Tuesday's Puzzler Other Side

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A Frog from Hell? Alien?

Make a guess if you dare,
Later today, you will be made aware...
8:30 EST UPDATE: THE PUZZLER ANSWER IS : The crushing plate of a black drum.
Black Drum are a common saltwater fish in the South. They are heavy eaters of clams, oysters, and other mollusks. The drum will cruise the bottom using it's sensitive chin barbels to locate a clam which is then taken in whole. In the back of the drum's throat, the clam shell is crushed by the pharyngael teeth. The clam body is swallowed while the shell fragments are expelled through the gill openings.

Go here for more info.

Tuesday's Puzzler

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Now what could this be? 

Cats Who Love To Swim

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Back in October, I posted about my 100 missing catfish. I'm happy to report that a signifigant number of them survived and have grown nicely. A walk to the pond at mid-day reveals squads of them cruising around and through the branches of a sunken willow.

They are calmer and shyer than the aggressive bluegills who hit the surface with a spray and a splash. I usually toss some bread bits with the official catfish chow feed pellets just to get things going. The bread draws rapid strikes from the bluegills and the feeding sounds alert the cats which begin to cruise through the feeding area.

You can see the catfish become more stimulated by the bream popping and splashing. They begin to swim more rapidly and make tight turns instead of leaving the area. Finally, the cats rise in the water column and begin feeding with gentle swirls. Swimming along at the surface, mouth open, hoovering in food pellets is another method that some have adopted.

We are toying with the idea of having the kids raise, catch, and sell these as an FFA "supervised agricultural experience". In the FFA, kids are encouraged to start small ag related businesses to gain experience. Our "sittin' on the dock thinking" business plan goes something like this.

The kids take orders from the school staff early in the week for a Friday fish delivery. The county courthouse is across the street and there's even more customers there. On Friday the kids would deliver fresh iced filets or whole gutted fish to their customers.

It could work.

There's only one way to find out...

A National Military Cemetery

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Next to the Headquarters for the Florida National Guard is this small military cemetery. The pyramid marks a mass grave of soldiers defeated in a battle with the Seminole Indians. Research the Dade Massacre to learn more...

Home To St. Augustine

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(scroll down for way too many photos)

Friday afternoon, after all the larval humans had boarded the yellow buses and left, I headed for St. Augustine. In case you haven't been paying attention, it's my home town. I have deep pre-USA roots there.

Serendipity and a good omen occured as I passed through Gainesville and approached the little town of Hawthorne. Paul, my very good buddy since 7th grade Spanish class, called me on the cell and we chatted all the way to Palatka. That made the ride slide by and it was good to catch up.

At Mom and Dad's, I ate Toll House cookies and chatted until I nodded off. Next morning, we ate breakfast at Theos, a wonderful small restaurant run by incredibly hard working Greek immigrants. My parents are such regulars that the waitresses put in their order the minute they walk in the door. They offered me a menu.

After breakfast, I split off, alone, for some reconnecting with the old home town. Returning to St. Augustine is always bittersweet due to the development changes that have occured along the beaches and out in the countryside. The one saving grace is that the core of the old city is tightly regulated to retain it's colonial charm, and even though buildings change ownership, downtown is still beautiful and familiar.

The first place I went was Riberia Street. It runs along the San Sebastion River where the shrimpboats once docked en masse. Now there are more yachts than shrimpboats, but it is still a street of shipyards and boat docks. South Riberia used to be a pretty rough part of town...I know, I worked at a packing house there during my teen years and I got quite an education. These days, it's more gentrified.

From Riberia street, I drove past my first apartment and down some of the tiny, narrow old streets until I got to the bayfront. They are replacing the old Bridge Of Lions with a new more efficient bridge. I was able to photograph the new bridge construction while stuck in traffic as the old drawbridge lifted up for some yacht.

The old draw eventually settled down with a bridge-wide shudder and I continued across to "The Island". Growing up on the poor side of the tracks, we always used to say that"God lives on The Island". I'm not sure God could afford to live there now. I was heading out A1A towards the beach, but with no real destination in mind when I spotted the Farmers Market sign at the old coquina quarry park. I whipped the Jeep around and pulled in.

Set under oaks and palms, on the site of the old Spanish quarries, a long row of farmers and artists were selling their wares. I hadn't walked very far when I came to a display of beautiful St. Augustine photographs. I looked at the name of the artist. Ken Barrett,Jr.
No way...

I looked up. He was staring directly at me. Recognition. Ken is an old friend from my Park Service days, and a fishing buddy. Neither of us had seen the other for ...oh...about 10 years or so. We had a good visit...catching up on lives that have produced new chapters. These days, Ken is an instructor at Flagler College and a most excellent photographer. Running in to him was another little dose of serendipity on this trip.

