Florida is plagued by exotic species. With a climate that ranges from temperate to tropical, we have a huge variety of habitats. The result is that animals and plants from all over the world have found some part of Florida to colonize. Some of them are benign, but most are causing harm by displacing a native species that really does belong here. This is a brown anole, a Caribbean lizard that is just about everywhere in Florida. Individually, they are an alert, kind of endearing lizard. As a species, they are apparently causing a dramatic decline in our native green anole population by out competing them. They've finally made it to my place, probably coming in on a new plant. I'm hoping that I offer enough lizard habitat that my native green anoles will survive the invader. 

Here's the same coontie replanted. 

This is a Coontie root.Coontie is a native Florida cycad that was once an important source of starch for Florida native peoples and the settlers who followed. The roots were processed by pounding them and then soaking in water to extract the starch. This one had to be moved to a new spot for it's own safety.  

I'd Bring This...

Hick at Bee-mused In The Country is having a virtual Fourth of July barbeque and we are all invited. Hick, I would bring this brisket that's been rubbed with a peppery mix and slow-cooked over real Florida oak.Thanks for the invite!

Junior warming up Dad's hammock. 

This morning's spotted seatrout. Tomorrow night's supper. 

Frank and I prepare to tackle a fish problem. 

Where'd YOU sleep last night? 

My excuse for not blogging for a day... 

Overnight In The Gulf

I spent the last two days out in the Gulf with some of my extended family. We stayed at one of only a handfull of Gulf "camps" still left on the water. A long time ago, when Florida wasn't so "busy", families on the Gulf coast would build simple wooden camps on stilts out in the quiet waters, just a short boat ride offshore. My wife's family had one for generations and she has wonderful childhood memories of fishing, swimming, and summers spent out at "camp".
State law no longer allows new camps to be built, but there are a few that have survived the annual storms. We were lucky enough to stay at one.
The reason for our camp stay was my lovely, sweet, smart niece's 17th birthday. The camp is an open one room wooden building on stilts with porch and dock that go all the way around. There are windows all the way around so that no matter where the breeze blows it will flow through and cool the camp.
We cruised out to camp Tuesday and stayed overnight until Wednesday afternoon. We had some stormy weather Tuesday evening with powerful storms all around us, but all it did was cool things off.
The kids had a great time snorkeling, fishing, jumping off the dock, eating, tubing, eating, sleeping, and eating...did I mention eating?
I slept on a rope hammock out on the porch and fell asleep to the sounds of mullet jumping and dolphin exhaling.
This morning I woke up to the sound of fish striking and rolled (literally) out of the hammock to cast a line. On the first cast of a noisy topwater plug, a fat seatrout slammed it! The sound of the fish splashing woke up the rest of the crew and we caught a variety of fish, mostly trout.
So tonight, I'm home again in the airconditioning, feeling totally whipped after a couple of days on the water. The TV is on in the next room,my daughters are chatting on their cell phones, and my son and his buddy are bouncing a ball, but if I close my eyes I can still hear that dolphin breathing as it swam beneath the camp last night...

My buddy Billy bought a Kubota backhoe/frontend loader tractor and needed a place to practice digging. "Come on over", I said as I pinched myself..."this can't be happening." Well, Billy got plenty of practice...poor guy. We cleaned up the shooting range, moved a dog kennel, fixed the family campfire spot, freshened up the driveway, dug up and dragged away a big tenacious oak stump, and dug this small pond next to the main pond. Within a day or so my son and his buddy had built this platform for high jumps into the still muddy water. As far as this pond goes, this is a "before" picture of it in it's current raw state. My plan is to construct a wetland with blueflag iris, pickeral weed, duck potato, etc. I will keep posting this project as it progresses. 

Fresh-picked blueberries in peach yogurt.Complimentary flavors and contrasting textures...so good on a hot day. 

My blueberry guardian. I used to cover my blueberry bushes with that black birdnetting to keep the cardinals out, but what a hassle. The bushes are too tall to just drape it and when you take it off after the harvest...it's like wrestling a squid. So I have recycled my son's old toy rubber snake collection into berry sentinels. They seem to work. I do move them every other day or so to "keep it real". Another drawback to the bird netting is it is a death trap for real snakes. Black racers especially. Once they crawl into it, their scales get caught, and the more they struggle, the worse it gets. I rescued a few in painstaking scissor sessions, but too many died when I wasn't around.

I spent this evening mounting an old pair of lawnmower wheels on this chicken tractor and working around the garden. This is a pre-wheel picture of the chick tractor. First test drive of the wheeled chick tractor wasn't too satisfying. The goal is to set the wheels high enough to actually allow the tractor to roll, but low enough to keep the bottom near ground level. I missed this goal...my wheels are too low. I did successfully install a new perch and a shelf for their water bowl. My garden is a jungle of overgrown cosmos that are over 6 feet tall. I can't even find the peppers and tomato plants that I know are there somewhere. The blueberries are a success story though. They just keep coming. I hope they are as good for you as all the health articles say, 'cause I must have eaten a wheelbarrow full so far this summer. 

