Riches And More Riches

For many years when Glen and I came down here to Roseland, he just could not catch a fish. He was so frustrated. I kept telling him that he needed to use shrimp as bait and I knew this only because that's what we'd use as children. Granddaddy would go to Johnny May's fish house and get shrimp and we'd put them on hooks on the lines of our bamboo poles and we'd always catch something, mainly catfish and that's neither here nor there but for whatever reason Glen just kept trying artificial bait and lures. 
And then one trip he started using shrimp. 
And here we are. 
He is figuring this out. The other night he caught a sheepshead and a mangrove snapper, both good eating fish. The same night he caught this.

And yes, that's a screen shot taken from a video. Can you tell what it is? 
It's a sting ray and I remember with absolute clarity the time either my brother or I caught one of those off of Granddaddy's dock and Granddaddy, who was wearing his rubber boots, stepped on the wildly flipping tail which is the stinging part of those rays, got the hook out of his mouth, and sent him on his way off the dock and back into the river. 
It was highly exciting. 
I don't think I was quite as excited the other night when Glen caught that one but I was pretty dang worried he was going to get stung because he was wearing some sandals, not thick rubber boots but he figured it out and unhooked the creature and like Grandaddy, sent him back to have a good life. 
And it was a little exciting. 

Yesterday, Glen went to the headwaters to fish, which is something he did last time we were here. Don't ask me what the headwaters are but they're nearby and you can catch a lot of bass in them. The bass seem to prefer artificial bait over shiners which are little fishes that must be kept alive and this requires a thing called a bubbler that goes into its special bucket to keep the water oxygenated. The shrimp get the bubbler too. 
So Mr. Moon had a great time yesterday, out on the headwaters and he fished from dawn 'til coming on dark. I had a day to myself and I enjoyed it thoroughly. I walked up to the Goodwill and spent at least two hours going through shirts and I didn't get through a third of the ones they had. This Goodwill is not quite like any other Goodwill I've ever seen in that shirts are arranged on the racks by whether they are sleeveless, short-sleeved, or long-sleeved. Sizes are mixed in willy-nilly. Some Goodwills sort by color. Not this one. BUT their clothes seem to be cleaner and they are all seemingly unstained and I saw very, very few T-shirts with pictures or messages on them. And they have a lot of very good brands. 
I got Lily a nice shirt, I got myself a nice shirt. Both are gauzy and rather hippified. I also found (be still my heart) a 100% cashmere sweater without a hole in it. Not one. This is rare.
When I find a garment like that which is next-to-new and special, I always wonder if the owner died. I also got a hat.

Perfect.

After shopping I took myself to lunch and got the loveliest bowl of tomato basil soup you can imagine. And then I walked back to the little cabana house, traveling down a few white-sand side roads just because I could. I took a picture of some cactus flowers.

Close-up.

How exotic is that? There are lots of cacti in Roseland. At one point my friend Helen Ferger and I spent about four days, determined to rid Roseland of all its cactus after we'd both been the victims of their needles once too many times. 

Obviously, our mission was not accomplished. 

I still have a strong aversion to thorned succulents, both the kind whose needles are tiny and require someone with a lot of patience, a magnifying glass, a good light, and a willingness to pull the little hairlike things one at a time for hours on end, and the ones with big honking needles that make you weak in the knees just to see one sticking out of your own personal body part.

I dug up a few succulents of the non-needled varieties to take home and put in a pot. I did not steal them. I dug them with my very own fingers from the sandy soil in a vacant jungly yard right by the road. 

I loved that walk. I love seeing houses I recognize from sixty years ago. I love remembering names from the way-too-distant past. 
Who was the woman who lived there who made beautiful things out of seashells?
Rosa. Rosa Garrett. 
Is that Nelly Campbell's old house? If it is, has the log part of it been covered with stucco? How sad. Where was the old post office? On this little road? Has the building been converted into a house? 
How can I remember things like this when I can't remember the names of all the characters on Sex in the City?