From the farmer's market, I headed downtown again, back over the bridge of lions to the Castillo de San Marcos. A stocky blonde ranger stood at the moat checking admission tickets.He let me in for free when I mentioned "I used to work here..."

I listened to the tourist chatting as I walked up the stairs to the gundeck. It was the same chatter I used to hear in the 1980's when I was a ranger here. Full of misconceptions about the "cruel" Spanish colonists. "Where's the dungeon and the torture racks? Ya, know Ethel, they walled a guy in one of these rooms..."

The truth behind the building is simple. It was a fortified warehouse and a safe place for the men, women, and children against constant English pirate (terrorists of their day) and official English military assaults.

The gundeck of the Castillo offers a beautiful view of the bay and ocean beyond. The bay was beautiful on this crisp winter day. The tide was out exposing the same sandbars where the sperm whales had come ashore so long ago. Today the bars were covered with birds, not whales.

When I came down, I headed across the street to the restored area. This is St. George Street, once the business heart of the city, but now completely historic or tourist oriented. The state has done a good job of restoring the Spanish colonial buildings and there is good history to be found here among the ubiquitous fudge and t-shirt shops. I walked along with the happy tourists until I came to the City Gates and an old cemetary filled with victims of yellow fever and malaria.

I was whistling past the old Hugenot cemetary when I noticed the time. It was almost clam chowder and fried shrimp o'clock. At Schooners, there were people who loved me and wanted to feed me seafood.

You really can go home again.

Not Mine

I didn't get to eat here this trip...maybe next time. 

Goodies At The Farmer's Market

 

Pickin' At The Farmer's Market

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These guys were the background music at the market. I had given my last dollar to a panhandler at the docks so I couldn't throw any money in the case.

They were really, really good though. 

Old Friend Found

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This is Ken Barrett, Jr, photographer extraordinaire...and an old friend. Ken surfs, fishes, teaches college, and makes beautiful photos. Sorry ladies, he's taken... 

Old and New

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A lean out the window pic of drawbridge stalled traffic on the old Bridge Of Lions. The cranes sit on the new, under-construction bridge. 

A Typical Narrow Old St. Augustine Street

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No overweight SUV's allowed. 

The Oldest House

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The oldest house. You can look up the details, I just like the colors and architechture. 

Too Pretty To Pass Up

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This is a typical shotgun style cottage deep in one of the older neighborhoods in St. Augustine. It was for sale.

You couldn't afford it. 

My First Apartment

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The light green house across the water is the site of my first apartment. If you look up to the top of the house and the shed dormer...that was my place. The old house was divided into 3 apartments. Downstairs was the absentee (yankee) owner's, in the middle was a spacious rental, and at the top of a steep narrow attic stairway was my firetrap.

In the summer, the window unit rattled on hopelessly trying to cool the uninsulated one room apartment. Yes, one open room with a shower stall painted green. (Okay...I did that)

In the winter, cold air blasted throught the gaps around the windows, even after I taped plastic around them.

At night, when the television was the only light on...male termites would swarm to the tv.

It cost $125 a month and I loved it. 

Proof That A Boat Is A Hole In The Water That You Pour Money Into

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If you can't afford a whole boat....

(This is one half of a mold for making a hull) 

A South Riberia Boat Yard

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South Riberia street has evolved from shipyards that served the shrimping industry to boatyards that serve mostly pleasure craft. They are good at what they do however. Cousteau once brought the Calypso here for repairs. 

Off Duty Carriage Horses

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This is the old Colee stable site. It's hidden downtown where no tourists go, but it is the home of many of the horses that pull carriages through town. These two are off today. 

Hick Pic

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This is the San Sebastion Winery along the banks of the river of the same name in St. Augustine. Yes Hick, you can tour it and they even have a grape smash that you can participate in at some point in the year.

(If you go to Hick's, you will see she has is very fond of wineries)

Stuck

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Pure Florida will be stuck right here for a day or so. I did not get to go home for my birthday last weekend, so Friday, after dinner out with my family, I'm heading alone over to St. Augustine. ( My crew is all obligated and can't go)

So, I get to see my Mom and Dad, stomp around my old town a little, and pick up about 100 real toll house cookies courtesy of Mom. We will go out to eat at a little restaurant called, "Schooners" where they make an excellent Minorcan style clam chowder and tastey fried shrimp.

Sometime Saturday evening I'll head back, but in the meantime, I will be incommunicado.

If you were wondering, the fish in the tree is a dried out striped burr fish, a type of puffer. When threatened he puffs up into a pointy ball that's fairly hard to swallow if you are a predator type. Burr fish have a hard, horny mouth that is used for crushing the bejeezus out of crabs and other hard bodied critters.They bite really, really hard...I know this from personal experience.

