Science Fairus Interruptus

This blog is temporarily interrupted due to science fair panic and pandemonium.

The fair is tonight.

"I have to have a data table?"
(yes, remember the guidelines I gave you?)

"When is the science fair?"
(um, tonight)

"My printer broke last night, can I go type up my information in the media center?"
(No, oh never mind, yes ... GO)

email: " Billy tells me there is a science fair project due on the 28th. Why wasn't he informed of this!"
(response: (He was weekly since January 4th and the school phone call-out system sent you a message reminder two weeks ago. Your daughter tells me you delete the message as soon as you hear it's the school, so that could be the problem)

Ad infinitum ...

Lightning Strike

Lightning Whelks are leftists.
I still like them even though I am a centralzigzagist.

With a shell that goes against the grain of most right spiraling snail shells, the lightning whelk is quite the contrarian, hence the scientific name, "Busycon contrarium".

These big snails are predators and will clean a saltwater aquarium of any clams who have the misfortune to be dumped in the tank with them.

Lightning Whelk



Lightning Whelk egg case

 In my aquariums, the whelks will often bury themselves in the bottom sediment until I drop in some bit of fresh food.
As soon as the scent of the food reaches them, they erupt from the gravel and begin seeking it out.
It's pretty neat to watch and a big one will shove rocks and shells around as they plow across the bottom of the tank.

These guys/gals (all are hermaphrodites) get really big ... at least 15 inches in my experience. I am sure they must be edible based on the zillions of them in some local First Floridian midden sites.

In the far distant past, their shells were used for everything from net weights, cooking vessel, scoop, scraper, garden hoe  ... even I used to have one as a bird seed scoop.

These wonderful and abundant snails have been around for about 60 million years, which is pretty amazing when you think about it.

Next week, my students and I will be out on the Gulf on our annual field trip and I'm sure they will all have the opportunity to hold a live whelk in their hand and feel it creep across their palm.

... and then they too will be struck by lightning.

Men In Black ... Aprons

It started out innocently enough ...

"Junior and Katie can't help with the Southern Sisters catering job this weekend, could you help out? It's a wedding reception with a growing guest list and we really need help."


I said yes, of course.
I haven't survived 25 years of marriage without learning a thing or two about survival.

Between the "Yes" and the wedding, my college roommate Dave showed up to meet with his contractor. You regulars may remember that Dave is building a BK Cypress Log Home nearby.

When I told Dave that he was welcome to stay with us, but we would not be around much due to this big wedding job, he jumped right in to help.

That is how Dave and I became, "Men In Black" last night.  I had spent the morning of the day before as a grunt setting up chairs and tables while the sisters handled other things. That was a come as you are job, but the event dress was black pants, black T, and black apron. We added the shades.

There were a lot of chairs and tables. The guest list had grown rapidly in the final few days before the wedding so the sisters were a little stressed out as they adjusted their supplies and cooking schedules.

I toted chairs and tables and stayed out of their way on set up day.

Last night was the big event (a full sit down meal) and it was a real eye-opener to see the behind the scenes work of a large catered event. They pulled it off beautifully as usual, but after keeping buffet lines full, serving, washing dishes, running constantly, and packing it all up at the end, I now understand why they are all exhausted after a catering job.

This was a whirlwind of a week also due to Emma's graduation ceremony for the honor society of the college of education at the University of South Florida. We traveled there on Thursday to honor Em's achievement and approaching USF graduation. In the picture above, she is standing with her honors advisor, Dr. Lori Delik.
Obviously, Emma cleans up nice, but in the picture below, we see her in her natural environment.

Eaten BBQ!

Katie and Emma told me a while back that they had found a great BBQ place near Tampa called, "Hot Rods".

"Dad, you have to try it! You will LOVE it!"

So, after her ceremony, we all headed out Livingston Avenue for "Hot Rods". Livingston is one of those roads that goes almost immediately from Tampa urban hubbub to rural calm of Lutz.
As we were heading out into the more rural area, we noticed a school bus in the oncoming lane stop and then start to creep over towards the roadside.

When we looked closer, a huge gopher tortoise was in the road, right in front of the school bus. The driver was trying to inch around it, but he could not go off the road.

Mrs. FC was driving, so I said, "Pull over!" but she was already doing so.

I dashed out of the truck and made eye contact with the oncoming driver who stopped and held up a line of 5:00 pm Tampa rush hour traffic while I snatched the gopher and got him safely off the road. The school bus driver held the traffic back in the other lane.
I ran back, jumped in the truck and traffic commenced again.

