These fossil sea biscuits were picked up on a limerock road out in the country. Around here limerock is crushed and spread onto dirt roads to stabilize them. Often the gravel will contain these casts of the sea biscuit "test"...(shell). As you probably already guessed, the sea biscuit is an Echinoderm and a cousin of sea urchins, sand dollars, and seastars. These are fossils, but sea biscuits still exist. 

So who did this? 

Knuckleheads on the flats. The keys in the background are ours. You and I own them together. They are part of the National Wildlife Refuge System. Tyler has the fishing pole (as usual) and Junior is soaking....Water temp about 85+ degrees. When Junior stood up, a small shark (3-4') was about 20 feet away. Frightened, it turned on a dime and zipped away. 

The pliers that saved the day. 

Here's yet another Echinoderm. This is a brittlestar.  

A dollar and change... 

Junior with his allowance. 

Sand dollars. The one on the left is alive, the one on the right is dead. Sand dollars are Echinoderms (spiny skin) and you can see the short spines on the live dollar. These starfish cousins are everywhere on the flats.  

McGuyver Who?

Yesterday Junior, his mega-buddy Tyler, and I spent a low tide afternoon on the flats just off Seahorse Key. The flats are broad shallow expanses of seagrasses and open sandy areas that just go on and on. In this photo the dark areas are grass beds and the lighter areas are sand. The water depth over the flats varies with the tides of course, but on a low tide you can easily get out and walk around even though you are a half mile offshore.

The knuckleheads and I cruised along the Gulfside of Seahorse Key until we found a really nice section to explore. The water was shallow enough to make tilting the outboard out of the water neccesary so the prop would not stick in the mud. As soon as I tilted it up, I heard something snap (not in my back...in the motor assembly).

Sure enough, the little cable thingy that allows the motor to be lifted, locked up, or lowered had broken. The motor would not go back down. No mattter how I pushed, lifted, and muttered...it would not move.
We were dead in the water with our propeller up in the air. ( I may start avoiding July 29 on the water, a year ago I amputated my finger while scalloping...yes, sewn back and good as new)

When you are the dad in this kind of situation, you feel a great deal of pressure to 1) get these guys home safely 2) not ruin their good time 3) fix it and look like McGuyver , even though these guys are too young to have ever watched that show.

So, I sent the guys off to explore. Meanwhile, back at the motor I assessed the situation.

"Hmmm, let's see, the cable that snapped must move a pin that controls whether the motor may rise or remain locked up. "

"Hmmm, I came out here without any tools except for a pair of Rapala fishing pliers that I grabbbed literally at the last minute as we left home"

"Hmmm, I am an idiot and an irresponsible boat captain for that last Hmmm."

"Hmmm, maybe I can pull/push the cable with the pliers, while simultaneously lifting the motor to take the weight off the pin."

"Hmmm, nope."

"Hmmm, If I can use the pliers to disconnect the cable from the other end ....maybe I can get to that pin."

"Hooray! It worked! Did somebody get that on film? I did something mechanical and it worked!

So with the propeller back in the water where it belonged we did a little snorkeling and flats walking . We found a few critters which will follow this post.

This Crab Is Not Fresh.

I am always digging somewhere it seems.Digging in the garden, digging trenches for irrigation pipes, digging out my little shooting range, digging for fill dirt, and my favorite, digging another pond. Well, you get the picture.

Along the way, some interesting things pop up. This fossilized crab is one of them. In one of my little excavations, I hit limerock after removing about 4 feet of white sand which was used on the driveway. Using sledge, prybar, wedges and other low tech (cheap) tools, I busted apart some small limerock boulders to use as landscaping here and there.
.

When I turned over the rock, there was the crab. How cool is that? It's not unusual to find marine fossils in limerock, it's actually the norm, but usually it's seashell casts or molds and maybe a few seabiscuits .(Hick will want to know what those are..:)

I love these physical connections to the past...it makes it seem closer, not so distant somehow. The youngest limerock in my neck of the woods dates from the Eocene Epoch,about 38 million years ago.That seems like such a long time until you touch this crab fossil and make the connection.

