Mom and I started off on our little trip on Friday morning around 7am. We first made a stop at a local bakery to pick up kolaches for breakfast and then a detour
to a Starbucks to get some coffee! We started driving along and we always take Loop 820 to US 287 and to go through Midlothian, Waxahachie and then end up south of Dallas on
I-45. When we got to Midlothian we were shocked at how fast it took us to get there. For some reason I was thinking it took longer than the mere 30 minutes it did.
And then we bypassed downtown, which was a bit dissapointing because I like to look at the old homes that line the main road. It was a nice ride and some of the
wildflowers were still blooming. I had to crochet along the way because I was nearly finished with the baby blanket that I was going to deliver to my friend Erika
at her baby shower. I hadn't planned on being last minute, but I found out I was going to Texas only about a month or so before and I was already in the midst of working
on another project. The blanket did turn out well. You'll have to wait a few paragraphs to see it!
The scenery was pretty as always. It's nice to see it transform from rolling prairie into the east Texas forest somewhere around Huntsville.
In Huntsville there is the Sam Houston monument and though I've driven by it many times I never had a photo of it!
We made it to Galveston in about six hours; it normally takes five, but we'd stopped a few times along the way. We found great peaches, apricots and blackberries
at a farm stand in Centerville, outside of the meat shop we usually go to to get preserves and jerky. Honestly, Texas peaches are far better than Georgia or California.
Trust me! Once in Galveston we detoured over to TAMUG, my alma mater, to go to the bookstore and stock up on Aggie gear.
The place was mostly deserted and I didn't see anyone I knew. It had changed alot, though I had seen some of the changes two years ago when Chris and I went down for a weekend.
This is the new ship that they bought a few years ago, I think it was renamed the Texas Clipper III. I sailed on the Clipper II, 10 years ago! After going to campus
I drove through the back streets and then remembered how ghetto Galveston really is. Actually, it seems to have gotten worse. Then again, maybe I just didn't
pay much attention then. We checked into our hotel and then drove down the west end of the beach, past the seawall, to one of the beach openings at Bermuda Beach.
The aroma of the sargassum rotting on the beach brought back memories. mmmmmmm!!! Don't complain about it, it is good for the beach!
Then mom and I went went for a swim. I forgot how far you could walk out before you even got waist deep and we found a nice spot between the crash zones and jumped the waves.
We were jumping for awhile when Mom said she was getting bit by something. I thought maybe the little fish that were moving alongshore, that the seagulls were following en masse,
might be nipping, but it was something little in her bathing suit. I eventually felt it and it
dissipated for awhile and then came back full force. I felt one of the little
bumps, pulled it out and it was clear, some sort of small crustacean and I thought it was either sea lice or maybe just a larval form of an adult crustacean. I don't know what
it ended up being because we would have continued itching from the sea lice and we never did after we took a shower. It was fairly painful though. So, our wave jumping
was ruined, but I wanted to check out a buoy that had washed up so I walked down to see it.
We were cutting it close with time, we were supposed to meet Erika and her mom at Casey's for dinner, but we made a stop
at a shell shop to browse and be a tourist for a bit. We met Erika for dinner, my first time seeing her pregnant. It was very cool and dinner was awesome. We both waitressed
at Casey's for awhile in college, she a much longer time than I. It brought back a few memories, but it was just the same ol', good food. After dinner Mom and I still had to
buy a baby shower gift so we ran to Target (another new luxury I didn't have in college) and we were the last ones to check out when the store closed!
The next day we slept in later than we wanted and didn't have time to roam around the island at all. We got up and drove up to Erika's house on the mainland and hung out there
for awhile, seeing the nursery and all the work she's done to the house and had some lunch. We had to drive again to get to the shower in Baytown.
Oh yeah, here's the blanket in all of its finished glory! The little white circle/squares in the middle were a miracle! I wasn't sure how I was going to work out filling
in the gaps after I joined the octagons, but it turned out good!
Erika got a lot of cute, adorable clothes for the baby and I learned about all the new stuff that babies have. Like a Boppy. Reluctantly we had
to leave by 5pm since Mom and I had to drive up to Longview that night. We left Baytown after stopping at a Sonic and getting something to drink for the road and then
heading on out of town. I hadn't been on the northeast side of Houston, really, and it was very quiet and not built up yet.
We drove up US 59 and there were many spots that I would have liked to have stopped to take some photos. Old bridges, trees, just some neat scenery. We did see a dead deer,
which I have to say is my first roadkill deer I've ever seen in my life.
Outside of Livingston I saw this Smoke Shop and at first I didn't really pay attention to it and then I realized what it was and had to turn around. I *think* this is the
only federally recognized Tribe in Texas. We didn't see the reservation, I think we were too far west. I didn't even know there was a Tribe in Texas until a few years ago
when I started my job.
Because I like old water towers! Yes, gas is still a little cheaper in Texas than elsewhere, I think.
The sun was setting when we pulled into Nacodoches, home of Stephen F. Austin State University. It was my first time there and I had briefly considered it for college, but
it is considered a party school. We had a Whataburger and then made it on the road again. An hour later we finally pulled into Longview. We had a few misdirections because
inappropriately labeled signs that showed up too late after we'd already passed them. The hotel was very nice, better than the Best Western in G-town, and we settled in again for the night.
