February 27th - What's Been Happening

While Covid has caused a shut down of all park-wide activities, those of us on Audrey Street have tried to put some fun things together. It was decided to have a "Fat Tuesday" breakfast of Paczki Donuts and wine. We had never heard of Paczki Donuts but they are a big hit with the folks from Michigan and others here. They are round iced donuts filled with various fillings. We bought some with rasberry and vanila cream fillings. The wine and donuts were put out on a table so people could help themselves and social distance.  They were delicious but so sweet you could only eat one. The event made for a fun time out on the street.

The other day there was a Pileated Woodpecker in the tree above a neighbor's camper. Someone told us that there are three of them in the RV park, which adjoins Sawgrass Nature Park. I had never seen this beautiful bird up so close. He was busy pecking for bugs so he could care less about us. Here is a picture of him and a short video as well. So cool.

On three different days the guys worked on three different RV awnings. Chris and Marj next door needed new fabric on theirs. Don, from across the street, works at an RV facility in Indiana and every year he brings down awning material which has been taken off rigs for various reasons and would otherwise be thrown away. One of these fit Chris and Marj's rig perfectly. Several of the guys here are familiar with the complicated process of replacing the fabric. A learning experience for me.

The next day we replaced the awning material on Jake's motorhome. He had to order new material because his awning has a metal cover so the material setup is different from a standard awning. Also it is much more complicated to replace. It took us 3.5 hours but here is a picture of the result. It came out great.

I took the old awning material and put it down on our lot so that we walk on it rather than the sand which gets tracked into the RV.  Here is a picture of the striped material staked down.

The next day we worked on putting an entire awning on Dave and Jean's trailer. It didn't have one. Annie, our neighbor on the other side, had an awning which had broken arms and rotten material. She didn't want to pay for parts to fix the awning or for new awning material so she gave the hardware to us to put on Dave's trailer. It was a slightly smaller size so it took a little engineering to get it done. We had to reinforce the area where the arms attach to the trailer so it could handle the load.  We also had to fabricate the broken piece that connected the roller to the arms. Putting our heads together and after a trip to the hardware store we had a fix. Again, Don had awning material that happened to be the right length so we were in business. It took about five hours for this project but it was worth it.  Here is a picture. They are thrilled.

Last Tuesday we played golf. My neighbor Chris loves to golf but has been having some back problems so he has been afraid to try and swing a club. He wanted to get out so I talked him into coming along and doing my putting. Here is a picture of Dave (on the left) and Chris putting on the 9th hole.

They are such nice guys we have a great time whether on the course or off.

After all the awning work all week on Thursday we relaxed and went to the beach to watch the sunset. It was awesome. Here is a picture of me and the women and a picture of me looking at the sunset. 

Watching the sunset over the water is very popular. Here is a picture of people lined up to watch.

Here is a great picture I caught of the pelicans flying between us and the sun.

Sunset.

We will have to do this again.