Day Trip: Manatees and Mediums II

A while back the universe had to yell at me to pay attention.  Since that time I had been playing with the idea of visiting a place in Florida that is home to many mediums and spiritual healers.  The boat tour I took in the morning was close to the camp, so I thought that I should take advantage of the geography, and stop by.

Established as a Spiritualist community in 1894, the Southern Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp Meeting Association™ consists of approximately 57 acres with 55 residences. Those who reside here have chosen to share in a community of like-minded people where they can live, worship and work in harmony with their beliefs. About 25 of the Camp’s residents are mediums who offer counseling from their homes.

I stopped at the bookstore first.  That is where you can find books on a wide range of topics, oils, stones, and some hand crafted goods.  I did get a Selenite wand.  It is purported to have healing qualities and it is the perfect shape to roll out sore muscles or press into a trigger point.

They have a board up in to corner of the store that has a list of mediums and healers that are available that day.  You are also encourage to take a card and call anyone that is not on the board to set an appointment.  I was hesitant to call anyone because I did not have any questions or issues that I wanted to ask about.  I did end up calling someone because I wanted to see what it was all about.  The medium lived about 500 feet from the store, so I walked down and he was waiting for me on his porch.

He lead me into a quiet room in the house and we sat across from each other.  He explained what he did and a little bit about how he came to be there and do what he does.  After introductions, he opened the session with a prayer.  No messages or anything came across.  We talked for about an hour about various things and healing methods.  He did a spiritual healing for me after we were done.

I am glad I went.  No great answers to the universe or anything.  I do plan on restarting  meditation.

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Day Trip: Manatees and Mediums

This past year it seems that I have spent a great deal of time reconnecting.  Reconnecting with real food is important but, also, being connected with your environment and the all of the natural beauty around us can go a very long way in keeping us grounded and at peace.

This weekend I took a long but beautiful drive over to Deland Florida.  There is company there called Blue Heron River Tours that offers two hour tours twice a day.  The tour takes you along the St. Johns River and through old logging canals from the past.  It is a taste of old Florida that is a fantastic and easy way to have a break from the tourist area.  If you live in Florida or are a visitor, I highly recommend you spend a couple of hours here for a relaxing and interesting look into Florida’s beautiful nature.

We saw several manatees surface for a quick breath before hiding back under the water.  This was the weekend of the annual Manatee Festival, and with the cold weather, there were hundreds of manatees seeking the warmer waters of the nearby spring.  We also were able to see alligators, turtles, and so many types of birds, that I cannot remember them all.  From the boat, we could also see the signs left by those who harvested Cypress trees before they realized that they were not easily renewable because they grow so slowly.

I will let the pictures tell you the rest of the story.  Click on a photo for a full sized slide show. Part 2 will come tomorrow with the ” medium” half of the day trip.

The New Travel Gnome

Where has your Seneca Scourge been?

 

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Juice Update

For Recovery:

After a long paddleboard workout, I used the chocolate veg protein mix in a smoothie with lunch in hopes for a fast recovery. It did seem to help. 
The next morning, I added a tbsp of peanut powder and had a smoothie breakfast.
Mixing:

1 cup Flax milk
1 scoop raw chocolate protein
1 banana
4 ice cubes

363 calories (200 from banana)

I’m using Flax milk this week because it is good and the shop I went to had it and not almond milk.

Juice for a new decanter:

Katie’s Kitchen

I cooked last weekend!  Not the fried egg sandwich kind of cooking.  I mean, I actually cooked real stuff.  I have a freezer full of soup to prove it.

It started with a turkey.  No, I don’t mean me.

I used folded aluminum foil to make a drip pan inside of a cake dish.  I put a cup or two of vegetable broth in a pan with some raw, local honey.  A little heat, a little stir, and a lovely mix for basting.  I did put some sea salt, pepper, thyme, and clove in it as well.  The turkey was massaged with sea salt, ground pepper, sage, and marjoram after a light rub of lemon.  The lemon wedge and a garlic clove were placed very delicately under the turkey breast.  No butter, no oil, no no fat of any kind added.  Not bad for my first turkey 8)

Baked for about 2 hours at 350 degrees F. with occasional basting.

The Plot Thickens…or the soup thickens.

Roasted Vegetable Soup with Turkey

As the turkey cooled, I cut up, salt and peppered some veg to put in the oven for roasting:  Brussels sprouts, yellow bell pepper,parsnips, and garlic cloves.

I diced up a yellow onion and sweat it down with a 1/2 tsp butter.  Mixed in some celery and added the carrot and kale pulp from some juices, and the base was ready for vegetable broth.

After adding some water, I put some of the skin and bone from the turkey in the pot.  Any part of the turkey breast that did not carve pretty or have fat on it, ended up in the pot.

It was about then that I received a call from some friends.  “You want to come along while we pick up our new baby?”  How can anyone say no to that?

After that adventure, I put the pot back on the stove.  Fishing out the skin and bones, I thought it needed a little brightening.  The juice of half a lemon found its way into the pot.  la fin

My SUP down the Venetian Canal

Up the Lake Without a Paddle:

As the fog began to rise over the trees, I headed out, eager to embark on my next SUP (stand up paddleboard) adventure.

~ wait ~ I forgot my paddle…turn my steed around and head back to the homestead.  Paddle now on board, off to the refreshing ambiance of the lake.

