Pure Florida... Pure Confession: Hubcap and Pocketbook

In the past 4 years, I have lost my father, my big brother, and most recently, my mother.
Suddenly, I am an orphan, the lone survivor of my sweet, loving childhood family.
And so it falls to me to be the caretaker, cleaner-outer, and custodian of the family "stuff".

I have helpers of course. My own nuclear family has been a tremendous help both as emotional support and as a motivated labor source. 

Every work session at Mom's turns up emotional treasures that may cause laughter, tears, WTH's, or combinations of these.

"So where is the confession, get to the confession part!"

Patience grasshopper... I'm telling a story here.

The job of cleaning out the Dad's garage fell to me. His garage was a time capsule whose contents had not changed substantially since the year 2000. Most of the stuff in the garage had sat undisturbed since the late '80s and '90s.

Much of the stuff in boxes and on shelves was easily tossed as junk, but not before inspecting everything carefully. The old musty cigar box on in the rusty locker might contain treasured photographs of teenage Dad (it did) or photos of Mom and Dad as twenty-somethings (did that too).

You get the idea ... go slow, inspect everything.

At one point in this adventure, I looked up and there, hanging from a rafter nail was a hubcap.
A Chevy hubcap.
Now, my parents never owned anything, but Chrysler vehicles, with 2 exceptions... a 1957 JEEP Wagoneer and a 1970 International Harvester SCOUT.
This was MY hubcap!  (I never owned a Chevy either).

Okay, here is the confession part... or at least we are getting closer. Let's set the scene...

My childhood neighborhood was one big playground for my cousins and the other neighbor kids. We roamed all over, often only heading home when we heard one of our parents calling us in from the front porch.

My Dad's kidcall went like this, "RAAAAAAAAAYMUUUUNNND, COME HOME FOR DIIIIINNNNNER!"

You could hear it anywhere in the hood and you could smell dinner as you got closer, because like most folks back then, we did not have air conditioning, so the windows were open.

On Summer and weekend nights, we went back out after supper. Sometimes we played neighborhood tag in which one person was "IT" and everyone else hid ... well... anywhere.
There really weren't boundaries, so this game while fun, often ended with a frustrated "IT" person getting mad and loudly announcing, "Okay, I quit. I'm going home!"

Somewhere around the age of 13, we learned of a new game, called "Hubcap", from some older kids. 

(Super close to confession time now...)

Hubcap had simple rules.
1. Get a hubcap ... preferably legally.
2. On a dark night, pick a spot with clear escape routes just in case.
3. Wear dark clothes.
4. After sunset, hide and wait for a car to approach.
5. As soon as the car passes your location, toss the hubcap and yell, "Hey mister, your hubcap came off!"
(Most cars still didn't have A/C at this time, so windows were usually down allowing the driver to hear both our yell and the clang of the hubcap.)
6. When the car stopped and began to back up, run out, grab the hubcap, and keep on running to avoid the driver with no sense of humor. 
7. Regroup, reload, and do it again.

That was part one of the confession in case you were wondering...

Part two:
At some point, after the shine had worn off the Hubcap game, we found an old purse. It was empty but intact and it inspired a whole new night game called "Pocketbook". 
"Pocketbook" was a direct descendant of "Hubcap"

Pocketbook had similar rules and was played at dusk or dark, much like Hubcap. 

To play Pocketbook, we first attached a long length of 20-pound test monofilament fishing line to the handle of the purse. 

The purse was then left on the edge of the road in plain view, but not out far enough to be run over. The other end of the line was in our hands of course.  

Once the purse was in place, we waited like any good fisherman does. Looking back, it seems very few cars can pass a purse on the road without inspecting it.
  
As soon as the car stopped, and the door opened, we'd pull in that purse as fast as we could and scoot.
The drivers' responses were a mix of laughter and profanity mostly. (Ours was entirely laughter).

Once a guy gave chase, but it was our territory and we vanished into the night with our purse.