Once I was snorkeling off Steinhatchee with the kids when a huge burr fish waddled by. They are slow ...as fish go so I chased him, caught him , and surfaced with my prize. I held him in one hand as I signaled the kids, " Hey guys, look what I...AIIIEEEEEEEEEEEE, OWOWOWOWO!" They stared in amazement and no small amount of fear as it sounded like I was sharkbait.

Their worried looks turned to laughter as I swung my hand from side to side over my head, with the burr fish firmly latched onto the thin webbing between my thumb and forefinger. It was not just latched on, but was biting over and over again in that shell crushing way that they do. Finally, I quit swinging it around my head and placed hand and attached fish back in the water. At that point, it calmly let go and swam away.

I did not chase any more fish that day.

I do not know how the one in the photo got stuck in the cedar tree. I found him that way, puffed, dead, and wedged, on a field trip with my students.

Honest. 

I Took A Walk This Evening

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I got home before sundown for a change this evening. It was a grey-blue-grey day with colder temps promised for tomorrow. It was just not right to waste an hour of pleasant temperature, bug free, winter woods walking so I grabbed a slice of white bread and stepped out onto the front porch. I glanced left and right, the coast was clear...no dogs in sight.

I headed down the path to the pond.

(You may want to refer to the map from time to time)

At the pond, I walked out onto the dock, sat down legs dangling, and flicked bits of bread on to the water's surface. Countdown...1...2...3..splurp! Bread gone. The bluegills were hungry. I fed the entire slice, bit by bit until at last it was gone. Incredibly, no dog had tracked me down and begged bread.

With the bread now building fish muscle, I dusted the crumbs off and walked north along the pond until I hit the driveway. The oaks were alive with warblers and cardinals and I noticed my first winter robins in the brush.

The driveway would just take me back to the house, so I headed west through the woods along a little gokart trail the kids had made. The trail took me through oaks until I wound up behind the pistol range. The deer had been busy foraging along the range backstop, their tracks covered the sandy mound. I looked for arrowheads since it had rained lightly this morning, but alas...none.

The trail beckoned, so I walked to the planted pines in the southwest corner and paused where best dog Ranger lies between two longleaf pines. I had not walked the south fence line in a while, so I patted the pines where Ranger's atoms now reside and moved east along the fence.
This fence. Could it be 20 years since Ranger and I camped on this vacant woodland, in freezing temps, while we strung fence on our new land? Any way you cut it, 1986 really was 20 years ago.

I checked the progress of some young cedars and black cherries that I had planted along the fence last year. The cedars were fine, but some of the black cherries were deer chomped. Situation normal...

In the open area between the pigs and the south fence, I followed a gopher tortoise trail through tall grass down into the oak forest that flows east to the swampy southeast corner. It was here that I stopped to admire some glossy black sparkleberries (farkleberries?) and decided to gather a few things to lay on the scanner when I got back to the house.

I looked around for volunteers...some red bay leaves, lichen, a water oak, that tall blue grass, cedar, smilax, yaupon...then I stopped...what was that sound? The dogs were tracking me, I could hear them coming through the woods following my scent.

I crouched down behind a palm until they were on me, but not aware of me. I jumped up and growled, they started, barked and ran back a few feet before wagging tails signaled recognition. I love messing with their heads.

After that, my pack and I worked our way down to the pond where we grabbed a few holdout cypress leaves and a pinch of empty blue curls seed cups.

We were back to the dock. Circumnavigation complete.

The dogs ran ahead as I walked up the path to the porch.

Pig Update

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The two FFA fair pigs are growing rapidly and are completely tame. A rub on the back will cause them to press against you while leaning to expose their bellies for rubbing.

They love Gatorade. I mean they LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it. It's a good economical source of electrolytes when they are feeling bad...cheaper than Pedialyte and very effective.

I have learned a lot about pigs in the 3 years that we have raised swine for the fair. They get dirty, but are careful to use far corners of the pen for body wastes. They look you in the eye, they nibble everything to test for edibility, they view you and anything else as a possible scratching post, and they love to drink.
Mia will sit and catch water droplets or slurp from the hose for as long as you can stand to be the pig sprayer.

Two months to fair time.

48

8th
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Yup, it's my birthday.

That's me when I was my son's age (14 and 8th grade)...my hair got a lot longer over the next few years. It bugged my Dad, but he tolerated it. He's a good dad.

I know what you're thinking...

...COOL GLASSES!

How I Spent My Last Day At 47

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Last weekend I was swinging a machete and a bushhook clearing a Jeep trail into Twig Forest.

This weekend I am not allowed to lift anything (GRRRRRR!) and have been assigned the job of scanning a blue zillion Katie pictures for her senior picture page in the yearbook.

