GOOD NEWS! THERE IS NO TICK SEASON IN FLORIDA ...

Yup, you read that correctly ... NO TICK SEASON IN FLORIDA!
That's because they are present and hungry year 'round in my experience.
A "tick season" implies there is some beginning and end to their activity, and thus, some period of time where they are not an issue when walking in the woods.

Hah!

This one was enjoying a bite just behind my knee. She needs the protein so she can make more.

This was the result of an brief dog walk in my woods where I skipped any insect repellent. These little arachnids aren't usually a problem if I stay to the path and don't dally too long amongst the brush. On this day, "usually" lived up to it's unreliable reputation.

I know there is a whole litany of techniques to remove embedded ticks ranging from the application of flame to all manner of chemical coatings, but I find a steady "grip and pull" works just fine.

This girl came out and took a ride down the toilet.

I try and avoid tick bites for the obvious Lyme Disease connection, but my more immediate concern is the itchy skin reaction to their bite. My skin doesn't react much to bites and stings, but ticks leave an itchy bump that lasts for a week or so.

Behind your knee is not too big a deal if you get the itch while in public, but ticks have a reputation for seeking out less acceptable public scratching areas, so I always keep some insect repellent in my JEEP for these woodsy adventures I share with you.

I usually spray socks and sneakers, jeans too if it's winter, but I keep the stuff off my skin as much as possible.

This seems to work well, since despite the photo above, I rarely get ticketed.

Life Along The Bone Road

Last weekend, on the day I found the pygmy rattler, I also found some other critters. The day had been hot and summery, but a shower had cooled things off late in the afternoon, so I jumped in the JEEP and took off.

Almost as soon as I turned off the asphalt, a family of feral hogs crossed the trail in front of me.

I wasn't ready ... the camera was still in the bag and off.

I stopped and fumbled with the clasp and snatched the camera up and on just in time to get ...


... a feral family pig-ture.

Rising from the ashes ...

I found these fawns grazing on the now green and grassy 'bone road" I wrote about back in March. The irony of the fresh fawns feeding on tender grass nourished by the many, many deer and hog bones of the bone road did not escape me.

This beauty of a ratsnake showed up later in the ride. This is not the giant ratsnake of a few posts ago, but this was on the same day, so it was quite a greytratsnake day!

Isn't that the rippliest snake you've ever seen?

What's up with that?

Up close and personal.

I held still as the snake reversed course and slid my way.

Why the cell phone?

I had just sent a cell phone photo of it to a friend of mine and as the snake approached I set the phone down to see what the snake would do.

It wasn't really interested in the phone, but it did spend a moment sniffing my hand before sliding around me and into the woods.

I imagine this snake pondered whether I was a fellow ratsnake since it had only been an hour or so since I handled the GIANT ratsnake ... and I don't think I had washed my hands in the meantime ... so I probably smelled pretty good ... in a snakey sorta way.

Bear Splash

Last weekend, we took Bear out for a splash in the Gulf of Florida.


He's good at splashing.

An intersplash moment.

Later, in the day, Bear got a bath.

The bath technicians prepared for this by wetting themselves thoroughly to get in touch with their inner Labrador.

After a brief chase and subsequent capture, the Bear bath was successfully completed.

At least the dog came out of it cleaner than he went into it.

Pygmy Rattlesnakes

See it?


Here's a great example of disruptive coloration in action. With disruptive coloration, you are not trying to match some background perfectly ... like a green katydid on a green leaf ...
Rather, you are using spots, stripes, or a combination of the two to break up your outline so you vanish into whatever background is present.


Some backgrounds are better than others for vanishing.

This pygmy rattlesnake was crossing a gravelly lime rock road in the woods on a wildly productive critter ride last Sunday... more pics to come this week from that ride.

