Canning 'maters.

It's hard to believe it's been about two years since my last post.  Vet school will do that to a blog.  It will also induce gastric ulcers and stress colitis... My friendly ulcer has caused my doctor to recommend a reduction in ingestion of acidic foods: citrus (no! my favorite fruits, very unfair to a Floridian) and tomatoes (no! we have loads of tomatoes ripening in the garden this summer, very unfair to a vegetable gardener).  So despite doctor's orders, tomatoes must remain on the menu, but in an effort to reduce consumption as my poor stomach heals, I decided to save some for winter!  In the past we typically haven't grown more than we can eat throughout the season, mostly because we don't have the space (once we have some land I foresee growing at least enough to stock for the winter), but this year we planted 4 varieties to share with our neighbor and we are inundated!  One of Andy's coworkers recently gave us a large canning pot with basket, so today I put it to use canning tomatoes.  The varieties in the garden this year: fox cherry, black cherry, roma, Wapsipinicon peach, plus "the deadly nightshade" sungold cherry (no one freak out, it's just a sungold that sprouted unexpectedly from the compost, not a wild nightshade!).  

I haven't taken the time to look this spider up, so for now, just calling it the zipper spider.

We had a really mild winter (not sure if it even froze once), which made the insects really happy, and the humans really annoyed, in the winter garden.  (Normally the winter garden is easy in Florida - warm enough to grow great veggies, cold enough to keep away the pests).  But so far this summer, we have been relatively pest-free, thanks in part to our biological pest control!  So far we've only seen two tobacco hornworms, and both were parasitized - way to go wasps!    

The unripe-looking tomatoes are the Wapsipinicon peach.  They are ripe.  They are a nice yellow color in real life and are quite good little slicing tomatoes.  The black cherry are purplish and are very sweet.  I think the fox cherries are my favorite, though.  

  
I miss the days of picking berries and making preserves with my dad.  Canning the tomatoes was not very different - lots of cleaning and sterilizing, working at a steady pace to keep the process moving, and lots of boiling.  I am so thankful my parents shared their knowledge of growing and preserving food with me.  If something crazy happened and our careers went up in smoke, at least we could subsist on a plot of land somewhere :)   

In which Shadowfax gets some camouflage.

When you're raised in the nursery business, even when you leave, it never really leaves you.  It's in the blood - there's always something being sprouted, planted, and watered at our place.  The veggies are going bonkers and swamp mallows that I started from seed are looking like plants that might actually flower next year.  This summer's project was a little coontie production area on the back step.  I took some seeds from my parents' numerous coonties, soaked them for 24 hours to loosen up the orange seed coat, then scraped it off and planted the seeds.  

This started out mostly as an experiment because I've never seen a coontie started from seed.  A google search helped me with getting the seed coat off, but I couldn't find any reliable information about how to plant the seeds, so I put some on the surface, some halfway submerged, and some buried just under the surface.    

Turns out they like to be on top or halfway in the soil, not totally buried.  It took on average 3 weeks for seeds to sprout, although some were speedy and others are taking their sweet time.  

Here, the speedy ones are just beginning to unfurl and put out baby coontie leaves at the tip of their shoots.  

When I planted these seeds my expectations were low.  I was hoping for one or maybe two to grow, but wasn't going to be disappointed if none did.  Et voila, about 90% of them have sprouted at this point.  Now I just have to keep them alive, then I'll have more coonties than I know what to do with.  Maybe start a nursery?  Just kidding!  

In other news, Shadowfax felt that her coat was not providing her with adequate camouflage for sneaking up on squirrels, raccoons, and feral cats, so she invested in some greener camouflage.  She calls it Real Grass Collar Camo.  

In which boats abound.

On a rare almost-study-free weekend in April, I headed back to the panhandle to take Swan to the Apalachicola Antique and Classic Boat Show.  My dad, Brian, and I each entered our home built wooden boats.  It was an overcast Saturday and the wind was hurtling down the street where our boats were on display, but people came out to admire all of the boats, and we kept warm with hoods up, drinking steaming coffee and tea from a cafe down the street.  (If you ever have a chance to try cardamom tea, I highly recommend it!)

Swan and Blue Tang, decks swabbed, ready for the show to start.  

Brian's Tramontana, with his tent full of incredible watercolors in the background.  

(Click on the link above to see his website and artwork)

Were we surprised that people were amazed/incredulous/delighted that a girl built this boat?  Not really.  But I am always surprised by all the people that seem taken aback that I can sail it by myself - people don't have much faith these days.

Daddy awaits onlookers with his Blue Tang.

 A variety of other boats were on display.  There were quaint sailboats with tiny cabins, a grand Maine lobstering sailboat, the Governor Stone, steamships, canoes and kayaks, fancy-schmancy motor boats, and even antique cars and outboard motors polished so they'd shine even under the heavy clouds.    

At the end of the day, after the judges had come around twice, we heard our names being announced during the informal awards ceremony.  Swan won the Best Home Built Boat!  Tramontana won the Best Sailboat!

The cockpit of Tramontana with portrait of herself.

We enjoyed the antics of Joan of Arc's crew attempting to paddle up the canal to the boat ramp.  We took pictures while they worked hard.

I'd been to Apalachicola many times growing up because my great uncle and grandmother lived on their houseboat at the end of the same canal Joan of Arc was moving along in.  Since we always had the super-fun houseboat to stay on, we never got to stay at the Gibson Inn - so this time we finally stayed there.  It was a neat hotel - the bed was so tall I was afraid I might fracture my collarbone again.

This poor guy is just a surprise to end the post.  I guess he tried to get out of the house, but couldn't quite make it...