Everybody cooperated and not one horn was honked.

Sweet!

Like most good BBQ places, the outer shell does not always do justice to the wonders within. Hot Rods was no exception to this rule.

Most of us chose this sampler plate ... ribs, chicken wings, two pulled pork sliders, and two sides (I chose collards and green beans) ... all for about $9.00.

It was all excellent and what I really loved is that Hot Rods cooks the sauce on the meat ... just like I do at home.
Let me say here that all styles of BBQ are wonderful to me when done right. I like 'em all, but my very favorite is what I was raised on (surprise) and that is slow cooked with sauce added near the end to coat and glaze the meat.
THAT is what I think of first when BBQ comes up.

Hot Rods must agree. You will not find any squeeze bottles of sauce on the table to apply post cooking.

It was spectacular and right now, if I could beam myself to any BBQ restaurant I know, I would choose Hot Rods first.

And finally, here is my friend and former dorm roomie, Dave, standing at the prow of his soon to be completed log home.

If you want to see interior shots, go to Dave's blog, Thunder and Lightnin.

Not much wildlife in this post, but you can see why.

Not to worry mon, soon come.

Datil Pepper Update

This is my grandfather "Papa" and his dog Smoky.

Papa was the datil pepper master.

These are my baby datil peppers with their first true leaves. This picture was taken about a month ago.

 

Here are those same peppers and me just last weekend.

Both the peppers and the pepper planter are grandchildren of Papa.

For years, he started and sold thousands of datil pepper plants from his backyard greenhouse in St. Augustine. People came from all over to walk up on to his porch, knock on the door, and inquire, "Arthur, you got any peppers?"

And he usually did.

The seeds I sow are the seeds of his plants, harvested, and kept safe each year for planting in the next.

Now with the wonder of the internet, I get to spread datil joy and heat around the world.

I think Papa would be both amazed and happy to know that.

I hope so.

Last week, while searching for just the right word to make a witty comment on Zick's blog, I stumbled across this word, "picadillo".

Turns out, it's a Cuban hash ... with olives and raisins in it!

What the heck? 

Olives and raisons in the same dish?

So, I found a recipe and made piccadillo.

It was surprisingly tasty, but not something I will make often.In the picture above it is the brown entree on the left.

The black beans were spectacular as always and I should have just made a giant pot of them.  I minced up 3 datil peppers in the food whacker so the beans had a wonderful flavor and really nice heat.

My black beans always are made with  garlic, oregano, one beer minus a few sips, onion, bell pepper, salt, bay leaf, and sometimes a chorizzo all whacked up.

(This batch was meatless.)

AND OF COURSE ... DATIL PEPPERS.

Bear Finds A Gopher. I Mediate.

Between worrying about my baby girl, Katie who decided to spend this weekend on an overnight wild cave adventure in Raccoon Mountain, TN, AND cleaning house for a Game of Thrones Series Premier medieval feast, AND worrying about my other baby girl Emma driving back to USF at 11:00 pm after the series premier ,  ... I did find a little time to do some wildlife management and transplant some datil peppers.

 The picture above was taken a little earlier. Bear thinks he's a German Shorthair Pointer whenever he gets a scent of gopher tortoise. The burrow that he is investigating so intently is now known as G-5. I had been wanting to ID my active gopher burrows for some time and this weekend, I made it so.

 G-5 is not your typical gopher burrow entrance. The usual entrance is simply a semi-circle slightly larger than the gopher's shell. This one was excavated by Bear months ago when the armadillo he was chasing dashed into the gopher burrow.
So now the gopher who lives there, "G-5", has a long sloping driveway down to the main entrance.

 I had some old lattice trim that I removed from the house perimeter last summer so I used it for my gopher burrow marking posts. I marked 7 active burrows in a short walk and I ignored all burrows that did not show undeniable evidence of excavation or skid tracks.

 Even though everything has greened up and the best burning time was a few months ago, I was still able to do some micro-burns near G-5's burrow to encourage nutritious sprouts and new growth. You can just make out the green stake marking G-5's burrow off to the left of the picture.

 Palmettos love a good burn and this one had a wide crown of dead fronds that shaded out gopher food plant growth as well as providing excellent rattlesnake hiding cover.
Nothing against the rattlers, but Bear is a very private pooper and he likes to tuck in to the bushes to "get busy".
I always worry when he does that around palmettos since rattlers are so fond of resting among them. Burning the dead fronds away makes this spot a little less cozy for the big diamondbacks.

