The Essential Beachcomber

It seems I have turned into a real beach bum these days. I am just loving the weather, it was mean low tide,  and I can get to Englewood Beach in 5 minutes from where I live.  I decided to try a part of the beach I usually stay away from. The reason I avoid this part of the beach is that all the teenagers hang out here. There is a big volley ball net.  All the kids here skim board so this part of the beach can be dangerous.  You either get beaned by a wayward ball or run over by a skim boarder in full run. But school's back in baby and it's safe again.  This part of the beach is bordered by condos and believe it or not a trailer park. That area of the beach  was basically deserted which as any good beach comber knows is less competition for any goodies laying around. The Round-a-bout at Englewood Beach I used my shell shovel on the surf line and was having some good results.  There was alot of this shell crush at the high surf line that ...

A day off from work...what to do, what to do? I'm going to try to get caught up on all my loose ends such as laundry, clean the bathroom, catch up on my reading but I decide that I'm out of raw honey so I am going to run out to the local beekeeper and replenish my supply. You have to know where you are going I lived in the same county of Florida my entire life. I have never had allergies or sinus headaches.  My aunt would complain about her sinus headaches and I had no sympathy at all for her (cowgirl up!) until I moved 150 miles south. My first spring in our new city was sinus torture.  Everything was in bloom - palm trees, orange blossoms, even the weeds. I always try to find a natural remedy before I head for the medicine cabinet. My solution was to find a local beekeeper that sells raw honey.   Raw honey has not been heated to pasteurize it therefore it still has all the pollens in it.They do filter the honey so all the foreign particles has been cleane...

This is just so wrong on so many different levels.

Another beach day...you betcha. My day off this week was Friday and I decided to play today. I live 10 minutes from some of the most beautiful beaches in Florida (IMHO) . Stump Pass is a state park.  It costs $3.00 to park all day and they close promptly at sunset.   The ranger shoos you off as soon as the sun sets. He doesn't even give you time to absorb the beauty of what you just saw.  Okay folks, shows over.  You can stay but you can't stay here.  But I wasn't out for a sunset today so Stump Pass it was. I stopped at the Circle K on Englewood Beach and grabbed a bag of trail mix & an extra large Diet Pepsi and drove to the south end of Englewood Beach to Stump Pass.  After, I got set-up on the beach I decided that it was such a nice day with a cooler-than-it-has-been breeze that I would walk south to the pass, something I had never done. I've been close but was stopped by a thunderstorm.  It's 1 1/2 miles to the pass and it took me a c...

I'm working on a little project that I will be sharing with you soon. I left work at 5:30 this afternoon & skeedaddled out to the beach to work on a surprise for my mom.  I'm almost done.  As I sat watching the sun go down there were several people taking the usual sunset pics.  They always stop the picture taking just after the sun dunks the horizon.   If they would just wait another minute or two the best of the sunset arrives - the back splash.  Please enjoy and try not to get sand everywhere.

Someone asked me  about Hurricane Earl today.  I didn't even know there was a storm out there. I work 50 hours a week. I watch very little tv . Unless they do a weather warning on HGTV I am clueless until my mother heads out to load up on batteries & bottled water.  It's not that I don't care - I guess as a native-born Floridian you become used to the storms. Hurricanes are just what happens in the summer.  You just hope they don't happen to you.  That's why back in July when Tropical Depression # 5 was on top of Sanibel Island I had no idea. I had checked the tide charts not the weather.   I got up at 4am loaded my visiting sister from Tennessee & niece Pookie into the truck and headed south for a day of shelling. Our first stop was  Little Hickory Beach which is southeast of Sanibel Island.  The sky was a tiny bit over cast.  There was a gorgeous rainbow over the beach and we got lots of pictures.  The shel...

To all you nice bloggers that left comments &  kind words of encouragement - Thank you so much.  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I spent part of last Sunday on the beach and it was a great day. As the sun went down the raindrops started falling and didn't stop until today. One friend told me her rain gauge measured 10 inches for one day.  Now we always need the rain. Florida is coming out of a long drought and our aquifer levels are still recovering but it's been raining for 4 days....come on. When I saw the  Sun peak out today around 10 am I grabbed my shell shovel and headed for the beach. It was a full moon last night and it was now low tide - grocery shopping would just have to wait. The sun is trying to peak out As I read all the beachy blogs out there most of the comments express the same theme...how they love to see all the pictures of the shells and the beaches but the longing of wanting to actually be there themselves. It stinks to have to wait for a once a year vacation to get to the beach.   I feel so blissfully blessed to have this beautiful Gulf of Mexico 5 minutes fro...