Crazy Eyes and Snarly Thing

Around here, we call this look "Crazy Eyes".

He's morphing in to it in the picture above ... his right eye has already gone over to the dark side and the left is beginning .

Bear gets a case of "CE" every once in a while in the midst of rough play and when he does ... well you better hang on, hide out, or break out your karate moves.



Crazy Eyes usually comes accompanied by the "Double Paw Crush Pounce" or "DPCP".



During DPCP, Bear's front legs splay out and slash like a velociraptor.

Since there is 102 pounds of Lab muscle attached, those paw claws can really decorate your skin.


Speaking of two extra pounds ... the heartworm prevention pill Bear takes maxes out at 100 pounds for the biggest pill.

Those two pounds cost me an extra $16 amonth, because along with the $25 -100 pound dog heartworm pill, he now has to take a pill for puny little dogs to cover the other two pounds ...(two pounds which quite possibly are feces not yet removed when he was weighed last)








Here's Bear doing his K90X workout routine.



We humans are in the middle of our 3rd week of P90X, by the way.

We have not missed a workout and it feels pretty dang good.

Tonight is Yoga and I'm dreading that 1.5 hour session, but it's not as bad as it seemed the first week.



After this week, the next phase begins.



In other furry news ...

A few nights ago, I came face to face with this raccoon fishing shrimp out of my shrimp farm, so I set the trap that very night.


And I caught him.





He seems healthy enough so he gets a chance at a new life on our timber plot away from PFHQ.



I am hoping that he will stay there and not return.


Hope springs eternal.

Thunder and Lightnin, Here's Your Update

As I mentioned on a previous post, my pals ThunderDave and Lightnin are building their dream not far from here.
Dave asked me to drop in on the construction site and take progress photos as the house takes shape.
I thought you regular PF readers might get a kick out of it too, so here are the first shots.

In the photo above, I am standing on the prow of the house.
A close up is below.

The home comes to a point in the front. Picture big beautiful windows on either side.

In this photo, I'm shooting from the back end and the view is towards the front of the house.

(Hey! What a beautiful red steed in the distance!)

The open joist area is for porch decking that wraps around most of the house.

It's raining and storming all day here on this workday, so I'm thinking that not much progress was made today out on the site.

More to come in the future as the project grows into a home.

Speaking of red steeds ... I may be increasing my herd this week.

More on that when I make it happen.

In other news ... it's datil pepper seed time again.

The seed ad will be posted tomorrow.

Baby Coachwhip (?)

A few days ago, I was walking to the parking lot and crossing a narrow grassy median between two busy paved lanes, when I spotted this little fellow in the grass.
He spied me at the same time and took off in the other direction.

I was afraid he would wind up as a snake pancake in the school parking lot, so I dropped my Bubba Keg, my laptop case, and this other bag stuffed full of teachery stuff.
Then, I gave chase.


I did catch him, but not until running around like a maniac, back and forth, and snatching at the grass.
When he was in my hands, I looked up to see the assistant principal and a handful of students staring at me ... with expressions of disbelief.

They could not see the snake from their position, so they were all wondering what the heck had gotten in to me.



This is what got in to me.
Is he not beautiful?
Imagine an eye that big, relative to your face!


There was a little cooler in the JEEP, so I set him in it and took him home where there are not hundreds of kids, school buses, and cars.
In many ways, PFHQ is perfect coachwhip habitat. I have woods, open areas, lots of gopher burrows, and water.
It's like Disneyworld for snakes.






Soooooo, I think it's a young coachwhip, but young black racer seems like a possibility too.
Some of you may be better at juvenile snake ID, so chime in!

My money is on coachwhip for now.

The end of this snake's tale is in the video below.

(No, THIS one did not get loose in the house!)

Giant Prawn Harvest, Part Two

The most humane way to kill these prawns is a slushy ice bath. Being a tropical beasty, the icy water quickly dispatches them.
It also serves the purpose of preventing mushiness in the meat as the prawns contain an enzyme that will quickly break down the muscle tissue if not chilled after death.

I was making blackened tilapia that night, so I cooked the tilapia first and then, after the smoke cleared, the shrimp.

Before cooking the shrimp, I wiped down the cast iron skillet to get rid of any blackening seasoning, as I wanted to taste these shrimp plain on this first taste test.

4 big prawn tails went into a hot skillet with just a smish of EVO, and in a minute or so they were done.


Here's my plate.
Fresh green beans stirfried in a wok with little more than sesame oil, salt, and a spritz of teriyaki sauce, accompanied by some blackened tilapia filet, a sample of this years datil pepper sauce, and two prawns.

They were delicious and so fresh!

I give them an A++.

Giant Prawn Harvest Part One

"From the depths of Hell I strike at thee, human!"

