As Precarious As I Wanna Be

I don't just sit around in my house all day, every day

washing dachshunds

and photographing chickens...

It's a lot more than that.

I have a daredevil moment every time I want to pick a papaya, especially during a thunderstorm.

Sometimes I have to beat my way through fragrant trumpet flowers just to get off my deck.

I unload tons of rocks in flip flops.

Ok, it's pretty boring.

This morning I sat perfectly still and got to see a tiny bird carefully sort through tufts of fur I had just trimmed off Lilly, choosing the perfect pieces for nest construction.  I also observed a little lizard stalk a fly all the way across the deck.  I hate to crap on anyone's aspirations but I knew that wasn't gonna go down.  The fly waited until the lizard was 6" away, winked a thousands eyes, and took off. 

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the lizard, 

it too was being stalked...

The babies are officially tweens and have begun venturing into the yard to forage.

They will eat anything.

Gratuitous cute frog picture.

Awww, hang in there buddy!  Friday's coming!

The old Ranger is gone, and in its place is a sweet new ride, which needed a sweet new system that would enable me to haul junk all over central Florida.  I had been seeing the streamlined TracRacs on trucks and decided that's what I wanted.  I scoured Craigslist for a few weeks but have come to the conclusion that there are now professional Craigslist scourers and the deals are a lot harder to come by.  I called around for pricing and ended up purchasing my TracRac from eBay for a small savings and decided to install it myself, saving another $80.

Armed with a cup of coffee and my beautiful Bosch driver, the initial construction only took about 30 minutes.  Attaching the sucker to the truck took a little longer.

When I was finished, I stood back and thought, 

"That looks like an easy way for someone to steal a few hundred dollars from me."

Bring in the big guns!

I had Mike drill through each foot of the rack and install bolts with locking nuts.

I had Mike do it because I couldn't bear the thought of drilling through my new truck, myself.

The bolts might not be foolproof but they will definitely make it a pain in the butt to get the rack off.

I'm still obsessively checking the tightness of all the bolts.  A little precariousness spices things up but I don't want to see my kayak receding in my rear view mirror as I'm cruising down I-4.

Prepare For Landing

I would prefer to always be on vacation.

But that's not gonna happen so I'm back home from West Virginia and looking with freshly weary eyes at all the things that need to be done on my croft.

Take the above photo.  

I finally got the ladder out of the shed and trimmed back the big cactus that was threatening to shred the shade cloth for the orchids.  Too bad I put the ladder away before dealing with...

The monster papaya tree!

Word to the wise: don't let your papaya tree grow so tall that you can't access the fruit 

until it falls to the ground in a funky mush.  

Last year I allowed two side shoots to start maturing and now it's time to saw the top off of this thing before it get into the power lines.  

I've tried and tried and tried to grow another one from seed and always failed so I was extremely grateful when a friend gave me a healthy young tree.

The day after she gave it to me, I spotted this little guy growing next to the compost bin...

So I will soon have stacks of papayas to consume.  

Two words: SMOOTH! EE!

Speaking of the compost pile,

what on earth is this ethereal creature?!

It's a native Florida lily. Don't know how it got there but it can stay.

  Back to the papaya situation.

The only thing standing between me and a beautiful papaya tree in my front yard was this tenacious shrub:

Once upon a time it was a sweet almond bush and the flying insects loved it but before too long, it became an over-achieving, weedy bastard that had to be cut to the ground TWICE a year merely to keep it in bounds.  Time to die!   It took a couple of visits with different tools to finally extricate it.  

Gone!  Papaya in place!

And if Thomas Jefferson can have figs, why can't I?

Different climate and soil?  Pshaw!

I have one fig tree that was growing in a pot and now it is, hopefully, growing in the ground.

I won't stock up on brie just yet, but I have my fingers crossed.

While working in the front yard

I noticed this possibly concerning development with one of my painful plants:

The "cowboy cactus" that I bought for $5 at the flea market in the spring is happy...

Maybe TOO happy.

I just noticed 3 pups growing around the base.

I'm gonna keep my eye on you!

I thinned some bromeliads, 

only scratching the crap out of my arms from my elbows to my shoulders because now,

I wear welding gloves.

The most gratifying part of the process was that the people who wanted the starts were there to get them within a couple of hours and had them all planted before nightfall.  

OCD's after my own heart.

In some cases, I have to choose my battles.

Take these persimmons, for instance.

A friend brought them to me and I was very excited.  

I like persimmons!  Right?  Don't I?

