In Florida, we shouldn't have to be worrying about frost in mid-April...but we are. This weird weather of the year continues and tonight it may dip to freezing in many areas of north Florida and definitely it will in the immediate lower south.

I found this cool product that I wish I knew about earlier in the cold season, but it's never too late to find a good product tip. Check out Frost Protek, a lightweight easy-to-use plant cover. I'm pretty sick of using my good and not-so-good sheets to help my plants. I really like this easy to store plant cover.

In the meantime, I'm going to cover our newly sprouted tomatoes with some newspaper and hope for the best. I'm going to have to use some sheets too for now.

Today I spotted a female cardinal flying excitedly from the bottlebrush bush in front of our home. Upon inspection, I see a nicely made spanish moss and stick nest in the center of the tree. Now, if I can just get the kids to stop peeking at it so much and remove the cat from it's favorite spot beneath the bush, all will be well. The cat doesn't know about the bird, but we want to keep it that way. The females are a darker reddish brown, the male looks like the photo at the left.

This is such a beautiful time in Florida! Even though the calendar doesn't yet say Spring, the flowering plants are saying it to us. The glorious colors of the azaleas are everywhere! I highly recommend that anyone add these lovely plants to their yards for color and greenery year after year. There are also lovely varieties of native Florida azaleas like the wild pink azaleas shown below.

Florida authors always seem to have a unique voice. Capturing the Florida lifestlye can be tricky, and an author really needs to live here to do it justice. Just my opinion.

I enjoy Randy Wayne White's books. I read Sanibel Flats years ago and was hooked, and look forward each spring to a new book in this long-running series. Doc Ford is the hero and is the kind of person many men wish they could be. His sidekick is Tomlinson, who manages to push the envelope of normality while being the most human character in these books.

Doc is a "retired" covert operative/marine biologist, and most of the books have him pulled back into the black world thanks to his former life. A couple of the books are lighter fare with a bit more humor, and I particularly enjoyed The Man Who Invented Florida.

Enjoy!

We spent a bit of the day without power at work, today. I thought it was due to the massive storms that rolled through North Florida, but apparently there was a glitch in Florida's electrical grid that cascaded and wound up taking out a number of power plants, including a nuclear power plant.

About 3-4 million people were affected. Amazingly, most seem to have their power back already. A far cry from the weeks we spent without power during a season of hurricanes in 2004. With no clean-up, power comes back quick.

I'm a big fan of Tom Corcoran's Alex Rutledge mystery novels. Rutledge lives in Key West and when I saw this picture of a house in Key West, it immediately struck me as "Oh, it's Rutledge's house."

Which is weird, because Rutledge is fictional and I've never seen his house. I guess Corcoran does a pretty solid job of descriptive writing if I had picture in my head that was so vivid, I immediately thought of it when I saw a photo.

The Amelia Island Book Festival brings authors and readers together each fall on the extreme northeast coast of Florida, in the town of Fernandina Beach on Amelie Island. A wonderful time of year to visit, by the way. Authors range from locals up to world-renowned best-sellers. A must-do for the bibliophile.

To go with yesterday's post about the Lighthouse in St. Augustine, here is the inside view, looking up. That's your climb - enjoy!

Photo credit: WordRidden on Flickr

I love lighthouses. This shot of the St. Augustine Lighthouse is really nice. The lighthouse is open to the public, so you can climb to the top and see St. Augustine from on high. There is also a great summer camp that takes place there, with a lot of focus on natural science and marine biology. My daughter has gone twice and loved it.

Photo credit: eye2eye at Flickr

Any guesses?

The Florida State Flower is the Orange Blossom. Wish I knew where I got it so I could give them credit, if you know drop me a line.

Santa brought his helpers to The Paper Porch in Brooksville, FL after last Christmas. Guess they needed a vacation. Also, they might have been checking out Roger's Christmas House.