A Day at Disney's EPCOT Center

Emily's friend Kelley and her mom Terri were staying in Orlando for a week, so we paid them a visit. Emily and Kelley worked as Disney interns at EPCOT back in 2000 during the year-long millennium celebration. They have been great friends ever since!

We took an up close and personal look at the new Finding Nemo ride in the seas display.

Jonathan posed for this pic next to a replica of the famous red phone booths in the UK display.

We topped off the evening with a buffet style meal and entertainment at the Heidelberg Restaurant in Germany.

End of Summer Camp

Pine Jog summer camp ended last week. Ironically one of the most fun moments with the campers this summer was a day when we were stuck inside because of bad rain and lightening. We built a fort in our classroom with a rain-fly from an old tent, lit some candles, and told ghost stories about each other until the rain stopped. What fun!

Mango Maddness

There are several wild mango trees growing on the Pine Jog property that have been producing nice fruit the last few weeks of July. Jonathan has been researching mangos online and driving around harvesting the ripe ones at least once a day. It is best to let them ripen on the tree and pick them before they fall on the ground and get nibbled on by all sorts of creatures.

But how do you reach them when they are way up there?

A paint roller extension pole for painting ceilings with a light bulb changer attached to the end works quite nicely.

This is a photo of Jonathan with the biggest mango harvested to date.

We got a whole jeep load that day.

Kayaking the Loxahatchee River

The weekend after the 4th of July Rachel and Derk came down for a visit with kayaks in tow. We did a day trip down the Loxahatchee River which is famous for being one of the only rivers in Florida that has not had the natural flow altered. It starts inland and flows all the way out to the brackish waters of the intracoastal in Jonathan Dickenson State Park.

It looks pretty calm in these pictures, but it was a pretty exciting trip with periods of heavy rain and thunder, a fast current around the bends, and lots of downed logs and vines blocking our path. We had to stay single file for most sections of the river and get out to portage a lot. The naturalist at the Trapper Nelson interpretive site (where we stopped for lunch) said we were one of the hearty few that had paddled the whole length of the river that week.

It was definitely an adventure!
It is always nice to have a self portrait of the photographer every now and then.

Rachel is all smiles in this shot letting the current take her down river.

Jonathan designated himself the kayak mover and helped everyone lift there kayaks over the logs at each portage.

Derk's kayak is tricked out with all kinds of kayak fishing gear. He even attached a cutting board to the front for prepping bait and holding his GPS fish finder.
It also works well for holding his Heineken :-)

Pineapple Farming

While the corn in Iowa should be knee high by July, we are knee deep in pineapple down here in Florida. Jonathan has harvested about 20 pinapples from the backyard of the house where he rents a room.

You just pop the top off and replant it. We are far enough south that the growing conditions seem to be just right for pineapple here.

It will take about two years of growing and then these will produce fresh fruit too. Yum!

Fro-tastic

Summer Camp

Most of June, for Emily, has been consumed with summer day camp at Pine Jog. Emily is co-leading the 4th, 5th, and 6th grade Eco-Explorers on the topic of Sustainable Practices in Florida Ecosystems. One of the big projects was to harvest invasive exotic plants from several sites on the Pine Jog property. We used them as an art project for the campers. They each get to design, sand, and paint their own walking stick made from an exotic plant that was harming the native slash pine forest ecosystem. We wrapped a hemp grip on each stick and left some extra rope for them to string beads. Throughout the week campers earn a bead for each activity they successfully complete. We also award special beads to campers who pick up trash out on the trail without being asked, and other acts of kindness and responsible behavior.

This is a picture of Corey, Emily's co-leader, using a machete to cut down Tropical Almond.

Each week we have 12-16 new campers. We harvested over 90 walking sticks in early June so we would have enough for each group.

This is a picture of Emily and Corey peeling and whittling the bark off the sticks so they would be ready for the campers.

This was our first group of campers with their walking sticks.

On Tuesdays we go to the beach to study the Barrier Island ecosystem. In the picture above the campers are on a "Quest to Nest". They are pretending to be mother sea turtles and have to dig a 2 ft.(the actual depth of real sea turtle nests) nest in the sand to lay their eggs. Once they reach 2ft they get to run into the ocean as their finish line and swim.

Corey is measuring Ben's nest and telling him he has to dig a few more inches. Those mommy sea turtles deserve some credit....it is hard work digging a nest in the sand.