Around 3am we were rudely awakened by a noise. I realized what it was almost immediately, the fire alarm, but my mom was stuck in her sleeping stupor so she thought I had
turned the alarm clock on. We fumbled downstairs with everyone else and waited a long 10 minutes before two fire trucks showed up. Luckily it was just a false alarm, but
10 mintues seemed outrageous for a real fire. The next morning we got up and made our way over to Michelle and JP's house. We showed up and our friend Stephanie was already
there. Unfortunately little Kylen was still nursing when we got there so for the first thirty minutes I only saw her very cute, soft feet.
Alas, we finally saw the cutest, sweetest, more adorable little baby!
Lots of baby holding!
She was a tiny little thing, but look at her feet!
Momma Chelle and Kylen.
After it seemed that Kylen had had her fill of eating, we ventured out for lunch to Juicy's Burgers in Longview. I ordered a plate of chicken fried steak and couldn't believe
the size of it! Needless to say, we stuffed ourselves. Kylen did pretty well being out, but she was already hungry by the time we got there so Michelle had to feed her and eat
as well. After we hugged and said goodbye, Mom and I headed back to Ft. Worth.
We got in around 5 o'clock and lounged around a bit before going to Curt and Steph's to pick them up for dinner. My brother has put together a pretty nice vegetable garden
in the backyard and has done some landscaping in the front yard, including putting in a small pond.
This is the veggie plot.
Fresh tomatoes, making me miss my now long gone batch.
Large strawberry plants that were making me envious.
I think my biggest jealousy was that he has a cucumber growing. I had a teeny, tiny fruit a year or so ago but the bugs, the vine borers, ate the plant and my cucumber
was lost. *sigh*.
We all went out to Mexican Inn where we gorged ourselves on the best corn chips and hot sauce, margaritas and yummy food. Somehow
those four still ate a sno-cone afterwards. I just couldn't find the room!
I like those photo. Mostly because my brother is a big goof and Biff, the dog, is even goofier!!
It was a good trip, even though it was so fast. I am ready for a week off, though.
My trip to Texas was good. It was fast and at the same time it went slow enough to enjoy. I almost took home a little baby named Kylen, but decided that she needed to eat
too much and she had to stay with her momma. ;) I ate some Texican (for you Swedish Chef, sorry no recipes at the moment), and it was good. I'll post tomorrow about the trip!
Marc and Eliana started their road trip this morning. Follow along as they meander up the Central Eastern US to the top of the country
and on into Canada and Alaska. I saw Eliana for the last time yesterday for a few brief moments while getting some Baloo meds and I wanted to stay and chat longer. Have fun
you two!!
Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad!
Fisheating Creek May 29, 2008
It was a great weekend. A weekend I desperately needed. Saturday we drove up to Fisheating Creek to go camping with our
friends Randy and Cathy. They went with us to Kissimmee Prairie a year and a half ago and we had a good time with them. We arrived around lunchtime and I was so glad to see the
campsite. It was right on the creek and was absolutely beautiful. Tall cypress and oaks dressed in resurrection fern covered the place. We set up our tent and relaxed for a bit.
I had my nose in a book the entire weekend, which suited me fine. I haven't read much lately and I was devouring Mr. Darcy takes a Wife. Which, by the way is
awesome! It isn't Austen purism, but it was goooood! I kept finding parallels between Outlander author Diana Gabaldon and this author. There were some parts of the
story that I didn't agree with, but in all it was an excellent read. I also worked on my blanket for a bit, here and there, and hope to have it finished soon. Soon being,
before this weekend when it needs to make its presentation at a baby shower. Argh!
Saturday we walked up the creek a bit. Yes, walked. It was mostly dry with some puddles here and there. We found a great rope swing at a primitive campsite that, when the water is
higher, kayaks and canoes will stop at.
Of course I took a swing. I never had the guts to let go though, nevermind I did get my butt completely wet when I switched ropes and it was longer, so my legs splashed the water.
It was a beautiful place and we had an awesome day. On Sunday we went over to another part of the Fisheating Creek and hiked over there. We saw tons of wildlife: wild hogs with
zillions of babies
and lots of deer that jumped through the hammock when we approached. There were a lot of birds as well and a hawk swooped through the trail in front of us and startled me because
I initially thought it was an owl flying so low.
Chris thought he was a deer there for a minute!
You can see the rest of the photos here. I actually started writing this a few days ago but then
I got busy and now I am leaving for Texas in a few hours. My mom and I are headed for a girls weekend. First, we're going down to Houston/Galveston for my friend Erika's
baby shower and then we're going up to Longview to see Michelle and Kylen. It will be a lot of driving, but I am excited! Lots of reminiscing will be had. Eating at all the
good spots in Galvatraz(aka: what SeaAggies call the island), possibly pop in the student center at TAMUG and stock up on some new t-shirts. Go to the beach. We'll spend
a little time in DFW and I want to talk to my SIL's belly so I can tell my niece that I will be spoiling her in just a few months! So, until next week! Have a good one! And you
can listen to some Pat Green, Texas on My Mind:
Curt and Stephanie have some cool photos of their garden up on their Flickr. Curt has inherited
the Whitlock/Kincade green thumb in our family and turned a bit of his yard into a veggie garden. I am completely envious of his onions right now!! I hope mine turn out
that good! And take a look at the cute pups, Biff the golden doodle and Gizmo the Boston Terrier.
