Sikos on the Road

Christmas Caroling at TT Peace River

2009-12-16T19:00:00.000-05:00

Tonight we had the pleasure of Christmas carols being sung by the staff at Peace River... can you pick them out?

Merry Christmas 2009

2009-12-13T22:19:00.000-05:00

Butch had injured himself on the pickle ball court last Tues., and we were suposed to leave the next day.... not good. Anyway, the management here extended us out a week for him to heal so we didn't have to move and because of that, I got to decorate sooner !! It looks really nice at night!!

Happy 70th Birthday Butch

2009-12-13T22:08:00.000-05:00

Since Butch was laid up with a badly sprained ankle from trying to kill the ball playing pickle ball, we couldn't celebrate the way we planned.... sooooooooooo, I got a cake and some ice cream and figured out a way to get him up to the meeting hall the night they play bingo. Dawn picked him up in her golf cart and Ranger Rich had loaned him his wife's walker. Not everyone stayed for ice cream and cake, but it was a "total" surprise for Butch. Then next night, I surprised him again with a dinner of lobster tail and Fillet Mignon. Happy 70th !!

Peace River after the rains

2009-12-13T21:57:00.000-05:00

This is what the river looked like after 4 days of down pouring rains. Most of the campers along the river were asked to come up to the top for fear of a repeat of what happened a few years ago when it overflowed it's banks and a lot of the campers got flooded out and some even overturned.

war wounds on the pickle ball court

2009-12-13T21:47:00.000-05:00

Last Tuesday we spent a good part of the day at the Wauchula ER after someone, and I won't mention names, tried to kill the pickleball.. This was the result of the "second" fall on the court !! He's doing better and I think in another week he should be walking...maybe.

Florida Road Kill

2009-11-30T22:10:00.000-05:00

Need I say more? Up home we have rabbits, squirrels, raccoons, woodchucks and deer... here it seems we have pigs.

Thanksgiving dinner at the Peace River Campground

2009-11-30T22:00:00.000-05:00

I see Jerri and the preacher's wife... can you pick out anyone else that you know? Plenty to eat and what a variety !!! We'll repeat this for Christmas too. Hope ya all had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Dinner before we left Orlando in November

2009-11-30T21:50:00.001-05:00

This place is the "best" !! I actually ate a whole one pound T-Bone steak that absolutely melted in my mouth. It's the best steak I have ever eaten. And to think it is so close to the Orlando TT Preserve. I know where we're going when we get back up there....

Problem Solving

2009-11-08T11:29:00.000-05:00

Big leak following under the bottom stair and onto the kitchen floor. It took awhile to find where it was coming from, but it was found and fixed..hopefully. There was a lot of water pressure here, probably because there aren't that many campers yet, so we got a regulator and that should do the trick... along with the new part on the pipe.

The "Challenger" has arrived

2009-11-07T17:22:00.000-05:00

We got into TT Orlando on Monday the second of November. With water coming in under the step and running onto the kitchen floor... "Huston I think we have a problem" Had to unload everything under camper and take down all the walls to get to a T that was leaking quite a bit. Think it was the high water pressure coming into the house. Fixed the problem and got a regulator.. other than that...we are fat and happy.. going up to the entertainment tonight. Catch ya all later...bye

More Construcktion

2009-11-07T17:12:00.000-05:00

For all those coming behind us... if you travel I-95 this is what you will be running into... for miles.

Lake Gaston, VA

2009-11-07T17:07:00.000-05:00

On the road again. Spent the first night at a Flying J just inside of VA. Construction that day had delayed us by 3 hours so we never made our tenitive stop over. Second day on the road took us to an ROD park called "The Club" at Lake Gaston. This is a 20,000 acre lake and we will be back !!

We got in here late afternoon/early evening and of course it ws Halloween, so we watched as all the little tricker treaters came rolling by. We had planned on staying one more night there, but the rain was so bad that I wouldn't have been able to take pictures or explore so we left the following day.

We ate at the club house this night... prime rib 1 1/2 inches thick... the biggest baked potato I've ever seen and a huge salad...all for $10.00. The club house was three stories high with winding knotty pine staircases 6 feet wide going up and coming down. The lower level was designed like something from Bass Pro shop with the falling water and trees. They had white cast iron tables around for sitting and enjoying the sounds of the water.
Their resturant was full service...menu and all... Nice place !! Like I said... we will be back...

Early snow

2009-11-07T16:47:00.000-05:00

This definitely got us motivated to pack up and head south!! We only had about 3 inches, but just enough to say "it's time"

Brandon has arrived

2009-11-07T16:41:00.000-05:00

We were blessed on Aug. 24th with a new grandbaby... Brandon Lee Brown. I look at him and can almost see those eyes laughing and smiling. He's going to be a "big" boy we think. Mom called today and said that he weighed in at 13.2 lbs.
Big sister Lauren takes very good care of her sibling brother... oh, so much to do... feeding, fetching diapers, watching and tending to him... so much so that it just tuckers her right out.

