Farm-life Fridays: In FL

Here's a special Farm-life Friday for you ... a Farm-life Friday post about the wonderful farm my friends have going on in Florida! This is where I'm actually at right now and I love it! Love the people here, love my time here and love whatever it is I end up doing here. Now, they have this wonderful farm going on as well, called Swallow Tail Farm.

Stolen right from their website: "Swallowtail Farm is located north of Alachua, along a fertile ridge of highland soil that crests the spine of Florida. We have crafted the farm as a model of sustainability and fine land stewardship, with a focus on appropriate scale, conservation of resources, and nature-produced fertility. No synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides or other chemicals will ever touch our fields or your food."

This post is brief because I'm busy, but I'm going to edit this entry and try to post some photos when I'm home to this.

Fishy Situation...

I woke up this morning and over our amazing breakfast smoothies, the parents are telling me that while biking this AM they came across something very strange ... for about 2+ miles, they passed dead fish and crabs and it extended further down the beach than they even went. Little shiny fish, bigger fish, crabs, some jellyfish and even a blowfish! Terribly concerning, in my opinion. The fish had their mouths open as if they had gotten stranded there, but the crabs would have scurried away if it had been something that simple. My sister's boyfriend even considered not running this morning because the smell was so awful and the heat of the day has barely even begun.

We start flipping through the phone books trying to figure out who to call about this. My mom comes across some "non emergency" police(?) number and called. From hearing my mom's story, they let her know that they're going to get in contact with the head of beach management and to please call back in a little. Note: the photo to the right is a variety of some of the pretty things I found among the dead fish, jellyfish and trash washed up on the shore. So very pretty, but so very sad at the same time.

So, my mom let some time pass for them to get in touch with the proper people and then my mom called again. In the mean time, we notice a police car out on the beach. However, on the phone, beach management told my mom that "it's just something that happens sometime" and "it's from the storms last week."

My mom's response? I don't believe it.

Oh, and get this: they don't even clean it up! They just wait for the tide to take the fish back. Hooray for letting nature take them back and all, but I don't believe nature is what caused this beach catastrophe.

On another note, please keep Mugsy in mind. She's my Aunt Mar's crazy, but dearly loved Airedale who has been mysteriously sick since we've been away ... and, no, it has nothing to with them being gone. There is little that keeps that girl from eating, so what is wrong with her is a mystery.

Mugsy's been to the vet several times now - including an overnight emergency facility since this all started Sunday. There was nothing on her x-rays and nothing off with her blood work either. Her throat did swell and the belief was she swallowed something that cut up and caused some infection in her throat, but with some pain meds and antibiotics, she's still not right ... in fact, my Aunt Mar's husband headed back to the vet with Mugsy this morning.

Oh, and another note - Sims 3 came out today. People, let me know if it rocks enough to buy it and begin a new obsession lol

Mobile Photo Upload

I had a lot of photos from around this date...

Brit jello wrestling:

On vacation in FL:

A nice picture of Gretch & Ris that Ray sent me :)