I am completely sad. Barack Obama was two minutes from my house today and I wasn't there! He was doing a rally at the Bank Atlantic Center and unfortunately it was at 2pm,
in the middle of a workday. If I'd of known earlier then I would have taken off just to go hear him. I have liked him since I first saw him speak at the Democratic National
Convention when John Kerry was nominated to run for President. His first speech teacher must be proud. Yes, I am one of those rare Texanus democraticus var. liberalianus.
Must find a bumper sticker to put on my car! heh! It will go alongside the McCain one Chris will probably get. Heh!
I'm done with the octagon pieces and will be putting them together this weekend. We're going camping so I will have plenty of time to stitch them together and finish it up.
I have four pieces of art I want to work on during June. I'm ready, too. The ideas are just pooling in my head and are ready to escape onto the paper. I am also going to
attempt are 30/30/30 challenge. 30 minutes of sketching, 30 sketches, 30 days. I just need to work on my drawing skills and the only way to do that is sitting and drawing
directly from life. I will be doing some traveling in June but it will be something I can accomplish easily enough.
I uploaded some of the orchid festival photos.
I saw this and said it had to be painted. Hrm, must not let it invade my head.
Taking a break from the heat with some lemonade.
This was a show winning native cigar orchid.
This artist, Dawn Vertrees, had a booth and she was awesome! Her jewlery was so unique and if I was rich I'd buy it all!
This necklace was to die for! Skip the diamonds, gimme this! She was very nice and talked about how she was apprenticing at the moment and learning from another jeweler
and had only been doing this about 8 months!!
This is the ghost orchid that the moth came to pollinate the other day. We were out on Tuesday night trying to get more video footage and possibly a photo and this was a test
shot to make sure the camera was in a good position. This is the third flower so far this year with more, many more, on the way!
Hope everyone has a good holiday weekend (if you are in the US)!
Mid-May Gardening May 21, 2008
Even though I am extremely tired today I made it outside this evening to water the plants and do some repotting with a few plants. I'm trying to upgrade a few plants to
bigger pots and it is easier to undertake a few a night, or throughout the week.
The bulbs are doing well and a few more are coming up. I think I will leave them in the ground over the summer because the ground is very well draining and I doubt it will
rot.
This is the new rose I got a few months ago. It has put on a tremendous amount of growth and I will probably have to repot it soon.
The aloe threw out a spike of flowers and I am happy to see it. This definitely needs to be repotted, but I'm not sure how to accomplish that without getting completely
scratched up by the spines.
The veggie garden is slowly filling in. The oregano is creeping along as is the mint. The beans are about to put flowers out and I made little stake tee-pees tonight
so grow them on. I was too afraid the passionvine on the backfence would overtake the beans and I'd never see them. I had to restart okra as something add the seedlings.
The onions are starting to look good, too. They are more sturdy than they had been. I hope they take!!
This is the vine container I started two weeks ago. I planted purple hyacainth bean, scarlet runner and apricot runner beans, that tiny little pink morninglory. Looking forward
to the time when it is all vining.
Ignore that I sound like a complete idiot in this. ;) Yes, I talk for my animals (and the one that we're borrowing... ;) Dogs are hardwork!!). Oh and please,
please ignore the crunchy, brown grass. The only green part of the grass is what gets watered from the sprinklers that water the containers. I can't bring myself to
water the grass. It's completely pointless. Plus, I'd rather reserve it all for the veggies. I couldn't get Baloo to do anything cute. I'll have to post one of him being
goofy, soon.
Yesterday we met Marc and Eliana and
Christine at the Redland Orchid Festival at the Fruit and Spice Park. Even by 10am it was sweaty hot. We didn't buy much,
just found a steal of a deal for some vanilla plants and bought those, tried some coconut and black sapote ice cream, had some deliciously refreshing lemonade and walked
around for awhile. We hit a Mexican restaurant in Homestead afterwards and then we all went to Schnebly's Winery, way out
west of Homestead. It was fairly busy in there and we tasted various tropical fruit wines. No grapes here. You'll find
passion fruit, lychee, carambola, mango, guava and a few
other blends, and apparently they have an avocado wine on the list to be tried soon. That ought to be interesting. The tasting was nice but the tour was rather short.
I bought a passion fruit and mango wine and the mango tasted much sweeter than at the winery. Christine has some photos up on her blog if you want to see. I haven't
downloaded ours yet.
I'm off to work in the yard a bit. Dry, crunchy grass. The veggie bed is holding in there and half the tomatoes are down. We need rain!
More Turtling May 17, 2008
I'm about a quarter of the way into my book
and I am really enjoying it. Archie Carr describes being on Tortuguero, an island off in the
Caribbean Sea of Costa Rica, in the 1950's and 60's when sea turtle
biology was really starting off. This was when turtle fishing was highly
prevalent and the seven species of sea turtles weren't protected yet. He describes the native
Indians turning over all of the female turtles as they came up to nest so that they could be picked up later to be utilized for food. Oddly enough it seems that the sea turtle
fishermen were in an uproar over the damage this was causing to their industry; the sea turtle fishery was beginning to collapse. He describes the life on the island,
somewhat how I could envision it being similar to being at Inti Wara Yassi. Secluded but with your fellow researchers and then off during the day tagging and doing research. It made me want to
go and visit the island, or in the meantime just drive up to Melbourne and watch the loggerheads nest during the next month. I think Chris and I will have to spend
a weekend up there soon. I haven't seen them nesting in, well, I guess five years now. Four years ago is when we moved down here.
In college I was lucky enough during the summer of 2000 to get into an internship at my college tagging Kemps Ridley sea turtles. There were four of us interns, a grad student
and a full time biologist who ran the tagging program.