This crab dates from a time when there was no Florida (NO FLORIDA!)just a shallow sea. Florida is geologically very new and has not been dry land for very long. Anywhere in Florida, one can find marine fossils in the limerock that lies beneath the entire peninsula. Limerock forms on seabottoms...not dry land. This crab scuttled along the bottom of a warm shallow sea that teemed with life. Since the crab is so intact and obviously did not get eaten by a predator or scavenger, it must have been buried quickly ...perhaps by mud pushed over it during a hurricane. We'll never know.

What we do know, is that the crab lay there throughout every single second of human history. While humans learned to make fire and grow crops, the crab was there. While the pyramids were built, Rome burned, DaVinci created...the crab was there.

I just dig stuff like this...

Feather defending her food from a banty raiding party. Hey! Didn't we have 8 chickens a minute ago...? 

The beautiful red seeds of coral bean. In an earlier hummer plant post (5 June 2005) I showed the red tubular flowers of the coral bean plant. Now, it's almost August and the hummingbirds will soon be leaving FL to fly across the Gulf to winter in Central America. They have raised their young successfully and pollinated the coral bean ensuring another generation of both hummingbirds and their food source.

It's rare to find any old growth trees in Florida. This is a living cypress tree in Goethe State Forest. Like most old cypress trees, it has been topped out by centuries of lightening strikes. I couldn't get the whole tree in the shot, so I settled for it's massive base. Since this pictue was taken, the tree has put on 2 more growth rings and the boy has put on a foot or two of height. Also there is now a boardwalk out to this amazing tree...we slogged through the swamp. 

You should try on a few weird jobs during your life. This is me (3rd from left holding the bolto fuego)and my cannon crew from...let's just say Reagan was president. We represented a 1740's colonial Spanish militia manning the 6 pounder cannon at Castillo de San Marcos National Monument in St. Augustine, Florida. Twice a day we marched up to the gundeck of the Castillo and did a complete accurate cannon firing in Espanol. Lots of fun and hey, it was a foot in the door of the National Park Service. Gotta pay your dues...

Hello again, Hello...

A few posts back you experienced my Picasa-Hello angst as Hello turned on me and quit working. I got great advice from fellow bloggers and now have Photobucket as backup, but I have to take a moment and do right by Picasa-Hello.

Patrick from Picasa Support sent a link to a neat Hello cleanup program that fixed my problem instantly. So cheers Patrick! You da'man!
I'm stoked 'cause I really like using Hello.
Now I must go work on my remodeling ....

Daughter Emma took this shot and I thought she did a nice job of backlighting awhile still keeping good front detail. As a kid we would soak cattails in kerosene, light them, and then march around with our torches flaming until the stem finally burnt through and the flaming head (not ours) fell to the ground. Definitely not OSHA approved play... 

This is what I am supposed to be working on. Our house is in a constant state of remodeling...not because it's in disrepair, but because we CHOOSE to put ourselves through the hassle/expense/fun of changing things. These are some storage cubbies I am installing in what was wasted space beneath the stairs. The project has moved on a bit, but is still not done. We live amidst tools, boards, and cans of paint...I'll post a final shot when the job is done. 

The Castnet...Don't Leave Home Without It.

If I were stranded on a desert island and could only take one thing, the castnet would be way up there on the list. It's probably the most efficient, portable food-catching device ever created.

If you're not familiar with castnets, picture a cone shaped net with weights at the large end. Running inside the cone of netting are small lines called "tucks" that connect to the weighted end. These tucks run through a ring called the "horn" at the small end and are attached to a rope. The rope is there to get the net back and to cause it to close.

When the net is thrown, it opens into a circle. As it descends, the weights carry it quickly to the bottom. When you pull the rope, the rope pulls the tucks which draw in the large weighted end of the net, effectively closing it. Does that make sense?

When I was a kid, cast nets were mostly made of nylon and mostly handmade by various fishermen as a side business. Today, monofilament is the chosen material and most castnets are partially machine made. They actually cost less today than they did back in the day and there is no denying mono is the better material. It sinks faster, lasts longer, and is harder for the fish to see it coming.