In which we search for sandhills and the pied-billed grebes laugh at our ambitions.

We'll start this post off with a quiz!  Can you find and name the animal in the photo below? Answer appears in the last picture of the post.  

We went out to Paines Prairie for a hike to see the sandhill cranes.  A small sampling of what we found instead was:

The sentry at the gate - an alligator basks at the entrance to his part of the prairie.

 White walkers - a great egret and snowy egret hunt where there's a current through a culvert. 

 Stormy skies and vultures.

 Stormy skies and great blue herons.

 Another great egret.

Another snowy egret, keeping a respectful distance from its seemingly-sleeping companion.  Note the gator's abdominal wound.

 Portrait of an alligator.

 Portrait of two human beings.

 A flock of red-winged blackbirds flushed.

A cohort of coots. 

 And the American bittern out of hiding.

The best sighting of sandhill cranes for us remains right around the block from our house, where hundreds of cranes are foraging and frolicking in the pastures with the cattle. 

FALL

It's a big deal when fall arrives in Florida.  We turn off the AC, open windows, go outside for extended periods, and bask in the sun - like these turtles.  Fall only stays for a few days, maybe a week if we're lucky, at first.  So we close the windows, turn on the AC again, and seek out shade when outdoors.  Fall and summer have a battle of wills for many weeks before winter swoops in to end the bickering.    

Anyhow, fall has made a reappearance in north-central Florida, so we're enjoying it while it's here with a day canoeing on the Santa Fe.  Yesterday was a day for turtles and turkeys on the river.  Turtles were covering most every log they could climb onto.  We kept hearing rustling noises in the woods behind the banks, and finally spotted four wild turkeys foraging on a slope down to the river.  The bald cypress are turning gold and brown, maples and sweetgums are just starting to turn red and purple.  The bald cypress are our southern take on Aldo Leopold's smokey gold of the tamaracks.    

There hasn't been much (or any) rain lately, so the water was low, making some fun little "rapids" in the limestone bedded parts of the river.  Before we reached the first set of fast-moving water, we stopped at a little spring bubbling up into the river next to the bank.  The rapids didn't look too intimidating, so we figured we'd paddle right up them (yes, we were going upstream).  About half the way up, we realized we were no longer making forward progress, so I jumped out of the boat and started pulling.  The water was nice and clear, so I only bumped my shin into a couple rocks along the way.  I jumped back into the canoe just in time upstream of the rapids, as the water was suddenly deep.  We encountered several more stretches of fast water, but were able to paddle up them successfully.  We ate lunch with a big turtle in a cove where water from the main channel was rushing in, swirling around in a whirlpool fashion, and being sucked down into the aquifer.  The paddle back downstream was much more leisurely - only steering required on the way down the rapids!   

On a separate note, here are my results from the dialect quiz (I think this guy did a masters or PhD dealing with regional dialects in the US).  You can go to the website and take the quiz if you are up for it (the full size one is long, but more accurate).  I found out that my speech patterns/phrases are more similar to those used by people in north Florida than those in Minnesota - hahaha no kidding!  

Maine

Andy and I took a trip to Maine for the week before fall classes started.  This was a new state for me - now I'm down to 6/50 (Vermont, New Hampshire, Idaho, Oregon, Alaska, and Hawaii) not yet seen.  Maine reminded me of the other 'M' states I've lived in - Minnesota and Michigan - probably mostly due to the trees.  And the cool summer temperatures!  

It looks like someone is taking care of the 1858 barn.  Unlike some of the other barns we saw throughout the countryside. 

We went on an informal, self-guided winery tour with Andy's family.  This is part of Clem's little vineyard at Younity Winery.  He makes all kinds of wines, including blueberry, elderberry, and rhubarb. 

The flowers (Liatris) outside of the Savage Oaks Winery were buzzing with bees.  There were also pigs out back adding to the country sounds.  This vineyard and winery also produces grassfed beef and pork.  

Sweetgrass Winery had this nice truck, old-fashioned sled and cross-country skis on the wall, and (I thought) the best wines of all the places we went.  They also had beautiful, bright sunflowers!  

Looking back towards the Duck Trap River at low tide - barely looks like there's a river back there.  The tides are extreme here in the Penobscot Bay.  It is wise to either stay with your boat or pull it well onto shore, well beyond what you may think is necessary, to avoid a frigid swim when the tide comes in.  

We kayaked north from Duck Trap up the shore and around a point (on left in photo below), where Andy's sister spotted a seal.  It followed her as she paddled back towards us, and generally seemed to be hanging around (or maybe it was wondering why we were hanging around), checking us out as it popped its head up every now and again.  

http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/species/mammals/pinnipeds/harborseal.htm

There are lobster trap buoys everywhere - hanging from ceiling fan pull chains, on the walls of restaurants, in every tourist shop, and of all places ... on the water marking a lobster trap!  

 We eventually left our seal friend and paddled south, back across Duck Trap harbor in a brisk breeze towards lunch in Lincolnville.  It's wonderful sailing up here - the home of WoodenBoat is almost directly across the bay and a smidge south from Lincolnville.  Every day at any harbor we were near, there were sails dotting the bay.  There are no oyster bars to contend with - a small, maybe 14', wooden sailboat was displayed for sale along the highway with a keel deeper than the depth of the hull itself - sailing that on the gulf coast would be a tricky proposition!  

We also took a short hike on a peninsula of a lake (I forgot the name).  The open, rocky overlook was covered with scrubby low-bush blueberries (we were too late in the season for any wild harvesting) and iconic white pines.