We saw quite a bit of turtles that summer and after we caught each one we'd have to take them in to gather information on them and then release them where we caught them the next
day or two. We tagged off of Sabine Pass, TX and then two places in Louisiana.
We placed entanglement nets that were changed on the hour and if we suspected something hitting the net. We caught our fair share of stingrays, fish and
bull sharks. You can see
the amount of shrimp boats that were out there on a daily basis. You also couldn't mistake the smell of a menhaden boat as it made its way back into port. Shrimp boats
are not a sea turtle's friend.
When we caught stingrays and sharks we would take them a bit away from the net so we could release them and they wouldn't end up straight back into the net. I remember one day
we caught the biggest Atlantic ray I'd ever seen. She was HUGE! It took at least two of us to wrestle her out of the net.
The bane of our existence were these huge mats of sargassum that would float right into the net. Two of us would be pulling the net up from the bottom, picking out sargassum
and whatever else we saw, mainly looking for sea turtles. I got some kick ass arms that summer. You try
dead lifting a wet net from the bottom.
One of the things we'd have to do after we brought the turtles back to where we were staying was to work them up, get blood, carapace scrapings, measurements and
overall health,
scrape barnacles off and look for fibropapilloma. That was a great summer. That's when I decided I wanted to work with sea turtles. And here I am...not working with sea turtles 8
years later.
TAMUG Sea Turtle Lab. The good news is that Kemps ridley's are on their way back. They are slowly starting to
nest on Texas beaches again. Typically they nest in an arribada in Mexico.
The book made me reminisce a bit so here I am sharing a little piece of my history.
Patiently Waiting May 13, 2008
I'm still patiently waiting the news on the baby. No word yet. So, I will share this little photo I snapped last Friday at work of a barred owl. It was not happy with me at all.
There was much hissing involved and me reassuring it that I was not about to make off with it or possibly its nest. This is the best one of the shots I took. I did a little
curves work to make the owl stand out better and it seemed to work well....because this is my second photo, now, to make Explore! I am excited! I was a bit surprised because
there weren't as many comments but I think that the trick is to have people favorite it. I
don't know, I can't read Flickr. It is fickle sometimes. But, this photo makes me happy and
I just might have to print it out.
There's not a whole lot going on. I tried a run this evening and made it about a mile and a half and had to walk most of the rest of the way. The trouble with running before
dinner is that you smell all of this incredible food in the neighborhood and start envisioning running into peoples living rooms and feasting. That and I was having trouble
with my breathing today. I am also down three miles so far because I kayaked instead of running on Saturday. *oh well*. Slowly, slowly, I waddle on.
Through Bookmooch I got Mr. Darcy
Takes a Wife, the 'sequel' to Pride and Prejudice. I am thoroughly looking forward to reading this, and it is even written in Regency English. WOO! Heh!
My yard is already escaping from me. It is so hot these days. And no rain. Please, send us a mediocre Tropical Depression. Note, I did not say hurricane.
Sometime last winter one of the owners of My Folia sent me an invite via Flickr. I signed up and didn't do a heck of a lot with it until
getting reinvigorated about it recently. My page is there and I am slowly adding things to it. I'm thinking it will
be a great way for me to remember what we have in the garden. I will need to go around, slowly, adding what we have been growing over the years.
Because I am the worlds biggest dork, I had to start a new Flickr group today. It's called Awesome Octagons, and I
just know someone reading this wants to join!! I found a group for the hexagon crochet squares, but no octagons and I wanted to share! So, now there is a group! WOO! Also,
I am trying to get The Divine Sisterhood of the Gluestick up and going too. Meghan has been doing wedding related
activities lately so I am going to try and post challenges every once in awhile. There's one up right now that I need to do myself, but I hope I can get a few of you reading to join!
These are the stacks of octagons I am working on right now. I am working on another round of purple and then have one each left of both colors. I saw there is a
nice sea green color that I think I will use to join and to add the border.
So far I love this yarn. It is Paton's Brilliant. The speckles of silver intwined with the color make it very shimmery and I think unique for a baby afghan.
The rose is blooming again. This is the not the most recent one I bought, but the one I've had for awhile. I started more onion and okra seeds tonight.
Chris' kayak is larger than mine and has more difficulty going through lower areas.
Chris got out to take some photos with the SLR a few times. The river was very busy yesterday; lots of canoes and kayaks and we'd have to pull over in tight bends and
between trees when oncoming traffic approached.
There were quite a few turtles perched on fallen logs.
We also encountered two alligators that were chilling on the edge of the bank in the water. We didn't see any swimming as we kayaked through.
There were two logs that were so low over the water we had to practicaly lay down in the kayaks. We'd paddle enough to get us through and then crouch down as far as we could.
After an hour or so, we made it to the second spillway. This is a popular swimming hole and takeout spot for lunch. It was very crowded yesterday at lunchtime!
I had to get in the water and Chris joined me too. It was very cool and refreshing and much like being at the lake in Texas. I could have swam around for an hour. Don't
worry, no gators in the water!
When the water was higher you could kayak over the spillway, but there are takeout ramps to move down the river here.
One then we saw a lot of were these invasive Pomacea insularum, channeled apple snail, eggs. They are different from the native apple snails in that the eggs are bright pink.
They were everywhere and large clutches were on many cypres trees and logs.