Once, and only once, a lady jumped out the passenger side, tossed the purse in the back seat and the car zoomed off. The line tightened for just a second and then "ZING!", it popped.

I don't remember when we outgrew these games, but somewhere along the way to full teen status, they faded into our collective history...but not from our memories.



Cautionary note: This was all back in the "Wonder Years" era. I don't advise playing either of these games today. The world is a crankier place.
Plus ... few cars have hubcaps anymore so ...

OKAY, I TAKE IT BACK ... PINTEREST IS NOT JUST FOR GIRLS ... AND YES, IT HAS BEEN A GREAT HELP ON THIS FENCING PROJECT

 A few years ago, when someone asked me, "Do you use Pinterest?"

I would snort, sneer, and say, "Um no ... I have testosterone."

In my defense, early Pinterest did seem pretty girly, and I didn't find much to interest me ... at first.

So that has all changed now and I ate those earlier "testy" comments with a dose of datil pepper hot sauce.

This is not a post about Pinterest ... (sorta seems like it so far), but rather a post about my dog fence.

One of the things I learned from having kids in FFA ... (besides being sure to drink strong heavily caffeinated coffee before an end of the year FFA banquet) ... is that something called "hog panel" and "cattle panel" exists.

I love this stuff ... as does Pinterest and YouTube. At both of these sites you can find all kinds of projects using these panels in ways never intended at the "panel factory".

The cattle panel fences on Pinterest were very creative and some were downright beautiful.

My wood budget doesn't allow as much extra wood trim on this fence as the prettiest Pinterest pics showed, but Pinterest was definitely a source of inspiration and instruction.

My goal is an attractive, Labrador Retriever proof fence surrounding the back and side "yards" here at Pure Florida HQ.

 Right away, these 16 foot long panels present a challenge.

How the heck do you get them home?

This challenge gets more challengy when you drive one of the shortest vehicles on the road ... A JEEP Wrangler.

Hey, no problem, I have a trailer ... which is barely 7 feet long.

Did I mention I also needed to buy two 16 foot 4X4's for my Ninja Warrior Salmon Ladder project?

No?

Well, I did and that both helped and complicated things.

In the trailery-cattle panelly photo above, this may not be obvious, but I took an old 14 foot extension ladder and strapped it into the trailer fully extended.

Allowing for a little overhang at the JEEP end and beaucoup overhang at the stern, my system worked like a charm.

 Of course, once I got home (multiple trips by the way), there were a bunch of post holes to dig.

 With the exception of some VERY rooty areas in one section, digging post holes here is pretty easy. 

"Easy" in the sense that the soil is sand with no rocks or hard clay.

The photo above is just a sample and it also shows one of the minor challenges ... the humps.

Scattered around PFHQ are occasional humps of richly dark, charcoally soil. They rise above the surrounding ground by only a couple feet at most.

My hypothesis is that a long time ago, when they cleared parts of this land for cattle, they pushed piles of trees and brush together and burned them in situ.

You can still see that practice in any rural area today.

Above is a comparison of the hump soil and the native sand beneath it ... all from the same post hole.  I'm trenching and then swaling the ground wherever a hump arises. 

On this project, that's only 2 places, but the second one is big, forested, and SO DAMN ROOTY!

 IF you are going to do this kind of work during the humid 100 degree heat of a Florida Summer, it's important to fuel up for the task at hand.

I call this "The Fencer's Breakfast" ... bacon, Key Lime Cake, coffee, and milk.

 The devastated brown area to the right of the line of fence was a shrubby, briaralicious, grapevine encased jungle that extended out past the where the fence now lies. 

A bit of machete mayhem at the end of the day pushed it back so the fence could both proceed and ... turn a corner.

 (Important note from the fencer: None of the fence in these photos is finished. It's all just hanging and the future trim has yet to be added.)

The photo above shows the fence passing through a large hump of that dark, charcoal-rich soil I mentioned earlier.

