Bear and FC Review Julie Zickefoose's New Book, "The Bluebird Effect"

Once Bear knew that I had ordered Julie Zickefoose's new book, "The Bluebird Effect, Uncommon Bonds With Common Birds", he took it upon himself to take the sentinel position, patiently watching for the UPS truck.

He never wavered in his dedication, taking only short Purina One breaks and even shorter Getrdone type walks outside until, finally the big day came.

Loud barks announced the arrival of the UPS truck a full minute before it came into view down the long curvy driveway that leads into PFHQ.

At last ...

Bear carried the package inside, as Labradors are want to do, and I took the package carefully out of his gentle mouth.

He is a bird dog after all and this book is all about ... you got that already didn't you?

At this point, there was a brief moral dilemma.
You see, the book isn't really for me ... it's a gift.

So the question, dear reader, is ... "Is it poor form to pre-read a gift book?"

I mean, suppose I wash my hands, handle each page only by the tiniest bit of corner paper, and gently, oh so gently, flip each page like it was a thin sheet of gold leaf ... if I do all that and leave no evidence that I was there ... is that okay?

Or am I faux pasing ( or in Bear's case four pawing) in a most uncivilized manner?

While Bear and I pondered this gift book dilemma, the book suddenly fell open to one of my favorite birds, one I see everyday at Cedar Key ... the osprey.

Julie's paintbrush captured a scene repeated daily at the osprey nest, atop the school lamppost.
Switch out the freshwater sucker impaled in the osprey's talons with a fat mullet, and it was a dead ringer for our schoolyard ospreys.

We had to investigate further.

Bear and I both decided that since it was a gift book, we would compromise and just read the osprey chapter ... and maybe a few bits of other chapters, but we would NOT, I repeat NOT read the whole thing before it was given to the lucky recipient.

I thought I was pretty competent on the subject of ospreys, having grown up around them and working, often only a few hundred feet from our nesting schoolyard pair.

But no.

Proximity does not equal understanding.

Julie's prose and artwork taught this teacher so much about a bird I thought I knew, and she did it in an entertaining way that makes you want to know more.

I do know teaching and that skill is what makes a good teacher.

Julie is a natural teacher.

Oh, she can hide behind being a musician, author, and artist, but she is clearly 

... a teacher.

When our little covert  book preview was over, we both agreed this book earned a five out of five tail wag rating ... (Bear handled that ).

Of course, what we wanted to do was to sit down and savor the rest of Zick's excellent book, and we will, ... AFTER the giftee has had a chance to read it, enjoy it., and then as she always does, tell me, "You need to read this great book!".

And I will.
I'm just hoping Bear can keep our little secret.


So, if you read a nature blog like Pure Florida, it's probably safe to assume you enjoy nature and reading about it.

If so, you really want this book ... and to help you get it, I'm posting a link to Julie's site.

Just click here to fall under the spell of "The Bluebird Effect".

Pablo R. Prawn



This is Pablo.
He lives in my science class, the last survivor of a hundred young Macrobrachium rosenbergii prawns from an aquaculture project at my previous school.

The eighth grade girls who feed him every day named him "Pablo" for reasons only they know, but I like it. Pablo is about 2 years old and my prawn supplier says they can live about 5 years, so I hope to have him around for awhile.

He has earned "cocktail sauce immunity" and is a pet.

On May 8th, Pablo will be prawn number 2001 instead of just prawn number 1.

On that day, 2000 tiny PL's (PL = post larvae ... get with the prawn lingo people!) will arrive via UPS and enter our RAS ( RAS = recirculating aquaculture system ... ahem!) .

Yes, I know it's late in the school year, but amazing science projects live on grants, not the $100 dollar annual supply budget I get to teach 5 different science subjects.

Grants as wonderful as they are,  have bureaucratic hoops and delays built into them that don't always move at the speed of life.

But, we teachers need them, so we seek them out, jump through hoops, wait patiently for this or that person to approve, and then we make things happen.