On one Bear walk this weekend, I spied the elusive G-7 gopher ... about 100 feet in front of us. He had sensed us first and was making a bee line for the safety of his huge burrow.

Unfortunately, Bear spotted him at almost the exact same time.

I had Bear on a 30 foot training lead and it was all I could do to hang on as he raced for the tortoise. He got there first of course.

Poor G-7 simply stopped and tucked in all his parts. Bear was all slobberized and droolslingy by then. G-7 is one huge gopher, but Bear picked him up in his ginormous jaws for a moment before I got there.

I grabbed Bear by the collar and we did this circle dance around the gopher for a while. I wish you could feel the power in this dog.

He's pretty amazing when he gets into "inner wolf" mode.

He's pretty irritating too, since while in wolf mode,, he apparently goes deaf to the sound of human voices.

G-7 is a large male gopher who I never seem to catch out of his burrow, although the evidence of fresh excavation work is always present. I was thrilled to find him out even if he was not crazy about our encounter. The video shows that eventually, G-7 did make it back to his snug home. 

It also shows that Bear was able to refocus on the orginal task of trail running and sniffing stuff.

So, now that my gophers have names like G-1, G-2, etc, I will introduce you to individual tortoises as we cross paths this year.

Like reality TV, only without any drama at all.

The Gray Rat Snake Video

Here's a short video of the GRS I posted about the other day.

Sheep At Sea

 The Archosargus probatocephalus bite is on!
Grab some fiddler crabs and meet me at the nearest rockpile.


Captain Denny ties in to a good Cedar Key Sheepshead.





I sat on this post for about a month as a favor to the sheepshead of the Gulf of Florida.

During the spring, for a few short weeks, the sheepshead congregate around underwater structure in preparation for spawning. Even the smallest limerock ledge or rockpile might attract dozens of randy sheepshead.

Obviously, this makes for good fishing, but it can make for bad OVERfishing too.  I didn't want to advertise the fact that they were clumped together and waaaaay too easy to catch while that was the situation.

By now the party is over and the tired, happy sheepshead are dispersing again to places where they are not so easy for we fisherfolk to find.

We caught a bunch of them on this beautiful spring day, but only kept a small fraction of the overly generous legal limit, since it was spawning time.

Stripes like this on fish are called "disruptive coloration". It is a form of protective coloration where the "intent" is to break up your fishy outline rather than match some background color perfectly.

Fish books will say, "Sheepshead are also called 'convict fish' due to their stripes."  

If you say so, but I've been around sheepshead and sheepshead fisherfolk all my life and I have NEVER heard anyone call them convict fish.

I mean, I get it and all, but I just have never heard that name used.

Have you?



The business end.



This is the last thing a fiddler crab ever sees if it is careless in sheepshead country. The sheepshead is a nibbler. They seek out rocks, oyster bars, pilings, ... any kind of structure that might support barnacles or small crabs. Then they go to work ... nibbling with these specialized teeth.

A lot of sheepshead fisherfolk carry a flat blade shovel in their boat so they can scrape barnacles off bridge pilings to chum the water and  stir the sheepshead into a feeding frenzy.

Sheepshead are crustacean eaters and as you might expect of an animal that eats other delicious animals, they are fantastic table fare.

The meat is sweet. REALLY, it is.
The sweetness just jumps out at you when you bite into a bit of sheepshead

The sheepshead that we did keep went on to the ice immediately. The ice serves two purposes. Obviously it keeps the fish fresh, but I think plunging fish into a cold slurry is just about the most humane way to dispatch an ectothermic fish on those days when we do take some home to eat.

In another post, we'll chat about the cooking of sheepshead filets. This post is just about the gettin'.

(Miz S, go ahead and google myomeres and myoglobin so you are prepared for class.)


One of the neatest things about this fishing trip was the Seaview camera that Denny brought along. He's had it for a few years, but the thing keeps on ticking. It's a waterproof video camera with about a hundred feet of cable and an onboard viewing screen.

Sweet!

When the fishing lulled momentarily, Denny tossed the rugged little video camera over the side and then dragged it across the bottom until the tiny artificial reef came in to view. This reef is primarily made up of old concrete culverts and the fish seem to approve.

Check out the video below, but remember ... it is a video of a video.  The topside part of the Seaview camera is a small screen inside a cone shaped ... cloaking device (no, Trekkies, not that kind) .  You put your face up to the cone and watch the video without glare from the sun.