We made it back to the first spillway to find a traffic jam. Apparently someone in a canoe had gone down the spillway and flipped. Chris had gone down it on our way down the
river, but I chickened out because I knew I could have flipped. I'm not exactly a world class kayaker. So, we had a lot of people in front of us and we sat waiting while everyone hauled their
kayaks out of the water and down the other side of the ramp. The fun part is going down the ramp. You can get in and slide down and Chris did just that and almost
lost his camera bag. I thought he was going to flip, but he luckily didn't and nothing got wet! Phew! I forgot to mention that under the road bridge for Indiantown Road is
a colony of bats! They are so cool and you can hear them chirping as you paddle under the bridge. Some you can see peeking out of the crevices and holes!
I did finish and mail off this afghan the other day. WOO! Or, maybe I should say, WHOOP, since it is an Aggie blanket! I wanted it to be bigger but my hands were just worn out. I can
tell a difference in using thick acrylic yarn vs other yarns.
Everyone here in Florida says Happy Mothers Day to our mom's, grandma's, soon to be momma's Chelle, Erika and Stephanie! :)
An Evening Out and About May 7, 2008 Christine told us last weekend that we could come visit her at the park she works at to check out a few rare and endangered plants
that are found there. She also has caves on the property!! Chris met me near work and we drove down in his car to the park. It was nice doing something other than rushing home
collapsing and taking care of everything at home. The park is closed to the public at the moment but she let us walk around and see a few things. We were mostly interested in
Passiflora sexflora, P. sexflora, and Lantana canescens,
L. Canescens. Both are seemingly insignificant, but highly endangered.
We walked the paths through the tropical hardwood hammocks and the palmetto scrub areas, back to the caves. Yes, there are caves in Florida! They aren't Carlsbad Caverns,
but you know, it works! Chris jumped down into one of them and explored it for a few minutes. It wasn't a very deep cave, but he did see stalactites and snails. The evening
was cool and enjoyable and we topped it off by stopping by a BBQ place on Krome for dinner.
These are our beach woodpeckers that we saw on Sunday at Lovers Key State Park near Fort Myers. As I said a few posts down, we don't normally see these in this habitat.
Seeing the brilliant red was a bit of a change from the browns, greens and blues of the beach.
There were many osprey around and we spotted a few nests.
I couldn't believe how lucky Chris got with this photo. The magnificent frigates hardly come this low, at least the times we've seen them in the Keys. I call them
pterodactyls.
The pelicans were doing fly-by's along the coastline, searching for the perfect fish to dive in to catch.
This is a complete Chris photo. I love how it turned out, he had an excellent eye for this one!
I had to get Chris to snap this one. As we were walking back to the car, we stopped on the bridge going over the little inlet area to look at what was swimming about.
This horseshoe crab was swimming by on its back, moving along to another part of the ocean. When I worked at Moody Gardens we had a few in the touch tanks and they were always
interesting to watch and to laugh at because they would continue ramming into the sides of the tank. By the way, don't ever buy one at the shell shop. Bad idea. Skip the seahorse while you're at it, and the pieces of coral.
There were baby hawks nesting in a tree in the parking lot. Mom came by with food before we left to the beach and she wasn't around when we returned.
After we put our beach stuff in the car we walked a bit down a trail. We didn't realize it was so long, around 2 miles, so we just walked through their native butterfly plant garden
and then a little down the trail. On their list of animals you might see were gopher tortoises. We were surprised to see them on the list and then shortly after we saw this one
as well as another one that quickly went down its burrow when we tried to get a closer look.
I am completely loving Lady Antebellum a country band with their new song
Love Don't Live Here. Awesome stuff!!! I might be popping over to Amazon soon to get it!
A bit of mustiness... May 5, 2008
All I could think of when I walked into Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary is that I should work here. It was me. I could see myself leading
educational groups down the boardwalk or doing biological studies. Dagnabit. Insert Misti and Chris' Rule of Fun Jobs *here* (ie: Fun Jobs Never Pay). Right when you walk
into the boardwalk area is a board showing what animals and plants that have been seen. Then you walk through a little wet prairie and into the cypress swamp. Right away
the musty odor comes to you, smelling like an old tent that you've left wet for a few months. Mmmmm, camping. We meandered through the boardwalk for awhile, looking for
chompers, caterpillars, in particularly a giant sphinx moth cat or ruddy daggerwing cat. The moths will chow down on pond apples and the daggerwings like strangler figs.
We'd see a few nibbled leaves here and there but no caterpillars. I was taking in the new cypress leaves on an overhanging branch from a cypress when Chris exclaimed he'd found one.
That's little green bean looking thing in the top center of the photo. That little bugger.
Chris sat for awhile trying to get his best angle. He'd seen two at Fern Forest here in Broward County, but the photos didn't come out that great. We encounterd a few people wondering
what in the heck we were dying to get a photo of and we told one couple who stopped to ask. He snapped awhile for awhile and then we started to walk down the boardwalk in
search of the 'super ghost' orchid. We ended up back tracking a bit, further back
than our caterpillar to find it.
Don't strain your eyes too hard to see it. It is actually hard to define, but you can tell. Those roots in the middle of the crook of the tree. You can't see it from
the boardwalk; you've gotta use binoculars or a camera. No spikes that we could tell so far and we didn't see any pollinated seed pods from last year.
I couldn't stop staring up at the resurrection fern on the tops of the cypress. So beautiful.
There wasn't a lot of wildlife on the trail, but we did see these bugs...