It's pretty good dirt for Florida, so I'll be harvesting some of that as I swale the fence line.

The trenchy look is temporary.

 This is a fencer's rootiest nightmare.

Sigh...

On the bright side, I've made much progress since I first stared down this line, and that makes me feel good.

 Don't forget to take breaks if you are trying this at home... and remember, it's not a fashion show.

Wear what works.

Easy for me to say ... I don't have neighbors :)

Turning the corner ...

 I'm going old school on this big log that lies across my fence path in the jungle zone.

I only need to move the part across the fence line, and I COULD chainsaw it, but it's punky on the outside and in the dirt, ... I try to never let my saw chain touch the ground.

So while I work nearby, I let a slow and low fire saw through the log. When it gets done, I'll just move the section under the fence line.

That's about it for this PFHQ fence update. This one is more for me than you dear reader. This blog is many things and one of the most important jobs it does is keep a running record of projects in and around Pure Florida HQ.

I can't tell you how many times that history has come in handy.

And remember ... when your head starts to smoke, well, it's time to take a break.

Sometimes My Feng Gets In My Shui, But I Just Work Around It.

 As usual, social infections like "Feng Shui" arrive late on the frontier. Like many pathogens, as they spread, they mutate and weaken, until sometimes they are reduced to nothing more than a minor irritation.

That's pretty much how my recent bout with FungShway went, a barely noticeable blip in my usual routine.
It started with the pump house project, in which all I had to do was put the roof on ... as it had been before the well repairs of June.
But no, wouldn't my head and the pump house rafters be much more harmonious if I raised the roof up a foot or so, thus avoiding unharmonious head bumps when inside the pump house?

And wouldn't a light metal roof instead of heavy plywood and shingles make a future well repair necessitated roof removal more harmoniously easy?

And a redo of that siding stain would harmonize the view from the kitchen bay window quite a bit.
(note this view is from the oak tree nearby)

I had to harmonize the oak's branches lately, you may remember that high altitude post.

The FS infection was spreading inside me and I didn't even know it in the beginning.
It all seems so clear now.
It even impacted my relationship with my JEEP.
She has had her own issues lately, ... not wanting to start, and I had successfully started her 3 times by rolling her down the hill and leaping in to pop the clutch and get her going.
Two days ago, as I went to do that one more time and drive her to the repair clinic, I both failed to start her and ran out of the slope needed to do this by myself.
That seemed so unharmonious to just accept failure after 3 successes ... that odd number 3 was bugging me.
So I used the "come-a-long" jack and some rope to crank her back up the slope for one more try.
And failed, unharmoniously.
The next day, she rode a wrecker into the shop, but the wrecker driver was both a JEEP guy and a Labrador Retriever guy, plus AAA picked up the tow cost, so I felt sort of harmonious after that.

Then there was this bit of disharmony.
The ancient outdoor shower faucet combo was tired and done.
The two faucets and one ball valve were all broken or about to go and the shower outlet had long ago been stuffed with plant matter by some critter.

At the bottom end of the shower setup, ferns had colonized the lowest foot or so of pipe by taking advantage of the slow leak from the ball valve.
(Actually, I found this quite harmonious, but practical?...no.)

This fern, in harmony with the green moss that had colonized the drip first, had thrived on the moss-created "soil" that surrounded the lower pipe like a sleeve.
Okay, this is pretty FS to me.
Just sayin'.

To balance the competing harmonies of a need for a working faucet at this location with the clever harmonizing by the moss and fern, I decided to keep the pipe, moss, fern complex intact after I cut it from the undergound pipes.
I then carried it out to the goldfish pond where the lime rock boulders lay around harmonizing with the pond.
I tucked the pipe,fern, moss unit under the shade of a sago palm there and wished it luck.

Where the ferny shower unit was ... harmony to come.

These pre-Thanksgiving days off have allowed me to knock off, or at least work on a zillion disharmonious little jobs that were not urgent, but needed.
Some actually are not "needed", not in the usual sense anyway.
I give you the Pollinator Bee House for example.

