Now begins summer season

Come April, our winter home in Vero Beach, Fl., gets stored.  Winter home be "Balboita," our 36-foot trawler, which can't stay in the city marina because of hurricanes. It has to be put up "on the hard," which is boater talk for storing.  Also, everything has to be put inside the boat because if we don't take care of it, a hurricane will.  We're talking canvas on the bridge (that awkward thing at the tippy top), canvas over the cockpit (awkward thing at the back), chairs, fenders, cushions....

INDIANTOWN IS THIS YEARS' STORAGE TOWN...

Sitting close to Lake Okeechobee, Fl.,  in a land far away, is a place called Indiantown.  It's called Indiantown because it was a Seminole settlement.  

Indiantown has a marina and lots of inexpensive land for boat storage.  The area is, well....interesting.

It's in the middle of nowhere.  As I said, lots of cheap land to haul out boats, so the price is right: about half of the cost of closer, more premium locations.  But, of course, there is no free lunch, so you spend two days instead of two hours by boat to get there.  

We spent first night in Stuart, a classy town with a classy marina.

Sunset Bay Marina in Stuart, Fl.

Next day, we do a leisurely trip across the St. Lucie River to Indiantown.  Some scenes:

House design from the medical clinic school of architecture

Classic Florida lagoon

 Beach along the way

Out-of-commission tug

Here are some boats in Indiantown that are on the Forever Storage Plan:

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Now, what you all have been waiting for...

They're back.  The bees, that is.  However, they weren't back when Barry arrived last week to check them out.  Things were quiet.  Too quiet.  The hives didn't survive the winter.  Barry thinks they ran out of food.  

Vicki felt like crying and everyone she told felt like crying.  But that's us city folk.  Farmers just take their licks and keep on, keeping on.  Plant them crops, the rain don't fall, the crops do die.  Just plant some more crops.  All in the day of a farmer.

Set up them hives, the mites or pesticides do come, the hives collapse.  Clean out the hives and get some more bees.  All in the day of a bee keeper.

So 12,000 new mail order bees and their queen have set up shop in one of the old, cleaned up hives, and Barry says they're buzzing.  Two more hive-fulls arrive next week.  And we're back up to three.

Happy new bees

Transported by the Beast of Burden:

That's all folks..