Market of Marion

Bushnell, FL - Events of Thursday, November 13 to Thursday, November 19, 2015

Blueberry Hill mows the grass on our site when we're gone in the summer, and they will also mow it when we're here in winter. However, when sites are occupied, guests have to put in a special request to have mowing done. Not only that, but now that we have pavement and landscaping the big mowers used by the RV park have trouble getting into all the corners. Therefore, we decided last year we would just mow our site ourselves when we're here.

Winter is the dry season in Florida, and the grass usually doesn't grow very much. In addition, with pavement and landscaping, we don't have that much grass. Therefore, Paul did all the mowing with the small, electric weed whacker we bought when we arrived last fall. However, with us arriving earlier and staying later, the grass does grow surprisingly fast at the beginning and end of our stay, and mowing our whole site with a weed whacker got real tired real quick.

When we left last spring, we decided one of the first things we would do when we got back this fall was to get an lawn mower. Even though it's a pain to drag around an extension cord, Paul decided on an electric mower because he didn't want to have to worry about storing gasoline in the shed or to be concerned about disposing of leftover gas when we leave in the spring.

New lawn mowers, especially electric ones, are fairly expensive. Therefore, we began a search for a used one on Craigslist as soon as we arrived in Florida. We found a Kobalt mower (Lowe's brand) that sells new for $200 listed for $80 in the nearby town of Floral City, and Paul went to look at it last Thursday. It is a couple of years old, and it was a little dusty with a few scratches; but it is in pretty good shape overall. The blade didn't even have one nick in it. In the end, the seller was willing to let it go for $65. Paul put it to work shortly after he got it back to our site.

Paul with his new lawn mower

On Friday, we needed to run some errands up near The Villages. Since we were headed that direction, we first drove a little farther north to stop at the Market of Marion.

Main entrance to the Market of Marion

We usually stop at the Market of Marion shortly after we arrive in Florida because Paul usually needs a pair of replacement reading glasses. The market has a vendor who has a large selection of good quality reading glasses at reasonable prices. They also sell sunglasses, and we couldn't resist trying on some novelty sunglasses while we were there.

Margery trying on butterfly sunglasses

Paul trying on court jester sunglasses

We walked the main aisle of the market then headed for the produce aisle. We got a tomato for our lunches and a sweet onion.

Produce aisle

One vendor in the produce aisle of the Market of Marion had raw sugarcane stalks for sale. It felt like we were at a market on some tropical island. Sugarcane, which is a member of the grass family, is grown in south Florida.

Sugarcane stalks

After our stop at the Market of Marion, we continued on to The Villages to run the rest of our errands. Wow! We can't remember ever seeing traffic in The Villages that heavy this early in the season. The stores were crowded, too. It looks like it is going to be a very busy snowbird season this year. We made several stops in The Villages then headed back to Blueberry Hill in time for dinner.

Except for going to church on Sunday morning, we hung out around the rig over the weekend. Paul did a few gardening chores and also rearranged things in the shed to make more room for the lawn mower as we continued to settle in.

On Monday, we headed over to Beef O'Brady's in Bushnell for Burger Monday. Build-your-own burgers with fries are $5.49 on Mondays (regularly $8.49).

Beef O'Brady's

Paul with his burger and fries

We had another errand to run up at The Villages on Tuesday morning. Thankfully, traffic wasn't nearly as bad as it was the previous Friday, mostly because it was earlier in the day. In the future, we'll try to avoid The Villages after noon or 1:00 if at all possible.

We spent the next few days running a few more errands, doing some more settling in at Blueberry Hill and relaxing. With rain in the forecast for Thursday, we went to see the new James Bond movie, "Spectre." It was another good James Bond film with plenty of action, car chases and things being blown up.

That's about all we have to report for now. We'll have another update soon.

 

Comments

[Marsha]

Good deal on the mower! We check Craigslist all the time.

Looks like you two are ready for Mardi Gras already with those glasses.

[Cheryl]

Oh my, I love the glasses!
Looks like nice weather there, it's windy and cold in NC.