So, just imagine my face and my camera smooshed into the viewing cone video recording the video recording.

Denny brings it along on some of his charters so nonfishers or kids can fish watch while the fishing is going on. He says it is extremely popular and I can see why.


Immediately below is a still picture from the Seaview and below that is a short video clip.

Enjoy!

Is that addictive or what?

 

GRS.

 I know that spring really is here when I find a grey rat snake stretched out sunning on my walkway. I love, love, love these native constrictors.

I can't resist them when I find them around the place, hence the plethora of grey rat snake(GRS) posts in the archives of Pure Florida.

I suppose this GRS post is not very different from any of those in the past, but I can't help myself.

 I think the GRS's around my place are so used to being swooped up and held whenever I find them that they just grin and bear it.

No need to bite or musk this FC guy with foul smelling exudate, he's just going to hold me while he gets a few photos and then he'll stick me back in the bushes.

This one was very cooperative and never struck at me.

He never musked me either ... a fate much worse than their bite.

I'm glad snakes are deaf so he couldn't hear my girlish shriek of glee when I first found him.

It's embarrassing.

 A place for every scale and a specialized scale shape for every place ... scales of all shapes that fit together like the stones at Macchu Picchu.

It's a beautiful thing.

 Around here, people call GRS's, "Oak Snakes" for obvious reasons once you see one climbing an oak tree in natural light.

I used a flash on this shot to bring out the snake a little better. Their climbing skills are astounding and they do relish a bird egg or two, which gets them in trouble with keepers of chickens.

Just last week one of my students informed that, "We killed a big oak snake in our chicken pen yesterday."

Arrrrrgggghhhh! 

A couple of years ago, I watched one eat egg after egg in my chicken pen.
It was a small miracle, the way that jaw unhinged and a huge egg vanished as the snake worked and worked to swallow the eggs. (yes, there's a post with pics in the archives).

A few eggs seemed a small price to pay to witness the wonder of the snake jaw at work.

Apalachicola? ...Does He Know How Much There is NOT To Do In Apalachicola?

When Mrs. FC mentioned to her friend Libby, that we were going to Apalachicola on a little trip, Libby responded in her sweet southern accent, "Does he know how much there is NOT to do in Apalachicola?"

That is classic Libby, she says the neatest things and could easily be a southern dame off of Steel Magnolias or Fried Green Tomatoes.

She's right in a way, but that was part of the attraction of Apalachicola. I needed time in a fishing town that was still a fishing town.

I got it.

We ate at THE BOSS OYSTER since it was recommended by a girl I know, who knows her seafood.

You can't very well go to the center of the oyster universe without having a few, so we started with six plump steamed oysters.

Here's a plump Apalachicola Bay oyster all dressed up with a splash of Tabasco.



I went with the fried shrimp.

These delicious decapods were big and fresh tasting and I believe they truly were local and not farm raised somewhere far away.

The fact that shrimp boats were either passing by on the river or tied up nearby added to the validity of the restaurant's claim of fresh, local seafood.



Mrs. FC went with a combination of crab cake and grouper filet.

The one thing I would change would be the corn nuggets. There should be hushpuppies on that plate, not corn nuggets.

Ugh.

Who invented those nasty things?

It was just a day before the official "SUPERMOON", so the "SORTASUPERMOON" was pretty darn big.

Here's a zoomed in shot of the moon taken while braced against a power pole.

Along the docks, there are all kinds of buildings related to the processing of seafood from the Gulf. Some are active and some are tired and worn out. This one had a "For Sale" sign out front and looked vacant.

Let's hope for renovation and renewal, not demolition.

This old trawler was on display and was obviously an older model of a shrimp or sponge boat, but I could not find any historical marker explaining the life of this tired old boat.

 We walked around town after dinner, savoring the perfect spring evening and the quiet, sleepy downtown area next to the docks. Some restaurants were open and a few bars spilled music on to the street, but mostly it was quiet.

The "regular" shops were closed, but we did find one hold out that was open. It had a nicely odd mix of antiques, cookbooks, junque, and custom made T-shirts featuring old seafood companies from Apalachicola's past.

We talked with the owner for a while. He said he owned the town newspaper for years, so he turned out to be a great source of local info.

We left his shop after a pleasant conversation which included a tip about a good restaurant for breakfast. Nothing outside had changed much during our time inside his store. 

The quiet streets were almost empty save for restaurant/bar patrons or small clusters of tourists wandering by with overheard comments of, "Well, I guess nothing is open" or "We'll come back tomorrow, maybe these shops will be open then".

