Part Time Snowbird

I know my title is redundant

but it's mid July in Florida

and for the first time I'm having vague thoughts along the lines of,

"I need a friggin' break!"

The life of a true snowbird requires finances that I do not have but I think I could save enough to swing 2 weeks up north every summer which I believe would do wonders for my attitude.

I'm officially hiding indoors and spending my free time napping, which isn't as great as it sounds because I like to be productive.

Allow me to begin with a cute dog photo:

I call this one "Synchronized Nap."

Schotzie has taken to napping on the bottom shelf of my wine rack which is also adorable

as long as I don't obsess about it being a harbinger of her advanced age and inability to make basic dog decisions (sleep on the cushy dog bed or the hard wooden shelf?).

Sucks to get old and with that, I bid farewell to one of my oldest Florida friends,

the Shimano Baitrunner 6500B.

We had a lot of good times together and I was very tough on this reel, but after 10 years of repairs at Kel's, I could've bought 3 more Shimanos and now they can't even get parts for this workhorse.

I took it to the beach last weekend, got hit with a wave which submerged it, and minutes after bringing in a beautiful bluefish, the Shimano reeled its last and seized up.

I already have its replacement because I want to get back

 to spending some time on the coast.

I took part in a nighttime bioluminescence tour of Haulover Canal and if you haven't done it, I highly recommend it.  Everything in the water glows!  I pulled this photo off the internet:

It's a fairly accurate depiction of what the bioluminescence looks like.  My friend and I even jumped out of our kayaks to swim around so that the others could see what it looked like (awesome!).  Everyone said we were brave but I used to kayak fish there all the time so I knew exactly what to expect when I got in the water.  I need to get back to that coastal living!

Anyway, back to central Florida...

I have long said (since the first time I encountered it) that I can't wait for the trend of salted chocolate and caramel to GO AWAY.  I understand that sweet benefits from a hint of salty but, as usual, the trend takes it over the top.

Yet I couldn't resist trying a maple bacon donut.

As horrifyingly bad as this looks, it's unbelievably delicious.

I am writing this Sunday night.  Guess where I'm going to be Monday morning?

Back at the donut shop!

This is a touchy trend, though, and I saw this bastard offspring languishing

 at a grocery clearance center:

As you can tell by the price, a maple bacon sugar cookie kit for home use didn't catch on.

Om...yin and yang...everything in balance...

time to eat something healthy.

After days of wondering if my pineapple was ripe enough to pick,

it picked itself!

I found it this morning, lying next to the mother plant, still in its anti-raccoon cage, waiting to be collected.  There is nothing like a home grown pineapple.  I can't grow fabulous apples, plums, or pears down here, but I got pineapples.

I thought I might have cantaloupes, too.

Not yet.

The heirloom seeds I planted produced a total of 4 fruits.

Two fruits disappeared.

The third fruit was hollowed out by a rat (there's a lot of rats in Florida).

But the fourth fruit!   Ah, the fourth fruit...

Perfect in every way!

Except that it was completely flavorless. (insert frownie face here)

I think...I'm giving up...on cantaloupe.

But I'm not giving up on the human spirit.

One of my clients told me of seeing a man and dog outside of a Publix with a sign that read,

"Seeking human kindness."

Apparently they received many donations, so I got on line and put together a t-shirt 

for Lilly to wear whenever I take her out in public:

There will be guavas

Such patience.

Years ago, I bought a small guava tree from my favorite plant man at the Mt. Dora flea market.

I kept it in a pot, as an ornamental, for a number of years and then, one day, I noticed a guava.

Excitement!

I moved it from the pot to the ground and waited.

And waited.

And waited!!!

Lots of blooms every spring but no guavas so I returned to my plant man and explained the situation.

He originally hails from Vietnam and in his soft accent asked, 

"Are you nice to your tree?"

That gave me pause, and I truthfully answered, "Not really."

He said, "You go to bed, no food, nothing to drink.  How you feel in the morning?  Bad!  That how your guava feel."  

Chastened, I purchased a companion guava tree, promised to do better, and returned home.

I now have some of the most spoiled guava trees in the county.

Still waiting...

I won't be waiting long for my cantaloupes, though.

This is an heirloom variety and this is as big as it will get.  

Always trying to outpace the insects and nematodes.

In the meantime, the rest of the garden is toast so I've opened the gate 

and the chickens have free reign. 

Hopefully this little guy has moved on to a more secure hiding place.

