Spring Activities

As we noted along with our spring wildlife notes, Brenda planted flowers in the boat in the back yard, so this is the latest incarnation of Nemo. This boat was the base for Nemo, and he survived fall leaves and a snow, summer visits, and was a delight to the members of the Children of the World choir who stayed with us.

The downside of all Brenda's work to beautify the back yard was that she suffered and acute back attack on the day before Easter and after an epidural and a z-pack was still told that it would probably be a six weeks recovery.

So this is a sort of celebration that she is up and about in the fifth week on May 21, and able to putter with a standing garden that Jeff and Darla with Mark's collaboration got her for Mother's Day. Rod, with Chris Suarez's help, was able to sneak it in and assemble in on the sly.

Jeff and family were off to Pensacola on the weekend of May 18 for him to again swim the 5K Pensacola Bay bridge swim. Jeff shown with Ashleigh below and in the center of the view at left after he got in the water.

They're off! Leaving from the shallow water on the mainland side, they parallel the bridge across. This brought to mind the previous occasion in 2012 when we went down to enjoy the weekend with them.

The big group of about 125 swimmers was off for the 5K swim, which Jeff did in 1:41, three minutes faster than the last time. He was hoping for an hour and a half which he had done in the pool for that distance, but he said he wandered too much. That would seem to be one of the limitations in open water, keeping yourself in a straight line.