CassaWhata?

Cassadaga.

Cassadaga, Florida.

Where Mayberry meets the Twilight Zone (Trademarked-I've got the t-shirt to prove it).

The Colonel and I took a side trip to Cassadaga on the way to Jacksonville. We were heading to Jacksonville in order to pick Spud up from college summer school.

You need more back story...

The Colonel and I watch a television series called The Glades. It is a cop show and we normally don't watch cop shows but this one takes place in Florida and we like the main character, Detective Jim Longworth. Detective Longworth has been relocated to Florida from Chicago (you will have to watch the series to find out why) He is played by actor Matt Passmore who is an Australian but you'd never know it. He has an American accent down pat (not the nasally Chicago accent but a "middle-of-the-road" Midwestern one). 



A murder takes place in Cassadaga in one of the episodes of The Glades. The Colonel and I googled Cassadaga to see if it was real and where it is located and we saw that it would be on the way as we headed to Jacksonville.

Cassadaga is named "The Psychic Capital of the World". How does a little town in Florida become the world's psychic capital?

In 1875, a New Yorker named George Colby (1848) was lead through the Florida wilderness by his three spirit guides to Cassadaga's present location. His guides told him to organize a psychic center there.

Colby, who was ill with TB when he arrived, homesteaded the land and a small spring on his homestead is rumored to have provided the elixir that healed him. In 1895 he deeded 35 acres to the Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp Meeting Association. This organization of a psychic center would fulfill a prophecy from Colby's childhood stating that he would one day establish a psychic center in the South. Many affluent and well-educated people came to the Spiritualist Camp in its early years. George Colby passed away in 1933.

Today Cassadaga has a hotel, auditorium, memorial temple, bookstore, library, healing center, welcome center and educational buildings.

Cassadaga is home to several psychics and mediums and they live in unique, little (and some not so little) houses along its sloping streets. 

Walking the quiet streets of Cassadaga, The Colonel and I had a feeling of being in another time and place...exactly like being at the crossroads of Mayberry and the Twighlight Zone. It was a good feeling, unique and peaceful. On our walk we saw little meditation gardens.

Interesting gardens.

And gardens with statuary that one doesn't normally see cohabiting the same slip of soil: saints and sphinxes.

 There are several little lakes around Cassadaga. This is Spirit Lake. Its water level was low, yet still pretty.

Another pretty lake.

There were little shops in Cassadaga too. The Colonel and I visited the bookstore but not the Purple Rose. I liked the sign. What exactly constitutes metaphysical stuff?

The little side trip to Cassadaga was worth the effort. It is an interesting, unusual place and as it turns out a very real place.

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Wordless Wednesday

Thank You Judy! Love, Bird

I get a lot of catalogs in the mail. I look through most of  the catalogs but usually don't purchase any items from them.

The other day I got a new catalog in the mail, the uncommongoods catalog. While I was turning its pages I came across a "lovingly hand-crafted by Judy James in San Diego" necklace.

OMG! Judy James had me in mind when she designed and created her Nest Egg Necklaces. When I saw it on the page I knew immediately I had to have one.

The sterling silver dome of this clam shell locket has a little bird hand-stamped on it.

Inside the locket are Peruvian opal "eggs" that are cradled within a hand-textured, warm copper nest. Judy's designs offer one a choice of up to four eggs.

As the mother of two "baby birds", I chose two Peruvian opal eggs to fill my warm copper nest.

Wordless Wednesday

Birthday Buddies

Yam was the first grandchild to be born on The Colonel's side of the family. She was born in July and shares the same birth month as her paternal grandfather (Gpa).

When I became pregnant with Yam the doctor gave me a due date of  July 25th. The Colonel's father's birthday is the 20th and he wanted Yam to be born on his birthday but Yam, being a baby, came when she wanted and that was on the 22nd.

Because Yam and Gpa's birthdays are so close to one another they have celebrated them together many times throughout the years.

Of course, the very first year they co-celebrated was when Yam turned one.

They even shared a birthday cake. One half of the cake was the cat Garfield playing tennis (Gpa still plays tennis 20 years later) and the other half was The Little Mermaid Ariel from Disney.

This year Gpa's birthday fell on a Friday and Yam's on a Sunday. Yam was home for the weekend so we split the difference and celebrated both birthdays on Saturday (Yam had to be back at college on Sunday).

The Colonel, Yam and I had our breakfast and then drove over to Gpa and Gma's house to open presents. Darling-Sister-In-Law was there. She had come into town for the weekend to help celebrate.

After all the presents were opened we visited with one another and passed the time before a nice birthday lunch out. Both Gpa and Yam agreed that Mexican food sounded muy sabroso.

The food was very tasty indeed. We had had our lunch and now it was time to have the cake and ice cream back at Gpa and Gma's house.

This year Gpa turned 79 and Yam, 21. That is 100 years of birthdays! We just had to celebrate that fact.

When I bought the number candles at the grocery I was met by a few questions at the checkout counter as you can imagine.

Next year Gpa will turn 80 and Spud, 20. Too bad their birthdays aren't in the same month. Anyone need some gently used birthday candles?

The Mystery Revealed

This is John Henry, my double-crowned pineapple, just mere moments before its harvest. Months of waiting (and praying that a raccoon did not pluck it first) while the pineapple ripened were over. Now we could finally see if John Henry was hiding a single or double core within its succulent, yellow flesh.

Yam was home for the weekend so I had her do the honors of cutting the pineapple as I snapped photos to document the discovery.

As Yam sliced the pineapple in half and before she opened up the fruit, the anticipation of what the dissection would reveal had me feeling a tad anxious as well as excited. Drum roll please...

John Henry had a single core. Looking at the above picture you would think there were two cores, yet this was simply one core sliced in half.

John Henry proved to be a very sweet and juicy pineapple. I have taken the double-crown top of the pineapple and planted it in my garden.

I am curious to see how the double-crown will grow and if it will produce two pineapples. I have a feeling this is going to be a long two years of waiting as I watch the next generation of my John Henry pineapple(s) grow.

The double-crown plant withered and died in late August 2012. Too bad, I had wanted to see if it would grown into two pineapples. Now I will never know.

Wordless Wednesday