I took a few pics and then encouraged it to slide on off the road into the safety of the bush. This is our smallest rattlesnake here in Florida, but you still need to give it plenty of space as it packs a powerful hemotoxic venom like it's bigger cousins, the diamondback and canebrake rattlers.

...So watch where you step.

Return Of The Prodigal (and GIANT) Ratsnake

First, my apologies for the casual dress ... it was a hot day.

Yesterday, I was working on (swearing at ...) the stuck rear window zipper of my JEEP soft top, when Junior asked for a whetstone. He wanted to put an edge on his sword (don't ask, just pay attention).

I told him where the whetstone was and he trotted off to the barn. At that point, I really needed a mental holiday from the zipper issue, so I followed his path, thinking that the whetstone probably wasn't actually where I had said it was as the barn was a mess.

As I walked along the same path Junior had trod a few moments before, I came across a wonderful sight!

The giant ratsnake that had escaped the back pack on Friday night was stretched out in the yard directly in front of me!

Sweet Sara N. Dippity strikes again!
What are the odds we would cross paths at just the right moment?

• What if I had continued wrestling the JEEP zipper?
• What if I had gone inside for a well deserved glass of unsweet ice tea at that moment?
• What if I had trusted Junior to find the whetstone on his own? (he did, by the way)
• What if I had walked with him? Apparently it wasn't there a few moments before as we walked the same path.

Weird, but you have to love Sara.

I called to Junior to go around and get the camera from the JEEP and bring it to me. He did that licketysplit and then I had the inspiration to have HIM be the photographer while I captured the snake.

He did a great job doncha think?
Sure, I'm sideways at the end, but he was going for a vertical shot and didn't think about that fact that video doesn't work that way.

So, as it turns out, you DO get to see the giant ratsnake after all, thanks to Miss Sara N. Dippity and a junior videographer.



Last night I released her in my barn where she is free to stay and eat field mice, or leave for the wider world.

Flounder Goes To The Vet

On a rainy Wednesday afternoon last week, Flounder and I went to the Vet. Flounder is 94 years old ... about 13.5 in human years.
It was time for his annual check up, so I raced home from work, gave him a bath, and loaded him up for the ride into town.

He was a little worried, but I told him it would be okay. I asked him if there was anything new we should mention to the doctor, besides the dry eyes, new growths here and there, and the persistent yeast problem in his ears and skin.
Flounder sighed.


We were both a little bummed when the scale at the vet showed a 10 pound loss in weight compared to a year ago. I was worried that a new set of growths on his gums might be sensitive and be interfering with his eating. They were small, but it seemed plausible.
His sister Feather has a long history of interfering with his feeding after she wolfs down her own chow, but we had separated them at meal time, so I didn't think she was an issue this time.


We talked about it some while we were waiting for the vet to come see us in the little exam room.
He seemed worried.

I rubbed his big sweet head and told him not to worry. The vet would know what to do.

When the vet arrived, he gave Flounder a thorough exam. When he checked out the little growths on Flounder's lower, front gums, he found a bad tooth that was definitely sensitive as Flounder flinched when he touched it.

"It's not in there very good, I can jerk that right out and relieve his discomfort." said the vet.

"Okay, Doc, but I'm leaving the room if you are doing anything dental." I said. (Can I get an "Amen" fellow dentaphobes?)

As it turned out, Flounder took a short walk to a back room and came back missing the bad tooth, seemingly no worse for wear.

We left the vet with drops for his dry eye condition, heartworm tablets to keep him parasite free, and a powerful antifungal to battle his rampant skin/ear yeast infection. It's one of those drugs we have avoided using, as long term use can cause liver damage, but at this point in Flounder's travels, I think he should be as comfortable as possible.

Long term use of any medicine is probably not a concern of his now. That was hard to admit at the vet's and hard to write now.

Driving home, he let me know he was okay with my decision and that he still loved me.


Since the visit and tooth removal, he has been eating like a horse and we have been pulling him in to the kitchen for special high calorie spoiling sessions.