I don't know but it does not bode well for my memory retention, does it? 

Today Mr. Moon and I went out for late breakfast at the place we always eat our breakfast where the service is fast and the food is good and it's not very expensive. We sit outside under oak trees and grackles come and perch on the backs of chairs beside us and give us the eye, no need for human language. We've been lucky with the weather. Hot in the day but cool and breezy enough in the mornings and at sunset. The clientele is generally made up of the elderly and I think that if we lived here, we would feel like some of the youngsters. 
We would be fooling ourselves but so what? Glen can fish all day, I can walk for an hour. 

After breakfast we drove to Melbourne, a small town about twenty miles north of here. It, too, spans from the Atlantic shore, across the Indian River, and then a little beyond. We took the coastal route to get there, Highway A1A, and again, we saw some of the best examples of the poor taste of many of the wealthy. And I do believe that this house sums up the old saying that money cannot buy taste.

Or common sense. That...house?... is so huge that when we passed it, I screamed, "OH MY GOD!" I scared my husband. I made him turn around so he could see it and I could take a picture. As Hank said in response to the picture when I sent it to the group, "Yes...let's live in a gorgeous location in a wavy dungeon without windows."
So welcoming. So cozy.

And this is the sort of ocean view they get. 

I took that when we were driving over the bridge that spans the inlet. 

We did go to a thrift store in Melbourne in the historic downtown district. 

Now how could I pass that up? A THRIFT bendy man? A combination of two of my favorite things. 
I have to say there was a very interesting and eclectic collection of things in that place. 

I bought two martini glasses and a ridiculous piece of "art."

Trust me- this will go quite well some place in my house. 

I also bought something entirely out of character for me. A very large book of the Beatles' Greatest Hits with arrangements for piano. I picked it up, I leafed through it very briefly. I put it back down. 
I picked it back up. 
I put it down.
And when I went to check out with my lovely senoritas and martini glasses, I returned to it and picked it up and I bought it. 
It wanted me to take it and I think I may, I might, perhaps, play some of the songs on the piano. They are simple arrangements and why not?

Tonight's sunset was quite different. We've had almost cloudless days which doesn't make for extremely interesting sunsets but this evening, the clouds began to gather. A formation of them, wet and dark with rain formed and I have never seen anything like it. 

We saw a dolphin roll right by the dock and Glen caught a snook, a black drum, multiple sheepshead, and mangrove snapper. All of the caught fish got sent home to their mama's. 

It has been raining for awhile and I am as happy for Glenn and for Roseland as I am for my own small community and yard when we get rain when it's been dry. 

A fisherman going up the river as the sun set. 
"What's for supper?" he yelled.
"Mangrove snapper!" Glen yelled back. 

But no. We had leftovers and that was fine. 

Today's hibiscus.

Simple and to the point. 

Tomorrow is our last full day. 

Sigh. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Up The River, Back At Home

Today's hibiscus. 

Up close and very personal. 

Yesterday I checked "go up river" off my list. Glen got the boat in the water which required some logistics because the boat ramp is two miles away and the 4-Runner and trailer couldn't be left at the boat ramp and the boat couldn't be left there either but it was all figured out with the help of Glenn. I will go ahead and tell you right now that I finally womaned up yesterday and drove the 4-Runner with the trailer attached to it to the boat ramp myself so that Glen could load the boat back up to take it fishing in a different place today and this story could go on forever. 

The point is, Glen and I took off after breakfast yesterday to cruise slowly, slowly up the Sebastian River to see the sights. 
And some sights were seen. Mostly jungle and flat water and a few houses in the most gorgeous settings I could imagine. Unfortunately, most of the houses are butt ugly. A rich person's dream of what a river house in paradise should look like, which is to say- hideous. Huge and hideous. 
But here's some pictures of our little trip. 

One hideous house. 

Jungle.

I didn't take a picture of the house that went with this dock but they had everything anyone with a family could want in a house on a river.

