Miami Marathon

We took our first trip of the New Year, packed up the RV and drove over to Miami - a little over a 4 hour drive. Our purpose was to see Ina and Jeff run in the Miami Marathon. We met them at their hotel and had dinner with them on the Miracle Mile - a fancy store and restaurant strip in Coral Gables where their hotel was. We left them to get a good nights sleep and went back to our camper. We set the alarm for 3:45 AM so we could pick them up and get them to the race start in downtown Miami by 5:30. It's still very dark at that time in the morning but what a crowd - 25,000 runners were in the Marathon - it's still pitch black out or did I already mention that. The runners are placed in fenced in groups called Corrals - Ina was in Corral E which was right in front of us but we never saw her.

Then the race starts - first the handicapped, then the pros, and on and on for about a half an hour. Finally they are all out of the Corrals and you can actually see the start line.

Jeff ran a half marathon  - 13.1 miles - sensible guy. I stood on the final turn for a half hour looking for him - never saw him - there were so many runners coming in it was unbelievable - but we did meet up at the H meeting area after he had finished. We all moved to a straight stretch and set up camp waiting for Ina. Who is that coming straight at us?

Yes, it is that famous Marathoner who has signed up for 50 Marathons in 50 states - This is number 2 and it was a breeze.

We didn't see her cross the finish line but the crowd in the bleachers were cheering her on - shouting Go, Ina, Go.

Well that's what we were going to shout thinking we could get right next to the finish line but we never got a chance to use them in Miami.

Polly had a whole cheer made up that she never used.

Only 48 more to go - we'll get to use them yet.

It's Spring in Florida

How do plants know January is Spring in Florida? December wasn’t very cold and we didn’t get our first frost until the first week of January. So how did the Hyacinth know to stick it’s stalk up through the stones and blossom. 

All the spring flowers are blooming.  This Red Azalea was hiding in the woods when we saw it’s red blossoms and we cleared out the Palmettos to give it some room. 

There is a White Azalea blooming in the front yard.

Seeing everything just wants to grow we got to work on an overgrown block of garden that was loaded with African Iris, a very rugged plant that just keeps growing and spreading without any help from us.

But we hired this homeless hippie to dig them all up and spread them out all around the yard. These were the home of the red ants that attacked Polly and finally made her jump into the pool.

We cleaned up the garden leaving a couple of clumps of the Irises and supplemented them with a couple of Camellias

And a couple of Gardenias.

We don’t want to rub the sunny weather in too much on our Northern friends so let us sign off with a nice warm picture.

We burned it every night during our little cold snap a couple of weeks ago.

Everything is Growing

Well even though it is cold up north, Florida is getting ready for spring and everything is growing like mad. The hydroponic garden has produced it's first strawberry - yum yum

And the small cherry tomatoes are getting ripe.

Some of the broccoli we left on too long and it started to flower - little yellow flowers where the the broccoli buds were - I didn't know that.

We've got green peppers galore and a few jalapenos - good for the blood circulation

We picked our first batch of snap beans.

And we got more cilantro than I can make salsa with.

We originally thought that we'd eat lettuce right out of the garden in our salads but there isn't any way we can keep up to the rate that it is growing. That is a stalk of lettuce growing from the lowest Styrofoam box right up past the top box - starting to get a little bitter so I've got our second and third crops planted and growing to replace the old ones.

We've been saving pineapple tops, they are suppose to root and grow new pineapples - just have to wait two years.

Come on in, the water's fine

Well we've had the pool since before Christmas with the solar blanket and solar panels on the roof working hard to warm the water up but does Polly go in - Noooo - It's too cold, the sun isn't shining, I don't want to get my hair wet - There are a lot of excuses.

But red ants changed her mind - We were working on an overgrown flower bed in the back yard - digging out the African Iris, thinning them and transplanting them to other beds that had more space.
I was planting out front when I heard a scream and a string of curse words that I can't repeat. Polly had been breaking up a clump of Iris and there must have been a nest of red ants in it. She shed what clothes would come off easily and headed for the pool to get rid of the hanger oners.

It took a couple of tries but she finally jumped in, after the initial shock said it was great.