Feather is not amused, but being female, she has the opposite weight problem, and she is on stricter rations.

She goes to the vet next month. I'll keep you posted.

Other news:

I thought today's post would be about a ginormous grey ratsnake ... even bigger than the pump house snake I'm always posting here at PF!

When you are the science teacher and have a ... um, reputation ... label? ... like I do, kids will bring you all kinds of stuff.

Yesterday, after school, a bunch of boys brought me the biggest grey ratsnake I have ever seen. She might go a full 6 feet. We slipped her into an old book bag that someone had left in the classroom for months, and I took her home.

When I got home, I carried my camera, my laptop, and my snake book bag into the house and dumped it all on the kitchen table as is my habit. It was late, grey and overcast, so I decided to wait until the next day (today) to photograph her before releasing her in my woods.

The book bag con serpent sat on the table all through the evening. Around bedtime, I decided it might get dragged off by Bear, so I took it out and set it on a patio table on the front porch.

This morning, when I went to get her for photos, the bag was very light and she was gone. A slight gap on the zippered closure was all she had needed.

Not to worry, I'm sure she will turn up again and I will share her with y'all.

I'm wishing I had left the bag on the kitchen table now, ... at least then I'd know she was in the house somewhere and findable.

If You Build It ...

I've posted a few times about small, almost fishless ponds that I am installing here and there as a water source for drinkers like birds and deer, a reproductive site for amphibians and insects, and a habitat for wetland plants that I propagate.
They are almost fishless, because I always place a few mosquito fish in them to keep the mosquitoes from successfully raising their young in these ponds. It's important to keep larger fish out of these waterholes so that the amphibians can breed successfully in them.

This is the little pond site that Bear helped me dig last year. If you look in the right pond you can see the toad pair spawning a new generation.
I knew there would be eggs this morning as we have had a wonderful rainy week and the toad trilling was thunderous last night.



Future toads on the way to fascinate Bear during our walks.

He has already learned that picking a toad up in your mouth is not a great idea.

These tiny water holes are being utilized just as I had hoped. I've placed islands and branch "escape ladders" in them so that any critter that falls in has a chance to get out or at least rest until I come by and release them.

I try to keep them full to the brim most of the time, but the ponds farther out in the hinterlands sometimes get lower than I want. At that point, they become a death trap unless outfitted with escape structures.

I still carry a drowned six-lined race runner lizard around my neck like an albatross.

... not really, but it bugs me that I filled the ponds and didn't immediately install the safety features.

Learn from my mistakes.

I do.

Down From The Trees... Fruits Of My Labor

Here's why the two trees had to go.

The earliest of my blueberry varieties are ripening finally after teasing me with green for weeks. They are delicious as the cardinals and squirrels can attest. I have rehung the big rubber snakes among the branches to deter the blueberry thieves.

Doesn't seem to deter Emma, but I would share them with her anyway. Yesterday, she told me she picked some blueberries, but they "didn't make it back to the house."

I understand that completely, I can't count the number of rain-washed blueberries I've eaten while picking.

Speaking of rain, this low pressure system has dropped copious amounts of the wonderful stuff over north Florida this week and we sure appreciate it. Mom and Dad have already measured over 7 inches and that was yesterday's news.

Hurricane season begins in about 10 days! Yes!

Fill my pond, storms, fill my pond.

Time to redo the emergency food box. I recently cleaned it out by giving last year's supplies to my baby Katie who is working, colleging, and supporting herself ... mostly.

So, now I need to sit down, think about what we need, and hit the store.

... And last year's plastic barrel of potable water needs emptying and refilling with fresh water and just a few drops of bleach.

School is winding down.

Summer is winding up.

The Tree Was Angry That Day, My Friends

(Forget wordless Wednesday ... the video was too dull)


It turned out there were creatures living in the tree I felled last weekend. As the tree hit the ground, they began to descend from the canopy.