Traveling to the Canal:

When I pushed off from shore the wind was fairly calm.  I decided to go for my longest paddle thus far, 3 miles round trip.  I passed a few paddlers and a fisherman along the way.  A beautiful morning, a fabulous workout.  There were a couple of homes for sale along the way so I stopped and put in bids.

Florida’s Venetian Canal:

The canal is a beautiful, long and narrow passageway between lakes.  It was used by loggers a looong time ago.  The canal insists that you are in the moment.  It has twists and turns that you you hope to not find a boat behind.  I only had to pass one boat and, luckily, we met in an area that only required him to back up a few feet into a a small recess.  It was a boat that gives tours of the lakes and canals in the area.  Hopefully, the clients did not hear my colorful declaration when I realized we were headed for each other.

The Long Journey Home:

I had decided to see how fast I could make it back to the launch site.  It took me about 40 minutes to get out there at a leisurely, take pictures, figure out where I am going, kind of pace.  When I came out of the canal, I was blown back by the wind.  I discovered that I make a pretty good sail.  This prompted a decision to sit and paddle kayak style.  That lasted about 15 minutes.  By then my arms were crying and I had made it to the other side of that lake.  There, the houses and trees provided a bit of a wind break.  Two ladies were emerging from the short canal leading home and asked where something was.  I did not know but told them where the Venetian canal could be found.  I was thinking, “good luck with that in this wind.”  As I made my way through the mini-canal, I heard them coming up behind me.  They turned around fast…Am I going that slow?  Ugh…I paddled and paddled but they still passed me with ease after we exited the canal.  I blamed it on being tired at the end of a long paddle.  Once we made it to shore (with a 30 minute time) I discovered that they run a SUP tour business in another town.  I suppose it is okay for professionals to pass me with faster boards. 8)

How many dogs can you find? (Click photo for a slide show)

Lunch?

Fisherdog

Canal Entrance

Shoot the canal

Can trees swim?

Fetch!

Tire Swing

Healthy Apps

I have two new favorite toys on my smart phone. They are fun and informative so I want to share.

1) My Fitness Pal

This app is a great tool to journal and track your diet and exercise. It can help you set your calorie goals and will take into account calories burned through the activities you enter. There are countless exercises and food pre-loaded into the app. You can also add your own or just enter a calorie amount. A great bonus is that it tracks several nutrients and will display daily and weekly summaries. It helped me to realize that my iron intake is about half of what it should be. I thought all of those green, leafy vegetables were enough, but now I know that I need to make more of an effort.

I am having the most fun with the bar code scanner that will automatically load all of the information of the foods you scan. You just adjust the number of servings and you are done! The only thing close to frustrating is that when I am making juice, it does not have the juice of a leaf, just the whole plant. There are specific juice recipes pre-loaded, so I did use one that seemed close to what I made for one meal’s “add”.

Keeping a journal can help you be more aware of what you are doing. this app makes it closer to fun to track exercise and diet.

Juicey Friday Recap

This was a week of smoothies and juice…

The Epic Fail:

Someone planted the idea of a chocolate PB2 (powdered peanut butter-no oil) in my head. I went to make it and decided to put in some of my previous green juice because it was getting too old to last. WRONG move! I doubled everything and added honey to make it bearable. Leftovers anyone?
No recipe for this. It’s in your best interest.

Sweet Redemption:

After the disaster smoothie, I needed a comeback. This was it!
For my best yet smoothie:
1 cup almond milk
1 banana
1 pack Garden of Life chocolate protein mix
300 calories (most from the banana)

Juice for Two Days:

A Juicer and a Blender walked into a Bar…

I addition to all of the wonderful and tasty treats I had through the holiday season, a new blender made its way home with me.  With new toy in hand, I have been re-inspired about my juicing and smoothie operation.  So I thought I would share a few of my concoctions from my juice site just to update and maybe even inspire.

Blood Clots and Subdural Hematomas

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has recently been diagnosed with a blood clot in her head after a fall. (Image Link: CNN)

“Secretary Clinton’s doctors released a statement…, and it said that she had a clot in the vein that is situated in the space between the brain and the skull behind the right ear. Now, the technical name for this is a right transverse sinus venous thrombosis. And what it means is there’s a clot in the vein that drains blood from the head. And this is likely a result of this fall that she had where she bumped her head and had a concussion, and possibly there was a small bleed at that time, which led to this clot.”

This does speak to one of the dangers that I was referring to in a previous post about falls and how to improve balance.

Her fall seems to have been more a result of having the flu as opposed to a lack of balance.  That is why I wish to discuss the need to be vigilant after a fall.

Subdural Hematomas:

Subdural hematomas can be sneaky.  A subdural hematoma is a collection of blood on the surface of the brain.  An acute hematoma presents very quickly after an injury.  The symptoms appear quickly and they can be deadly.  Chronic subdural hematomas are the sneaky ones.  These generally involve a slow bleed from veins between the brain and the skull.  As we age, our brain shrinks and stretches out these veins.  The shrinking also leaves more room for the brain to move around during a fall or car accident or any trauma.  So, the older someone is (especially over 60), the more vigilant they need to be about these slow bleeds.

You fall.  You get up.  You make sure no one saw the graceful move.  You feel a little bruised but fine.  What now?