This green anole didn't scurry off while I took a photo. Luck me!
I see similar bugs like this on my tomatoes. And they freakin' bite/pinch!!
I saw this tree towards the end and had to hug it. It was begging to be hugged. ;)
It feels good to complete projects. I'm almost ready to move on from the book I'm reading, the Bonfire book. Right now the last bit is interviews and I think I am
going to skip it. I'm ready for some chick-lit. Something to read quickly, in a few days, and to just mellow out to. I made more guacamole tonight. I ate the first batch already.
I couldn't resist. I am going to get fat off of avocados. Leo just walked up onto the computer desk and has the cutest bit of water dribble on his chin. I want to eat him up!!!
three or four green onions, chopped and used part of the green too
several tomatoes from the yard. Smallish sized ones. You could use one medium.
one tomatillo
Everglades seasoning to taste.
Then it all went into the food processor.
And it was ready in just a few minutes!
When my family first came to Florida for vacation back in the late 80's we were introduced to Everglade's Seasoning. We savored the can the whole year because you couldn't get it
outside of Florida. It lasts a long time but it is very good to have on hand. They also have a Cactus Dust that is excellent on steaks and chicken. The guacamole was yummy!
Chris didn't try it because he doesn't like it so the more I have the better! :)
I am happy to announce that I finally finished the blanket I was working on. I need to weave in the ends and wash it because the cats have laid all over it. I'm DONE!
I'm excited because I wanted to spend the weekend doing paper related crafting. This month I am trying to accomplish another baby blanket (seriously what on earth are all you
people doing having babies this summer????? My hands are going to fall apart!!) and do a little illustration for a friend and hopefully finish a scrapbook I started much
too long ago. I also need to catch up on my Paper Adventure '08 project. This weekend I need to put some more seeds
on the Etsy shop and do a bit of yard work. I feel slightly 'caught up' in the yard, but need to do some work on the porch.
Our rat friend is still hanging around and I think his IQ is 130+ because he/she seems to know what those traps are for and is avoiding them at all costs, even going so far
as to hanging out on the right side of the grill when there is a nice trap on the left side of it. ARGH! I'm hoping it will go into the live trap Chris bought the other night
so we can just take it to a field and let it go.
Leo thanks you for all his birthday wishes, here and via the phone. ;) He was a happy cat eating a whole can of wet food. He usually gets dry food and wet food and fresh fish
are treats. I even tried to get Sam to eat some but he turned his nose up to it. Picky cats!
Baloo on the other hand is not picky. He will eat whatever you give him. He's been known to lick the floor, and I've seen him trying to stand up with his paws on the
kitchen counter. Eliana, you gave us a handful!
He has the wettest licks too. And doesn't know when to stop. Wruuff!
4 May 1, 2008
The squirt turns four today. We don't actually know his birthdate, but when he showed up July 1, 2004 we guessed he was about two months old. I've posted this photo before
and I just never get tired of it. He is darn cute!
Of course he is known for being a little bit of a nutcase!
But who can resist the troublemaker????
It's been a long week here. Super busy at work. Tired. Tonight I'm going to pour some wine, sit in bed while I crochet and watch McDreamy and McSteamy. :)
The mice weren't the only ones using the cotton, though.
A ring neck dove momma had decided to nest in our ric-rack cactus hanging basket.
I didn't see her tonight so I hope she didn't abandon the nest.
I'm excited about this citrus. We started it from seed several years ago and I am not sure which one it is. The problem with labeling your labels with a Sharpie is that
eventually it dissapears! So, it could be a lemon, lime or keylime. I hope keylime!!!
There's also an amaryllis bud forming. This plant has done a lot of blooming in the past year or two, which is surprising to me. I've found some of my container plants
to not bloom as much as I would think they should.
This is the mockingbird nest that was in the passionvine. I haven't seen the babies or the momma lately either.
On the craft front I am still trying to nose my way through a large blanket I am crocheting. I just keep telling myself there's only one more large one to do. Ahhh! I have to
whiz through another baby blanket in a month because I am now going to go to Texas at the end of the month for my friend's baby shower. This isn't helping because
I really have the urge to paint and draw. There are two books I am trying to finish as well.
The Texas Aggie Bonfire and No One Garden's Alone:
A Life of Elizabeth Lawrence" are both good. I started the first one because my boss gave it to me to borrow. I suppose I didn't know a lot of the history of A&M, my
alma mater, and it really is an eye opener. It was written almost immediately after the Bonfire collapse in 1999 and published in mid 2000. It is interesting reading
about the evolutions of the traditions and how it went from all male to co-ed. This has been my carpool book, but I just can't manage to do a lot of reading lately. The second
book I picked up at a nifty, small town bookstore in Greenville, South Carolina about a year and a half ago. I was on travel for work and was killing time in the evening and
found this little bookstore, The Open Book. It was nice not being in a big-box store and they had a large selection of southeastern authors.
This book was on sale so I picked it up and thought it'd be a nice fit on my bookshelves. It is a biography and isn't boring! I mean, remember all of those snooze-fest biographies
you had to read in school? This one isn't like that, thank goodness. So, I'm trying to wade through both of those, slowly, in pieces, pages at a time.
It's raining now and time for dishes, putting laundry up (fun! joy!) and then settling in for some crocheting and House M.D.
It's a Miracle! April 24, 2008
How to eat a miracle fruit: Synsepalum dulcificum
First, find a ripe fruit from your plant.