Things beyond the textbook and the PowerPoint.

There's more to come on this project as it unfurls and yes, calender types, the school year will wind up in a month or so ... and yes, the question, "What happens to the prawns then?", is a good one.

They go home with me.


2000 and 1 prawns will come home to spend the summer in my old Tilapia RAS, until August rolls around again, and then they, just like the kids, will return to school.

There's a little video below of Pablo patrolling his tank.

His loneliness will soon end, so just ignore his song choice ... who knew prawns were in to Techno?

Happy Earth Day! Got Trees?

A gift of rain on Earth Day.

Thank you.

Got treelings?

I do.

My folks place in St. Augustine is full of mature, massive pines that rain down seeds as do an assortment of  black cherries and red maples that share the yard. Most of these seeds land where the seedlings will be mowed, or weeded out of a blueberry patch or flower bed.

Weeding is painful, is it not?
Not all weeds of course, pulling a sandspur plant or an exotic thistle is pure bliss to me, but ... a baby tree ... that is something different.

So whatayado?

Me, I rescue a few each year whenever I am over doing chores for Mom and Dad.

Sometimes they come home to PFHQ in a ziplock with a wet papertowel wrapped around their bare roots.
These have to be spaded in immediately when I get home and if, as this spring, we are even more dry than a normal North Florida spring, they probably don't make it.

But we tried.

The batch in the picture above are luckier.
They were put into good dirt and actually grew in the month that I waited for some kind of rain event, ANY RAIN EVENT, to plant them.

And then along comes Earth Day.

And it rains all weekend.

Sweet.

A pine pup, freed from his plastic confinement.
What a shock it will be to go from my Dad's compost to my sandy native soil.
Do not panic Piney Pinerson, you have evolved over millions of years just for a challenge like Florida soil.

You can do it.



Good luck little dude.

Live long and prosper.

Happy Earth Day everybody.



So Beautiful An Eye

Yes, the shovel missed you my subterranuran pal. 
You aren't the only one who was smiling when I discovered that the shovel had only unearthed you, not unhinged you ... from your parts that is.

I apologize for digging you up, but the bamboo are thirsty and the bananas, well, you know they have a serious drinking problem.
So I had to dig that trench, lay that irrigation pipe, ... and generally disturb your underground bliss.

But, seriously ... with gorgeous golden eyes like yours,

... you really should get out more.

(Spadefoot Toad)

Pileated Puzzle Post

Last weekend, as I potted a couple of tomato plants, I could hear a pileated chattering in my woods. That isn't unusual here at PFHQ, so I ignored it rather than grabbing my camera.

My hands were dirty and the light was going fast ... not worth heading back there ...
 I kept potting.
The pileated kept chattering.
I mean, he really kept chattering, on and on.

Okay, maybe I was missing something uber neat.
I rinsed off my dirty hands, dried them on my pants, and grabbed my camera.

I followed the chattering sounds back to my excavated shooting range and a large pileated flew up from the floor of the range and onto the upper berm.

He flitted about there for a moment and ceased the birdy banter.

I paused, hoping he might go back to whatever it was that was so worth all the broadcast effort.

He was on to me though and only stayed for a moment or two, and then he swooped off into the deep shade of the forest.

These pictures are of the side of the range and at the original location of the pileated.
The range is about 4 feet deep here and a fresh excavation had been made in the side near the bottom.

An excavation with pileated tracks and ...

... pileated beak-shaped indentations in the sandy sidewalls of my shooting range.

I assume Woody was slurping up ants or termites from the sandy soil, although my casual inspection of the excavation didn't reveal any of these.

Cornell University says this about the feeding habits of Pileateds, "In some diet studies, ants constituted 40 percent of the diet, and up to 97 percent in some individuals."

So, mystery solved ... I know this though,  ... the next time I hear a pileated chattering away without taking a breath, I'm immediately grabbing the camera and going into stealth mode.