Yesterday, I bit the bullet and harvested a few of my prawns for a taste test.



These guys are pretty fascinating.

They are so cool and with such amazing architecture. Just think of the DNA coding and cellular obedience that must take place for such a multifaceted creature to exist.
It's a bit mind boggling.
But,
... they are predators too and would gladly consume me if I laid still in their tank for long enough, so all's fair ...
Still, after nurturing them from postlarvae, eating them was not a step to be taken lightly.


4 uropods separated by a telson.
Ahhh, ... symmetry.



In the end, I captured about 9 shrimp, 4 bigguns for the taste test (we were having tilapia so 4 was enough) and 5 for a return to the classroom tank.
They are a big hit back in the classroom.
The students have been amazed all day by the giant shrimp patrolling the post summer,empty tank in my room.
Alas, they are only seeing 4 of the intended 5 prawns ... they are quite the predators and only a small piece of #5 was left this morning in the "pen".

Some of the remaining smaller prawns in my RAS should now react to the loss of a bunch of alpha male blue claws by becoming that very thing themselves.


Bear was just a little curious about the live prawns when I took them inside.
This curiosity soon changed to crazed barking and leaping about, so his "nose to rostrum" time with a prawn was cut short.

Tomorrow ... a short prawny video, cooked prawns, and the final exam.

P90X, Surviving Week 1 and Other Sunday Stuff

Day one of the P90X workout program was Monday.
The week went like this:


Monday = Back and Chest ... one hour of relentless pullups, pushups, and Assorted Other Tortures ... hereafter known as "AOT"


Tuesday = Plyometrics = one hour of jump training, squats, and AOT. Complete and total agony.


Wednesday = Arms and Shoulders ... one hour of dumbell work, pushups, ... this one I was best prepared for, but it still killed me ... and it was followed by an insanely torturous AbRipper workout that thankfully was only 16 minutes long.


Thursday = Yoga X ... 90 minutes of stretching, bending, balancing . I had always thought yoga was just some kind of mild hippy stretching exercises. Arrrrgghhhh! Downward dog, Upward Dog, Warrior One, Warrior Two, blah, blah, ... this stuff is hard!

Friday = Back and Legs ... one hour of squats of all kinds, pull ups of all kinds, AOT. Ab Ripper again too.

Saturday = Kenpo Karate ... one hour of nonstop kicking and punching and the realization that it's been a long time since my Tang Soo Doo Korean karate lessons when I was 17. This was a rapid fire aerobic workout.

Sunday = a day of rest. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Each day produced a new soreness hangover involving muscles you forgot were there.
A cool thing happened though, by Friday, the soreness was relenting and it felt really good ... mostly.

Did I mention I love this program?
It's about consistent hard work and nutrition.
I read the nutrition plan and it's very similar to the way I eat now, so that transition is almost seamless and much less painful than it would be if I was a fastfood, chips, soda kind of eater.

I was doing my own thing and had hit what most people who stay fit call a plateau. Plus, I was only working upper body ... and not in a very organized way.

I believe (without checking the book) that I have two more weeks of the schedule above before entering the next phase.
Maybe this week I can do some of those yoga moves without falling on my asterisk.

The P90X folks did not pay for that little critique above by the way. That's just me, someone you "know" letting you know what it's like.
Just in case like me, you had considered ordering it, but weren't sure if it was valid.
I think it is. Good science and a philosophy of very hard work ... rather than the take a pill and eat whatever you want infomercial pap.
We have now developed a routine and the P90X DVD gets popped in before supper. We do not skip because we are tired from work.
We do.

They are good capitalists at BeachBody.com (P90X parent company), so expect this: They will try and sell you beaucoup supplements and equipment when you order it.
Just be strong if your budget is tight like mine.
Equipment is minimal ... some bands or dumbells, a mat, and a pullup bar, some protein bars and a whey protein drink mix.
You can get all that stuff at Walmart for pennies compared to their price.

In other news,

• The days are hot, but the mornings are teasing us with cool air. Sweet!
• I am picking datils for our use as well as letting some go orange for seed saving. By the end of this month I will post my little datil seed ad off in the sidebar. Thank you all who ordered some last year. If you save your seeds, you won't need me this year. Go You!
• Today is the day we harvest a few of our farmed prawns, so stay tuned for a prawncookin' post.
• Go here for some neat gator shots.
• Lots of computer issues here lately ... sorry for the missed days. The laptop is having an adjustment and I'm using our old, faithful 2003 vintage Dell desktop for this post. (Dell, you rock!)

That's all for this morning.

Time for me to go out and find you something wild.