Next, cut up some lemon slices (these were variegated...of course!).
Then, taste the lemon because it is going to be sour!
Take a bite of the miracle fruit berry, skin and all.
Yummy!
Don't pucker your face like the lemon is still sour, because the miracle fruit actually made it sweet!
Ahh, miracle fruit. We were introduced to this genius plant at the Fruit and Spice Park down in the Redlands. You drink lemonade, have a miracle fruit, drink it again
and it tastes like the sweetest drink on the planet. Mmm, good!
I am getting seed packets ready for the lucky winner of the drawing. I am such a newbie at this giving away stuff that I forgot to say that you could post until Saturday night
11pm EST. On Sunday I'll draw the winner! So, go here if you want to participate!
My friend Sara recently asked me for some gardening tips. When Chris and I first started gardening it was mostly trial and error. We'd plant something and see what would grow.
This was on our apartment balcony that faced west and got little sunlight, so there were many errors. Eventually we learned to read up and figure out light and water requirements.
We'ved killed our share of plants, but now we've got a handle on how to grow things. Mostly. I haven't tried lately, but I know I do not do well with bougainvillea or Mexican heather.
The other issue is that we live in the sub-tropics so we have a bit of a different issue. We have hot, humid weather. Our vegetable season is mostly opposite of the rest of the country.
Everything is grown from mid-Fall until right around now, except some hot season vegetables like peppers which can handle the heat. Not to mention, we get daily rains in the summer
and that affects how well things will grow. Many bulbs will rot in the ground and some won't even grow, like tulips, because they need a certain amount of chill hours. Some
people circumvent this by putting them in their fridge for six weeks, but there are so many other tropical varieties of bulbs, why bother???
I think the most valuable resource have been Gardenweb. Just reading by your state or region and then by areas of interest will
give you so much more information.
Here is a list of books and links that I find valuable:
So that is a start. If you have specific questions, email or comment and I can try to answer them.
In other news, for the past two weeks I have been avoiding dairy. I've contemplated doing this for awhile and after the mini-acupuncture that I had and my constant
pleghm and asthma issues, I've gone dairy free. This is incredibly hard. Do you know how much dairy is in everything??? It's not just elmininating milk and cheese, but it is
sour cream, cream cheese, yogurt, chocolate, ice cream, boxed goods, cheese covered chips and snacks and you just about name it, because there are milk derivatives in
everything. Right now I am avoiding the major things, but I hope to wean myself off everything else too. *hope*. And I still go for things that I forget have dairy, like
the fried chicken strips I had today at lunch. I'm sure they were milk battered because not too long after eating it I had a nice reaction. For the first week my throat
was pretty sore, trying to recuperate from the past few years of throat clearing and coughing. It is feeling better now and I am enjoying this dry feeling throat and
the ability to actually breathe. For about an hour after eating the chicken today I had issues breathing and clearing my throat. I hate that. So far soy milk has been good
and I have not had a problem replacing it for regular milk. I tried some soy yogurt and that was good, but I got a block of soy 'cheese' and I knew when I unwrapped it
I was heading for trouble. First, it was watery around the wrapper. Eww. Then, the coloring looked fake. I decided I was going to try a piece and when I went to cut it,
the cheese was like rubber. Gross. And it did not taste good. I am wondering how it will taste disguised in some food, melted and cooked. I also bought some sliced rice
milk cheese. I haven't had the nerve to try it yet.
All of this is rather sad to me because I have goat cheese, gouda and feta in the fridge begging to be eaten. The good news in all of this is that it is easier saying no
to all of those bad foods, like cookies and cake! I'm hoping this will become a benefit for my waistline as well! Hah!
I noticed the other day I had almost 60 subscribers and I really have no clue who 45 of you are. I know my regular commenters, family and friends, but who are all of the lurkers
that read on a reader and are silent every day? I don't mind silence, but I would like to say hi to you at least once! :) So, to entice some delurking I am going to have a little
giveaway. I will put together a little seed package to send to a lucky, randomly drawn person. Persons related to me by birth or marriage can participate, but if I pick your name
I'll just draw a second time so that I am fair to all the other lurkers. So, come out and garden with me!!!
Cleaning Up April 22, 2008
Saturday morning we left the house by 7am and drove down to the Rickenbacker Causeway on the way to Key Biscayne. We were hosting the Earth Day CITO for Eliana and Marc,
they originally hosted last year, but this year they were chilling in Grenada. We had a meager turnout, but it was good people. We were lucky to have a nice day
with no strong winds, partly cloudy and though the water was a bit nippy when we got in, it later felt pretty good after we started cleaning.
Eliana had found this island and saw how trashed it was from weekend partygoers.
A trash can had been placed on the island but it was quite full. The trash can wasn't there last year. You could tell people would actually attempt to get near the trash can,
as there was a large pile on the beach surrounding the can.
Everything you can imagine was there. Empty tampons, cloths that you could tell were used for girls who went to the bathroom behind the trees, beer cans and bottles, fishing line
plastic bags. You freakin' name it.
You can see the crew here. I think there was around 10 people. Last year we had a bigger turnout, but we worked hard and got everything cleaned up in just an hour or so.
I think we saw this last year but were unsucessful in getting it up. There was a tent buried in the sand. It seemed to go on for-ev-er (think The Sandlot). They'd tug
and pull and a piece would rip. Sand would pile up and water would splash from the ocean. In the end they were able to get the majority of it up.
