Chicken Scratch and A Turtle Dilemma

My banties have been scratching hard in the fallen leaves around the oaks. Shallow craters like these surround all the "yard trees". They are doing this, because (A) I don't feed them and (B) the mulch is alive with pesky Asian cockroaches. These Asian exotics are small and seem to prefer living outside (Halleyooyah for that!) but they still tick me off, because they fly ... alot.

Laya tried a new nest in the confederate jasmine near the front porch, but Bear found it ... so, that one is a no-go. The chickens have evolved into two tribes ... Laya and two roosters form one group and two roosters form the other. They do not mix even though all the roosters are spawn of Laya.
The two outcasts keep their distance and if they come too close to the Laya tribe, the Laya's guards chase them away.

In other news ...


Two little turtles turned up on my classroom doorstep yesterday ... source unknown. This happens when you are a science teacher.

They seem a little different from the baby turtles I raised from eggs and which I have written about many times here on PF.
I haven't got my Florida reptile ID book down yet to figure out who they are, which makes me a little nervous.
Florida recently passed new and stringent wild turtle protection laws to help preserve our wild aquatic turtle populations, and I don't want to run afoul of that.
On the other hand, I don't want to release an exotic from the pet trade into our waters.
So, FWC, if you are reading this, my intentions are good, I just need to ID these little guys so I know what to do.



Pretty cute.




I think they will be easy to ID with these photos, for today they are in my turtle/cichlid tank out in the garden.
I won't have time to ID them until tomorrow, as I'm getting up from the kitchen table in a moment and heading to St. Augustine to help my parents decorate and operate the spookiest house on their street for Halloween.

I'm taking Bear, and Junior, and I may just take the slow way over ... that's usually good for a post or two.

Happy Halloween!!

Watch out for the little candy totin' spooks tonight.

Form Follows Function : A Bird Dog Clam Boat

This is a boat with a second life.

More than likely, it started life as a gill net boat, back before the 1994 net ban. In 1994, Floridians used a constitutional amendment to ban certain entangling nets and limit others. Concerned voters went the constitutional amendment route because our mostly worthless, lobbyist loving, legislators could not enact a regulation with the same effect.



Voters got fed up and did an endrun around them. Now the constitutional amendment process seems to be out of hand with numerous ones each year. These days, I vote no on all of them as a protest to this type of law making. We have a legislature for a reason and constitutions should not be loaded with amendments ... in my opinion.



But back to this boat ... it's a bird dog boat, a style I've written about before. They were designed to lay hundreds of yards of gill nets out the back of the boat as you raced around a school of fish like mullet.

When the net ban passed, bird dogs began fading away. The little town near PFHQ had a legendary bird dog boat builder named Tremblay and his business faded away too. The commercial netters either switched their fishing methods, faded away, or became clam farmers.

Cedar Key is now THE center for clam farming in the US.



Let's walk around this beautiful bird dog clam farmer boat I found parked at Cedar Key a few weeks ago.



On a bird dog, the motor sits behind the bow with the lower unit and prop poking through a hole in the hull. The magic of this is two fold, it keeps the motor out of the stern area where nets would be tossed out . As a clam farm boat, having the motor up front makes sense too, because very heavy clam bags will be coming aboard at the stern and it's nice to have the motor out of the way.

The second part of this magical design is the fact that as the boat comes on to a plane, the bow lifts the prop up with it and you can literally fly over very skinny water.

It's a beautiful thing.



Bird dogs tend to be wet rides though, so this boat has a nice spray shield installed to keep things a little more comfortable on a winter day when you are travelling out to your clam lease.

Here's a better view of how the motor sits in the hull hole.

Some bird dogs have a transom and some don't. Not having one on a clam boat makes loading those heavy clam bags off the lease and on to the boat a lot easier. The shade cover is a nice touch when you are out there under a blazing sun and it helps to keep harvested clams cool on the ride back to the grader.

The big roller on the top was a part of gill netting so it may be inert now, or they may have a winch to haul bags aboard.

When I search the internet for bird dog boats, I find my stuff and little more, so I'll keep posting about them from time to time as I find good examples.

They are unique Gulf of Florida boats built to to a specific job in very shallow water and they are a bit of an endangered breed, which makes this retrofit and new life a grand thing in my view.

