#96 Harvest Host Boondock Island Grove Wine Company Hawthorne, FL

We were looking for somewhere to stay and we had seen an article on the internet promoting Harvest Hosts. It suggested giving up the parking lot and going to the farm. They’re describing the behavior of sleeping in a Walmart parking lot and that there might be a better way to go. We looked into it and it's called Harvest hosts and they have over 500 farms and Wineries and such around the country. You pay about $30 a year you're allowed to stay there for free as long as you have permission and you're at least encouraged to patronize the business. if it's a winery if its Farm buy some fresh vegetables if it’s a Ranch ride a horse.

We tried it and our first stop would be in Hawthorne Florida at a winery. We called them and they said that they were going to be out of town all weekend but if we wanted to park out in the front yard that was fine with them. It was totally laid-back but it was a wee bit off the main road. I drove down several miles of dirt road but they were wide and well maintained probably because there's a lot of trucking and farm equipment that has to get back and forth. At the Georgia Florida border, most people would go down through Jacksonville. I decided to avoid the whole Jacksonville and Daytona Beach and Orlando part of Florida and just kind of go down towards the right down the middle of the state to the west side. I later found out there are more cows in Florida than there are in Texas.

We like being out in the country so this route suited us well. I did a trip to Lowes and got comfortable. In the evening we saw a couple of field hands and we did say hello to one of them. They were placing quart mason jars of water into a bunch of beehives. I guess I should have known that they like to drink water but I thought was cool that part of his day is when he waters the Bees.

The area all around us was blueberry orchards and they said they had found a nice little niche market. When people grow blueberries probably 60% of them are not pretty enough to go to the store shelves so there's a lot of waste. They decided to take that waste and make it into wine. I don't know what all they do but they seem to be very successful so I have applauded them. We spent Friday through Sunday night in their front yard.

On Sunday morning we went to a church service at the Hawthorne United Methodist Church. Not a huge congregation but in this case maybe 60 to 80 people. We went to a little Sunday school class which was kind of not my thing because I just sat there and listened to a lecture.

The guy stood up and read every single word of the Sunday School lesson out of the book and that was about it. I didn't get too much out of it but his heart was in the right place.

When he was talking he did mention something going on near Gainesville. I was a little bummed out about it. There is a bunch of Timberlands like 500,000 Acres that has been sold by a paper company and now it's going to probably be developed by every Tom Dick and Harry. I just wish it could somehow be managed by the national forest or something instead of just developed.

While I was the Sunday service I met a guy named Dick Curtis. He is regularly involved with a group called the Nomads. They go about the country in their RVs being good neighbors to people. It's kind of like Habitat for Humanity only they repair and fix things rather than build houses. They spend three weeks at any given location and they do this all over the country. They are affiliated with the Methodist Church. I told Dick we were living over there at the winery. He said you know I've got six full hookups here at the church and you're welcome to stay here for free. I told him we were most likely going to pull out the next morning and go down towards the Keys. On the way back I might stay for a week and take him up on his offer. I told him I was a handyman slash electrician with a little Plumbing so he was tickled pink. I was too and we planned for a nice visit in the future. Dick also worked passionately next door at the Hawthorne food pantry as a volunteer every day. The Nomads come through once a year. Dick is a one-man repair everything for the town of Hawthorne’s low-income people. He charges nothing and when parts are needed if they can’t afford it the church provides the funds. It was a pleasure meeting him.

Ocala welding after Hawthorne Harvest host

At about the time that we got to Hawthorne, I noticed that the kayaks and bike rack seemed to be leaning downward in a way. I had never noticed before but I guess I didn't give it that much attention. As we prepared to leave, I took a really good look and the welding had broken from the attachment mechanism. This bothered me as had I paid full price for this welding job back in Wilmington six months prior. I just made the basic assumption that they had done it perfectly well as they were a big company. Whenever I looked under their broken, I saw a place where they should have done some more serious welds. They just tacked it so this was all a little disturbing.

I talked to the folks at the winery front desk and thanked them for their hospitality. I suggested that we could buy a sample or something for India and they said they don't have any items to sell at this particular location. This was a manufacturing area and that their sales location is over there on the main Highway 17. I told him that we appreciated the free place to stay and we would see if we could buy something over there. As it turns out we did not buy anything so we cheaped out on this one. I asked if they had a maintenance guy or a welder on board that could look at this crazy kayak mechanism. They said they had a guy but he was really busy and that they would have him talk to me as soon as he could get a minute. He looked at it and said this is not something that he could do without permission and they were out of town. He said it really wasn't a hard job but the management has become a little more strict about letting guys just fix stuff as they were worried about liability. He suggested a welding shop in Ocala Florida. He called ahead and help me set it up and the guy said if I came on down here he would take care of it. Ocala Florida is about an hour south.

Bushnell would be our destination for the night and Ocala was right on the way.

When I got to the welding shop the guy looked at it and he was kind of bad-mouthing the shop up in Wilmington. He said they knew what they were doing in many ways but the way they tacked it there at the end made them look like a bunch of amateurs. He came up with a very professional method and just did a great job. Sadly it was about 140.00 and I gave him like an extra 20 $30 tip because he was such a cool guy. We left and headed towards our next stop which would be the SKP Park in Bushnell Florida.