All I had to do to it yesterday was start stuffing its spaces with habitat material for our native bees and wasps who work harmoniously with my blueberry blossoms to ensure a good crop.
I THOUGHT I was going to just put log chunks in one section and bamboo in another, but then this mild Feng Shui infection flared up and the whole project took twice as long.

It all started when I used a piece of bamboo to prop up a log chunk on the log shelf.
"Hey, that's kind of harmonious", I said to the dogs, Fang and Shway.
(Well, no... that's not really their names, we all know they are Bear and Coquina, but wouldn't that have been harmonious names for them?)
Hindsight is harmoniously 20/20.
So, fever raging, I pulled everything out and started over, MIXING the bamboo with the logs in a harmonious pattern.
And I liked it.

Back in the shop, I furiously cut more 6 inch sections of bamboo using a precisely and yet harmoniously placed stop block to guarantee length harmony among the bamboo pieces.

My fever was reaching its peak now.

I think I'm over it now ... wait, is that log in the right place?

Feng Shui, Y'all.

Balance and Being Higher Than I Wanna Be

Prefabbing a wee knee wall.

Early in June, our old well pump, tank, and foot valve all gave out within days of each other. While the well had plenty of water and the well casing was good, all the parts that make water come up and out of it were tired, and ... well, ...done.


When I built the pumphouse 3 kids ago, I thought it was roomy enough for someone to get in there and work on the system when the time came.

I even built the roof as a detachable component, since it was reasonable to expect that some future repair might require a drilling rig to access the casing.

Decades passed, and last summer that came to pass also. The roof would need to come off so the well guy could pull the pipe out of the casing to replace the pipe, fittings, and footvalve.

When he told me the roof had to go, I proudly announced that it was no problem, the roof was only clamped on.

It took 4 of us to remove it however as I had overbuilt it of plywood and shingles ... it was pretty heavy.

We lifted it off and leaned it against a tree while repairs happened.  Looking at it, I considered how worn around the edges it was, but it was cheaper just to put it back on after the work was done.

Then the wind blew it over and crunched some important parts. 

Decision made.

I would replace the roof and raise it about a foot by building a knee wall atop the very sturdy pump house framing.

But first, I needed to raise the building itself to get it back off the ever rotful Florida ground.

Working by myself, I lifted the pumphouse, one side at a time, by using a fence post lever, concrete block fulcrum, and numerous concrete chunks for just enough lift to float the side so I could level concrete blocks beneath it.

This is how the pyramids were built my friends.
Well, kind of how they were built.

Science helps those who help themselves.

The rafters I had so many years before were in good shape until the roof fell over in the breeze.
I spent an afternoon, driving out old nails, and screwing them back together with 3" Deckmate screws. When I finished, they were stronger than ever.
Salvage successful.

The photo above shows the kneewall and the recycled rafters in place and awaiting a lighter metal roof.
Before I could move to that final step, there was the matter of 3 large low hanging oak branches that were destined to die and come crashing down on to my new roof through storm action or just natural shade pruning of lower limbs.

I decided to take them out in a preemptive strike using all sorts of ropes, pulleys, sharp tools, a really long ladder, and a willingness, ... no, an EAGERNESS, to climb into the oak's upper stories. 

The video below is kind of long, 17 minutes or so, but it documents just one part of the tree trimming task on a day when multiple challenges were faced.

If you're curious click play, if not, that's cool too. 

Tuesday Started Out So Normal ... and then a mullet fell from the sky.

Tuesday turned out to be far more interesting than I expected, but isn't that always the way.

 As I walked Bear and Coquina early that morning, the day before me looked to be a pretty routine, ... even dull one.

My main task was to get back in my classroom and finish the clean up and toss out routine now that school was out for the summer.

After our walk and some breakfast, I headed out to Cedar Key to finish those end of year chores. 