One leaf does not a sanctuary make.

I had to include this photo

of a rock that looks like a potato.  Very very potato-like.

A recent serving of fresh lychees from down south.

I wonder if I would have to have a greenhouse in Florida to grow these in the central part of the state.

So delicious!

With great sadness

I announce the loss of my 7 year old tabebuia in a recent storm.

I hardly got to know ya!

(No trucks were harmed in the taking of this photograph)

Now my front room is extremely bright and hot.  I've already planted a new tree but it looks like a twig in comparison.

The orchids bring me solace.

This latest from the hardware store has a wonderful scent.

Subtle bromeliad beauty abounds.

I'm gearing up for a couple of lazy, heat-blasted summer months.

Here's a recent photo from the napping dog pile of kids and dachshunds.

Stay cool!

I'm more than just a collection of vegetables.

I know I've posted a lot of vegetable pictures

but the garden was ON,

and while it's not quite OFF yet, it's slowing down so I've put all the sentimental photographs of comestibles at the end of the blog.  Easier to skip that way.

Hmmm...what else is there to...

Camping

I've been doin' it and enjoyin' it.

Camper's tip: hard alcohol=soft ground,
but it doesn't keep me warm like it does for characters

 in old-timey novels.

I recently acquired a new kayak trolley 

and was surprised to read this message on the little rubber tires:

I can't even wrap my head around that one.

Assuming I don't have the hands of a giant, you can get a sense of the size of this tire, and I can't imagine how it could ever wind up being used on a highway.

I don't have the hands of a giant

but the urge to screw with the sense of scale

has finally overcome my reluctance to dig through boxes and find a foreign coin.

From now on, I'm going to use this New Zealand 10¢ coin to give a sense of scale.

Who knows how big that trilobite is?! (except for my Kiwi readers)

Surprise!

The NZ coin is about the same size as a quarter.

Wasn't that fun?

Other things "Not for highway use"

Floorboards made of boulders.

I was on a rock collecting trip and for the last leg of our journey, it couldn't be avoided, 

but the voice of my former-claims-adjuster father was whispering in my ear, 

"All it took was a suitcase to kill Tom Mix, you crazy bitch."

I felt great relief when we finally shipped all of our rocks from Kemmerer, Wyoming to our respective homes.  

That is, until my boxes were delivered.

The postman actually said,

"They're a little banged up."

I've filed all my claims (6 boxes were "a little banged up") and I'm only requesting the return of my postage (stop laughing!!!) so we'll see what happens.

When I recently had my deck rebuilt

I had to clean everything off of it

and now I'm reluctant to put any of the gewgaws back,

but I need my grill!

Especially with all the vegetables coming out of my garden.

Yet another use for a piece of my hoarded granite:

BBQ platform.

Not sure if it's necessary but I like the clean, tidy feel.

And now, if you're sick of vegetable photos...

look away.

Ohhhh!

Ahhhh!

Pretty!

Beans.

So busy it's hard to fit a 2 hour nap into the day

Now that the garden is somewhat caring for itself,

I have been wandering outside the confines of my croft.

While engaging in a little light shopping (read: too poor to purchase),

I saw an item that can only be described as a dream come true:

It really was my dream

and if I'd kept better records, I could sue!

Of course my version included 4 fluffy sand wheels so that I could roll myself along the beach in search of shells without straining my neck and back.

Still, I wonder if it's possible to eat in this position...?

I somehow missed, throughout my life,

all the trends to dress in ethnic clothes

that had nothing to do with my ethnicity or coloring,

with the exception of a single pair of Pakistani, MC Hammer-style, drop-crotch pants I wore out of the house ONE TIME in the late 80's.

It's never too late!

I went to an Indian clothing store to pick out a colorful top and chose this beauty.

While I was browsing, the saleslady hovered, and finally insisted, "If you will tell me what event you've been invited to, I could help you."  I thought that was cute!  After I assured her I was just buying something for no apparent reason, she visibly relaxed.  

This top comes with little sleeves that I chose not to have attached, a long flowing scarf, a pair of pants that I have no idea how to use (no visible waistband), and for a mere $5 more, they are enlarging the armholes so that I won't lose feeling in my hands.  

Love!

Meanwhile...

I will make do with the clothes I have.  They are just loose enough that I can sneak candy into the theatre the old fashioned way:

By pretending to be pregnant.

Nobody would dare to question because I think the current world record for a pregnancy is 66.

