Outdoors

An inside look into the agricultural community during the fall season Words by Molly Britt   The agricultural community in Northeast Florida is one of the most important parts of our community. They are the reason we get our fresh vegetables and gorgeous flowers. I especially love the tasty blueberries we get from so many wonderful local farms. We really do take it for granted. So, why not take a look into what goes on in the agricultural community during the fall season?   Haley Hopkins showed me just what the fall season entails for Congaree and Penn, where she …

After last issue’s article about the growing sport of pickleball, we heard a rumor about nude pickleball becoming the next big recreational sporting trend in Northeast Florida. After a little research, we learned nude pickleball, along with a whole lot of other clothing-optional activities, is true but not necessarily in Jacksonville. Bottom line (pardon the pun), we discovered there is just about every kind of sport available for those that like to bare their bums for more than just sun, including but certainly not limited to volleyball (beach and water), tennis, horseshoes, horseback riding, dancing, nature hiking and running. Nude …

We ran the skiff only 30 minutes away from the boat ramp before Rami hopped on the poling platform and began pushing us through the labyrinth of spartina marsh creeks. Evan, posted on the front deck, fly rod in hand, scanned the grass flats for any sign of the targeted species, Sciaenops ocellatus, aka redfish. This was no regular day fishing the creeks, though, but an unusually early flood tide for the season, and I was sharing a boat with two of the most dialed fishermen from the area. Evan Tucker and Rami Ashouri of Cowford Conservation are two local …

Shell rock crushed underfoot as we stepped out of my car into the Big Talbot jungle. The backroad we just followed for miles ended in seemingly nowhere with the thicket too dense to even see a few feet off the road. The sun was at its peak yet was barely peeking through the canopy above us, no-see-ums buzzed at our faces, and sweat was already running down my neck. A wiry middle-aged man appeared in a narrow clearing and motioned for us to follow him. The man in question was Keith Ashley, professor of archaeology at the University of North …

Lily Snowden Imagine waking up on a yacht every day, perhaps in the Bahamas, Mediterranean or Virgin Islands. Sounds like a dream, right? For many young 20-somethings, this is a reality. But how?! One word: yachting. Though many people don’t realize it, the yachting industry has a high demand for workers. With a low cost of living, extended travel dates and other perks, this career has quickly picked up popularity among young Floridians and adventurers alike. Known as “yachties,” they are paid to live what many would consider a dream life: Work on a yacht, travel for free and use …

Lily Snowden The Garden Club of Jacksonville turned 100 years old on March 25, 2022. The Garden Club of Jacksonville is one of Florida’s oldest and most established garden clubs. Ninah May Holden Cummer founded the club on March 25, 1922 in her home in Riverside. The club was originally comprised of 17 of Cummer’s friends. Within months, the club grew to over 100 members. The Garden Club of Jacksonville was one of the original four clubs in the Florida Federation of Garden Clubs. The club continued to grow over the years, and eventually broke ground on a clubhouse. The …

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How long have you been skating for? About 13 years. That’s like you learn to walk and push at the same time. Have you been competing the whole time, too? Oh, not really the whole time. My first bigger contest was in 2014/2015 at Exposure in Encinitas, California. That was pretty sick. I was nine or 10. And I got first place in the under 14. It was an all girls contest so it had a super cool vibe. How did you get involved with X-Games stuff? The first Olympic qualifier was a Dew Tour event in 2019. And that …

I was recently introduced to the Japanese ritual of Misogi, a Shinto ceremony where people take pilgrimage as a purification ritual, to natural, sacred locales like the waterfalls of Mount Ontake and oceans. This is believed to cleanse impurities and to re-establish harmonious relationships with both themselves and the natural world around them, ultimately balancing one’s life internally and externally.  Learning about this religious ceremony made me realize the idea of pilgrimage-for-purification is quite prevalent in western culture, or example, through-hikers on the Appalachian Trail, but how rare it is for people to personalize their “pilgrimage” to one’s own need …