... what? Oh, Why ARE they called "Bird Dogs"?

Picture a guy at the bow steering the boat with his crew behind him ready to deploy a 1000 yard gill net. As they race over the shallow Gulf flats, the man up front is scanning the waters for signs of a school of mullet.

When he sees them, he points and turns the boat toward them for the big circle.

Wordless Not Turdless Wednesday

Scrub Diamondback ... Bear's Close Call

This is the diamondback I mentioned in yesterday's post. She was laying like this when Doug and I came walking from the opposite direction, so she was nicely concealed behind the stick and pine cone.
I imagine it was Doug's habit of always scanning the ground for beetles that kept us from walking right up on it. He spotted it and yelled, "Snake!"
My heart stopped when I saw it, not because it was a rattler, that's expected where we were, and we were out of range, but Bear had just walked past it ahead of us.

He had probably passed within a foot or two of the snake's head a moment before. My Doggy Daddy guilt kicked in full speed at that point. While he still had his leash on, I had dropped my end of it and was letting him walk about ten feet in front of us as we talked.

It was about 1:30 pm and the day had warmed considerably after a cool night and morning so the snake was very lethargic, which is probably why Bear did not notice it and the snake did not strike.

In fact, it never made any quick or defensive moves, and did not rattle even when we encouraged it off the trail with a lightly tossed stick.


I think it had just slid out of the palmetto scrub to soak up some heat when we came along.



Reluctantly, it decided to leave it's sunny spot and head back into the covering scrub.





Bear watched it go while I gripped his collar firmly.




It's kind of a panty video and a little shaky as I was holding onto Bear with one hand and filming with the other.


Bear has an amazing sense of smell, yet he walked right past the snake, thank goodness. Had he caught a whiff and investigated before we noticed the snake, this could have gone so bad.

So, a couple of lessons I was allowed to relearn without punishment are:

• Keep control of the leash on the trail ... no cheating in snake country.

• Don't let your spidey senses relax just because you are almost out of the woods. I did that because I was on this wide open sandy trail. When I am off trail, I pick every footfall in snake habitat, but I essentially goofed off on this walk.

All in all, it was a fine day, but the potential for disaster is always there.

Surviving Sunday, ... But Just Bearly.

The sun visor on my JEEP.


Sunday morning I was flying low heading out to Cedar Key Scrub to meet with Doug Taron of Gossamer Tapestry for a bug hunt. Doug is a butterfly restoration scientist down from Chicago for a gig at the UF museum in Gainesville. He had emailed me about being in the area, and we had agreed to meet at Cedar Key Scrub.

I was running a little late as usual, so I had the JEEP in warp drive as I headed out 345 to Cedar Key. Bear was with me. I thought it would be nice for him to go on a real adventure since much of his work week is pretty uneventful.

I glanced over at him as we blew down the two lane road through piney woods and swamps. He was looking mighty cute with his ears up, all alert and enjoying the breeze through the open window.

"Great picture" I thought. I reached for my camera, fumbled it out of the case, turned it on, and held it with my left hand while I steered with my right. I glanced too long at the viewfinder screen as I tried to compose the picture.

The road curved.

I did not.

In a flash, I was off the pavement at 60 miles per hour on a grassy shoulder of a banked turn.

Words came out of my mouth that I don't use on this blog, so use your imagination.

I dropped the camera in my lap and gripped the wheel as the rear of the JEEP began to slip out to the right. I think, "We are going into a skid, the rollover should happen any moment now."

FLASHBACK TO 1984.
LOCATION: FEDERAL LAW ENFORCEMENT TRAINING CENTER, GLYNCO GEORGIA, HIGH SPEED PURSUIT TRAINING TRACK ... the instructor puts his hands on the car we will soon be racing around the track, he speaks ... "Do NOT brake during the turns, if you do the car will spin out. If you feel the car beginning to skid left or right, TURN INTO THE DIRECTION OF THE SKID! I lean over to the cadet next to me and say, "yeah right, that's like, if a guy throws a right hook at you, you should lean in to it."
The instructor hears me and picks me to go first around the track. He has me purposely put the car into a high speed skid and pull it out by turning into it. Repeatedly.

FLASHBACK OVER.

I gently turn the wheel to the right, the JEEP straightens out, and begins to skid left, I turn left, keeping my foot off the break.

