The Loxahatchee River is a 8.5 mile cypress lined waterway that offers paddlers an unparalled experience of tropical vegetation and temperate flora. The narrow and meandering waterway is canopied a good portion of the run by majestic cypress trees offering shade and a challenging experience.   I have run the river with friends, co-workers and kin through the years.  All enjoyed the stunning subtropical forests, wetlands, meadows and wildlife.  

Within the past 6 years (unbeknownst to me),  the South Florida Water Management District and the County purchased hundreds of acreage and developed the new jewel in the park system– Riverbend Park under the State’s Save Our Rivers Land Acquisition Program.  You can still canoe and/or kayak in the area but they also carved over 15 miles of bike trails in the marsh and terrain.  Whether you pedal or paddle, the area is pristine.  

We arrived at 7:30 am with bikes, met friends and began our adventure.  Within the first five minutes, we spotted a peacock (in Florida?).  They have been living in the park since 2008.  We rode passed a gaggle of wild turkey, spotted an owl and a deer.  It was a perfect way to spend a Sunday morning– enjoying the park’s diverse natural resources.  Did I mention it is easy to access (a 20 minute drive)? Thank you, Norma & Ken!

Our first painting class.  It was a blast!

Every once in a while when it is least expected, you have an “aha” moment. It is easy not to be receptive to them.  There are so many fascinating distractions in our lives that keep us in the game, they often go undetected.

They occur during the quiet and relaxing moments when we are still and the mind is blank and you suddenly see, hear or read something.  You sit back and say “aha”.  It happened to me this weekend while we were out boating, launched on a beach observing “the summer plunge”.  I thought of how much we complicate our lives with “things” and “over analysis” when what we need to be doing is to get back to the basics– climbing, jumping and cannonball diving.  I know it sounds simple but, of course, the best things in life are.   When you hear the unbridled laughter, the frantic race out of the water, the climbing and camaraderie, you get it.  The boundless energy and uncomplicated life of youth is always worth recapturing.

Jupiter Beach,  June 18, 2011
Every summer from May through August, the sea turtles begin their nesting season in Florida.  The beaches in Jupiter are littered with stakes indicating nests to aid in a statewide conservation program. 

Sea turtles live their entire life in the ocean.  They are reptiles that have existed for over a million years.  A sea turtle breathes air. When it is time to sleep, they wedge under a rock close to the shore or take a snooze while floating on the surface of deep water. The only time the sea turtle comes ashore is when the female lays her eggs.  

When a sea turtle gets night and day mixed and lands on the beach, you know something is wrong.  We called Florida Fish & Wildlife this weekend to aid in this sea turtle’s rescue.  This 40 year old ancient mariner, The Loggerhead, should be crawling out of the water during the night to lay her eggs.  Pollution, lighted beaches, loss of nesting habitat, drowning in shrimp nets and other fishing gear threaten their survival.

Turtles migrate thousands of miles, but they usually return to lay their eggs on the same beach where they were hatched. The turtle, weighing several hundred pounds, digs a nest with her rear flippers.  She deposits approximately 100 ping-pong ball sized eggs into a hole, covers them with sand and returns to the sea.  The nest temperature during incubation  determines a sea turtle’s sex–boys like it cool and girls like it hot. After a two-month incubation period,  the tiny hatchlings emerge from the sand and make a scramble to the sea.  This wondrous feat is happening every evening along our shoreline until the end of August.

It took an hour drive up the coast and a 3.5 mile ride on a dirt road to locate the Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge. There were no signs and luck (we ran into a U.S. Fish & Wildlife warden a few miles back) to find the entrance to the Historic Jungle Trail to access the refuge. 

President Theodore Roosevelt set aside Pelican Island as a preserve and breeding ground for native birds on March 14, 1903.  It is our first protected land.  Plume hunters, egg collectors and vandals had exterminated all the egrets, herons and spoonbills from Pelican Island in the 1800’s to meet turn of the century fashion demands i.e. feathers for hats.  Roosevelt set out to protect it by creating The National Wildlife Refuge System.  It has grown to encompass over 540 refuges of carefully chosen habitats that support abundant wildlife. It is one of America’s greatest conservation stories.

Pelican Island is now a bird rookery island, providing nesting habitat for over thirty species of water birds that use the island during the winter migratory season. Over 130 species  birds are found throughout the refuge. 

We saw bottlenose dolphin, lots of jumping fish, herons, osprey and egrets.  After three hours in the refuge, we met up with one fellow kayaker and two onlookers.  It is common among a few wildlife refuges–a lack of visitors–since there is no mention of the word “park” in their name. 

There is at least one wildlife refuge in each of the 50 states and within an hour drive of a major city. They offer a spectacular outdoor experience–check it out.  It is now one of our best kept secrets!

