Fall Colors In The Datil Pepper Patch



YES! I have plenty of datil pepper seeds for you. Check out the add over on the right side of Pure Florida.
This morning is breezy and the chilliest day so far of Fall 2012, so my datils may just decide to stop blooming today.

I let a lot of mine go totally ripe so I can be sure the seeds are mature and viable, but they are ready for eating when green ... and, like most fruits, picking the ripe ones keeps the blossoms coming.




Datils usually get a purple blush as they mature, but each plant is a little different.



A bonus!
The last (probably) tomato of the season.
This little tomato vine has been deer browsed, bug bit, and generally neglected, but still it perservered.

Note to self: "Heatmaster" is a pretty awesome Florida tough tomato. I've posted before about how Florida is about the worst possible place to grow tomatoes. The commercial farms around the Everglades are only able to do it with massive amounts of fungicides and pesticides since the tomato plant is not a creature of warm, wet, humid climes.

I don't use poisons in my garden, so I choose plants that can take it and accept some damage from bird,deer, and insects.
(I don't take those attacks lying down, I just use other methods that admittedly are not as effective,but also not as destructive as traditional pesticides)

All that aside, I like hybrids.
Most heirloom "pure" tomato varieties can't hack it here in Fungusland, so enjoy them if you are in the right climate, but I'll take a hybrid that allows me to grow tomatoes and NOT resort to poison.

Of course when it comes to my beloved Datil Peppers, I get all IRONCLAD PROTECTIVE and don't even grow other peppers.

SHIELDS UP MR. ZULU!
LET NO PROMISCUOUS NONDATIL  PEPPER POLLEN PERMEATE THIS PLANTING!

A quick pick yesterday morning yielded these orange beauties for seed and consumption, as well as some ready to use, but not fully ripe green datils for sauce.

I decided to make a little batch of datil pepper relish last night, because I wanted to try freezing it, instead of labor intensive traditional canning.
I also wanted to make an FC batch that used peppers that were not seeded as the recipe calls for.
I like it hot.
I mean really hot.

So I graded tests at the kitchen table as a simmering pot filled the house with the tang of datils, vinegar, and a host of other good smells.
After it cooled, I spooned it into these freezer canning containers.

I know you want to lick the pot, but I wouldn't advise it.
Well, actually I WOULD advise it, 'cause I love this stuff and the hotter the better, but for you nonpepperheads, ... you had better pass.

So, now the experiment continues.
I have some freezing right now and later this week, I'll thaw a cup out and test it on some awesome Mayport shrimp.

Results to come.

FOUND: REAL BLOGGERS

Every once in awhile, blogging turns from electrons on the internet to actual matter.
I've met some really neat people since I started Pure Florida and it happened again this weekend.
When you meet someone whose blog you read or someone who comments as a regular on your blog, or a combination of the two, it always seems like you've known each other for a long time ... even though that moment is the first time you have actually seen each other.

It's a neat experience and one unique to this point in history.

At the Cedar Key Seafood Festival, I finally got to meet Annie (Edifice Rex) and her husband, Jack. I've been reading Annie's blog for years and have always been amazed by this woman who writes about everything from welding beams together on a construction crew to throwing beautiful pottery creations in her studio ... in the house that SHE built.

Annie cracked me up when she announced, "I thought you'd be taller."
I'm so average... just sound taller on the web.


As luck would have it, everytime Jack and Annie wandered back by my clam chowder booth, I was busy slinging cups of chowder, but I did get to pop out and visit for a few minutes.
Annie and Jack are on their honeymoon.
It was awesome to meet them.

Left to right: Tricia, Julie, Annie, Jack

At the festival, I also got to meet Tricia (Myamuhnative) and her sister Julie.  Tricia has been a regular commenter on Pure Florida for a long time, so it was great to finally see  Myamuhnative in real life.

I think they had a great time visiting Cedar Key and the Seafood Festival. I wish I could have been free to visit with them more, but the chowder sales had me pinned down.

Ain't that always the way.

Good day though, a very good day.

SURVIVOR MUD RUN AT BUNNELL, FLORIDA 2012

Finally, the Seafood Festival is over and I don't have to go home and make clam chowder every night of the week!

Being free of that responsibility allowed me to stitch together a video showing some of the obstacles (and the cow poop) I encountered during the run.

The first two and last two scenes are in order, but as far as the other obstacles, I did not attempt to put them in the actual order in which they were encountered.

My thoughts on the "SURVIVOR MUD RUN":

• First, it was fun and I did enjoy it. I loved that it wasn't too far from my parent's home so I could take a shower there and visit awhile.
• I guess Mud Runs come in all shapes and sizes, but I would pump up the challenge level on this one as a way to improve it. Lots of sloggy mud ... and they DID call it a "Mud Run", so I expected that, but the actual obstacles were pretty mild.
• The biggest negative thing at this race was an abundance of fresh cow manure along the trail and even floating in the mud obstacles ... eeuuuu.  As a biology instructor, the potential for infection when people are splatting, crawling, face planting, slipping, slurping, and splashing in fecal contaminated mud kinda' bothers me.
• The check in and registration, etc seemed well organized and went smoothly.
• I give it a C.  I could have gone with a B minus, but for the abundance of cow poop.

Here is the video with my muddy critique at the end. Sorry for the sound on parts of the Jeep Critique final segment, a stiff breeze had sprung up during the race.

My next run is December 8 in Jacksonvillle and finally, I will not be going alone. We have a crew running together so that should be a lot of fun with more exciting video possibilities.

