November, 2022

There are many, many times that I’m thrilled at how good Timmy is at fixing things. 95% of the time, he saves us money and keeps stuff in use and out of the landfill.

He has repaired loose molding, replaced our door lock with an electronic one, installed an anti-theft lock on our king pin, installed our TPMS system. He has cleaned all the AC filters and keeps the black and grey tanks empty and clean.

And while he ultimately did fix this one, we do now have a rule in the “house.” If we only have one of the thing he wants to fix and if it will affect our daily life in a meaningful way, we will call in a pro. And like in this case, sometimes, things in our RV are not meant to be fixed. You just have to replace them.

Periodically, over the past few months, we have found a puddle of clean water at the front of our toilet. It didn’t happen every day and we checked everything to make sure that we were not spilling something and that it was not somehow coming from the shower or the sink.

Finally Tim got fed up with it and decided he was going to fix it. He watched YouTube videos and researched online and then….took our only toilet off the base. Apparently the one that came installed in our Alliance 310 has had a problem with an interior area filling up with fresh flush water. When it is full, it “spills” out and seeps onto the floor.

We got the toilet off the floor and separated the two parts of the outside and Tim felt like he got the interior area fixed, so we went to put the toilet back on and….apparently the two pieces were not made to be able to take apart. The nuts that held them back together fell into the bowl cavity, never to see the light of day again.

Luckily, Tim was determined and was able to find a replacement within a reasonable drive and he got us an upgraded toilet and replaced it before we went to bed that night.

Lesson learned. New toilet works great! 🙂

November 16th, 2022

OMG – if you love fresh fruit and veggies, meat and seafood get down here!

Tim met a woman in the laundry the other day and she told him about Detwiler’s Farm Market. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting much, since the farm stands we have gone to down here have been just OK.

We were out running errands and stopped in and it literally took my breath away. I walked right into the produce section and saw mounds and mounds of crazy fresh fruits and verges. It SMELLED so fresh. I was getting ready to pack my cart full and then remembered that I live in a 350 square foot RV and there are only two of us. And I could come back. 🙂

I picked up just a few things for a salad and then rolled my cart to the back of the store.

THE FISH! The fish counter was about as long as our RV. They had dozens of types of the freshest fish I have ever seen. I picked up some fresh local shrimp and a couple of giant lobster stuffed mushrooms.

Then, the meat section. How do you choose? Gorgeous steaks and chops and chicken. Then the homemade sausages. We went with some pork chops this time.

Did I mention steaks? Short ribs will be coming home with us in the future.

We will be back and when we do find our forever home in Florida it will be near a Detwiler’s!

November 20th, 2022

Mom is the BEST! The best at booking activities for me!

Mom is the WORST! The worst at picking which day to do these fun adventures.

Guess what I got to do today! Guess, guess, guess! I’ll bet you can’t guess!

Need a clue? It is in my breed name. That’s like a family name for you humans. I’m Reba the Miniature Australian Shepherd.

No, we didn’t go to Australia. That is on mom’s bucket list, but we have not made it there yet.

We didn’t do mini-dog wrestling, although I am an expert at that. I can do the duck and roll, body slam better than most.

The clue is in the last word. Yep, yep, yep. You got it, we went sheep-herding today!

Mom found this cool place called Ketch in Tampa. They do boarding, daycare, agility training and – and – HERDING lessons!

This was the BEST activity mom could have booked for me!!!

When my cousin Bailey’s mom, Chris, heard about it, she said Bailey could come too! Bailey is a mini-Aussie too. She’s ten, which is 70 in dog years, but she is fast!

Remember when I also said that mom was also the WORST? Today, we woke up to something I didn’t realize could happen here in Florida. Today was cold! OK, it was only about 55 degrees, but my doggie blood has thinned quickly since we have been here. And, just as we were pulling up to the training farm, it started to rain. And rain. And rain. Did I mention it was COLD?

I thought maybe we should try to reschedule, but then I saw the sheep! And I lost my mini-Aussie mind.

The sheep man said that this was just an introduction class. We got to get used to being around the sheep and then try to move from chasing them to actually herding them into a group. I maybe got the chasing down pretty good.

My cousin, Bailey is eight years old than me, so she got the herding part down more quickly. She’s a pretty smart girl.

We got wet and sandy and muddy and cold, but we had so much fun!!!

I hope mom takes me back for flyball or agility or more herding!

November 13th, 2022

Tim and I spent a few hours back in time on Sunday. We visited the Sarasota Medieval Fair, Compared to the Renaissance Fair in Wisconsin, this one is small, but still filled with fun!

The Fair moved to a new location this year. It was held in the beautiful Woods of Mallaranny, which is a 47 acre park filled with huge oak trees and meadows. It was a perfect setting to make you feel like you truly did step back into the past.