I got my first cast net when I was 9 years old. The man next door made nets and my Dad had him knit a tiny 3 foot castnet for me. Dad patiently taught me how to throw and I graduated from assistant to net caster. It's hard to describe how special that gift was to a kid of my saltwater pursuasion. I could load up my stingray bike with a bucket and that net and cruise down the street to the San Sebastion River for hours of fishin' bliss.

In that not so distant past, when Florida was not so full, and most Floridians really were Floridians, the castnet kept many people from going hungry. In the fall, vast schools of roe mullet would make migratory runs along the beach and almost everybody in town would hit the beach to cast a net and fill a cooler with fat, silvery mullet. These were usually smoked in homemade backyard smokers made from old refridgerators.

In the late summer (about now), the shrimp would run in the
St. Johns river and again everyone would pull out their castnets and spend the evening throwing and heading the sweetest shrimp ever spawned.

Earlier in the summer, we used our castnets to catch bait shrimp for pulling whiting, black drum, and redfish from the surf.

I have taught all my own children to toss a castnet. They can't imagine how good it feels for me to see them throw a perfect circle of net.That's Emma in the picture...if you look very close, she has caught one killifish.

Each year as part of my job, I get to teach 30-40 teenagers how to throw castnets correctly. I get a big kick out of these indoor dwelling,computer savvy, X-Box playing kids as they learn an ancient skill that could open up a whole new real world for them. Times have changed though, none of the boys I grew up with ever had to remove their earrings (risk of entanglement and ripped off ear) before casting a net.

Florida has changed too, but a castnet will still catch mullet, shrimp, or bait so I guess we aren't doing too bad.

I'm Back?

See this porkchop in my mouth...well, it's mine. Don't even think about trying to grab it or calling the other dogs to mug me...'cause this is MY porkchop.

My Software Has Gone Insane and I'm Not Feeling Too Good Myself...

GRRRRR! Somehow, since Wednesday, my Picasa-Hello software has turned against me. This might not seem like a big deal to non-photo blogger types, but it's putting a giant kink in what I want to do with this blog.

I'm not sure what I did to anger the Google Gods, but I am getting this message...UI failed to initialize, blah, blah, blah, reinstall..blah, blah. Been there, done that...about 30 times. No change, except in my usually pleasant personality.

Being not totally helpless, I went to the net using the error message as a google search. Surely there were geeks out there who had solved this problem. Nope, the same desperate plea showed up in post after post with the same old advice, reinstall ad infinitum.

At first it was really just a Hello problem, Picasa itself has been pretty normal. In an end run attempt, I tried to at least post a picture using the add image button on Create Post. They post, upside down and sideways, but they post...Argghhhh.

The positive side of this is I seemed to get more done on the remodeling project I have been working on. You can only uninstall and reinstall software so many times before you have to get up and go do something else, anything else...

So I'm feeling pretty crabby...I would post my pic of an angry claw waving blue crab, but...well, you know...

It's a knife, perfectly fluted for a comfortable grip. The thumb fits in to a flaked groove as does the index finger on the opposite side. Incredibly "ergonomic" and still sharp even if the blade edge is knicked a bit. 

I love this piece. At first glance, it looks like a large knapping scrap piece. You can tell it's been worked a bit, but it's obviously not a spearpoint. It's when you hold it correctly that you realize what it is... 

Knapping flakes are found all around the property. 

Points, some complete, some incomplete. All from our piece of Florida. The dark one is a real mystery. 

Legacy

From time to time, as I am gardening or digging, I will turn up an arrowhead. This always stops me in my tracks as the thousands of years that separate me from the original Floridians melt away. For a moment I just stare at it, knowing that the moment I pick it up, I become the next human to touch it since that paleoIndian thousands of years before. And we are talking thousands of years.

The most common arrowheads in Florida are those from the Archaic period...6000 B.C. to 1200 B.C.
Actually, they aren't really "arrowheads", these are larger, heavier, and were probably hefted to short spears. The original Floridians used a throwing device known as an "atlatl". It is essentially a throwing stick that allows the thrower to apply greater force than throwing with the arm alone. The short spears that are thrown by an atlatl were often fletched with feathers (like arrows) to give them a ballistic spin. This increases accuracy.