As I pulled into the field behind the school, the resident osprey chicks were in plain view and making a hungry racket.
I parked near the nest platform, cranked down the windows and proceeded to photograph the chicks as they flopped around the nest.
They're big now with decent feathers and looking more ospreyish than chickish.

It started to get warm in the car "blind", but I kept telling myself that one of the osprey parents was bound to return soon with a fresh fish for the chicks ... and wouldn't that make some nice photos?
So I stuck it out.

After a bit, the adult osprey returned with a fresh, flipping mullet and landed just long enough to drop off the fish to the eager chicks.
Almost as soon as it left, the chicks fumbled the mullet out of the nest and down it fell into the thick brush beneath the nest platform.

In the nest, the chicks looked around, and then began squawking again.

Dang it.
I got out and walked over to the nest platform pole.
(Note: These ospreys are totally acclimated to close human activity as they are literally in the event parking/ athletic field area at our prek-12th school.)

The nest pole sits just outside a chain link fence. Behind it, the land slopes quickly down to the bayou behind the school. This narrow strip of woods is a mix of palm, oak, black mangroves, and ... smilax ... lots and lots of smilax... aka "Green Briar" ... aka "The Thorninator".

The way in from near the nest pole is completely blocked by a mix of grape vines and the biggest, densest mass of smilax that I have ever seen.
It was a classroom grunt work day and I dressed in cargo shorts and a muscle T, lots of exposed skin, ... those smilax vines will eat me alive if I try and power through them to find the dropped mullet.
Oh, did I mention yet that I was on a quest to recover the chick's dropped mullet?

I couldn't see the fish, but I heard him flip once in awhile somewhere ... beneath the smilax briars.
Ugh.
Looking over the smilax clump, I saw a game trail of sorts that came up from the saltmarsh almost to the nest pole.
Maybe it was created by raccoons foraging for scraps beneath the nest platform.
Whoever made it, just gave me a way past the smilax, but I would have to come up from the marsh.

I moved along the chain link fence until the forest opened up a little and hopped over it to the other side.
As luck would have it, the tide was out which allowed me to move pretty quickly along the muddy shoreline instead of weaving through the little woods.

In a few minutes I was opposite the pole and the little game trail beckoned.

I worked my way up the game trail (EEK! SPIDERS!) until I was standing directly under the nest.
Okay mullet, I need you to flip-flop one last time if you are still among the living.

In the thicket, I was hoping to locate him by sound, even though, the poor thing had been gored by osprey talons, snatched from the water, dropped 40 feet from an osprey nest, and ... been out of the water for at least the 15 minutes since the parent bird had deposited it in the nest.

It was quite possible he just didn't have any flip left in him.
And then he flipped!
There he was, under the thorns and half covered with leaf litter.

The mullet!
What a tough beast.
I snatched him up and retraced my steps, hopping over the chain link, and depositing the mullet on the lawn near the nest.

I got back in the hot car and hung around hoping for a shot of the osprey swooping down to snatch the mullet from the ground, but the parent came back in the meantime with a new mullet and that got everyone's attention.

Oh well, I had lots of classroom cleanup work to do and the morning was just getting hotter, so I started the engine and drove to my usual parking area.
(Later, the mullet was gone, so I think they did recover it)

Back in my classroom, I began sorting through old papers and ancient junk.
I was pretty sure that my "interesting day" quota had been filled before lunch, which is pretty cool, ... and then I stepped into the school elevator.
As it turned out, chasing sky mullet was just a warm up for a most interesting Tuesday.
More on that in the next post.

Brush Piles For Your Wild Things

So, last week we were doing some tree trimming.

This photo is for all you "safety saints" who will feel the urge to question going up a ladder with a chainsaw.
You can see it wasn't all that high ... my ladder will go a lot longer than that , 34 feet to be exact.

Plus, I didn't climb the ladder with a running chainsaw, heck that would be crazy.

