Garden Pic Wednesday: Red Rose In Sunlight

Greetings!  Another fine October day! It's getting into that nice fall-ish weather that, here in north Florida, ranges from 60 at night to 70's or 80's during the day with next to no humidity--great for doing all that fall yard clean up!

 I finished mowing the back yard today, which included policing up a bunch of pine cones and branches thrown around by a recent rain storm. Then spread the mowing mulch around various beds and especially stacking it around new shrubs in back.

I'd done the front yesterday, so today's work polished off the lawn mowing, which conveniently vacuums up all the pine needles.
I don't like to rake---ever tried raking up the long southern type pine needles?

Today's Pic of the Day is a shot I took this afternoon of my rose topiary against banana trees and late-day sun.

We spent all day this past Saturday at the Pirates of the Sea Festival in Panana City Beach, Florida, from about 2:30 pm until after the Fireworks at 8:30 pm.
We went dressed as pirates, of course, and it was a great day of relaxing, frivolous fun.

This event is held at Pier Park annually, which is like an outdoor mall that stretches from the main highway on the north to the highway that runs along the Gulf to the south. It's massive. It's beautifully landscaped, and, just off from the center is an extensive array of amusement rides. It's the only mall I know of locally with it's own amusement park.

For the Festival, traffic is cordoned off from the middle round- about circle to the beach highway, so it's free for walking, various bits of entertainment and parade use.

The middle round-about is called "town center" and a band stand is set up there and a Captain Jack Sparrow impersonator hosts the event. It was a rather warm day, so he abandoned his long pants & pirate boots for knee-length tan Bermuda shorts and sisal rope sandals. Someone mentioned this and he replied, "Resort wear, mate."

We watched a "pirate battle" in which defenders of the town & a band of pirates faced-off for the "keys to the city."

Jack Sparrow is captured along with the town mayor, who get put in a cage-float until Jack gives up the "keys to the city," and the Mayor can be released.

There was a magic show on the band-stand, hosted by a rather good local magician, then a pirate band from Nashville that actually plays pirate-themed music, called "Tom Mason and the Blue Buccaneers," came on.

(You can look them up on Facebook & maybe Amazon.)

 They were good with the crowd, with lots of sing-along songs and hand-clapping. We bought one of their CD's and had the whole band autograph it. That was cool.

At 5:30 we found a seat on the curb to watch the parade, which features floats of various sorts loaded with Pirates throwing bright colored Mardi-Gras bead necklaces at the crowds.

Last year, I collected a neck full, since that was my first experience with it. Once was enough.

This time, I didn't keep any, except two hot pink ones. What was fun, however, is the lady and her husband sitting on the curb next to us were from Atlanta, staying at a local condo and just lucked into coming to this pirate festival. She'd never had Mardi-Gras beads thrown at her before either and she collected a massive neck full, enough to topple her little self over, plus more wrapped around her forearms like bracelets. 

You can always tell the first-timers at the bead throws--they're coated. Most of what we caught, we passed to her or other people around us.

Then another band was on the band stand to entertain until fireworks time, then we watched the fireworks. It's the only fireworks display I like to go to.

After that, we drove home listening to our new pirate music and that was our day.