Ghost or Water Spot

One of the nifty things about living in St. Augustine is all the historical things there is to see.  Of course being the oldest city in the US, that means there are a ton of ghost tours you can take.

A friend of mine from high school, came to visit me last week.  We visited two forts, checked out the oldest wooden school house, Walked along the historical city, and of course went on one of the ghost tours.

We were told to take a lot of pictures because sometimes unusual things show up, so armed with my camera I snapped about 15 photos.  Here are three of them.

This picture was taken at one of the many cemetaries.  The tour guide just told us about a little ghost boy that likes to hang out in the tree, so of course I took a few pictures of the tree.

This white “orb” appeared in the photo.  This photo of the tree was the only one that showed something strange. 

This is a photo of one of the forts at night.  That white object over the fort looks like the moon, but I assure you, the moon was not over the fort when I took this picture.  Of course the tour guide told me it was an orb, that’s his job, but is it an orb or just a water spot on my lens?

This is an interesting picture, also taken at the fort.  There’s a small white streak towards the right of the photo.  I have no idea what that is, and there were no reflective surfaces near the fort. 

Even if you don’t believe in ghost, the ghost tour was very entertaining.  The guide gave provided a lot of historical information about the over 400 year history of St. Augustine.  If you’re ever in Northern Florida, you should stop by.  There’s a lot to see and do.

Crazy About Catnip Sampler

Several people have asked me if I was willing to get a sampler together for my shop.  After careful consideration, I came up with a sampler that will keep your kitty busy for a very long time.

This metal bucket is filled with lots of toys and treats.  What makes it even more fun, is I’ve included catnip seeds, that can be planted in the bucket when all the toys and treats are gone.  Just use your favorite potting soil, and seeds and water and watch the catnip grow.  It makes a great gift for your little one, or another special cat.

This sampler is called “Buckets of Fun” and includes:

3 Filled to the Gills with Catnip cat toys

1 Large Catnip Square

1  Small Catnip Square

1  Bag of Catnip

1  Heart Shaped tin filled with treats

1  Packet of Catnip Seeds

And of course the metal bucket to grow your own catnip

To see this item, or any other items available at Crazy About Catnip, just click here.

This Weekend’s Garage Sale

I’ve had many a garage sale in my day, but this weekend, I learned the difference between garage sales up north, and those down south. 

First of all, no matter where you live, there is a lot of work involved.  You start off at least the day before looking for stuff, cleaning it up, and making sure it works.  Then there is the pricing of the items. (things go a lot cheaper down south).  Clean up after the garage sale is also a big deal.  We don’t throw much out afterwards, but you do need to call a charity to pick up the stuff that you don’t want to keep for the next sale, and move it to a place that they’ll pick it up.

The differences are what sells.  We live on an island, so of course the first to go is anything that happens to deal with fishing or boating.  All that stuff was gone within the first half hour.  The other difference is with haggling.  In the south they don’t do that often.  Let me tell you, soooo not true in the north.  If you have a price tag of, let’s say, $5.00, people will come and say “I’ll give you a dollar.”  Believe it or not sometimes even less.  Not in the south.  I think only three people haggled.  There were some cases where I offered to lower the price, and they said, “No, that’s okay.  I’ll pay what you’re asking.” 

Anyway, long story short, it was a great day.  I made $137.00 on sales and the rest of the stuff went to charity.  Oh, yeah, that’s another difference about the north and the south.  The night of the garage sale, people in the north come to your house and pick up the stuff didn’t sell and threw away.   (I think they put the trash on ebay the next day.)   I didn’t see that at all here.  Oh and one more thing that’s different.  Up north if you advertise it starts on 8 AM, they come knocking at your door at 6:30 AM.  That didn’t happen down here.

History of St. Augustine, Part 2

Where last we left off with the history of St. Augustine, Florida had become the 27th state of the Union.  From 1875 to 1887, the fort was used to house the Indians that were exiled from the Southwest and Great Plains.  It was during this time that the government changed it’s Federal Indian Policies to include education for the indians.

Also during this period, in the winter of 1883-84, Henry Flagler came to visit St. Augustine.  The co-founder of Standard Oil was so impressed with the city that he changed the architecture and economy of the city by building the Hotel Ponce de Leon, Hotel Alcazar, the Memorial Church and more.

This is the city you see today.  Not only are there a great deal of historical places to see and visit, but there is also 43 miles of white sand beaches.  It is estimated that over three million visitors come to saint Augustine each year.  You should come and visit too.  There’s fun for everyone.

Comming Attractions, St. Augustine, Florida

Soon, I will be adding a new section to my blog.  Attractions st St. Augustine, Florida.  Oh sure, you can get all the site seeing places from a ton of places on the internet, but I’ve decided to go to all the things to see in St. Augustine at least once a week, and give you the low down.

By the way, did you know that St. Augustine Florida is the oldest City in the US.  At the fountain of youth is here too.

Keep an eye out for future post about what’s good to see and what’s not.  I’ll keep you “posted”