Of Company, loaves and fishes

It's been awhile!  Lots of nice things going on this past week.  My cousin from VT and her hubby, who have a place here in Sunshine and come down for six or seven weeks each winter, have arrived.  It is always such fun to have Natalie here to pal around with.  And she likes to play word games like I do, something most of my friends here aren't into!  We have had some picture perfect weather here and we have taken advantage of the pool.  Neither of us like to bake in the sun for very long, so we hop out and dry off in the sun, set ourselves up in the cabana type area next to the pool and play our word game.  Quiddler  is fun and doesn't take as long as a Scrabble game.  Cards with letters on them are used to form words, long ones, short ones, odd ones etc.  The letters have different points on them, the harder to use will get you a higher score etc.

Went to a sing along the other night.  A group from the First Baptist Church of Bushnell came over to Sunshine to sing and play for us.  They are awesome!  "The Fruit Pickers"!  They sing gospel songs and old favorites.  So you see I keep moving.

We have a rainy day today, much needed !   I have indoor things to do this morning, like making bread because we are out of homemade... I ate the last piece for breakfast!   At 11 AM we will have our American Sign Language class so I will get the bread rising just before I leave and it will be ready to put into the loaf pans when I get home at lunchtime.

Next week Natalie's sister is coming for a 4 day visit.  More fun!  We three have great fun when we manage to get together which isn't often.  Natalie and I both stop at Janice's house in NC on our way south each year.  Best B&B around!  We are planning a few fun things to do while she is with us here.  The day she leaves, our daughter, Angel and hubby Paul will arrive from VT for a 4 day stay.
Can't wait !  Not nearly long enough but we will be so happy to see them and will have a great time.

Natalie, Dottie, Angel and Janice kayaking last summer

We are hoping our fishermen, a group of guys who love to fish and get out as often as they can, will have another fish fry next month.  They came home this week with a huge catch.  They commented that they didn't have time to have a coffee break as they were so busy hauling in the fish.  They freeze them up till time to treat us all, cooking up platter upon platter to serve with the side dishes the ladies whip up.

The Sunshine Village Fishermen and Fish friers

Our fish fry about to begin

Better get to the bread.  But first a little story.  I think of this often when I am making bread.  Years ago, when the kids were little, we had a neighbor on the next street over who kept a cow for his family's milk.  We were visiting one day and we came up with a great idea.  I make homemade bread, he has fresh milk, so we could just do a little bartering here.  So I would trade him a couple loaves of bread for a jug of fresh milk.  The cream atop that jug was so rich and lots of it.  I used to skim off quite a bit of it and using my blender, make a little butter.  I was telling him I did this one day.  The next time we did our barter, my jug of milk had only a little cream on top!  Guess he wanted some butter too. Boy, that upset me!  I was complaining to my hubby about it and he happened to see the neighbor the next day.  He mentioned that I wasn't happy about him holding back the cream from the top of the milk, and he blurted out what I had said in my complaining.  " If he is taking the top off my milk, I guess I'll just cut off the top of his loaf of his bread!" The next jug to arrive had the usual amount of cream on top !  Years have passed and he moved away but we see him once in awhile at the local alumni day parade and we still laugh about the bartering!