To be honest, I don't really understand persimmons.  They seemed to go from rock hard with an alum aftertaste to complete goo, overnight.  I was not put off because that's what NurtiBullets are for: turning unwieldy produce into nutritious sustenance that doesn't require teeth.

Still, I had that moment of thinking I needed a dwarf persimmon tree...until I studied how these things are connected to said tree.  Look at the stems. Geez!  They're not coming off without pruning shears!

Pass!

Take me home, country roads: Part 2

I'm a farm girl at heart,

even though I've been city-fied.

Roaming around Anne's property brought back lots of "comfort" memories since I grew up with 2 sets of rural grandparents.  

When I see a building like this, I can't wait to look inside.

Not only did I see exactly what I expected to see:

the ubiquitous detritus of a life more grounded in self-sufficiency (save everything because you might be able to use it in the future), I also smelled exactly what I expected to smell: old wood and engine oil and something indefinable but akin to a hay bale warmed by the sun.

Bliss!

I'd like to take this moment to point out that the lensing effect in the above photo of a hand-hewn door latch was not created with an app but was a naturally occurring event that I captured with my phone.

Country magic!

Truly, I could've have hung out at Anne's house for my entire visit but since we were in God's country my friends managed to force me off the property for a brief visit to town and then some hiking.

Speak of the...!

I wanted the local flea market to be more engaging but there were no piles of moth-eaten, hand-stitched quilts or stacks of rusted scythes and pitchforks.  The best item, by far, was this tableau of Jesus turning water into wine. I might've shelled out the $10 if only the stream of miracle liquid was fiber optically enhanced. 

What I wasn't going to shell out $10 for was a jar of local maple syrup.

I appreciate the time involved in this handcrafted treat but them's city prices!

The weather was MUCH warmer than we expected

but it didn't stop up from hiking.

There were many beautiful things to see on our hikes.

I could have sat and studied the sheen and texture of this tree for an hour.

I was intrigued by the stone chairs in this camp site.  Might be fairly comfortable with the addition 

of a sleeping bag for cushioning.  Could always retreat to the hammock if comfort was not forthcoming.

Great rock formations!

This photo won't be filed under "death defying selfie," mostly because I didn't take it, but I make no secret of the fact that I am scared of heights so I only stood up long enough for Pat to take the shot.

...nervous...

Items of interest that I found in the woods:

Items of interest that, luckily, I did NOT find in the woods:

And then it was time to head home...

...after a quickie visit to Thomas Jefferson's Monticello.

Diana and I pondered, "Not a single bathtub?  Not even an old timey copper tub to splash around in?

Nope.

The gardens of Monticello have been maintained in the spirit of Thomas Jefferson who spent decades collecting seeds and plants and experimenting with their growth in the Virginia climate and in the midst of all the beans, melons, squash, and tomatoes, there was a trellis of this plant:

The same weed my neighbor lady was eating off my fence!

Still don't know what it is.

I wanted to buy seeds for a perfect little cantaloupe I saw in the garden marked "nutmeg melon" but the gift shop was out of stock.  Surely a cantaloupe the size of a softball could beat out the cavalcade of voracious Florida pests that rule my backyard; I'd be eating it before they even knew it was there.

Sounds like a good excuse for a return visit.

I'm going to close this post with a non sequitur blurb from the magazine "Women of China."

Anne had a few issues at her house and they were a glimpse into a very different culture.

Sounds like common sense: take pictures, look at them through the years, 

think about when the photo was taken.

Now we have a complex Chinese name for that process. Yay! 

Take me home, country roads: Part 1

I know, I know!

It's too easy a title for a post about a trip to West Virginia.

But I'm sticking with it.

     I am starting this post with a mini-rant.  Stop complaining about air travel!

Yes, you have to take your shoes off.  Don't wear knee-high lace up boots!

Yes, you may be patted down by a stranger.  I was patted down WAAAY more thoroughly in a Muslim country than ever in the USA.  The fact that it was a fully veiled woman who did it didn't make it any better or worse.

Yes, the planes are cramped and miserable.  You are not in 

an episode of "Mad Men"! It's 2014.

Wear comfortable clothes, footies with sport slides, and be grateful you are able to travel at all.

Ahhh....I feel better. And things are looking up:

Apparently, TSA agents are undergoing "friendliness" training and on the day I passed this über simple grading stand, I'm pleased to say I was able to tap the green smiley face.

My smiley face turned to a frowny face

when I had to travel on a puddle jumper to get from Florida to West Virginia.