So many mysteries ... so little time.

Champion Cherokee Bean?



I love this plant. Cherokee Bean is a spectacular bloomer and a super hummingbird plant. Here in North Florida, the usual clump of Cherokee Bean is around 4 to 5 feet tall, so when I glimpsed a huge red cluster across from the school I had to go investigate.

The closer I got, the more I realized this was no ordinary Cherokee Bean.




Not only did the abundant crimson tubular blossoms cover a large area, they also stretched high into the forest canopy.
The highes blooms on this plant were probably 20 feet up.
I had never seen one like this ... partly because they are cold sensitive and tend to get frozen back to ground level on the average North Florida winter.

This one is on Cedar Key though, and being a true island, Cedar Key's temperatures are moderated by the surrounding Gulf waters.

So my hypothesis is that this lucky Cherokee Bean has been able to avoid winter damage and reach amazing heights.

Whatever the reason, it is a beauty.
I plan to slip in to that jungle of Smilax and Virginia Creeper soon and get a DBH on the hidden trunk(s).



Eat Your Colors! Asian or Italian? Both!

This is making something from nothing.

Home alone one evening last week, I only had myself to feed and I wanted something healthy and colorful.

The fridge was looking poorly with a little of this or that lying about in half empty bags or plastic containers.

There was a half bag of sweet red, yellow, and orange peppers, a few carrots, a quarter cabbage hunk, an opened container of once fresh mushrooms, 4 small inner stalks of celery, 4 or 5 green onions, and lots of garlic.

There's always lots of garlic here.

I pulled the poor veggie refugees from the fridge and chopped them up.

A frozen chicken breast got the same brutal treatment, plus a little soak in a teriyaki, wine, vinegar, red pepper, ginger, cornstarch marinade.



Then there was a little stirrin' and a little fryin' in the trusty wok.
Some peanuts and two datil peppers jumped in to liven things up.



And ... VOILA!

(That there is Francais, ... I don't know how to say VOILA in Chinese)

Two days later, I'm at it again.
But, this time, I'm feeling Italian.
No one has been to the grocery store, so the pickings are almost the same.
No cabbage this time ... that doesn't strike me as very Italian, so two plum tomatoes agreed to take the cabbage's place.

Before the chicken breast went into the cast iron skillet, I squished it around with a mixture of kosher salt, oregano, basil, and cayenne until each piece had a good coating.

Then the veggies hopped in.

Later, whole grain pasta was conjured from pure boiling water ... yes, it seems like magic to me also.
This went into the skillet too.
A splash of cheap wine, a gurgle of chicken broth, and a healthy toss of romano cheese ... or was it parmesean ... whatever ... they went in too.



And ... VOILA!
That is still French, I don't know how to say "VOILA" in Italian.
Two different meals.
Two different countries' quisine.
Same (almost) veggies.
Same poor chicken ... well, it's possible.
Same white chopstick bowl.

Feels kind of DEJA VU.

That's French for ...



The Buzz



The hummers were my constant companions yesterday while I redid a little greywater system that needed refreshing. I was digging right next to the feeding station and they weren't crazy about my proximity at first.




After a while though, they seemed to accept me and carried on with their feeding and aerial dogfights.




This faded old feeder still seems to work just fine. 
I clean it out between fillings and NEVER use the red dye nectar ... not after the blogflogging I got a few years ago when I posted a picture of my red nectar filled feeder.

Straight sugar water for these guys and if the don't like it they can just go suck on a honeysuckle.

The hummers have lots of choices around my place currently with coral honeysuckle and cherokee bean both blooming, so they really can. 



Fiery Searcher

Gawd, I love green.

Fiery Searcher, Calosoma scrutator

This beeeaaauutiful beetle was doing the dog paddle as Bear and I walked past a tiny mini-pond in my woods. The "pond" is one of those 20 gallon shells from Lowes. A few years ago, I installed it as a source of water and a tiny refugium for amphibians and whoever else might need some moisture.