A canopy road like this just beckons for exploration. I keep finding these gems scattered along Florida's last frontier. 

A marsh island on the Waccasassa River. Out in the marsh, any bit of high ground will be colonized by trees , mostly red cedar and cabbage palms. 

Along the Waccasassa there are reminders of what the original forest was like before the cypress and other timber was harvested. Today's trees have a long way to go. 

This is the shrimp boat mentioned in today's post. The left picture is last year before the hurricanes. The right picture is post hurricanes. Not only is the vessel aground and listing to port, but it's downriver a couple hundred yards from the left picture. 

This is the excellent boat ramp on the Waccasassa River at Gulf Hammock. 

Captain Katie running the mouth of the Waccasassa River. Wasn't it just yesterday that she was 8 pounds of baby in my arms...they grow up too fast.

On The Wild Waccasassa River With Katie-Bug

I did finally get out on water for a shake-down cruise of the boat. Daughter Kate and I chose the lower Waccasassa River for our cruise. The Waccasassa (hereafter abbreviated "WACA")flows from the east side of Levy county to the Gulf on the west coast and drains about 900 square miles. The upper WACA is narrow and twists like snake through cypress river swamp. As it approaches the tiny community of Gulf Hammock, it cuts through limerock and begins to widen and slow.
Katie-Bug and I put the boat in at a free county ramp called Waccasassa Park. This is a concrete ramp in great shape with nice tie-up docks on either side.
We left the ramp and cruised slowly through the narrow forested river banks. The river is still mostly fresh near the ramp, so the forest is made of cypress, bay, pine, cabbage palm, maples, etc. As you travel west from the ramp, the Gulf marine influence takes over and instead of forest, the shore becomes vast open marshes of spartina and juncus punctuated with islands of palm and cedar.
Katie drove the boat like a pro and took us down to the mouth of the river. The WACA opens up into the Gulf at Waccasassa Bay State Preserve. This is 30,000+ acres of protected wild shoreline. You will not see a condo, motel, or even a house on this entire trip. Beautiful.
We did see a gator hanging out beneath a rope swing over the river back by the ramp. What a picture...I didn't get it of course.
I had not been on the WACA since last year's hurricanes and one big change was a large shrimp boat that had been moored upriver semi-permanently was now downriver, heeled over, and flooded.
We cruised back up river past the boat ramp and into the Wekiva, a tributary that flows into the WACA. We put-putted slowly until the Wekiva got too narrow for our 19 foot skiff to turn around in.
What a gorgeous river. There aren't many left like this.

The treefrogs are everywhere this year. 

The excitement of snakes and moths on the porch was too much for Feather. She needed a nap after it was all over. 

The porch ratsnake meets the porch treefrog. 

Ratsnake and "post holiday Christmas lights". 

This is the porch Polyphemus moth. The eyespots are displayed by fanning the lower wings. 

Porch Wildlife Continued...

After the polyphemus moth, I had some film to burn. As I walked around the corner of the porch, looking for a bug or lizard to photograph, I came face to face with a grey rat snake. He was cruising along the top of our porch railing, weaving in and out of the Christmas rope lights which are STILL up. How bubba is that?
Back to the snake... I know what this guy was looking for. Treefrogs. There is a bumper crop of tree frogs this year. They are everywhere. Every palm frond, every gutter, every trashcan lid, every window frame. There are zillions of tree frogs around the place and the porch is like treefrog central.
The ratsnake crept along the railing, descended a downspout to check out a frog, then returned to the rail. I thought for sure he was going to nail this one treefrog sitting on the downspout. At one point they were only a few inches apart. The snake kept smelling with his tongue. The frog went completely still. Tension in the air. Then the snake backed up and continued his slide along the rail. So much for that action shot.
Later the snake stretched down to a shrimp plant and crept off the porch.

Porch Wildlife

Yesterday as I stepped up onto the porch, I found an amazing Polyphemus moth on my back door. (Okay, I had to look it up, it's plate 567 in the Audubon insect field guide.) This moth's larvae are bright green, thick as your thumb caterpillars. I see them once in awhile on my oak trees. I think this moth was newly emerged from a coccoon, because it wasn't very good at being a moth yet. It made no successful attempt to fly even when I slipped my hand under it for a picture. It did instinctively display it's false eyespots. That was pretty neat.False eyespots are a survival adaptation used by quite a few animals. The idea of the eyespot is to startle or intimidate a predator.

Here are my barred owls. They love to sit on this power pole next to the house. It's a great place to scan the yard for mice, frogs, moles, etc.