Lunchbreak Diamante Poem Cardinal Flower vs Cardinal

Cardinal Flower

Crimson, Wet

Standing, Emergent. Reaching

Flower, Spike, Singer, Flier

Flitting, Crunching, Flashing

Red, Feathered

Cardinal

I like to use Diamante poems for comparison contrast in my science class.

They always compare two different things and always follow this pattern:

Noun

2 Adjectives about that noun.

3 participles about that noun

4 nouns, first 2 are about the top noun, second 2 are about the bottom noun.

3 participles about the bottom noun.

2 adjectives about the bottom noun.

Noun

Give it a try and show off in the comment section.

(These are not limericks so keep it clean, you rascals!)

Freshwater Prawn Drawdown

Almost too beautiful to eat.


A look under the kilt.

Dorsal view.

If you are not the lead shrimp, the view never changes.

Of course, if you are a shrimp, it's good to not be on point.

The RAS (test: remember what that stood for?) needed a flushing last week so I popped the knife valve open and drained most of the water out.

This allowed me to get a good look at my livestock and they seem to be growing and thriving.

In a drawdown, I drain the water through a bottom drain and with it goes bottom sediments that build up over time. Once the tank is cleaned, I refill with fresh well water.

The well water comes in at 74 degrees, but the very tropical prawns seem to handle that temperature change (the old tank water would have been warmer due to absorbing the summer heat).

My system rarely needs a drawdown and is very water efficient. On a daily basis, I exchange about 5 gallons of water at the most.

I open the valve for just a moment daily to flush a pulse of uneaten food, etc out of the tank and into the happy plants that grow near the RAS.

A few days after taking these photos, I almost lost the lot of them when a pipe connection came loose.

Most of the aeration in this tank comes from the sprinkling water that returns from the filter barrel. A pump in the tank sends water to the barrel, where it flows through filter media. It returns to the tank (R = recirculating) by spraying back into the tank, thus aerating the water.

I just happened to walk out to feed them a late night snack and discovered the malfunction.

The shrimp were all at the surface (very rare) because that water was the most oxygenated.

The poor things almost suffocated.

I did some late night plumbing repairs (and improvements) and all was well.

Scary business though.

Prawnzilla loves to hide under the substrate fencing and would not come out for a better photo.

He is totally awesome and dominates the tank.

Here's a quiet, not very exciting, yet kind of soothing, video of the prawn parade.

No I haven't eaten any yet, but I think their population will have a sudden drop soon.

I'm thinking broiled like lobster.

Cypress Galls

Here is that thing I hinted at last week.
Remember?
The swamp thing I had never seen before.

I was sloshing along in the skeetery swelternicity of a September swamp, when ... these little things popped up on the radar.

My brain did a little flip flop as it tried to process the concept of flowers on a conifer like cypress.
I peered in.

They sure looked like little flowers, but obviously, this could not be.
Not in the "naked seed" clan.
So I did what I always do when these conundrums pop up in the wilds.
Photo, photo, photo.
Google, Google, Google.

It turns out these are galls produced by a midge with a 20 dollar scientific name.
Well now, I get galls.
I don't actually GET galls, I mean, I know what a gall is.
Essentially they are little plant tumors caused by different insects who park their eggs inside to develop.
My oaks are full of galls and I have even cut one open and posted the pics a long time ago here at PF.

These cypress balls were so blatantly, in your face obvious, that it boggled me a little bit to think I had never seen such a thing.


What else have I been missing?

Up

The transformation of PFHQ from it's original basic brown to something brighter continues.
A couple of really rainy weeks and the start of school brought things to a screeching halt for quite a while. That, coupled with a general desire to do something, anything rather than paint as summer break waned, has left the house painting job about 90% complete.

If you have ever remodeled or built your own place, you know that the constant danger of doing so is ... you can get used to things not quite finished.
You work,work,work and then something interferes with the schedule. In that pause, "almost done" can take on an air of normality.
The missing piece of trim.
The last little stone in the fireplace that requires a trip to the store.
The uncovered outlet in the corner where you ran short and ... well, no one sees that anyway.

You really mean to get to all these punch list items, ... you really do.
Then something amazing happens.

You stop seeing them.
It's like they have a Klingon (or was it the Romulans?) cloaking device.
Guests see them and think ... "How odd these PureFloridians are."

But you ... you are oblivious.
Until, in a picture of smiling people or a cute dog ... you stare horror struck at the background where the light switch has no cover or the floor trim stops one foot from the opposite wall.

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday!

We gotta fix that!


Whatever you do, don't look down.
(and yes, I know I spilled paint on the shingles ... that's what brown spray paint is for.)

So it was that I once again ascended to tackle some high altitude, not quite done, painting.
One more dormer, a bit of high trim second coating, and then it's touch up to the finish.

I did get out a little though.

I found something in the swamp that I had never seen before.

It's tiny and it was new to me.

Soon come.