I held my chainsaw at the ready... just in case.


Disturbed by the disruption in their habitat, they at first turned upon each other.

Then, an uneasy truce prevailed and a new, sleeker, possibly more intelligent tree beast appeared. It was at that point that they seemed to notice me.

The dark one seemed to be their leader.

We stared into each other's eyes ... each daring the other to flinch.

After a brief staredown, the lead tree beast turned and returned to the canopy of the newly fallen tree. The others soon followed.

I holstered my chainsaw and breathed a sign of relief.

Tree Surgery Post 2: Like Father, Like Daughter ... or The Nut Doesn't Fall Far From The Tree

This is the tree that I took pity on 20 years ago when it was a wee tiny thing. It wasn't a problem back then and I let it live, only cutting the occasional overhanging branches off to protect my blueberries.
Somewhere along the way, it did a growth spurt and became too tall to prune easily. That allowed it to grow even higher and shade my blueberries and now grapes entirely too much. It had gotten so large that pruning involved me up high in the tree (dangerous) and any pruned limbs would fall onto my delicate blueberry bushes... so I decided to take it out.


It's a laurel oak, known for fragility and short (in tree years) lives. My job was to drop it not on the old truck, barn, or BBQ platform. That's the old grill in the left bottom corner, it sits upon a little wooden platform that I did not want to crunch ... or have to move.
It's not THAT little after all.


I like to add a little direction when I fell a tree in tight quarters, and since I had two trees to fell this day, I took the easy one down first. That allowed me to use it as an anchor to apply tension on the tree in the direction I wanted it to go.
To do that, I hooked a Come-A-Long jack to the fallen, bucked log and then ...

... tossed a rope around the tree to take down. Hooking the rope to the Come-A-Long jack allowed me to apply a directive force to the tree to guide it down. The target area was tight and I didn't think I should rely on my notching ability alone.
This was done after the notch was cut. You can see it high up on the tree ... about chest high ... (not for you Cindy... more like head high.)
I usually cut my trees high like that so a nice tall stump remains for the woodpeckers to attack in the years to come.


It worked like a charm as you can see in this arboraerial photo.
The old grill is just visible through the leaves and the platform and all it held came through unscathed.

Emma found the ladder and was up it like a flash. She's so daring ... must get that from her mother.

She certainly didn't get it from me.

Sometimes hugging a tree can save your life.

Y'all be safe out there, ya' hear?

Tomorrow: A video view from above for wordless Wednesday.

Arboraerial Photography:Tree Surgery Post 1

The view above shows the old retired BBQ grill, my beloved retired 1982 GMC truck, the green marine shed, a portion of the barn shed, and my pistol range center/top of pic. The round tank behind the marine shed is my aquaculture tank.

Saturday, I went like a machine, all day long in the heat, with a chainsaw, machete, and very long ladder. My goals were:

1. Trim some large oak limbs that were shading my garden
2. Cut down two large laurel oaks that were just too close to the garden and could not just be trimmed. I had let them go as long as possible, but they were shading my blueberry patch too much.
3. Work myself to physical exhaustion and burn off a few calories from the bowl of ice cream I had for breakfast.
4. Produce a vast amount of firewood that I will never be able to use ... want some?
   

Above is a view of the garden, mostly a fallow area.


Here's a view from the top of the ladder. The big limb in the foreground was surgically removed shortly after this shot.
Ever start a chainsaw between your legs while standing atop a very tall ladder?
You should probably practice on a short ladder first.

Trust me, it can be done, and that limb is no longer shading my blueberry patch.



The view down. I love this ladder. The rungs are nice and wide so your feet are secure and comfortable. It's not even fully extended in these photos. Moving it around the yard is a challenge ... it's a little heavy.

Looking up.

In that picture, you can see the limb from a few pics ago, now down and lying across another limb.