I always place a big palm frond stalk in it as an escape route for lizards and other critters who fall in.
Sometimes, every so often actually, I find the frond moved out of the way ... maybe the deer adjust it.

On this walk, on this day, a large green beetle was swimming around in the mini-pond with now way out.

With a piece of broken old palm frond, I dipped him out for a few pictures, and then let him go on an oak tree ... away from the pond.

I looked him up since he wasn't anyone I knew and discovered his ultra-cool name,
Fiery Searcher.
Dude!
Very impressive.

I also learned that they are also called, "Caterpillar Hunters", since this is a favorite food.

Had I known that while I still had control of him, I might have just let him go on my porch, since the evil minions of cocoon producing hell tussock moth caterpillars are besieging my porch ceiling and gunking up the fairly new paint job.

Sigh ... we live, we learn.


Today, I am off to Aquatic Ecosystems, which is kind of a mecca for aquaculture nerds like moi.

To save shipping costs on my school aquaponics grant, I told the nice folks at AES that I would come down and pick the stuff up.

Yes, I know I am spending my own gas money on this school project, but the trip is great excuse to take the JEEP, camera, and state park pass along on a little adventure ... more blogger fodder!

Whatever happens, I will share it here.

Guess What We Made In Environmental Science

We are studying biodiversity in Environmental Science class.
I wanted an easy, cheap (this is public education), and very user friendly project that would meet the following criteria:

1. Cheap ... cheap enough that each kid could have a product and I could still buy groceries.
2. Must be completable in one 48 minute class period, this includes intro,safety, build it, clean up.
3. Must be a project that increases, or at least supports biodiversity locally.

Since I had an abundance of clumping bamboo at home, this project idea seemed like just the thing

... and it was ... just the thing that is.

They loved it and most of them have told me how and where they put these at their homes.

So, the question is ... what in the world are these?

Hint:
I posted about making these for my own home a few years ago.
Later, I did a follow-up.

BREAKTHROUGH! AN APPLE-LEMON TREE!

Successful graft of Meyer Lemon to Anna Apple.


They said it couldn't be done ... heck, I said it couldn't be done.

But, I did it anyway.


If you are familiar with grafting, in which a living twig from one variety of plant is grafted to another, different variety, you know that the process is tricky enough with similar plants, but next to impossible outside of the "family tree".

Here in Florida for example, almost all of our nursery grown citrus trees are grafted plants. At the citrus nursery, they graft twigs from known and desired varieties of citrus to sour orange rootstock.
The sour orange tree is almost bulletproof when it comes to diseases in the soil, drought, and even cold weather. The more delicate, but tastier citrus variety is surgically grafted to the sour orange stump and the two become one.


Generally crossing the family tree barrier is an EPIC FAIL.
That is why I can go out and buy a lemon-lime tree that has lemon twigs grafted to a lime tree, or vis versa, but I can't go buy a mango-peach tree.

The difference is just too great genetically.

Of course the thing about "the impossible" is, well, it's just so dang challenging.

So this winter, I tried the impossible.

And I failed, over and over again.

But, you know, sometimes it's that last turn of the wrench that loosens the rusted bolt.


For me, it was the 30th grafted twig that did the impossible.

29 withered and died, but one, the one you see in the picture above ... well, it took!

In my backyard, I now have a twenty year old Anna apple tree that is not only producing apples, but it also has one branch that is producing Meyer lemons. I chose the Meyer variety because it is a very cold hardy lemon.

So, now on this single tree, I can look forward to picking both lemons and apples later this year!
Not only do I get 2 crops in half the yard space, but there is an obvious advantage that every cook out there has probably already thought of.


Every cook knows that a little lemon juice sprinkled on sliced apples will keep them from turning brown, but how often have you sliced apples for some dish and then realized, "Uh oh ...no lemons."

That problem has been solved here at Pure Florida.