GARDEN POST
(pun intended!)

Lana's back in Chilly Chattanoooga (22 today) after a totally fun visit over XMas. Now cold-ish days here portend the garden-to-be.

So, as in Lincoln, I conscripted myself to make some garden boxes. This time, the design is a little different, making a frame so I can wrap some screen around the box, keeping out the vermin of the 'hood: squirrels, cats and armadillos.

So, from ten til four-thirty, this was a six hour project. And the boxes I built the night before! What, you ask, took so long?!^* Pulling long tendrile roots out of the sandy soil. Weeding the crabgrass roots. Turning the soil and looking for grubs to pull out. Then mixing in leaves and pine needles to level the soil as a platform for the boxes. Cutting a tarp to fit in the bottom. And... filling the boxes with bagged topsoil mixed with "native" soil, a mix of sand and contractor-added topsoil.

Next up, some plants after the last frost date.

The good news is that the farmer's market here -- Neptune Beach -- had great greens and NEW bringers of bread. Yes, there is a future! Bread form non-commercial kitchens, one from a farmers' "friend". Good stuff, really home-made and unlike what you will find in Whole Foods or other markets.

To seal the deal this weekend, we took home a "growler"from a local beer hall that has rotating guest beers from around Florida and makes their own brews as well.

EVERY DAY SO FAR....

This year has been terrific! I've gotten to read bedtime stories to Lana and each day seen her the next morning. Well, almost morning. Closer to lunch, really, but that's all right. This morning is frost-level temperature, but mostly the days have been sunny and in the sixties, with the exception being New Year's Day -- in the seventies!

New Year's Eve was loud and colorful with completely uncontrolled localized fireworks, but no too many guns shooting up in the air. We paraded up and down the street at midnight wearing glow-stick necklaces. In the morning we found bottle rockets in our driveway. I'm pretty sure you can't see that in California.

Amy has had a well-synchronized few days off for flying our new helicopter, riding bikes and walking the beach. And she's tried her hand at cooking -- about one hundred meals!

The halfway point in Lana's visit is past, but more fun is yet to be shared.Today we'll try the rock-climbing wall and come back so she can scooter or bike with Abby, a neighbor's girl. Abby's house had about one million lights displayed for Christmas, as well as rocking reindeer.

Picking up Lana I drove E-W across Florida, and along the way some major attractions. We stopped to see Florida's tallest waterfall, (about forty feet.) I found some spectacular light on a swamp by I-10 and got out to snap the photo, only to be foiled by clouds, so I stood there another seven minutes until the sun peeked out again. I think other motorists thought I was peeing.

Once here, we lived through more superlatives. Like the biggest second Christmas ever! As Gru says in "Despicable Me," "This is going on for-ever!" And the yummiest banana muffins. And scrumptious anything-you-can-think-of-treats, like fudge, caramels, shortbread, oranges (farmer's market) and marzipans of all varieties. Not to mention the practically empty white sand beaches, pristine after I picked up the plastic bits that wash in from the Atlantic.

More soon. And happy new year from me, Lana and Amy.