Now, it might seem that I am being flippant about being high in trees (that's high, as in vertical distance from the ground, hippies). I am a little, no way to get around the fact that starting a chainsaw on a ladder is not recommended, but we all make our own risk assessments, and then act accordingly.

If you study the picture above, you will see a red ratchet strap high on the ladder. It is holding the ladder tight to the tree. Not visible is a second yellow ratchet strap down low, holding the base of the ladder to the tree.

The ladder is strapped to the tree so tightly, it can't move at all.

Still, Terry, Annette, and Aunt Shelba ... this is not one of those posts to print and take to Mom.

More to come tomorrow, on the art of tree destruction by a confessed tree hugger.

A Year Of Bear

We did it. We survived our first year with Bear.
It's been one year today since we brought Bear home.
It's been a year of craziness, laughter, love ... and yes, some tough, tough, heartbreak since our Bear was part of a pair.

There were two pups who came home a year ago, and long time readers know we lost dear Gumbo, the big hearted runt of the litter. You grieved with us that day, ... never have I gotten so many comments, so many kind messages.
The screen is blurry, so let's remember sweet Gumbo, but not dwell on the pain.
Life goes on.
Bear goes on.

Bear is so full of life that it seems he may burst some days. I took him to the vet this week for his annual checkup and he was a total nutbrain charmer. I think the vet may have had a rough day as she thanked Bear several times for giving her something to smile about that day.

Her pronouncement of his health status? Fit as a fiddle, no heartworms or other nefarious beasties, beautiful coat,strong heart, powerful muscles, and a rippling 96 pounds.


May 17, 2008: First contact



Today we will celebrate a year of laughter, missing socks and underwear, chicken chasing, constant doggy kisses, hugs, play, scratched newly refinished floors, and sweet brown eyes you could just fall in to.

I think I'll grill something with bones in it this afternoon. Big meaty, crunchy real bones.

Thank y'all for sharing the journey with us.

Grey Ratsnake Strikes Again! ... Well, ...Not Really

I was planning on a later post involving some arboraerial photography and tree surgery, but as Sara N. Dippity would have it ... I found something.


(Snake photos by Junior)

Look at that bulge.
Is she pregnant or did she just eat?
I've posted pics of this grey ratsnake in the past showing her eating my chicken eggs and also pics of her with countable egg lumps after she enjoyed an egg meal.
None of my birds are laying now, so there's no source of large eggs to eat. Laya's boat nest failed long ago (the eggs rolled under a paddle in the boat and she couldn't get to them).

I'm hoping it might be a squirrel in there as the little tree rats are high on the suspect list of missing blueberries in my blueberry patch. They are just beginning to turn blue this week, the berries, not the squirrels, but if I can help some of THEM turn blue I will.
Treerats!!



I imagine it's a meal, just as I imagine (in an educated sorta way) that due to her size she is a she.
If they are her own eggs, then I really have a reason to smile, because you just can't have too many ratsnakes around the place.

Yes, she's wild. No, she made no attempt to bite me ...
... and yes, I released her under the pump house where she was heading, when our paths crossed as I prepared to do tree surgery.

More on that tree surgery stuff tomorrow ... if I survive.

heehee

Insurance Against Pesky Bugs

I don't generally ADD exotic species to PFHQ, but I confess I did bring this Mediterranean Gecko back to the house after I captured him as a wee tiny thing at the site of our old school campus.

He vanished after release on the porch a year or so ago, but recently reemerged to enjoy the resurgence of bugs on the porch, now that winter has passed. As a nocturnal feeder, he's not really competing with my porch anoles, so all is peaceable in the porch kingdom.

The grey, dirty spot below him is where a mud dauber wasp nest was removed. A restaining of PFHQ is eminent, so I will soon be scrubbing and powerwashing those @)#*(%$ things off the cedar.

Which reminds me ...Y'all have seen pics of PFHQ in previous posts.

