Birthdays and Oranges

Yesterday was my birthday and it turned out to be a great day.  Our friends Dave and Helen stayed to visit until mid afternoon before they headed over to Sarasota to visit other friends.  It was really great that they came our way and spent a couple of days with us.  We then headed over to join Judy, John, Deb and Gerard to partake in Judy's great chili dinner.  Judy had purchased a bowed psaltery at the Strawberry Festival last week.  She has been practicing!!!  This is what a bowed psaltery looks like:

It is a pretty neat instrument for sure.  Her and Deb surprised me with their rendition of "Happy Birthday".  Awesome - thanks ladies!!

Tom surprised me with a birthday cake.  

Another year older and hopefully smarter as well.

Today we got ready to head out for another adventure.  John and Judy saddled up while Deb and Gerard hopped in the truck with us to go over to Haines City to Ridge Island Grove. 

 This is a small, family operated orchard and market.  They grow many different types of fruit and vegetables.  They offer tours of their facilities to see how they wash and wax the oranges.  Here they are rolling through the machine that waxes them before going into a dryer. 

 Here they roll down this conveyor belt to be sorted by size.

 They took us out into the orchard and let us pick a small bag full of oranges off their trees.  This made Tom really happy as he has been very tempted to hop out of the truck and pick an orange along the side of the highway.  

 They squeeze oranges for juice that they also sell in their market.  The mash from the oranges is fed to their cows.

 They grow hydroponic vegetables for sale also.

 After the tour we drove back into Haines City to have lunch at this Mexican restaurant before heading for home.

Happy hour with neighbors before dinner finished off another perfect day in paradise.  Until next time - safe travels.