Pioneers

My college roomie, ThunderDave and his wifey, Lightnin, are building their dream home a county up from us.
It's going to be a cozy log home surrounded by dense forest on enough acreage to do what you want and not be a bother to anyone else.
They are doing this long distance from some place called Ohio, with frequent trips down to get in the way of the contractors and generally slow the process down.
(Just kidding Lightnin)
They are a wee bit excited.
Example:
Last week, I got a text asking me to drop by the sawmill where their logs are being milled and take pictures of the logs, the sawdust, the mill dog, the workers, the workers lunch, etc for their scrapbook.
(Just kidding Dave) ... well sorta.

I love their homesite.
They only cleared enough for the house, a little garden section, and some parking.

To me, that last picture looks like they are building in the Amazon.
I'll share more pics as their jungle retreat shapes up.

Another One

The word passed quickly through school one afternoon last week.

We had lost one of our former students in Afghanistan.

The school health aide stuck her head inside my classroom to ask, " Did I remember .. (we'll call him " J)? I think he had a crush on one of your daughters for a while."


The name was so familiar, but there have been quite literally thousands of kids in 22 years of teaching.

I racked my brain.

Dammit. I needed a picture. I remember faces not names. It's the face that brings back the memory for me.

I pondered what it means to spend an hour a day with a kid for 180 days and then not be able to remember his face a few years later. He had to be a low flyer, under the radar kind of kid.

The jocks, the cheerleaders, the student government go-getters, the really smart ones, the really bad ones, the really funny ones ... they tend to stick easier to my memory circuits.

Who was J ... and what does it say about me if I can't remember his face 5 years after he left the school?

I needed that damn picture and at least for that day, there was none.


The next morning, the yearbook advisor sent me a photocopy of the picture page with J on it.

There he was, just a couple pics from my own daughter ... surrounded by kids I knew by name, yet I could not recall J, until I was able to see his face in the grainy black and white photocopy.

Oh yes.
I remember.

A very quiet kid.
In a high school, mixed in amongst the bad ones, the good ones, the outgoing ones, the athletes, the scholars, the criminals ... there are the quiet ones.

Mostly, they go through the whole high school experience barely rippling the surface. You know they are there at the time, but you may not notice when they leave.

Such was the case with J.

Now he was dead at 23 ... a victim of a Taliban ambush.

Later in the day, an email came around with a photo and a few quotes from J's Facebook site.
The picture showed J, a little older, but not much different from the yearbook photo, with an incredibly cute three year old baby boy hugging his neck.

In the quote, J expressed his decision to not pursue a military career. He said he just wanted to make it home safe to raise his "beautiful baby boy".

That won't be happening now.
And for what ... Afghanistan ? Afghanistan with it's tribal, medieval, culture? It's leaders with multimillion dollar homes in Dubai?

Afghanistan is not a country... it's a region ... a patchwork of peoples locked in tribalism and primitive cultural traditions.

We needed to be there for a while after 9.11.01.
We don't now. Time for the Afghans to succeed or fail on their own.

There's nothing Afghan worth the life of a quiet kid from a small town in Florida.

Nothing.

It still bothers me that I needed a photo to remember the person J was.

It bothers me more to think his three year old son will have no memory of his father when he grows up ... only a picture of a stranger.

Friday Florida Food Fest - Pulled Pork and Grilled Potato Salad

Around here, the Southern Living magazine arriving is often followed by some new recipe trying.
Last week, it was a pulled pork and grilled potato salad double recipe event.

There was also a pecan upside down cake as I recall, but I have no photos of that.
It was good though, the cakey part had sweet potatoes and pumpkin spice so your taste buds were going, " Hey, is this pumpkin pie ... or cake ... no wait ... what are all these pecans doing here?"
I only got one piece, because it went off to work with Mrs. FC to reward her dedicated nursing staff.

This pork came out moist and delicious, although I am still partial to a spicier, vinegarier Carolina style pulled pork marinade.
This marinade was apple juice, white grape juice, sugar, and salt. That combo was injected repeatedly into the meat before grilling with a big ol' hypodermic needle thingie.

I felt like Doctor Kildare.

(... and if you know who that guy is, congratulations on surviving so many decades)


I did not make the grilled potato salad, but I ate my share of it ... and Katie, Emma, and Junior's share too ... (Go ahead kids, run off to college and enjoy your Ramen Noodles ... heehee).

Actually, I only had seconds, because the concept of leftovers and not having to cook on a following night is a neat, new experience.
Who knew?

So, as I said, I did not make the grilled potato salad, but I did have to put it on my grill for a while before it went in to be "saladized".

It was really tasty with a bit of a seared smoky flavor.


Now if you will excuse me ... I have to go take my "before" pictures.

P90X arrives this weekend.