As much as I would like to stop the JEEP and have this high speed, shake your guts out of your body ride over, if I brake, the tires will dig in and we will roll. I may love,love,love my JEEP, but I am aware of it's faults ... rolling over is the big one.

I am seatbelted, Bear is not.

I focus on keeping us straight, turning this way, then that way, and letting friction with the grassy shoulder slow us. Eventually it does and I ease us back on to the road after a hundred yards of nail biting unscheduled offroading.

An oncoming car in the opposite lane has stopped a safe distance away to see the impending wreck, but I'm back on the asphalt and okay.

I give him a thumbs up as I zip past him.

I get to the meeting spot about 5 minutes before Doug and never mention the harrowing near death experience on the way out. In fact, he will hear about it for the first time when he reads this.

At Cedar Key Scrub State Preserve, I stuffed a park brochure/trail map in my back pocket and we take off along a sandy trail.

It's fun to get out there with someone who is excited to be there and Doug was. It was cool but warmed up as we hiked, and his beloved tiger beetles began to show themselves after a while. Bear and I let him go ahead whenever a good patch of beetley sand appeared.



Like the SS Minnow, what was to be a short walk turned into a marathon hike when we missed a turn, and then another, and another ... all the while me with a trial map in my back pocket.
It wasn't a big deal, we were having a good time, but Bear was warming up and needed breaks from time to time.


If we hadn't have taken the wrong trail, we would have missed this scrub jay on a powerline when we came out of the woods along the wrong highway.
Serendipity baby!




A few times, Bear just quit and plunked down in whatever shade was available, and we did the same, while he cooled off. He had a little swamp water once, and later a kind hiker shared his water with him.
I was feeling really guilty since I had not brought water along for the short hike we originally intended.

Bear, Doug (who is NOT an axe murderer), and FC at Cedar Key Scrub.

We made it back to the parking lot eventually, Bear drank a water bottle and all of my 52 ounce Bubba Keg mug of water from the house, so he was feeling pretty good back inside the JEEP.
Doug, and I had a coke at a little store and then we headed for Shell Mound.

The last time I endangered my sweet Bear was at Shell Mound where Doug hoped to find a different group of tiger beetles.
In the newly gravelled parking lot, I parked the JEEP and stepped out to get a photo of my new magnetic sign that the Harbor Branch folks had sent me. Any picture is better with Bear in it, so
I left him inside with the window down for the shot.
I clucked my tongue to get an alert expression from him ... and he leaped out the window ... with the leash still on, briefly hanging himself when it caught on the seat.
He only hung for a second before crashing to the gravel parking lot.
GEE WHIZ!!
He was okay and shook it off.

So, let's look at Bear's day ...

• Almost in a car accident.
• Overheated and dehydrated.
• Briefly hung by the neck before crashing to the rocks below.
• Narrowly missed stepping on a diamondback rattler ...

Oh ... I didn't mention the rattler?

Tomorrow.

Math, Naturally

You remember the geometry ants, right?
Well, they are still at work, but they have company ...


The Gulf Fritillary caterpillars have gotten the math bug (heehee) 2 (heeheehee). They are focusing on subtraction instead of geometry.

Meanwhile, the elephants foot flowers that graced us with so many insect photos a month ago have almost finished their vital addition work for this year.

And while I won't put you through another set of "Gee Whiz! LOOK AT MY BAMBOO PLANTS GROW!" photos, I think it's clear that they have done one heck of a job at cell division this year, reaching new heights thanks to alot of mitosis math.

Yup, we is purty cerebral around here.

Yesterday's trip to Tampa did not result in the first photograph thanks to a busy schedule with Emma and a cold front that washed out the light.

Today is looking beautiful though and I should be meeting a blogger from my blogroll this morning.

I'll let you know how that goes ... unless of course he turns out to be an axe murderer and not a butterfly restoration expert.

That could be a problem.

Have a great Sunday ... GO OUTSIDE!

Welaka Walkn' Sandhills

By the time Emma and I made it to the Welaka Fish Hatchery last week, we were almost as happy to see the restrooms as the fish in the tanks.
As we piled out of the JEEP and headed for the banio, a pair of sandhill cranes strolled around the corner.
They stopped.
We stopped.
As much as I was looking forward to that clean, public option restroom, I had to zip back to the JEEP and grab the camera.

I figured these cranes were pretty accustomed to people, so I walked slowly towards them until they finally took notice of my proximity.
The cranes began to move away slowly and I was able to capture a few megapixies of them share with you.

Emma was sorta hohum about these since she has to literally walk around sidewalk standing sandhills on the University of South Florida campus at times. How cool is that?

It's been a busy week here in Pure Florida ... as you can tell by a missed daily post or two.

My soccer girls are improving. We made the dreaded cuts last week, keeping 19 when we were supposed to be keeping 16 ... out of 27 tryouts.

I have a super co-coach who not only is showing me the ropes of coaching soccer, but is an amazing fundraiser in the local, tiny, poor community.

It looks like we will have real uniforms and not Sharpie Marker scrawled numbers on a T-shirt like our poor track team had last year. Our first match is November 6 against a hoitytoity private school, and vandals have damaged one of our goal frames, so we are feeling the time/money stress, but we will make it.

My brainy High Q team won both matches last week ... actually left the other team in smoking ruins, so that was a feather in their bonnet.

(They don't really wear bonnets ... they're nerds, but they have some sense of fashion)

Last night's football game was pretty depressing for a while and did not end well for us, but at the end we could hold our heads up.

At the end of the first half, we were down 0 -47 and could not seem to do anything right. In the second half, we came back hard, but not enough to win.

Final score was 24-47, and Junior made two of those touchdowns including a 60+ yard pass into the goal.

If only we had fired it up a little earlier!

Junior has two more football games left and then he will switch to basketball.

Last week he was in Indianapolis at the National FFA convention. He flew home Thursday night. This morning he is taking the ACT for the 3rd time, trying to get one more point higher on his score so he can be eligible for a full scholarship.

What a schedule that kid has.

Emma came home for the weekend to visit and work on a big paper. She entered a pumpkin carving contest at her apartment and won 4 tickets to HallowScream at Bush Gardens. She was pretty stoked about that.

When she wakes up this morning, I am driving her back to Tampa. Perhaps I will find a little something ... some park, or out of the way spot to bring back a story for you.

Right now, Bear is whining that I should take him out. It's raining lightly and I am delaying, but he says the rain doesn't bother him.

I'd better go get wet ... before the floor does.

Praying Mantis Cryptic Coloration

This mantis rode into the house on an armful of Pure Florida oak firewood last weekend. Katie spotted him scampering up the rock face of the fireplace, so I caught him and released him on the porch.

It was night, but he hung around, so I grabbed the camera and captured his image to share with y'all.


I don't know this species, because ... I've never bothered to look it up ... surprise!



I just call these by the name Oak Mantis, because they are superbly matched to the oak bark around here ... especially the mottled smooth bark of younger oaks. They count on their camo and usually do not move until you are unknowingly about to place a hand on them.



They are pretty flat too, and the combo of colors and flatness just makes them part of the tree.


Their hunting equipment is pretty amazing.

Remember that old,old, scifi movie ? ... "The Deadly Mantis" ... I think that was the title.



Giant mantis created by atomic explosions wreaks havoc on civilization!

That movie scared me as a kid, but now I know too much stuff ... gravity makes big bugs impossible.

I find that reassuring.

JEEPINESS HAPPINESS

Like a kid in a candy store ...

There were so darn many of these forest roads beckoning us to stray from our path to the Ferry. I found them quite distracting and could not keep myself from turning down one after another.

When I did, I was rewarded with flowering prairies ...

... and open, long leaf pine savannahs ...

... and scrubby sand pine ridges.

It was pretty darn wonderful and these were only off of Forest Road 43 on the way down to the Ferry.

The total number of open dirt roads in the 500,000 acre Ocala National Forest boggles the mind and makes me want to get back there ASAP.

Are you picturing the Chinese protester in front of the tank?

I did not run over the frog. Actually, there were so many frogs in this huge puddle, that we backed up and went off to find other trails and muddier puddles to splash through.

The cold front had brought some rain and wind the night before. We saw freshly downed trees on some trails and puddles of water still standing in porous sugar sand.

The frog wasn't taking any chances and jumped in the water while we poked around his "pondle".

I took this pic of Emma and I by setting up the tripod across the puddle, hitting the 10 second timer and then hightailing it back along the bank, before leaping into position for the shot.

I had a little video for you, but it failed to load so look for it sometime in the future.

This was a great day, made even nicer by the little side diversions that popped up on the way to our goal sites.

I am sooooo digging out my forest map and planning the next excursion ...

A Ferry Tale

Goal Number Two for Emma and I on our Welaka Aquarium quest, was crossing the River Of May on the Fort Gates Ferry.
The ferry was another of those old Florida things that I wanted to show her while it still exists in essentially the same form as it did when I was her age. Prior to the trip, I had my doubts it could still be operating, but after Googling a little, I found it.

How sweet it is!

First we had to get to the Ocala National Forest, about one hour away by faithful steed. After passing through some beautiful horse farm country, we zipped through a chunk of the national forest and landed in the small town of Salt Springs.
At the north end of Salt Springs is Forest Road 43, a graded dirt road that rolls down slope to the San Juan River. Along road 43, there were numerous numbered dirt tracks ("JEEP trails" according to the DeLorme maps.)
These proved to be a delightful distraction and had we not had goals. we would have just cruised these, one after another.

They get a post of their own this week.

Eventually, we made it to the ferry landing on the west side of the St. Johns River.


Emma! JEEP!

The sign behind the JEEP says to pull on to the dock and turn your lights on. This simple act signals the ferrymaster across the river to come and get you.
How long that takes depends on how busy he is over there at his fish camp, but it was only about 15 pleasant minutes for us ... before we saw the ferry leave the dock far across the river.


This is the hand operated winch system that lowers a metal ramp that mates with the ferry.

Here's the ferry pulling in to pick us up. It's pretty basic, but if it ain't broke, don't fix it!

The tiny ferry tender is a unique vessel. The bow is attached to the ferry by a swivel so that the tender just swings this way or that, depending on ferry direction.

JEEP goes nautical! (Emma's been nautical for a long time.)

The ride across is slow and ... well, pretty wonderful if you are sharing it with your baby girl.
It will cost you ten dollars to cross, but it saves a long ride north or south to find a bridge.

This is worth the money and the drive ... go find it.

We made you a little video to wet your appetite.

It's Not A Ferry Tale .... The Welaka Fish Hatchery Still Exists

(Yes, I know how to spell Fairy ... pay attention. We'll deal with that later.)


When I was a kid, and just as fish crazy as I am now, my wonderful parents took me on a day trip to Welaka and the National Fish Hatchery there. Being a St. Augustine kid, with Marineland in our backyard, I could easily get my fish fix (there was no SeaWorld or shudder, DisneyWorld in FL yet) ... but this aquarium was different.

It was a sweetwater aquarium! As a ten year old beach kid, I had never considered that such a thing might exist.
It was a wonder to me and I remember putting my nose prints on each aquarium front as I soaked in the freshies.

Flash forward a few decades and sweet baby girl Emma sends me a message that she wants to go on a daughter/Dad adventure when she comes home for the weekend. Oh, and she would like steak for Sunday's meal ... she's eating lots of chicken in college and needs a break.

Today I'm taking care of that lack of grilled beef, but yesterday we took care of that lack of adventure that comes from acing your classes and setting the curve in your college genetics class.
(Gosh, how did that Daddly bragging slip in there?)

Anyway ...

On the most beautiful day in months, we headed out early for Welaka. A cold front had barreled into Florida overnight bringing us blue skies, crisp cool weather, and NO HUMIDITY!
Oh sweetness!
On the way, we drove and splashed our way through countless JEEP trails in the Ocala National Forest so we didn't get to the hatchery until 3:45 pm. I thought it was open until 5:00 pm, so no worry ... except when we arrived the sign said OPEN 8:00 TO 3:00.
Oh no!

I thought I had blown it, but I had an idea for a funny PF pic, so I handed the camera to Emma and told her I wanted her to shoot me hands up on the window, nosed pressed to the glass door, in the classic, "Nooooooo, it's closed" pose.

When I pressed against the glass door, it moved a little.
I pulled on the handle.
It opened!
Sweet!

In we went.

Emma checking out some yummy channel cats.

Young sunshine bass ... a hybrid of white bass and striped bass.

Such active schoolers ... they were a fishy swirl of motion.

A lovely lady largemouth bass shared her aquarium with me.

We circumnavigated the small, quaint, aquarium enjoying each simple tank and having the place to ourselves.

I was secretly glad that nothing seemed to have changed, I would go so far as to say the backdrops behind each aquarium were the same as when I visited so many years ago.

In a state like Florida where "progress" tends to erase traditional places and events, it was so refreshing to walk into this old aquarium with it's rustic displays and retro tile every where.

It was a wonderful bit of old Florida and well worth the drive.

Speaking of old Florida ... and of apparent spelling errors in the post title, there was one other bit of old Florida we found yesterday and I will share that with you this week ... plus pictures and video (hopefully) of our JEEP adventures in the Ocala National Forest.

... and yes, there will be a Ferry tale.

Poplar-ity Contest

Here at PFHQ, we are at the southern terminus of the Great Eastern Deciduous Forest that stretches from the east coast to the plains.
Hardwoods you take for granted up nawth, even as close as the nawtherly southern states, are nonexistant, rare, or just plain hard to find down here.
That is a combination of Florida being at the southern end of their range and about 444 years of post "discovery" land use.

The point is, I get pretty excited over native Florida hardwoods that are more at home up nawth, but have a valid right to be here too.

When I travel north of the St. Mary's River, I'm always looking for that possible arborealadoptee to take home.
Usually, it doesn't work out, but last summer it did. On a trip to Georgia, I spied a few young tulip poplars creeping up through the gravel driveway at my bro-n-law's cabin. Doomed by their location, the decision to adopt them was easy.
On the last day as we were packing up, I gently tugged a few from the driveway and placed them in moist ziploc bag in the cooler.
The day after we arrived home, I planted them in a trough in my garden.

I've babied them and so far so good. They have made it through the summer and winter is their thang, so I'm optimistic (as usual) about their chances.

This young cypress is not a rare thing down here, but it too started out as a wee tiny thing brought in as a seed in some aquatic weed compost the local state park was offering. When he sprouted in my veggie garden, I potted him up and my tiny todderly daughters and I planted him and some siblings around the pond.

I'll keep you posted on the these little poplars.

Next on my list is the black walnut and I think I know where a mature one exists in the area.
If you see a picture of me with stained hands, you'll know I was successful.

Mangels, Mangroves, Zonation, and Shrimp, Glorious Shrimp!

We're talking tides in Marine Science this week ... spring tides, neap tides, semidiurnal tides, diurnal tides, mixed tides ... what they are, why they are, differences, effects on marine life ... it's mind boggling.


At least I think their minds are boggled ... it's hard to tell on some of them.


Sometimes, when dealing with these simple truths about planet Earth, I take the opposite tack and ask them to imagine a world without whatever natural process or truth that we are dealing with at the time..


What if there were no tides on earth? How different would things be for life along the coast ... and for us?


... Or when we are discussing all the WEIRD properties of that chemical bad boy ... water ... what a rebel compound this water stuff is ... incorrigible actually.



It breaks so many rules ... like that crazy density thing ... being less dense as a solid than as a liquid. TOTALLY WEIRD.



I ask them ...

"What if ice sunk like it's supposed to do?"



We range far and wide over the global effects of billions of years of ice sinking, piling up on the seafloor, cooling the waters ever more, creeping outward ... and we usually wind up realizing that the simple fact that ice floats makes it possible for us to be here in our present form.



That and the fact that Peggy Flemming or Dorothy Hamill would never have had a sport to participate in is pretty sobering.





But, what of tides and mangels of mangroves manifesting multiarching roots with many multitudes of munchers mingling amongst them?

What of sessile stress?


The sessile dilemma ...
Where to live, where to live ?
If I attach too high, I'd better be tough enough to withstand hours outside of water during falling tides. Plus, I will be stuck there in plain view of interlopers like raccoons and other munchers.




If I attach deep, I won't have to worry about dessication, but the competition for space is tough and there will be constant threats from aquatic predators.

Just be thankful there are SO many proproots to choose from sessile citizens. The mangrove is very generous in this area.


Leaving sessile stress behind, we arrive in the mud where the value of the mangrove tree shines again in the form of detritus.

Every detrital mangrove leaf adds to the nutrients in the mud, which provides a feast for microorganisms that become fodder for shrimp and THAT, dear readers, is a very fine thing.

A VERY FINE THING.