I also signed up for the Rugged Maniac race in February (16th) 2012 at Waldo, Florida.

Junior ran the Xtreme Mud Warrior obstacle race last Saturday and finished in less than 26 minutes!!!!
WHAT THE HELL?
I couldn't run a 5K race WITHOUT obstacles in that time.
I am in awe of my baby boy.

Here's the video:

A Perfect Storm of Seafood

I'm still here, but caught in the rip current of a perfect storm of preparing for the Cedar Key Seafood Festival this weekend (our big fundraiser for school) and the end of a 9 week grading period and all the extra work that involves.

ALMOST every night I come home and make gallons of St. Augustine Minorcan style clam chowder for the seafood festival. Selling clam chowder helps to fund our science department ... my teacher budget for the entire science department is $75 this year, so you can see how a fund raiser like this festival is do or die for us.

Come out and have a great time!
The weather should be almost festival perfect this weekend ...
... and my chowder always is.

All this chowder cooking and paper grading has interfered with my posting of course, but we are still taking time out to eat well.

Those are wild caught Mayport shrimp, cajun seasoned, skewered, and ready for the broiler.

They were awesome.

Nature posts to come, but in the meantime, take a drive to Cedar Key this weekend and eat some marine animals!

See you there!

Survivor Mud Run This Saturday

I'll be running in the 12:30 wave of the SURVIVOR MUD RUN  in Bunnell, Florida on Saturday.
If I survive the 5 kilometers and 25 mud soaked obstacles, I'll share it with you here.

Thankful For Green Lizards With Blue Eye-Shadow

Last Sunday morning, I woke up and took a shower.

Nothing too weird about that, but as the shower progressed, the water pressure began dropping, dropping, trickling, dripping, done.

Oh lovely.

When you get your water from your own well, everything pivots around a pump that works every second of every day ... and mine wasn't.

I was hoping that it was just another case of ants in the pressure switch ... you see, they clamber up into the switch and get between two contacts, thus breaking the circuit.

I can fix that pretty easily.

So off I went with a screw driver and some bug spray.

I fiddled and diddled with the pressure switch, but there were no visible ants to clear out and the pump was still not pumping.

I called some of the well fixers who advertised 24 hour emergency service, but no one returned my calls until the evening and then they only gave advice.

"It's probably your capacitor."

And then they proceeded to tell me how to fix it in the dark,cramped, confines of my pumphouse... at night.

I had to get this thing fixed, because I was due to head out of town for two days of Common Bore training in St. Augustine on Tuesday.

It wouldn't be good to leave Mrs. FC with no water for two days while I stayed in a motel.

Nope, not good at all.

So I called our school secretary (who also lives in the sticks and is empathetic to well pump issues) and told her I needed a sub for Monday, since I would be waiting for a pump repair person to show.

I was feeling kind of grouchy at that point, when Mrs. FC mentioned that the lawnmower had a problem. She couldn't start it and the pull rope would not recoil.

Arrgghh.

The well guy did show up in the afternoon Monday and fixed the pump.

It was the capacitor.

As soon as he left, I left for the training in St. Augustine.

Two days later, as I was passing through Gainesville on my way home to PFHQ, I get a text from Mrs. FC, "Have we angered the appliance gods? Now the dryer won't come on."

Arrrggghhhh x 1000!

She was at work and couldn't check the model number. Since I was not far from the one appliance place in Gainesville that has real experts who understand appliances rather than just SELLING appliances, I decided to give it a shot.

I pulled into Martins Appliances and armed with minimal info, described the situation. The Martins guy asked a series of questions to narrow down my model, gave me a packet of fuses and told me how to install them, and sent me on my way.

He was awesome in his patience and knowledge.

When I got home, I saw this as I walked towards the front door.

I DID not kick it into the upper branches of the giant live oak that shades our front porch.

Instead, I fixed the dryer, took a hot shower, and ignored the limp pull rope on the mower.

Then I took a walk in the too tall grass and looked around me.

I needed to quit whining and recharge my outlook.

I'm thankful for native swamp sunflowers bigger than my house.

And I'm thankful for the friends they attract.

I'm really thankful for datil pepper plants that don't know when to quit and keep blooming into the fall.

Blue curls make me giddy with thankfulness.
I'm even thankful for the tiny flies that rest on their petals.

I'm grateful for green lizards who wear blue eye-shadow too.


My level of ARRRGGGHHHHXASPERATION has dropped considerably since last Sunday.

I just needed to take stock.

Life is good.

Gecko In The Bath Tub

One of the porch geckos, a very, very tiny one, slipped and fell in the tub recently. Even the awesome geckogravitydefyinggripper toes could not get him out of this predicament, so I lent a hand.
Granted it was a not much of a grippy wall climbing sort of hand like the gecko has, ...

... but, the opposable thumb thing did come in hand for pinning down the little guy.

After a quick photo shoot, I carried "Tubby" back out to the porch to join the other half dozen porch geckos that come out each night to slurp bugs and then dash for cover when the porch light is turned on.

These are Mediterranean geckos, and no, they are not native, but they don't seem invasive either. My native anoles are day hunters, so these two species work different shifts, thus reducing the competition for prey.

I brought a few of these home as tiny babies years ago (yes, there are old posts about them here on PF). Not only have they survived one of the coldest winters on record (09-10), but they have reproduced.

Tubby and an even tinier youngster are proof of that.

Tubby returns to the porch in the manner of Fay Wray.