In the end, Libby was right when she asked that question. The shortage of things to "DO" made Apalachicola exactly the kind of place I had been looking for.

We did come back the next morning for breakfast ... but, that is another post.

In the meantime, here's a few scenes from our outdoors, riverside table at the Boss Oyster.



Any recently abandoned table was attacked by the dock grackles and gulls.




A shrimpboat heads out the Apalachicola River on its way to a night of shrimping.




Most pilings sported a laughing gull or pelican. A corn nugget tossed their way created an instant gull-grackle cacophony.



Maytip

Behold the "Maytip Wagon".

It is a wagon originally made to be attached to the rear end of a typical riding lawn mower.

I do not have a riding mower.

Based on my observations as I ride through suburbia, I firmly believe that riding mowers are silly and lead to obesity. The evidence on a Saturday morning in spring is overwhelming.

My parents hire someone to cut their grass these days, so they don't have a need for mowers or wagons.

On a recent job day at my parent's house,  Mom said, "Just put that old wagon out by the curb, someone will take it.".

To which I replied,  "That someone is ME!"

The American made red wagon is old, but solidly built, and since I am without a wheelbarrow presently,  I took it home.

Back at PFHQ, behind the barn, a set of old wheels from a long dead push mower sat quietly rusting away, just waiting for a moment like this.

I had salvaged them years ago when the mower they belonged to finally died ... after years of abuse here at mower purgatory.

It just seemed a shame to throw them away ... I had imagined they might be attached to a chicken tractor or a home-made canoe hauler, but those things never happened.

Last week, I had a ton of oak leaves to rake up and take to the garden, so I needed a hauling device and I needed it quick.

 I slid the axle of the old lawnmower wheel assembly into the space between the tongue and the hitch.

Then I cut a bit of scrap wood, drilled a whole in it and bolted it in place to hold the axle secure.

With the addition of an old dog leash for a handle, I had created the new and improved, "Maytip Wagon".
It worked!
I hauled leaves, rocks, 'nanner plants, and soil with it.

I need to counterweight it just a little in the front so it's not so fond of tipping backwards.
There's a set of lead weights I found in the woods a few years ago just sitting collecting dust behind the barn ... this could be their moment to shine.

Gulf Specimen Marine Laboratory ... A Bit Of Time Travel

 Before the Interstate Highway System was put in, Florida contained hundreds of small attractions scattered along it's major arteries. Tiny mom and pop motels, citrus stands, mystery houses, and souvenir shops full of Floridebris. There was  even a "DOG WORLD" which boasted of having one of each breed.

The new interstate highways cut through these attractions like a freshly sharpened machete through sugar cane. With the vast majority of traffic funneled onto 3 roads, I-10, I-75, and I-95 ... 4 roads if you count the Turnpike, attractions along the older, now empty highways withered and died.

Mostly.

So walking through Gulf Marine Specimen Company was a treat on several levels.
Level One: It had the feel of those older Floridaesque attractions that existed pre-Interstate.
Level Two: I have wanted to visit it since reading, "The Wilderness Coast" by Jack Rudloe, the founder of Gulf Marine Specimen Company many years ago.

The lab is located in a quiet, shady neighborhood near the water in Panacea, Florida.
Here are a few of the local residents.

 A black sea bass who is obviously used to being fed by humans. He followed me like a hungry Labrador.

 A Florida Horse Conch considering his most recent escape plan.

 An octopus in a specially constructed secure aquarium who is probably doing geometry or composing poetry to pass the time.

 A torpedo ray.

This ray can't sting you, but he can shock you. Like electric eels, the torpedo ray can generate an electric charge. From personal experience, I can vouch for the shocknicity of these pretty rays. I have stepped on them more than once while surf fishing.

It wasn't dangerous, just unexpected and therefore it had a high jump about and flail quotient.

 The large open tanks allow views of critters not usually seen. These remoras would normally be stuck to the belly of a shark, shell of a sea turtle, or back of a big ray. The "sucker" is actually the remora's first dorsal fin.

Gulf Specimen Marine Lab is not just an attraction. It really does supply specimens to research departments around the world and they are involved in all kinds of public education and conservation programs.

As an attraction, it offers a relaxing opportunity to walk through rooms with very accessible tanks and pools full of marine life, with no water slides, roller coasters, or jumping orcacrobatics.

All substance, no glitzy fluff.
That's a rare thing in Florida these days.