Ready For Spring

Greetings from the island everyone. I hope all of you are doing well and remembered to set your clocks ahead this past Sunday for daylight savings. I enjoy having an extra hour of daylight in the evenings, it provides more outdoor, gardening and beach combing time. . always a great thing!

I am so ready for Spring to begin in just a few more days. This has been one of the nastiest and blustery winters that I’ve endured out here in my 12 years of living full time on the island. Between the cold and the wind and rain and dense fog, it has just been yuck. There’s nothing more nerve wracking than crossing the bay in a dense fog when you can barely see past the bow of the boat.

I navigate by compass during the occasional times that I cross at night or in the fog, having to remind myself that even though the compass bearing may not seem to be in the right direction, the compass will be correct. I was reminded of that several weeks ago when heading back to the island in a very dense fog, and managing to run aground on the shoreline a quarter mile away from my lagoon cut. Luckily I was able to eventually push and pole back out into deeper water and find my cut. Gotta be very careful when running in the dense fog.

I wanna say thank you to those that helped me celebrate my birthday last month, number 56 for me. I ventured in from the island a few nights prior and went out with great friends for a few adult beverages and appetizers at the Indianola Fishing Marina, where the “Highway 316” band sang me Happy Birthday. We all got a laugh when the lead female band singer made the comment, “you must have some big cojones to live on an island!” Ha! After there we then went to Josie’s Cantina in POC for a little dancing. The next morning we all had a wonderful breakfast and Britton made me a dolphin shaped pancake on his new Blackstone outside griddle, and assorted pancake shapes for Susan, Margie, Terrell, Lori and Don – it was a great breakfast. Thank you Karen for the awesome kitchen knives, and Susan for the beautiful island photo collage calendar. . I love it! A few days later I had dinner with mom, dad and my sister, Sherry, who made me my favorite pineapple upside down birthday cake.

I started my Spring/Summer crop of tomato seeds about four weeks ago, and the little plants are doing great in the greenhouse. I’ll have 18 plants total, consisting of five different varieties, and they will go in the ground the first week in April. I also have squash and cucumber growing that I started from seeds, and the melons will be started in a few more weeks. I’m preparing all my garden beds now, clearing the weeds and throwing them to the cows and chickens. I’m looking forward to fresh tomatoes, including fried green ones.

Some friends and I made the drive one evening to the La Terraza restaurant and their brand new building. If you’re looking for great Mexican food, this place has it. The new building is beautiful and the food is delicious. Josie’s in POC and La Terraza in Seadrift, can’t get any better Mexican food.

Well that’s it from the island for now, everyone take care and enjoy Spring time.