We are trying to decide if we should stay with the basic red cedar stain or branch out into something a little lighter ... a little more colorful.

Whachu think?

Chef Troll Throwdown Entry: Shrimp Minorcreole With Stir Fried Green Beans And New Potatoes

Generally, I avoid those internet entangling alliances called "meme's" like the plague, but last week, Chef Troll tossed out a challenge that peaked my interest.

I took the bait, like a spring time Cobia circling a channel marker ...

Above, just a few of the ingredients for my Chef Troll Culinary Throwdown Challenge.
The challenge?
... To put your own spin on a traditional southern dish and post it by today, May 13.

I decided to stick with fresh, simple Florida ingredients, with an eye to keeping it light and healthy.

To that end, my simple entry consists of ...


... fresh green beans from south Florida.
These I stir fried in a little sesame oil on high heat to sear them here and there ... but not too much ... they should still be firm when they come out of the wok.
Traditionally, we southerners would cook these to mush in a pot with a big ol' hunk of bacon or ham hock. While that is delicious, it adds a lot of fat and cholesterol while leaching out a bunch of the nutrients.
Fresh beans really don't need that treatment. The only seasonings these received was a shake of kosher salt and fresh cracked black pepper.

They were amazing and vanished as fast as I could cook them.


My main dish is a St. Augustine Minorcan twist on a Gulf of Florida favorite, Shrimp Creole. Traditionally, this dish is often made with canned tomatoes. In addition, it usually has cayenne in it, which adds nice heat, but no real flavor.

For Shrimp Minorcreole, (which I invented in my kitchen about 6 hours ago now), I decided to go completely fresh, skip the cayenne, and toss in some of my homemade datil relish for both flavor and heat ala Minorcan.

In my mini food whacker thingie, I chopped 4 fresh plum tomatoes for my sauce base. I also chopped the good core of two green onions, tossing the grassy outer stems away. One big clove of garlic was minced and a mix of thyme,chili powder, salt, and oregano was assembled before cooking.
It's worth mentioning that this is a recipe for one healthy serving and you would need to expand things a bit for company.
In my case, I was simultaneously cooking a Mexican dinner of tacos and burritos for the kids and myself, while inventing and cooking my Throwdown dish.
Multitasking r me.

The Shrimp Minorcreole dish was for Mrs. FC who was my official taste tester.

In a cast irons skillet already sizzling with EVO, I tossed in the chopped green onions, the garlic, and the freshly chopped tomatoes. About 5 whole grape tomatoes were tossed in for sweetness and visual appeal. After that mix had simmered a few minutes, I stirred in my mix of spices, and a splash of cheap wine.

A little bit of sugar went in to the sauce to balance things out. I like this sugar.

Then I tossed in three of these big spoonfuls of home made datil pepper relish.


You can find the recipe for this datil pepper relish in previous posts at Pure Florida. Just use the search this blog feature at the top of the page.


(Now, while all this was going on, I was also boiling some cubed new potatoes from Hastings, Florida, the potato capital of the universe. More about them later)


After the sauce had simmered and had time to blend, I added the shrimp.


10 large shrimp were added and allowed to just barely cook through. Shrimp should never spend much time on the heat unless you like 'em rubbery.
They go in, get tossed around a few times and get their little decapoda butts off the heat as soon as that color change occurs.


Now ... about those potatoes ...
Long before the shrimp entered the sauce, the new potatoes had been boiling away. By the time the shrimp went into the sauce, the potatoes were cooked, strained, and basking in a little butter, salt, and pepper... 'cause that's all new potatoes need.
They are too tasty to gussy up with any silliness.



In the end, it all came together like this:
Shrimp Minorcreole
Stir Fried Green Beans
Hastings New Potatoes



I was allowed to taste part of one shrimp and then warned away from the plate.

So there you have it ... all from Florida, all fresh, all healthy, all tres, tres, flavorful.

Look upon my works y'all mighty and despair!