You can see some of the amount of bags of trash we collected. There were little bits of glass here and there and of course you could stoop forever trying to pick up
little bits of trash.
It looked pretty darn good when we were completed. Nevermind those trash trees, Australian pines. Ugh. Invasive, exotic.
We sat around after we were done and a few people ate some lunch. In an odd moment, a huge swell came on shore, sweeping the kayaks up and sending everyone scrambling.
Honestly, it was like a mini-tsunami, especially after a mostly calm surf for the whole morning. Someone said they saw a large boat go under the bridge and that must
have been the wake from it. While we were hanging out some people in john boats, from nearby anchored sailboats, were noticing a large brown area swimming in the ocean.
Someone from the clean up crew noticed it came up for air and we quickly realized it was a manatee! Now, I've seen my share of manatee's up in Melbourne but haven't seen
any in Miami in the wild. To boot, there were two!! Chris, Ana and I scrambled for our kayaks and took off to slowly follow them. We never got too close but both
surfaced clearly and we could see their whiskers and snout. Very awesome!
Being on the water made me ready for summer, wanting a trip to the Keys and wanting to kayak more often. I want to go and float around the mangroves near Big Pine Key.
Since it is Earth Day I thought I'd post some relavent links and talk a bit. The first is this article,
Greed in the name of Green, from Wolfie and the Sneak. I have been thinking about this a lot lately with the new
green 'revolution' taking place. It has been bubbling for awhile, just under the surface, but now everyone seems to be 'greening'. I think the biggest things you can do are
to buy reuseable bags (and use them!), carpool, plant a garden, use less invasive chemicals to clean, recycle, reuse, and reduce the consumption of what you just don't need. Instead of buying new look
at Goodwill, Freecycle, Craigslist, BookMooch, Amazon used books, etc, etc.
Another thing I am just not very keen about is this move to ethanol. It has the potential to be incredibly destructive on the environment as we convert our grasslands, wetlands
and forests to produce corn, not for food, but for fuel. I read an article in Time recently talking about the rainforest destruction going on in South America. It's
incredibly sad, especially only a month out from being in Bolivia.
I was reading Em's letter and then Chris got up and went to Best Buy. A few minutes later I heard him leave and I got up to go take something out for dinner to defrost.
Hrm. I couldn't get in. He had locked the sliding door. I went around front. Locked too. Well, I decided I could spend my time trimming back grass from around the pots, weeding
other areas and watering!
This is our ylang-ylang tree. We started it from seed almost four years ago. Actually, for awhile we had no clue what it was because we'd mislabeled the containers, then our
friend JC id'd it for us. It really needs to be in the ground, and is probably rooted through the pot into the ground already.
This is our random brug that showed up in the middle of the yard. We suppose it sent a root out and grew from that because we haven't had any seed pods form. We've just decided
to let it grow.
A bit of poking around revealed a monarch chrysalis that had already hatched a beautiful butterfly.
This is my second rose in the garden, a new addition. I bought it on a whim a few weeks ago while in Lake Placid. We had to stop at a hardware store for work and for
$7, well, it had to come home. This isn't the prettiest bloom; the rest of the blooms were magnificent. I'll have to show you that later.
This little wildflower came from one of those self seeding packets/envelopes. You can purchase notecards and such with seeds built into them now, and this was something
similar. It took awhile, but one of them germinated. There are several more buds forming and I hope I can enjoy it for awhile.
This purple basil is growing, self seeded from last years basil plant. There are a few plants in the container. Looking forward to the aroma!
Under the brugs I planted my gladiolus bulbs. I am a little late in the season for Florida but I hope I can get some blooms this year before it gets too hot.
The edible passionvine is blooming like crazy and taking over the back fence. I hope we will have a lot of fruit this year. Look for seeds on my Etsy shop if we do! I grew
these from a fruit that I bought at the store. They take a bit of time starting off but once they are established they grow crazily.
My onion seedlings are hanging in there. I should mulch this bed. I ripped out the collard greens last night and cooked them up. I started those late this year as well so I didn't
enjoy the vegetable as much as I could have. I think this weekend I will get some peppers and other herbs to plant in the bed for the summer. And mulch it too.
You can get some idea of how the vine is growing on the fence from this photo. I love the light in this one.
All that grass! Ick! It was climbing up the fence and drowing out the poinsettia. This is another area I should just mulch and make into a bed. I just haphazardly threw
in various plants because I didn't have a place to put them, and they do grow fine, but the grass really overtakes that area.
I like this photo because it cracks me up! I harvested what tomatoes were out there and hadn't been eaten by the bugs, rolled up my shirt, went hands free and they stayed!!
I recommend a bit of a buddha belly for this one so that the tomatoes have something to rest on!!
King Leo of Mt. Laundry approves this blog post. *meow*. :) There's some sort of force field between warm laundry and grey and white cats.
So, here are some wildflower photos from the week.
Coreopsis
Too lazy to try to identify. LOL! There are more like that...
Bristly, white, yellowed umbel shaped flower. BWYUSF. :p
Wild Ruella
Bladderwort
Marsh pink, Sabatia spp.
These little bugs were taking over the thistle! Flaveria lineraris
Another coreopsis with fleabane
That's most of the wildlife shots I took. I have some sandhill cranes I will share later and the swallowtail kites kept evading me once I got the camera out, so I don't
have any good photos of them. It is also very hard to get photos when you are on bouncing buggies and full tracks. For the week it was two full tracks stuck in the mud, a