They might have frowned upon my G&T's before the movie but that would have made for some shenanigans had I been challenged at the bar.

Out and about, I spied this little guy:

This is a protected gopher tortoise

and since I'm certain it is illegal to touch it, I would like to assure all my reader 

(the lack of an 's' is on purpose, wink wink) that

THAT IS NOT MY HAND!

Back at home...

Some of you may be aware that a couple of weeks ago I came face to face with a black bear in my yard.  The most asked question was, "How big was it?"

Hello!!!  It was a BEAR!!!

My stubborn dachshunds like to wander around my yard in the pitch dark, harassing whatever wild animal they come into contact with and up until the BEAR, that consisted of possums, raccoons, armadillos, and angry cats.  

The nocturnal wandering stops NOW.

Witness the hastily constructed dachshund corral.

Nighttime use only.

I love it when people bring me rotten food.

Well, my chickens love it.

And before you ask, "Can they eat (name something gross)?",

the answer is a resounding, "Yes!"

More praise for volunteer vegetables.

These are volunteer, full-size tomatoes, which I never grow because I can't beat the hordes of insects that want to destroy them before they ripen.  I didn't plant these and I can only assume they grew from the seeds of a hybridized-until-they-are-no-longer-tomatoes grocery store tomato.  And it produced fruit!  Not only that, the plants are healthy, the fruits unmarred, and there appear to be lots of them on the way.  Gonna be saving some seeds from this.

In the beginning,

having never grown eggplants before, 

I worried that the pests would decimate the plants.

Apparently nothing deems eggplants edible because they are absolutely untouched.

While I'm getting used to eating eggplants, it does make me wonder that nothing else will eat them...

Rangoon creeper taking over huge cactus.

Very pretty but I see some taming in the near future.

Miss Joachim won't be tamed.

I planted a start from my Singapore orchid in an unprotected area to see how much abuse it could take.  Granted, we didn't have a hard freeze this winter, but it survived a couple of days of freezing temps and is now blooming, in FULL FLORIDA SUN, outside of the orchid shade cloth.  

Crazy!

And back to West Virginia

Spring is supposed to be the best time

to take country walks and dig for wild ramps in West Virginia.

The country scenery is certainly beautiful

but I forgot about the difficulty of walking through real mud

 as opposed to the sand we have in Florida.

In a word, yuck.

The weather dried out after the first day

and we were able to dig our ramps.

I was reading through the descriptions of ramps on this site:

http://www.wildedible.com/wild-food-guide/ramps

and saw that lily of the valley leaves look the same but are

DEADLY.

This is why I never forage alone:  I don't know what the hell I'm doing.

It was also morel mushroom season in West Virginia

 but we didn't find any and none of the locals offered to part with theirs.

Fair enough.

My West Virginia friend, Anne, packaged up some ramps

 for me to take back home

and I added a few to a batch of homemade refrigerator pickles.

Taste test scheduled in one week!

The garden is on the verge of going crazy

and I couldn't be happier about it!

The carrots are adorable but I really dislike the taste of carrots so not sure about their future in my garden.  Beets...meh...I'm trying but I do love their greens.

I was wondering how to go about drying rattlesnake beans in the wet Florida weather but the decision was made while I was out of town. 

 One section of the beans wasn't harvested and grew too big to eat as a green bean so I'm going to let those dry and hopefully they'll be ready to bring in before the worst of the rainy season.

Fingers crossed for squash!

This volunteer acorn squash had me all excited

 until I noticed that the dang caterpillars already ate through it.

I'm being very disciplined with applications of homemade oil spray but my research indicated that it won't kill insects outright; it will disrupt the cycle of the next generation.

I've had luck with butternut squash down here

but I haven't spotted any volunteer calabazas or cucuzzi so I might have to buy seeds and be more diligent about saving seeds next season.

I have so many cherry tomatoes on the vines

it would take a veritable tomato apocalypse to lose them all.

Planning for lots of yummy tomato action in the coming weeks!

I think it's time to raccoon-proof the pineapples

so I'll be wrapping them in attractive chicken wire cages some time this week.

Although it's not edible, 

I think my dream of a BIG cardboard palm is going to come true

 because this thing is throwing out tons of new growth.

And I'll finish with an adorable dog photo of Lilly.

I was given a selfie stick for my birthday but technology never works for me and no matter how hard I try, I can't get it to sync with the Bluetooth on my phone, therefore, I have to take my selfies the "old fashioned" way and hope for the best.  It helps to have a great canine model.