My problem with air travel is I'm afraid of it.

I wasn't going to pay $20 to sit on the aisle by the exit door so as punishment for my thrift, I was smashed up against a window with nothing to look at (or listen to) but the propeller and when I look at a propeller, I am helpless to do anything but mentally chant, 

"KEEP TURNING...KEEP TURNING..."

Thank goodness my friends had the common sense

to get me to a winery within minutes of landing.

The grapes were beautiful and we couldn't resist a giddy impulse to eat them right off the vine.

Our experience was only lightly tinged with regret when we were told they were laden with pesticides.

Oh well...the wine tasting was still yummy and fun.

Chemical load, be damned!

We then headed to my friend, Anne's, home in rural West Virginia.  Here was my view every day:

Really, really nice.

Some official institutes just released survey info concluding that Florida is the flattest state 

in the US  and West Virginia is the least flat.  

Diana, who joined us from Missouri, pointed out that Missouri still has the most meth labs. 

 She's SO competitive!

There was an abundance of fabulous fruits and vegetables.

Aren't these gorgeous?

If only someone could tell me what they are.

I know the stripey red things are some kind of amazing tomato but I thought the yellow things 

were bell peppers until I studied the photo later and saw they had tomato-like stems.

Whatever they are, I'm sure they're delicious.

When you see this picture...

...you probably think, "What nice firewood."

Wrong!

These are mushroom logs, inoculated with the spores of edible mushrooms.  I have never seen such a thing and I wish I could have mushroom logs in Florida 

but I'd probably only grow a crop of palmetto bugs.

Payday!

We ate this 'shroom for dinner.

Here's a mushroom we found in the woods:

Like some kind of Chihuly piece.

We did NOT eat this one.

And here is a tiny little begonia from Anne's garden.

Just looking at it makes me want to scream, "Totes adorbs!!!" 

I Give In...

     I kinda thought by mid-September we'd get a little break in the heat.

I was wrong!

     I've been a trooper this summer, getting caught up on loads of backbreaking yard work.  Hydration is key but there comes a point where I feel like I should just pour the water over my head since it will instantly come out as sweat anyway.  As you can see in the above photo, I've decided to "pave" the middle section of my backyard.  The mulch was nice until I introduced chickens and after that, I realized I needed a different approach.

     I know that many a farmer and gardener has cursed a preponderance of rocks on their land but in Florida, all rocks must be begged, bought, or burgled ("filched" might be a better word but I wanted to stick to the "b" theme).  My burgled rocks have come from areas where old pavement and sidewalks is being torn up.  Hopefully no one missed a few chunks of broken concrete.

     I steadied my nerves and cut back my "Miss Joachim" orchid from Singapore.  All the new starts have been claimed but since Miss Joachim gets bigger every year,  I'm expecting 6 new babies next summer.

A quick product review: Windex Wipes

Does this look streak-free to you?!  'Nuff said.

But allow me to balance the bad with the good:

     I bought this treadmill in Missouri from Montgomery Wards sometime in the late '90's, early '00's and here it is in Florida, a testament to the fight against built in obsolescence.  I expect a call from the Smithsonian any day now.  I would also like to proudly point out my equally old Sony headphones.  The foam ear pads melted off in my sweat a decade ago and I had the rather clever idea of using newborn baby socks as a replacement.  It's clever, dammit!  Stop calling me cheap!

Since I'm being haunted by the weird "Serenity Now" logo, 

I figured I should stick close to home...

The chicks are growing up.

     I admit, this is a TBT-style baby picture taken about 3 weeks ago.  They look like teenagers now but unlike human teenagers, I can't get them to leave the (hen)house.  I've been propping the door to the run open so the older hens can get back to foraging and the babies haven't yet figured out that they are allowed to roam too.  I suppose it's for the best.  Kind of like a those teens that drag their feet when it's time to get a driver's license:  they'll do it when they're ready.

Orchids love misery.

A couple of my happy flowers.

I'm still accomplishing a lot at my work desk.

The heat of the sun forces me inside by about 8 AM so I use that time to create for my SolOpsArt Etsy store and watch Netflix episodes of "House, MD" on my laptop.

     After puzzling over it for months like a string theory problem, I finally came up with a beautiful way to display Peace River fossilized deer antler on a necklace.  This necklace has unakite beads which is a mineral first discovered in North Carolina not that long ago.  Deposits have since been found around the world but I'll always lovingly think of it as home grown.