I started it once I reached the top.
:)

If you look closely, you'll see the ladder is ratchet strapped to the tree at a low angle, so balancing is not a challenge.
Center of mass and all that...

The reason for all this (besides pure fun), was that the lower branches of a couple of nice oaks were drooping down so low that they were interfering with travel through the yard.
Plus, they were doomed anyway by the self-pruning of low branches all trees do as upper branches shade them out.

I don't recommend one arm chainsawing, but in this case, I couldn't work safely around the limbs I wanted to cut until I cleared out some of the dead hanging palm fronds.
(Thank you Tony Horton) 

Instead of doing this with all of the brush and adding more carbon to the atmosphere, I hauled a bunch of the branches out to a former wildlife brushpile site.

The site, pictured below is whats left of a brushpile I made years ago by using a wire crate as a support and layering branches over it.
The wire and wood crate had contained the faux stone I installed when I redid the fireplace and living room. At the time it was destined for the landfill ... until I decided to let it work here rather than take up space there.

As you can see above, in the world of brushpiles, this one was "tired".
If the purpose of wildlife brush piles is to provide habitat and temporary shelter for critters, this one had melted down to a point of ineffectiveness.

This is what it looks like after "rebrushing".

Here's a view from a different side.
Now it's back to being a place where a cardinal can dodge a hawk or make a nest, a ratsnake can hunt for cardinal eggs, warblers can flit about for whatever they flit about, butterflies can make cocoons,  rabbits can rest, lizards can bask and avoid black racers, and all kinds of insects can creep, crawl, and munch.

I have some other brush pile plans to create, they involve some old decrepit fence posts, but that project hasn't happened yet.

IF you want to see the original post about the making of this brushpile about 5 years ago, just click here.

Gold Discovered in Cedar Key, Florida

Aurumorning 

Diamonds and gold

Danza de oro

Ausymmetry

Boron
Iridium
Darmstadtium

Turn Here, Now There, ... Canopy Roads of Levy County

We drove with no purpose other than to enjoy a balmy December day in a topless JEEP.

At some point, we went searching for a tiny cemetery, and then a whim directed turn put us onto our first canopy road of the day.

After that road, we now had a goal.

Find canopied roads ... and ride em.

I remember being up north in Leon County, Florida once and picking up a "Leon County Canopy Roads" brochure at a tourist info place.
Leon made a big deal out of their scenic tree covered country roads ... maybe Levy County should too.

We may not have the rolling hills of the Tallahassee area, but we sure have an abundance of pretty canopied country lanes.

Ours are more rustic and unpaved than the paved roads of Leon.

There's hidden treasures all along the way on these canopy roads, like this old house being reclaimed by the land.

On the left side of this doorway, the way the shiplap siding didn't reach quite far enough, requiring a lot of cutting of small pieces to make it right ... I can so relate to this carpenter of long ago.

One thing that was clear as we explored the back roads, ... Levy has a lot of cows.
Dairy cows, beef cows, white cows, black cows, chocolate cows, spotted cows, yellow cows, striped cows ... no, wait, that was a zebra ... anyway, it's a bovine bonanza out there.

Every time I see a really small house, whether it's abandoned like this one or still being used, I wonder about the floorplan.
How are things laid out I wonder?

Rainbow cows.

Some people like dark meat, some like white.
I like it all.

There were some half-canopy wannabee roads ... we rode them too.

Several of these nice rides were dead end roads, but one of the sweet things about a JEEP Wrangler is they can turn around in tiny spots, so no worries mon.

We can get out of any tight spot , well, almost.
Submitted for your approval ... the road not taken ...

There were barred owls swooping ahead of the JEEP, leading us into this swirly vortexian canopy road. We crept down it slowly, the owls moving ahead from branch to branch.
Was it a trap?
Was it a worm hole into some creepy alternate dimension ... or worse ... into Duval or Dade county?

We may never know ... some roads just shouldn't be traveled...even in a JEEP.