Here's the landscaping for one of the more gigantic houses. 
And please remember that all of these houses have pools. The Sebastian River is rarely swum in and I'm not sure why. We didn't swim in it as kids. The river's bottom is thick with oyster shells which will slice you like a razor. When it's not filled with oysters, the bottom is so silty that every step raises a cloud of whatever that stuff is. Probably algae and the broken down detritus of every tree, flower, fish, and human which have died in it since the dinosaurs were munching on those palms. The river water is brackish due to the fact that the beginning of the river (or is it the end?) is in confluence with the Indian River and the Atlantic Ocean via an inlet. This is why when sitting on the dock at sunset, we almost always see dolphin and since we've been here, what looks to be a very small shark who swims by, fin up. Also, fresh and salt water fish can be caught. The current of the river flows from west to east and east to west, depending on the tides. For a very short article about the river and its history, go HERE.
So, maybe between sharks, oysters, and alligators which are also plentiful, it's not that crazy that people don't really swim here. 

Back to the landscaping of The Very, Very Wealthy. 

Some people, not many, seem to try and incorporate the native plants and trees into the settings for their houses. Most seem determined to eradicate, control, and make things look like they're living in Connecticut or somewhere. I saw one yard as big as a football field, completely bare of anything but that green, lush grass and all I can think of is the chemicals they need to create that lawn and how they must all just wash right down to the river which is literally yards away. Meanwhile, the land they've bought and paid for was a fucking Eden until they decided, as white men are so apt to do, that nature is unnatural and must be tamed. 
Of course you'd have to clear out some of the jungle to set your house in but it can be done with wisdom, integrity, and respect. 
And for god's sake! Plant a fucking hibiscus and a citrus tree, okay? 
I'll stop now. 
I am very judgmental when it comes to these things and I admit it. I am sure that jealousy has some part in it. If I had a little bit of that jungle land on the river, I'd be happy as a queen in a little old cracker shack that some fishing family lived in fifty years ago. 
You know I would. I'd probably never leave except to go to Publix and there are plenty of those around here.

That's all I have in me to post tonight. 
More tomorrow? 
Probably. 
Maybe.

A picture from tonight's sunset over the river as the tides and wind have their way with it. 

And this is what the sky looked like. 

I love this place so much. 

Love...Ms. Moon

More Pictures From Florida

Hibiscus from Glenn's potted plants. Glenn is the man from whom we rent. 
And as I have said many times, I love him dearly. 

I've made a list, an actual list of things I want to do while I'm here. One of the items was to visit McKee Botanical Gardens which used to be McKee Jungle Gardens when I was a child. I have written about this place before. Do a search up there on the top left corner if you feel the need. 

And today, we checked that off my list. 

Pictures.

And then, on to what we had hoped would be lunch at the Ocean Grill. This did not turn out to be. The kitchen closed seventeen minutes before we arrived. 
Sigh. 
I do not want to even discuss the restaurant we ate at instead.

But. 

The Atlantic Ocean.

Back home. 

Florida. I fucking love you. 

Ms. Moon

Pictures From Roseland

 We're here. 

I feel like my online presence is going to be limited for the next week. I'll be reading blogs, probably not commenting. 
And as to posts? 
We'll see. 

But here's a few pictures. 

Brad. 
He is magnificent. Look at those tail feathers. The display is called a train. I didn't know that and had to look it up. His train must be over seven feet across. And the detail and colors are mind blowing. 
It's mating season and there are no peahens in the vicinity which does not prevent Brad from feathering up the way he has. In fact, I think he was giving me the eye there. And anytime I got close to him he'd do what is called "train rattling," and his feathers vibrate and thrum. I understand this is also will-you-mate-with-me behavior.
Poor Brad. 

Last night's sunset over the Sebastian River. 

The lion pool at night. 

One of the noble lions in profile. He doesn't spit at night. 

One of the beautiful bouquets in the house when we arrived.

It's all in the details. 

Love...Ms. Moon