So, I pause for a moment and then pick up the point. I turn it in my hands, run my fingers over the still sharp edges, and savor the connection to the past. That's when the questions start...Did you drop it? Was it lost in a tribal conflict? Did you hit that deer, but not find your wounded prey? What did this property look like then, was it covered with massive trees or was it an open savannah? Did you live on "my" land or just hunt here?

Most of these questions remain unanswered of course. The spear point is silent. It's really the flint chips I find that give me a little more information. They turn up more frequently than the actual spearpoints.The thin, sharp flakes of cherty flint are the result of someone sitting around and knapping points.

The flakes tell me you weren't just passing through in pursuit of game. Mostly the flakes stir more questions...Was this place a hunt camp? Just a place to eat, rest, and replace points lost or broken in the days hunt? Or did you come here to mine the raw chert to knapp points?

My property is high in the center and slopes towards the front. In the northeast corner, if you dig down through the sand to a depth of 2 feet your shovel will strike limestone. Florida spearpoints are mostly made of chert, a type of hard limestone that is common in this area. The first Floridians heated the chert in fires before working the stone. The heat caused a chemical change in the rock that allowed better knapping and stronger, sharper points.

I ponder these questions as I add the new point to our little collection. It's then that I realize I dropped my pocket knife while I was digging today. Made of stainless steel and plastic, it'll be there for thousands of years...waiting.

I think this is a huntsman spider, but I am too lazy to check before posting. These are incredibly fast spiders. I tried, but my finger would not get any closer... 

My wife hates my new extension ladder. 

This gorgeous little fish is a sand perch (Diplectrum formosum for you brainiacs). This guy is an adult and probably a male...although later in life this same fish might be a female. Sand perch are hermaphrodites (as are a lot of fish, invertebrates, and MTV VJ's). When in the male phase, the colors are more brilliant and fin tips are longer. This little guy fits that description pretty well. Sand perch like seagrass beds, pilings, and rock piles. He was only out of the water long enough for this photo and then we slipped him back into the Gulf. Photo credit on this one goes to my talented niece Meghan.

Final Steinhatchee Scallop Tips

STEINHATCHEE SCALLOP TIPS # 8,9, 10, 11, AND 12.
(In which I become a restaurant critic.)

TIP # 8: On the river, when the signs say "Idle Speed, Minimum Wake", that's what they mean. A large wake can damage boats tied up at the various marinas...be a courteous boater.

TIP # 9: Steinhatchee is really out there, don't just jump in the car and go. Hit the internet or the phone book to gather info, or you may arrive and have no place to stay.

TIP # 10: There are several marinas in Steinhatchee that will launch, store, and refuel your boat. We have never had bad service at any of them. I'm not the chamber of commerce so I would tell you if we did. We have personally used Westwind, Ideal, and Seahag marinas. They have all been great. We are partial to the Seahag Marina since we have a long history with them, but as stated before I would not hesitate to use any of these three.

TIP #11: Eat at Roys. It's right on the river and has great food, quick service, and reasonable prices. Even though we knew that, we made the mistake of eating one evening at a restaurant named after a small saltmarsh crustacean in which the male features one enlarged claw used for defense and attracting females. There, I didn't name the restaurant,...but you marine biologists can figure it out. Anyway, the service was incredibly slow. We (admittedly a group of 16) waited over an hour after ordering from an overpriced menu. The food when it arrived was not bad, but we were basically starving by that time...

TIP # 12: Final advice. Be safe. Be legal. Know your bag limits, your boating safety rules, and DON'T take more scallops than you are willing to clean.

STEINHATCHEE SCALLOP TIP # 7: Look before you leap...or at least be sure there's a pair of strong arms to catch you. Chuck and Veronica demonstrate the proper procedure. Scalloping is done over grass beds which are pretty soft, but there are occasional urchins and shells that could be uncomfortable to land on.