Many, many of the visitors were in costume and there were dozens of entertainers wandering the grounds or on stage singing or drumming or having vegetables thrown (badly) at them! Even on the walk from the car we saw some great characters!

There were many shops through the park. You could get a turkey leg and grog of course. And if you didn’t have a costume, there were probably a dozen places you could purchase one. Some of you know I do have a costume from my last time at the Wisconsin fair, but alas, it’s in storage at Emily’s house right now. I’ll be sure to bring it with me next time. I was tempted to buy another one….

I bought a couple of Christmas gifts for the girls and these earrings had to come home with me!

We enjoyed several of the shows. My favorite was the birds of prey!

We shared a delicious pork sandwich. I was shocked that Tim didn’t get a turkey leg, but we did see many others enjoying them. I had a really good cider (I need to look up what kind it was) and all the rest of the food we saw looked great. The only disappointment was the $6 ice cream that consisted of a watery soft serve that was tiny.

Notice something missing? Sadly no pups allowed at the Medieval Fair, but Reba spent her first doggie daycare day at a Rover sitter’s house. She had a great time and we will be using them again!

November 1, 2022

I got Tim to agree to check out Emerson Point Preserve. It’s just a few miles from The Tides RV Resort where we are staying. Emerson Point Preserve is on Snead Island and features the Manatee River and the Terra Ceia Bay.

We hiked the beautiful Terra Ceia trail. This trail does a 2.1 mile loop around the preserve. It was, thankfully, nearly completely shaded. The temperature was hovering around 85 degrees so it was HOT.

We brought two very large bottles of water, and I’ll be sure to bring even more if we do this trail again.

Reba got to “meet” a few animals and animal remains on our hike. She found an empty horseshoe crab shell in the shallow waters of the bay.

Then she came across a gopher tortoise. She thought the tortoise was much more interesting, but I kept her back to save stress on the tortoise and keep her from getting her nose snapped.

I didn’t get a picture of the last animal she found, the black snake was too quick!

We will definitely come back here during our stay. There are several other areas of the preserve we can explore.

When we are in Florida we get to spend time with the best people on earth – my family! That means that Tim and I get to watch some very talented corn hole players! My sister Lori, brother John and brother-in-law John are all competitive corn hold players and many of their friends play as well! (We should probably learn how to play.)

On Mondays they play at OCC or Orange County Choppers. And usually at least one of them are in the finals and many times they take home the gold!

Did you know that the American Corn Hole League has over 100,000 members? ESPN carries the top corn hole tournaments too!

We will never get as good as my sis, bro and bro-in-law, but Tim and I should probably start throwing a few bags. We just need to find some boards that are light enough to keep us under our payload! 🙂

October 21, 2022

We have found a beautiful RV Resort to park for the remainder of the year. This will be our longest time in one place since March!

The Tides RV Resort in Palmetto, Florida is perfect for us. It is just 20-25 minutes from my sister Lori’s house in St. Petersburg and it’s just a little further to my brother John’s house in Lutz. It is just a couple of hours from brother Sam’s house in central Florida.

This park was built around a beautiful lake with a dock for catch and release fishing.

They have built a shell topped walking path around much of the park that gives us about a 2 1/2 mile walk each morning and of course there is a nice sized dog park for Reba.

They have two pools, shuffle board (of course), community fire pits and picnic areas, nice clean laundry facilities.

OH, and FREE kayaks that can take you on a calm little creek or you can head right out into the bay. I’ll be trying those out later today!

The pads are paver brick and double wide so you have plenty of space for outdoor seating. Each site is ringed with beautiful plantings.

And it’s QUIET! I know it gets much busier January – March, but right now for the most part it is very, very quiet. There are a couple of residents who have some yappy pups, but since mine is not perfect, I can’t complain at all.

In the clubhouse there are pool tables, a business center (in case we decided to do any business), a kitchen and plenty of comfy seating.

I’ll write more notes and post pictures about the individual things we experience while we are here, just thought I’d give you a little overview of coming attractions.

And don’t worry, although Honey (I’m home) will stay in one place for about 10 weeks, we aren’t. We will be headed to Aurora to spend Thanksgiving with Emily and Katie and Alex and Puff and the Amanns and we will be doing some of the touristy stuff around here we have missed in the past – and of course, we will keep you up to date!

October 12, 2022

We had a nice meal at Grits Cafe in Forsyth, GA. They had a small patio so Reba could join us and grab a few snacks.

The biscuits and appetizers were outstanding. We had the house favorites appetizer that included fried green tomatoes, grits fritters and spring rolls. We probably should have stopped right there. We were already stuffed when our main courses came!

Our main courses were good, not up to the standard of the biscuits and apps, but good. We didn’t leave room for dessert sadly.

If you get to Forsyth, head to Grits Cafe. Have cocktails, the apps, skip the main course and have the dessert!