A Farmer’s Life and the Saturday Market

marketfanny_03.jpgWhen you go to a Farmer’s Market, have you ever thought about the amount of work it takes for a farmer to get there every week, so you can have the freshest farm fresh produce available? I never gave it much thought, until we started hawking White Rabbit’s wares at the Fort Pierce Farmer’s Market.

For three weeks, we’ve been getting up at 5:30 am every Saturday to sell a variety of organic produce, nuts and grains. The market is only four hours long, but it takes an entire day to set up, tear down, clean up and take stock back at the Farm. By the time we’re done, it’s usually around 3pm and we are exhausted.

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Rene Rides the 1958 Farmall 230


At every county fair we went to this summer, René would just have to sit on the tractors. And ever since we saw the antique tractor pull in Corey, PA she has wanted to ride a Farmall.

Well, she finally got her chance on the Quant’s 1958 Farmall 230. As one customer of the farm store said, “Looks like she’s having too much fun to ever get any real work done!” One thing is certain, Craig Morgan’s International Harvester is René’s new favorite song.

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RV Living in Florida: Beware of Flying, Biting, Stinging Bugs

Ah, sunny Florida. The state name alone conjures up images of white sand beaches, sun baked old farts, golf carts, and tropical umbrella drinks.

FireAnts02.jpgBut there’s one unique aspect of Florida that the tourism guides fail to mention. Bugs! Mean bugs. Flying bugs. Stinging bugs. You name it, this state has some of the nastiest insects that we’ve encountered on our entire trip. Pest control is big business in this state, but as usual, nature bats last.

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Florida fare ain’t no Tex Mex.

robertos02.jpgWe haven’t had any good Mexican food since we left California. In fact, we haven’t had any, or even tried looking for it until recently.

The reason? In all the miles we’ve traveled we hadn’t passed through any communities with enough – shall we we say, authentic color – to warrant a dinner out until we reached Florida.

But once we saw an authentic looking Taqueria, a Mercado selling dresses and phone cards, and our first Tecate billboard in over 29, 000 miles, we figured the food was worth a try. While it wasn’t bad, it was nothing to write home about either. But here I am doing just that.

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Entertainment Review: Sun Cruz Casino’s Dumpy Ride at Sea

Let’s get one thing straight; Jim and I are not Gamblers. The few times we’ve found ourselves in Vegas, I would stand there gawking at the Gambling species, dumbfounded as I watched them willingly toss money away.

portcanavboat.jpgBut last week while waiting for the space shuttle to take off, our fun campground neighbors Carol and John invited us to join them on a “free” four-hour casino cruise. In Florida, where gambling is illegal, Sun Cruz Casinos will take passengers out to blow money at sea, three miles offshore in international waters. They had a free shuttle that would pick us up right at our campground. “You get all of the free food and booze you want!” my neighbor said excitedly.

Now that caught my attention. Whenever I hear “Free” and “Booze” in the same sentence, this cheapskate gets happy. All that, and we’d get a “free” cruise in Florida too. Ah, the things trip memories are made of! I grabbed Jim and said “let’s go!”

Later, neither one of us would realize that we were about to set foot on a third rate, smoky casino from hell, unable to escape!

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Where Is Utopia? Finding the Ideal Community

hovenw.jpgSince June, we’ve been searching for the ideal place to live and start a business. We are talking to locals in towns across America, interviewing and taking notes, trying to get a feel for places that might come close to what we consider “perfect.”

But is all this work just a waste of energy? Are we searching for a utopia that doesn’t exist?

Tell us: What factors make up your ideal community?

As we tack on the miles, we keep seeking these answers.

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Traveling Through Time

chrisliz01.jpgWe’ve finally made it to White Rabbit Acres organic farm in Vero Beach for our extended workamping stay after spending too much time waiting for the space shuttle to lift off.

We did have fun – and lots of margaritas – with our new friends in Port Canaveral. But our longer than expected stay just proves that time flies like, well … it seems to fly better than the Space Shuttle Atlantis right now anyway.

We didn’t even have time to catch everyone up on our stay in St. Augustine. René wrote about our visit to the Fountain of Youth, but the oldest city in the U.S offers much more history than that small artesian well which now rests some twelve feet below a room of dioramas depicting Ponce de León with his newfound Seminole friends.

I’m not just talking about the first Ripley’s Believe It Or Not museum, nor the umpteenth Thomas Kinkade Gallery. For starters, the Castillo de San Marcos is much more prominent and majestic. Walking its grounds, I couldn’t help but think of all the bloody battles that took place on the same spot so long ago.

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