Category Archives: Winter Weather

Days like these remind us why we moved to Florida.  Sunshine every day, highs in the mid to high seventies, lows overnight in the mid forties.  Low humidity.  Cool enough to sleep with the windows open but warm enough that we still run the AC in the afternoon.  Still nice enough weather that I can paint outside in the afternoon.

Shannon took Maggie Doone to the beach yesterday.  Shannon loves walking the beach when the weather is like this and Maggie just loves going to the beach at any chance.  She is a complete idiot (Maggie Doone) at the beach with running in circles, throwing stuff around and digging holes.

I walked Maggie down to the marina last night and back up through Center Street.  The town was quiet and the moon was hanging low at the end of Center.  The moon looked like it will be full in a couple of days.  There was a light breeze blowing, with a bit of beach smell in the air and I thought to myself “Days like these are why people move to Florida”.

PS:  There will be a full moon this weekend, just in time for the Lighted Christmas Parade.  The Parade goes right in front of the Addison so we’ll move Happy Hour out onto the front porch to watch.

Much of the northeast has been hit by an unusually early winter storm resulting in snow up to a foot deep in places.  While I sympathize with those of you who have to shovel out your driveways this early in the year I would like you to know that I have had my own shovelling to do as well.

Our herb garden was kind of scattered all over the courtyard until I consolidated it in one sunny spot yesterday.  I stacked up some bricks, laid out a couple of timbers and potted / repotted our herbs. 

The basil we use in the bruschetta for Happy Hour.  I use the oregano and the basil in sauces that I make for our dinner.  Shannon even used basil leaves as the form for chocolate leaves with which she garnished the strawberry shortcake we served at breakfast the other day.  The rosemary we use for meat dishes and the parsley and chives are used for garnishing the savory dishes at breakfast.  We still have the bird bath full of mint in the courtyard.  The mint certainly does like that spot, there must be just the right amount of sunshine.

A minor bit of shovelling I admit, compared to digging out a driveway from a snow storm, but it was a nice way to spend an hour or so on a sunny afternoon.

Put away your snow shovels folks because winter is almost over!  A large rodent, Punxsutawney Phil, has made his annual prediction and this year it is for an early Spring.  It is amazing how a groundhog, with no formal meteorological training, can make these accurate predictions year after year.

Great quote from the movie:

Phil (in the diner): Do you ever have déjà vu, Mrs. Lancaster?

Mrs. Lancaster: I don’t think so, but I could check with the kitchen

The big horses in Fernandina Beach have accurately predicted this winter’s weather as well.  Boomer put on his heavy coat early in anticipation of the December “cold” that we don’t normally get until January.  And he has been shedding for the past week, obviously expecting this early Spring.

For Groundhog’s Day we had some rain overnight with thunder around 6AM but by breakfast it had cleared up and we all had breakfast out on the veranda overlooking the courtyard.   It is time to start our annual garden plan….

Scooter, a friend from Northern Virginia was good enough to send me some photos of our old neighborhood after their last big dump of snow. This photo is of the street in front of the house we used to live in. To give you a sense of scale, that lamp post on the left is 6 feet tall.

We have had a few guests cancel because their airports were closed due to the storm. We’ve even had a few guests consider staying here a few more days because of winter storms back home.

I just wanted to let all of you who have had to shovel your driveways and stock up on toilet paper, milk and bread that we in Florida are suffering through winter as well. This last weekend several of our guests elected to eat inside the dining room instead of on the veranda leaving the people in this photo to suffer through the winter weather as best they could.

Come on down for a visit when your airports re-open! Your snow will melt all on its own as you walk our beaches looking for shark’s teeth. You may have to wear a sweater to brave our winter weather but you won’t have to shovel anything.

Two days later:

As I said last week, January is a slow month here in Fernandina Beach. Maybe something to do with the weather (72 and sunny today)? So what do we do when business is slow? We get busy!

This week we’ve got a couple of Repeat Offenders with us for a few days. They are both interior designers with “chair in the air designs, inc.” (404-851-0000) out of Atlanta. Shannon loves interior design, as any past guests will recognize, and really hit it off with Deborah and Tammi. This afternoon they are tearing apart the living room and taking a second look at what we originally put together when we bought the inn. Over the next couple of days they will be going through the inn, room by room, looking at redecorating ideas for updating the decor and the colors. I sense that my To Do List will be enormous over the next few months. It is a good thing that I like painting. I find it very therapeutic and relaxing when given the time.

What else are we doing? Odie is power washing all of the lower level decks today and once they dry off we will put down a wood preserver. Starting next week we will be washing all of the exterior windows. When you own a 134year-old house there is always something to do and if you don’t keep on top of the maintenance it will get away from you.

My favorite thing to do, of course, when business is slow is to exhale and relax. Maggie Doone and I went down to the Green Turtle this afternoon and had a cold beer while sitting on the front porch. The water view is minimal from the porch (you really have to look closely between the trees to see the water) but it is a nice spot in which to sit in the sun and contemplate the enormity of my To Do List.