Summer is here. The watermelon has arrived.  It has wonderful health benefits including lycopene, beta carotene and it is the rising star among the phytonutrients such as citrulline whose benefits include relaxing blood vessels much like Viagra.

There are more than 1,200 varieties of watermelon ranging in size from less than a pound, to more than two hundred pounds with flesh that is red, orange, yellow or white.   The fruit is related to the cantaloupe, squash and pumpkin!

Watermelon is an excellent source of vitamin C.  It is also a very good source of vitamin A and vitamin B6.  Go for the Bomb and try this recipe.  It is a winner.  Thank you, Karen.

Watermelon Feta Salad (Recipe from the Food Network)

Ingredients

2 tablespoons white wine vinegar

1 lime, zest and juice

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil (recommend 1/8)

1 red onion, thinly sliced (recommend 1/2)

4 cups seeded watermelon chunks

1 cup crumbled feta cheese

1/4 cup mint chiffonade (recommend 1/8)

Add the white wine vinegar, lime zest and juice to a small bowl. Whisk in the olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Add the thinly sliced red onion and let marinate for 5 to 10 minutes as you prepare the rest of the salad.

Add the watermelon, feta and mint to a large bowl. Toss with the vinaigrette and serve immediately after dressing.

Where do we go and what do we do? The options are endless. We are committed to do something different every weekend.  Some may call it stepping out of your comfort zone but it is simply a choice to make sure we do something different that we have never done before during our weekends this summer.

It is working!  This past weekend we took a three hour paddleboard trip on the Jupiter River and around the Jupiter Inlet Aquatic Preserve. It was fun to break out of our pattern and try something new.  We saw an abundance of flora and fauna all under a canopy of century old oak trees and cypress. I encourage you to do the same.  It was invigorating!

There are places that are beautiful and then there are places whose beauty eludes any photographic depiction. The Grand Canyon falls into the latter.

It is often described as the Earth’s greatest geological showcase covering over 277 river miles.  The oldest rocks at the bottom of the canyon date from 1,840 million years ago. The depth, width and length combined with colorful rock layers, canyons and impressive buttes pose a spectacular diorama.

It has always been our goal to get to the bottom of the canyon and we finally did it by mule in an overnight trip. It was 28 degrees, snowing on top and 11.5 miles down– a 5-hour  ride of a lifetime.  You make your descent through intense switchbacks appropriately named as Devil’s Corkscrew, Poison Point and Jesus Corner. During the ride, you love your mule, hate your mule and you are convinced your mule is trying to kill you but by the end of the day you bond with your mule.  It is your only shot at peace of mind.  Our mules and dear friends were Wyatt and Chilhula.

The heated cabin is a welcome site at Phantom Ranch–an oasis along the Colorado River.  All meals аrе served family style and announced bу a clanging bell. They have a limited and small kiosk at the ranch and thе mοѕt popular souvenir and item for sale, aside from Advil, аrе postcards stamped “mailed bу mule”.

Furthur, Boca Raton, FL

You can call it the counter culture or hippies but you have to admit every time you immerse yourself in this culture, you embrace a world of freedom, hope and creativity. 

The lifestyle, dress, spirituality, richly colored produce and every imaginable concoction with  healthy grains sold on Shakedown Street is still the same as it was twenty years ago.  

The culture is a precursor and a reflection of what is sweeping our nation today known as Whole Foods-ism or the slow food movement.  The emphasis is clear–a focus on community, fresh products, an exchange and a return to life as it was. 

It is a culture trying to rescue a system endangered by good all fashion corporate greed and commercialism.  The music was wonderful.  They played the classics like Turn on Your Love Light, Uncle John’s Band and Eyes of the World.  Everyone is dancing and you leave enriched with a heightened sense of euphoria.  You feel you have the power to change things.

My first loaf baked May 4, 2011.

When a dear friend tells you that this no knead bread recipe adapted from Mark Bittman’s  recipe (food journalist at the New York Times) will knock your socks off,  you simply have to give it a try.   It requires minimal preparation the night before so the dough can rise and a few hours the next day so the dough can nap but the recipe is easy and the bread is mouth-watering delicious.  It needs only four ingredients and it forms into something magical for your taste buds.   You can plan meals around this one basic food staple.

The smell of homemade bread baking is so provocative it should make even a non-baker want to give the recipe a try. 

Artisan bread is crafted rather than mass produced.  The special attention to ingredients, process, and a return to the fundamentals of the age-old bread-making tradition set artisan bread apart from any bread found on your local supermarket shelf.

Here you go –the No Knead Bread Recipe 

Ingredients:

Directions: