Deer Decomposition

I was going to skip documenting this deer, and I am not doing a series like that last time, but Doug's comment about beetles made me go back and take a closer look.


I found beetles romantically involved among the bones, skin, and hair of the unfortunate deer.

This carrion beetle popped up for only a moment and then it was back to work in the sand beneath the carcass.

I was amazed at how fast this deer was reduced in volume. We had about two days of stink, one day with vultures, and then no real sign of it, unless you waded through the brush to get to it.

I suppose the vultures did the heavy lifting here since there were about 50 of them in the surrounding oaks when the deer was first spotted.

They left their calling card beneath those oaks.

Oh, it's a wild ride these atoms take, from soil to plants to deer to vulture to soil to plants ...

Icky video below: A ground level FLY -through (whacka, whacka) of the deer carcass.

A Bunch of Stuff ... We'll Begin With The Blimp

On the day before Thanksgiving, I was finishing painting the dining room French doors and general yard sprucing, when I heard a droning motor approaching from above. I thought it might be a chopper doing drug surveillance at first, because it seemed to be taking forever to appear.

When it finally did come in to view, it was the Goodyear Blimp and it was at minimal altitude as it cruised directly over PFHQ.
ACK!!!

My camera was locked in the JEEP console 100 yards away!

I dropped my stuff, jumped off the porch, and dashed to the JEEP, just as Emma pulled in the driveway.

Keys!
Insert, twist, lift console, grab camera, turn on, focus on blimp directly overhead, FOG!!! The picture is frosted, ... the lens is fogging in the warm air!

Wipe,wipe on clean part of T-shirt, raise, shoot.

One shot.
Whew.

Resistance is futile!!


Here is a good example of succession.
What was bahia grass pasture when we bought PFHQ 24 years ago, is steadily becoming forest. It never was an OPEN pasture, but patches of woods with cows grazing on grassy areas that probably equalled 50 percent of the property at the time of purchase.

Emma and I will burn this area after the first killing frost to keep it open. I don't want to lose my gopher tortoises who rely on forbs, nor do I want to lose my scrubby sandhill wildflower species.


Yesterday, I spent some time in my forest playing the role of storm and fire.

I roamed with a pruning saw, cutting down saplings who would grow and shade out the forbs and wildflowers that the gopher and I covet. It was pleasant work, cutting limbs and saplings, and then stacking same in brush piles for the critters.

I don't want the brown desert that exists in the dark shadows of a mature oak canopy ... and so I meddle.
Too risky to burn in these thickly forested areas and no hurricanes knocked down trees to open holes in that canopy this year, so I take on the role with my saw.

Every stroke of the saw opens a window for light to reach the ground.

Here a once vigorous hog plumb is surrounded and shaded by 4 inch DBH oaklings. They are expendable and they fall quickly to my sharp saw.
When I walk away, the plum is bathed in sunlight.

Some saplings just get shortened to let in light, but still provide brushy cover and thickety thicketness for cardinals and other brush lovers.
Saplings that have crept out into the open gopher habitat are taken way down so the grasses can reclaim what they were losing.

It's really satisfying "work".


This little sweetgum is a transplant from the first property I ever bought back home in St. Augustine. It's finally gotten tall enough to hold its own with the oaks and I expect it to rocket upwards in the future.

A little sumac rejoices in it's sunbeam.

It was a little warm and humid for that woodsy work yesterday, but the rains came last night and today is nicely chilly, so I may just go meddle with the forest again today.

I need to walk off that turkey anyway.

Bear's Grandma brought him a rawhide bone on Thanksgiving day. He thanked her by standing up and putting both his paws on her shoulders as we all gasped.

She's strong though and it seems to have made her day.

He is so IN with his grandma.

That picture gives you a view of the new porch color too.

Maybe I can get a full frontal view of the painted PFHQ on this beautiful morning to share with you.

The feast.

This room was originally a dining room.

Then, several years ago, Junior reached the age where he needed a bedroom, so instead of adding on ($$$), we converted the dining room into a bedroom.

Time passed, and now he has moved out to be a college boy.

Rumor was that this room could now be a man cave/den with stipulations.

Stipulations pretty much ruin the whole man cave dream, so I held on to that hope, but not with any realistic expectations.

When Thanksgiving approached and we would be hosting it in a transfer of turkeypower from Mom to us, the room went back to a dining room.

I knew once our massively expandable groaning board went back into that room, any hope of a true man cavern was gone.

I think it's a circle of life thing, dining room to bedroom to dining room.

Not sure.

I just know I am out of that loop.

Hodgepodge Hoopla of Perennial Peanuts, Delicious Datils, Cozy Cabins, and Dead Deer

Dave and Tami's log home is progressing nicely.


These photos were taken a week ago, so you can imagine that much has changed. I got there just as the sun slipped behind the very tall trees surrounding the home, so I had to use flash for these shots.





I photographed the well, because I remember how stoked I was to have my own water well, back in 1988.


It looks like Dave and Tami went with a submersible pump, which should give them great water pressure.





My next pump will be submersible, when the current above ground pump bites the dust.







"Figley"





When I was a kid, my Dad had a giant fig tree that covered a huge chunk of yard. It didn't grow UP so much as OUT.


I like fig newtons, so I suppose I will be searching for a fig newton recipe soon ... well, not soon, the new tree is just a baby.





My Mom made use of the abundant figs by creating a faux strawberry jam that used strawberry jello and figs as I recall.




Perennial Peanut is an agricultural forage crop down here that is used as a soil improving legume while it also provides a nutritious hay for grazing animals.





The DOT has begun using it in highway medians, which turn yellow during the peanut bloom. Now the nurseries are offering it for ground covers, so I thought I would give it a try. You don't get peanuts from this variety, just green forage and nitrogen added to your soil.

Lord knows, my sandy soil could use some improving.





Last weekend, I planted collard plants in my elevated buckets where datils and tomatoes formerly grew. I have some lettuce seeds that I will sprinkle in those buckets after the collards have a chance to get a head start.





Let me tell you how nice it was to walk into the feed store and NOT have to buy bags of Show Pig feed at 20 bucks a bag.


As much as I enjoyed each FFA pig my kids raised, I must confess that not having to buy a pig or hundreds of pounds of feed for the next 4 months, coupled with not having to worry about pig illnesses made me positively giddy as I walked out of the feed store with $3.00 worth of collard starts and a teaspoon of lettuce seeds.





I donated our pig shelter, feeder, and waterer to the school FFA program so they can loan them out to a kid who wants to raise a fair animal, but doesn't have the money for those items.









The Southern Sisters have been making lots of datil pepper sauce lately as this is their big gift basket season and they make truly wonderful gift baskets that have hand selected high quality and unique items, plus the basket REALLY is full of goodies ... unlike those store bought ones that have lots of backing and filling with a few items on top.


They have customers from last season who have requested "more of that datil stuff!".





I am proposing that we, (I am an honorary sister/slave/cook/gofer/gardener/toter of stuff) start producing the stuff commercially as a stand alone product. They have the licensed certified kitchen and I have the datil growing expertise ... plus the family recipe.





It seems like a no-brainer to me.


This is just simple datil vinegar.
Stuff a bottle with a pepper of your choice ... I chose datil ... pour vinegar over it and let it sit.
Dribble it over greens, pilau, whatever floats your boat.
Recharge with fresh vinegar ... seemingly ad infinitum.
I have some 2005 in my fridge that I used just last week.


This is different ...
In my refrigerator is a datil experiment that is meant to mimic a Tabasco type sauce using datils.


I took bright orange, ripe datils and chopped them in a food processor. Then, I combined the caustic orange goo with a little vinegar and salt.



I don't have oak barrels, so it's aging in a glass jar, but it smells wonderful when I pop the top to check it.





Months from now, I will process it again and then strain it for an orangey liquid that I hope will be amazing.

I will let you know.


If you want datil pepper seeds, I have a zillion of them right now since I save them every time we make sauce. So no need to panic or order early, unless you just want to do so. I should have plenty later in the winter when you start thinking about gardening again.


And finally, ... it seems we have another dead deer in the yard again.
Tis the season.

The buzzards told me it was there, and sure enough, they were right.

I won't be photographing the process this time, since we did that already ... remember?

Newbies can search this blog for dead deer posts.

Now if I can just keep Bear from rolling in it.

Grebeindipity

My trip to Manatee Springs last week to look for manatees was fruitless.


My school librarian who has recently become a kayaker, told me she was surrounded by them earlier in the week as she drifted in her kayak.


The springs are only a few minutes away, so I decided to drop in on the way to the grocery store.
Even though I was there early in the morning, they had moved out into the Suwannee to graze. The day was not cold enough to keep them huddled in the warm, 72 degree Fahrenheit spring flow.


There was this little grebe though, even if the manatees were elsewhere.

It was up, down, up, down as it hunted near the river boardwalk at the park

Below is a brief, bit of grebeindipity.

Bear Ponders Pond Sounds

A little Bear after a stressful workweek ... healthier than a martini, but possibly more addicting.

Yo, Chill, Dudes and Dudettes

Deep breath everyone.

Now exhale.

Repeat.

More on this later.

VHS Induced Nostalgia, Giggles, and NearTears.

(The way we were)

A few weeks ago, I decided to get serious about converting our old family video tapes to digital.



I explored purchasing the equipment to convert these analog tapes to digital, but in the end, I decided to use an online service called Imemories.







Now, all I had to do was find those old VHS tapes. They were here somewhere. I began looking in all the sensible places, but of course, they were not there.



Finally, I found them deep in my own closet, buried under layers of ... stuff that really belongs somewhere else.







After I found them, I realized we had nothing to view them with anymore. The last combo VHS/DVD tape deck we had died last year.







Uh oh.







Then, inspiration hit, as it sometimes does, even for me. In my storage closet (again with the closet) at school, I had an old VHS player just collecting dust.







I checked it out and brought it home the next day.



So, this last week has found us reviewing tapes that go all the way back to 1986, to see just what the heck is on them AND to make editorial decisions.







I have watched my babies crawling and toddling, sleeping, laughing ... so much laughing, crying, playing, singing, acting, and growing in 2 hour increments.







I watched our legendary chocolate labrador, Ranger, being poked by babies, stepped on by babies, crawled upon by babies, hair pulled by babies, ... and never a growl or any sign of anything but contentment. I watched him steal Katie's first birthday cake off the table as we focused on her, saw him leap atop a 5 foot tall garden workbench from a standing start, and later hobble around the yard with aging hips and a grey beard.



I can't watch him without a smile on my face, a lump in my throat, and a tear pushing at the duct release lever.



I am forever grateful to him for being such a good boy with my babies. He was here first and dogs don't always make the new baby transition with grace.



Ranger did.







So much time compressed into a box of tapes. So many hairstyle changes, hair color changes, glasses style changes, short shorts (yes, mine), and changes here at PFHQ too.







The earliest tapes show our tiny singlewide trailer, before we built the house. The land is much more open since it had cows on it until the title transfer.

Once the cows left, the forest went in to overdrive.

It's pretty incredible to see how much the forest has encroached and how incredibly fast the trees have grown UP,UP,UP around us.











Later tapes show a new house, shiny, with no kid or dog damage yet, ... and not much furniture to speak of.

Some of these are only for us of course, but some need to be shared with y'all and they will be once the digitizin' is done.

This week, I have an update on Dave and Tami's log home progress, a trip to Manatee Springs this morning, a little more on Datil peppers, and whatever critters come my way today.

Keep your fingers crossed for my undefeated JV academic nerd team and think of us on Tuesday around 3:30 pm.

We will be going up against the only other undefeated team in our district and they have a human computer kid who could sit up there by himself and defeat most teams.

Last game of the season and it's a battle to see who will have the district's perfect 7-0 season record.

I'm rooting for us.

Fence Lizard

Why, Yes, I AM an example of superior camouflage.
Had I not moved, you would have walked right by me.



Fence lizards are wonderful, wonderful critters who are so confident in their disruptive coloration that they tend to sit still and pose in the most cooperative ways.

This one was out at Dave and Tami's home site on a visit about a month ago.

Let me do some catch up since I last posted on Monday ... ack! That's horrible. I thought this first empty nester year would be a year of plenty of time to post, but alas ... I am setting some kind of PF record for spotty posts lately.

Catch'n up ...

• Thank you for the prawn disaster comments. Unfazed, I am ordering more prawn larvae.
• Bear is spectacular and silly. I gave him a bath last night and a Bear hug is now the usual warm, soft, experience with the added scents of cocanut and verbena creme rinse.
• I painted the porch floor boards a brick red this week and rebuilt the front steps. Our little brown house is now red, white, and blue.
• We picked the last datil peppers yesterday, a full mixing bowl that will become datil sauce, datil vinegar, and I am thinking of experimenting with a datil version of Tabasco. This will involve datils, vinegar, and salt curing in the fridge for a long time. We'll see.
• There is rumor of a chicken pilau in the kitchen.
• P90X is still rocking FC's willing, yet mature body. I am extending the current 3 week segment one extra week to make up for failing to truly "BRING IT!" on two nights last week.
• I have already started Christmas shopping ... thank you Amazon for freeing me from the mall.
• I think I get to go to the movies tonight ... God, I love movie popcorn ... salt yes, buttergoo no.
• I have a care package of datilly delight ready for a certain person with too many homes, the most recent one with a great alpine view and bear naked neighbors. I just have to find the 15 minutes a day that THE US POSTAL SERVICE ACTUALLY OPENS IT'S OFFICES!!!! Gee whiz USPS!
• Thanksgiving is approaching and Mrs. FC is the host this year ... a generational change, since my Mom has always hosted. This year everyone is coming to us so Mom can relax. Apparently we have to CLEAN everything before they get here. Family, we have a Lab, he sheds unimaginable amounts of hair. We will keep it out of the food, but there will be some on the floor ... even if I mopped them as you walked up the steps. Okay?

Prawn Disaster

I waited one week too long to move the remaining prawns back to the warmth of the tank inside my classroom lab.
Friday night was a cold one, as was Saturday night, and I dropped the ball.

What I should have done is flushed the tank with our 72 degree well water on those cold nights.
Ironically, today was the day I planned to carry them in to school.

There were ALOT more shrimp in here before "Mayhem" the coon struck repeatedly.
I got tired of trapping and transporting him ... what's that saying about the definition of insanity?
Yeah, that one.

So I rigged some hog panel fencing over the top to keep him from fishing the shrimp off the submerged mesh that they liked to climb upon at night.
That was working pretty well.

They weren't all this big of course, but here's what an ALPHA male Macrobrachium rosenbergii looks like.

That big one was 15 inches from telson to the tip his of chelipeds.


The water was cold and the shrimp looked fresh, so it was a tempting thought to eat them ... only, I didn't know for sure when they croaked.

I stifled that idea, but I did preserve about eight of the biggest males in a jar of alcohol so we can use them in class when we study crustaceans.

The others were frozen for bait/fish food.

We (my students and I) are going to order a new batch of postlarvae baby shrimp soon.
I will share that too of course.

This is a cheliped in case you hadn't googled that yet, Miz S.

Bear vs. Flotsam

Meanwhile ... back at the beach.

Bear makes a discovery.


Bear wasn't too sure about this flower pot that washed ashore on his watch.

It seemed to be an intruder of some kind and the Bear felt a responsibility to investigate.


After combat with the flower pot and chasing madly after a sanderling or two, we had both worked up an appetite.



So, we hit a little BBQ stand at the intersection of highway 206 and US-1.
It's one of those places with no place to sit, just good BBQ that you get and go with.

Bear and I shared a brisket sandwich in the parking lot before heading home.


Bear got the bread, I got the delicious sliced brisket.
The bbq was great!
The rice was um ... yellow.


I have a fondness for tiny BBQ spots that rely on the quality of their product for success. This place only takes cash, only sells take-out and wastes no money on interior design elements that are not involved in cooking or serving.
When I asked them how late they stay open, the answer was simply, "Until the meat is gone".



I like their sense of humor too.

Turtle Cat

Long time PF readers (you poor souls ... thank you!) know this turtle. It's been a while but we PF regulars have followed this turtle and it's siblings from when they were eggs in the sand back in 2006.


Curious newbies may want to search this blog under "baby turtles" to see how things have unfolded.

The two turtles I retained are doing fine in a livestock tank pond out in the garden. I have lost track of the others as they are free, although I did have two pass on to turtle heaven through two different events.

I do still get occasional updates on one of the turtles that went to live with a (then) very little boy who's Aunt works with me.
From time to time I get long updates on the turtle who lives in their kitchen and has apparently stolen everyone's heart.
They talk of him in the same affectionate way other people discuss their dogs and cats.

They are a reminder for me to take a chance once in a while and ignore your gut feelings. The fact is that four years ago, when that little boy's Grandma (she works here too) asked me for one of my turtle babies, I really was afraid I was sending it to an early demise.

The truth is exactly the opposite, their turtle is thriving and keeps outgrowing aquariums while he continues to charm his owners.

This caterpillar was found by my students on an outside class expedition a few weeks ago. We talked of raising it, and then decided to release it.

Pretty neat markings.

I have not bothered to look it up, because:

a) It's not a fish.

b) I am only mildly interested in the answer.

c) I have you.

PS:

I have not forgotten about the Bear video I hinted at previously.

It is coming.

Beach Bear

Moon Doggie.


Bear tests the water before plunging in.

It was just right.


The seas were RUFF!

Bear was brave.

... and a little crazy.

I didn't think to pack the 3o foot long lead and I was really missing it as I was tugged and tossed by 102 pounds of excited Beardog.

I was not about to let him run free, not with sanderlings and willets about. I've chased him enough with chickens in his mouth and the thought of miles of open beach ruled out any free ranging on his part.

Long leash next time though!

This is our token artsy shot.

Does it speak to you?

Bear has a low opinion of phylum Cnidaria.

Go to the light Bear, go to the light.

The JEEP is at the other end of the sunbeam.

We romped for quite a while on an empty beach and then we rested in the shade of the JEEP. The tide was fairly high when we entered the beach and the ramp signs said, "Four Wheel Vehicles Only". That kept the tourismo hordes up near the ramps and it was only a minute or two after accessing the beach that we were alone with a long, lonely stretch of beach in front of us.

High tide and the fabled Florida-Georgia game coincided that afternoon.

The combination kept lots of people in front of TV's instead of outdoors, which is just fine by me.

Whatever floats your boat football fans, but I'd much rather be out here than sitting on my ... Fan-E.

Is this dog massive or what?

I swear he gets taller every day.

Bear was one pooped puppy on the way home. He curled up on his blankie in the back seat and snoozed all the way to Gainesville. My JEEP is a sandy hairy mess, but this is as it should be.

Before we left the beach area, we hit a little BBQ stand for sustenance on the way home.

More on that tomorrow, plus, another video, Bear vs. Flotsam.