neighborhood meeting about this hot topic, and some other neighborhood issues, this past week. Ethan and I went to check it out and see who our neighbors are in this funny little community.

There were about 25 people there, out of something like 235 houses in the neighborhood (which is one of 28 or so neighborhoods that make up the "master planned community" that is Westchase). The crowd was mostly older folks and I was the only "young parent" there. I was really pleased to learn about what kinds of things are happening and was particularly happy to hear some of the ideas coming up like a playground area that would be a 5 min walk instead of a 45 min walk away.

I did have to nurse Ethan part-way through the meeting, which I was able to do very discreetly. After he was done, I was getting him re-situated in my lap when he let out a resounding three-part burp any frat boy would have been proud of. I cautiously raised my eyes to find every eyeball looking my direction. Before I could say a word the guy next to me, who I had never met before, spoke up.

"That was me."

Hammock Park

We have been trying to explore the parks nearby on nice days and one outing on a recent weekend took us to Hammock Park which is about 25 min away in Dunedin.

Hammock Park is of the "intact ecosystem" variety of park as opposed to the "large lawn" type and they have trails cut through it to aid exploration. As we were walking along down the trail we noticed orange peel strewn around. "Litterbugs," I sneered. "People should know better than to leave their picnic waste lying around."

As we kept walking, we kept seeing orange peels. And whole oranges laying by the side of the trail. It quickly became clear that something else was going on.

It was Eric who first noticed it*: there were wild orange trees and wild clementine trees (or whatever the real name is for those cute teeny oranges) all along the path.

Eric picked one and we all sampled its incredibly sour taste. I guess the squirrels and the other hikers already got all the sweet ones.

*I claim "still dumb from pregnant brain" on this as well as on a lot of other stuff like not being able to remember that thing I was going to do when I came into this room.

Lies I need to hear

I was pushing Emerson on the swings at the park today while juggling Ethan and generally looking exhausted and disheveled. A mom swinging with her daughter started chatting with me and asked how old Ethan was and then how far apart the two kids are. Her kids are the same age apart but are older now - her younger one looked about four.

"People tell you it gets easier but they're lying," she informed me.

"But they are such kind lies," I said, deciding to continue believing them anyway.

Florida's Oldest

There's more to Florida than old people. There's old places as well. We checked out two of Florida's oldest establishments this past week.

Columbia Restaurant is Florida's Oldest Restaurant (1905). We went to the Ybor City location to have dinner with a friend of Eric's who was in town for a meeting, and several of her colleagues joined as well. It is a monstrously large place - I believe the restaurant is a full city block - and Eric said that it seats 1,500 people for dinner. It is Spanish food, which makes sense, since they were some of the first non-native people in Florida. It could be considered a tourist trap but the food was actually quite good and those who had the made-at-the-table sangria (extra $2 for the Sangre de Toro wine) reported it was worthy as well. They have two nightly flamenco shows and we dined in between, catching the just beginning of the late show on our way out. At the risk of sounding a bit geezer-y myself, I was kind of glad we weren't seeing the whole show because it was very loud, what with all the stomping.

After a beautiful afternoon at Philippe Park on Saturday, the four of us went home the long way with a stop at Dunedin Brewery, Florida's Oldest Craft Brewery (no year given). The brewpub-chic main restaurant area was full so we found seats in "the nook" (official name, with a sign on the wall), a shabby-not-chic secondary bar area. We ordered the sampler so we could taste six of the beers on tap that day and had to explain to Emerson several times that the small glasses did not mean it was all for him. My favorites were the Apricot (I'm a sucker for apricot-flavored beers) and the Pale Ale. They also had a Nitro Stout and a Nitro Pale, which are carbonated with nitrogen like Guinness to give a creamy head. The Red and Brown ales were fine but not remarkable. Again here we left just as the live music was getting started and while I don't know for sure, I expect it would have been louder than my current grandmotherly taste in live entertainment.

Other old things I am interested to check out: oldest Starbucks and oldest old person's home.

Shot of Wild Turkey

Took a walk around the neighborhood and spotted these guys hanging out. Note to self: if times ever get hard for us financially, these birds don't seem like they would be very hard to catch.

Things that have happened since Ethan was born

Contrary to what this blog would suggest, life did not screech to a halt when Ethan was born. We have been enjoying a steady stream of visits from friends and family, enjoying a range of holiday celebrations and in our downtime we are adjusting to life as a family of four. A lot of what we have been up to is well-documented on Emerson and Ethan's blog. Here's a few of the other things that happened that you won't read about there:

• Kindle plus newborn breastfeeding plus husband watching older child = lots of time to read. I read The Hunger Games trilogy obsessively and finished it far too quickly. I know it is not great literature and I am not sure I liked the third book at all but there is something about those books that is seriously addictive and weeks later I am still jonesing for a fix. I'm not sure the movie will help but I look forward to seeing it with all the local teenagers. I have also read some other books but nothing worth mentioning.
• Two nights out: Eric and I (and Ethan, who slept the whole time) have been out to dinner twice so far. Once just us and once on a double date with neighbors who took us to their favorite gastro-pub where I got to drink a Boddingtons, a favorite beer of mine from my days living in London. Eric ordered the fish and chips but then swapped his regular "chips" for sweet potato fries for reasons I have yet to understand.
• Birding! Starting in our own backyard, we are getting to know the birds of Florida. Our pond frequently hosts anhingas, little blue herons, wood storks, white ibis and more and we have a front row seat to watch them eating, swimming, strutting around the grass and flying around. We even went on a bird walk in Lettuce Lake Park with a guy who is apparently a bird expert and about twenty senior citizens, many of whom commented on how nice it was for Ethan to be getting such an early start at birding.
• A long journey completed: Two and a half years after we started watching it we finally finished the entire series of Battlestar Galactica. It didn't have to take that long but we got distracted after watching season one and only just returned to it a few months ago. I mostly enjoyed the show, though at times I found it too realistic to be a good escape - too many gut-wrenching decisions and dealing with sadness, loss and life not being the way you want it to be.