Mr. Bob Cat

2009-11-07T16:26:00.000-05:00

Mr. Bob Cat has decided to take us residence somewhere near our home. I've seen him come as close as 20' from me while tending to my bees and using our yard as a travel path. Many nights coming home from work.. anywhere between 12 and 4 in the morning I have caught him hiking up through the yard. This was taken in broad daylight. You have Mr. Bob Cat... about 45 lbs of him, doing the "take down"... see how close he is to the deck rail... The very next day we had a bear knock down one of my bee hives... so we put up an electric fence laced with raw bacon strips to give it to him in the teeth. Anyway, this is life on the ranch.... Scary isn't it.. since we live only a couple of miles from town.

Taking care of Beezness

2009-08-04T20:17:00.000-05:00

Don't generally suit up for the bees, but this one was a swarm that decided to take up residence in one of the empty hives I had. I don't think they would have bothered me. We've got a top feeder on them now and as of the end of July, have put them over into a 10 frame hive. A bear knocked it over on July 23rd. Spent the next day fencing in the bee yard. Lucky for us all the bear did was just knock it over...no damage... just a bunch of really twisted bees !!! They are all doing fine.

Luzerne Trap Out

2009-08-04T19:55:00.000-05:00

This hive was in the cinder block wall of an Auto Zone. It's taken a couple of months to trap the bees out of the wall. It works like an animal trap in reverse. See the little red cones...the bees can come out, but can't go back in. That's why we nailed the nuke body to the wall and placed a queen in the box so the bees coming out would go into the hive with a new queen. John is putting a second story on so they have room to accomodate every one. They should be ready to come home by the beginning of August.

Truck Stuck

2009-08-04T19:18:00.000-05:00

Last week we had over 5 inches of rain and the yard must have gotten over saturated. We always pull the truck and camper up into the side yard to back it into the drive way. Well, this time it wasn't going anywhere ! For all the digging and chewing Butch did and all the attempts to put wood under the tires, nothing worked including putting gravel under the tires for traction. We even tried unhooking the camper from the truck, but the way it was cocked, the 5th wheel wouldn't budge. Then came little ole me and suggested we throw some old towels and rags under the tires. At this point why not try. Low and behold, the truck walked right out of the rutts. Amazing. I love inspiration.

The Swarm

2009-06-14T00:03:00.000-05:00

Hello darlins... wow, this is a first ! Yesterday we had a swarm take up residence in the nuke that I had stored a couple of drawn frames into. And they just happened to be on the top with nothing in the bottom.... sooooooo ... I had to move things around a little. Took the top hive body off where they were and moved it to the bottom and put the bottom on the top. Then filled the top with some empty frames for them to work on. That's a top feeder I'm putting on filled with sugar water that will give them a good start and maybe they will decide to stay. They're lookin good ! Lots of activity !

My new garden

2009-06-13T23:50:00.000-05:00

From the dump truck that was filled with wonderful soil that filled my 20' X 20' raised bed to all the hard work of getting it all raked and shoveled down to getting it planted (today)..partly anyway, took 4 days. It would have been sooner, but it rained for two of those days. I still have beans, acorn squash, and cukes to go in yet. Have to get a fence up to keep the pesky little critters out of it. Maybe they won't notice for a day or two :) Updates as it grows !

Not the Pickle Ball Court

2009-06-08T16:45:00.000-05:00

No, this is not the beginning of a Pickle Ball Court.... but it is the start to a 20X20 garden area that I've been wanting for a couple of years now.... Guess Butch thought that this was the better deal of the two... We live on a rock ledge, so needed to put in a raised bed... the dirt comes tomorrow... we're just trying to kill the grass underneath with the black plastic.

Moving Day for Kim and Steve

2009-06-03T12:55:00.000-05:00

In between the bull work, we sat around and shot the "bull". Dan, Steve and Kim's mom Marilyn. Dan, Kim Steve and Butch.

Moving day for Kim and Steve

2009-06-03T12:47:00.000-05:00

Yes, we have a caravan !
Kim and Steve's new digs... Very quiet here, on a dead end road. Glad we had a couple of strong young (?) guys to help. Steve got one of the guys he works with to help.
Glad we didn't have the stairs here like we had at the apartment ! They were killers !
So, after we got everything loaded up on the U-haul and into every available car and truck, we headed for the new place.

Butch hooked up the washer and dryer while all the bull work was being done. Di and I helped Kim set up her kitchen... while all the bull work was being done..

Kim's mom had made a great lunch for everyone... so we stopped the bull work for a while and just enjoyed some "bull".

Glad it was a steller kinda day !

One of the last flower beds to be done

2009-05-20T17:27:00.001-05:00

Sassy is really not helping here ! This is the last of the flower beds that needed attention. Looks like I have to move a few things around. The Black Eyed Susans are started to over run my Stargazer Lillies and Daffadils. We have a resident ???? skunk or chuck living in the rock. What ever it is, it's making a path and knocking down some of my flowers ! The only other ones we have to do are around the lamp posts coming up the drive way.... saved for another day... we're done for this day.

Flagpole Up

2009-05-20T17:20:00.000-05:00

This was one of the other project for today... A little late for Armed Forces Day, but it's up for Memorial Day.