I have created a temporary blog, http://kpyearbook.blogspot.com/ to host her pictures so the yearbook staff can pull those we choose. I won't be commenting on that blog, it's very temporary, but you are welcome to overdose on sugar by going there.

Gotta go. I have more photos to scan.

I scan therefore I am.

Cartography 101

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I talk about my place a lot, "here's a dead tree, here's my pond, here's a tree with under..." . You get the picture.

Or do you?

I was sitting here feeling useless, because yesterday's surgery on my right shoulder came with instructions not to lift anything.

EVERYTHING I do around here involves lifting...feed bags, remodeling, planting, taking out the trash, chainsawing, machete swinging, moving the chicken tractor, ...not to mention lifting weights which I actually enjoy. Arghhhh!

So, I was sitting here grumbling to myself when it occured to me that a map of this place might be a helpful post.

On the map above, all of the neighboring land is composed of large tracts of similar oak forest with a little pasture thrown in behind us. The effect is that we live in a much larger forest than we own. Nice.

The map is not to scale ( the barn is only 12 x 16...not bigger than our house) and as soon as I scanned it I realized I had left off a few things.

Here's some info about what you see on the map:

Fish Pond: Long and skinny and at the front of the property. Invisible from the road in the summer, slightly visible through winter's bare trees up front. The swamp at the south end is willow and cypress.

Frog Pond: My buddy Billy dug this for me. It's probably 10 feet in diameter and fishless on purpose...it's for the amphibians.

Driveway: Not labeled, but you knew. It is just a sand track, bumpy and ever changing.

House: Small by current standards, cozy by mine. It's got a porch that wraps around 1/2 of it and is sided with western red cedar...which needs restaining currently. It is invisible from the road and all adjoining property. Privacy. There's a molded concrete stone walkway leading out from the front door.

Well: 42 feet deep 4 inch well under a large pump house I built.

Garden/Pig/Chickens: This runs north-south with the FFA pigs living at the south end, then garden beds, blueberry patch, and stationary chickens. Other chickens live in the moveable chicken tractor.

Barn: We built this as soon as we got here. It was a plan from Popular Mechanics and is 12 x 16 feet on a concrete slab. It has a loft for storage above and is a crowded wood shop below. This is where I carve.

Fishing/Boat Gear Shed: This is a tall, skinny shed I built just for water gear...fishing, boating, surfboards, dive masks, life jackets.

Range: I called the sheriff, "Johnny, can I legally build a shooting range on my 10 acres?" The answer, yes. So I started digging. Visitors laughed and then asked incredulously, " You dug that by hand?" The range is excavated so the shooter is below grade and the excavated dirt is piled as a safe backstop. I shoot lead free ammo when possible and dig out the real lead after shooting traditional stuff. This is easier than it sounds because my bullets all go into a very small group.

Planted Pines: These were planted in the midst of Florida's worst drought in decades...remember the fires of '98? Those that survived that tough year are growing nicely now. Best dog Ranger is buried there.

Low Spot: This corner slopes and will hold water after tropical storms, etc. I want to get Billy and his backhoe in there to scrape out a little pond for the critters to use.

Palm/Oak Forest: There is an abundance of sabal palm here and the effect is very old Florida tropical. I love walking through there.

I am currently doing controlled grass burns in the area near the pigs where it says "OPEN". I have some photos of that for another post.

I left off my recirculating aquaculture tank which is a 750 gallon circular tank behind the fishing gear shed. It is currently inactive, but I hope to do some replumbing and start raising fish again. I raised Tilapia a few years ago.

There it is folks, FC's homestead.

Trust and A Lesson Learned

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These three people trust me completely. If I say, "We're going rafting down the Nolichucky River's class 4 rapids." or "Don't worry about that gator" or " There's a small shark swimming by on the port side of the boat, y'all swim on the starboard side", they know it's okay.

I let them down this week. I thought I was protecting them as usual, but instead I caused them some anguish. I kept them in the dark about my little visit to the dermatologist last week instead of honestly sharing information. They knew I was going and wanted to know why. "Don't worry, just a little sun damage, just remember this when I say use your sunblock."

On Monday, I got a phone call at work. The "C" word. Basal Cell Carcinoma. Come in Friday for surgery on your back. A little distracting, but this is a common and highly curable problem. Still, it is the "C" word and I didn't want to scare anybody so I just didn't explain or even mention where I was going on Friday morning. I am the stupid silent type sometimes.

Of course the knuckleheads found out.

So, last night, pre-surgery there was some teary concern.

Lesson learned.

From now on, I will protect them from beasts and bad guys, but not from the truth.

Hay Harvest

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The dry winter weather is good for hay baling. These round rolls were being loaded on a farm down the road from my place. Each roll goes for about $30.