Real Estate Investment Trusts

     I would really like to start learning more about Real Estate Investment Trusts. They are not like traditional real estate investment, where a person owns a house and rents it out in some way like traditional lease or air bnb. The traditional way seems extremely messy and time consuming, plus frustrating when you have to clean up after tenants who leave a lot of broken furniture and garbage. The houses in my neighborhood are like this, it seems whenever I see someone moving out from my neighborhood there is a yard full of broken furniture and trash bags sitting in the easement.

     Real estate investment trusts are an investing tool. They are companies that own and usually manage income producing properties. And to avoid income taxes, they distribute 90% of their earnings to their investors. 

     There are private and public REITs. For simplicity sake, I am only going to focus on the publicly traded Trusts.

     The NAREIT website has a complete list of REITs, and you can sort it by public and private. 

     So my plan is to invest in senior living REITs, particularly any that involve those big 55+ apartment complex and independent living facilities. I know that people are saying there are going to be fewer and fewer retirees utilizing those resources, but from my perspective I just see more and more people moving there. I see a lot of family disconjugation and seniors unable to take care of their homes, and these senior living complexes are a perfect solution. 

     I can also see the benefit in investing in hospital and medical office real estate. They seem like pretty reliable tenants. 

     I'm conflicted about commercial real estate. Seems like there's plenty of vacant spots all over town.

     It would be interesting to invest also in residential, as there is definitely a current demand for housing. That's why three adults and a toddler live in the two bedroom house next to mine. 

     The best website that has an active index of REITs is the NAREIT, where you can sort all of the known REITs by public versus private and what class of real estate they specialize in.

     

Recipe: Chargrilled Coconut Mouse

     I was trying to convince someone I know that eating mice/rats might be the way to go for long term protein stability. It's good enough for cats, right? Besides they reproduce like rabbits.

     Then I discovered that in Vietnamese cooking, eating rats is already a thing. Makes sense, because their climate is not all that different from the eastern seaboard. And if you arent eating fish then you arent getting a lot of protein both here and there.

     This website is Australian but the recipe is Vietnamese.

     I haven't actually tried the recipe myself, but I want to!

     Chargrilled Coconut Mouse

Living off grid in an RV, it is possible!

     Not long ago I was out and about, andI happened to see this amazing example of off grid living. The owners of this RV had hooked up several minimally sized solar panels, presumably to provide for or supplement their electricity needs. 

     Alas, I did not have time to as them how their setup works. I did find out that the RV park where I found this is one of the most reasonable around here, supposedly about $3,500 per year. That price includes water and sewer, use of the amenities which include a pool. Barrington Hills.

How to save money by brewing your own wine

     I was pretty excited to find grape juice available at the big box store near my house again. It has been sold out for months, but obviously November is a month where surplus abounds in the world of frozen concentrate.

     "Frozen concentrate grape juice?" you gasp in shock.

     Yes frozen concentrate grape juice. I had previously read that you couldn't use it to make wine, but I have since disproved that to be a myth. It certainly does ferment and well. 

Each frozen concentrate grape juice container makes approximately 48 ounces or one quart of juice once rehydrated. Cost per quart $1.86. Cost per gallon $7.44. 

      You will also need one packet of winemakers yeast, though I have heard that you can use breadmaking yeast. I should do a post about that experiment sometime. Amazon has champagne yeast $7.99 for 10 packs, cost per pack is $0.79.

      You will also need a fermenting bucket or carboy and an airlock. These are not different from the beer brewing supplies and so are cheaper to buy them that way. They are one time purchases and pay for themselves after a few batches.

     Place the room temperature grape juice in the brew bucket. Add yeast. One packet of yeast will brew about 5 gallons of wine. No need to stir. Put the airlock on. Wait 2+ weeks.

     Total cost for one gallon of wine equals an astounding $8.24! Beat that, box wine. Plus, since you didn't add any sulfates or problems the homemade wine is a lot more natural than the storebought bottled wines.

Save money by making popcorn from scratch at home!

     When I was a kid, my family was given a hot air popcorn machine, and I was fascinated by it. It was loud, and hot, and hot pocorn shot out of the side into your waiting bowl. After we had played with it a few dozen times, I finally figured out that the machine was basically a hair dryer shooting hot air over the kernels until they popped. Cool engineering, but not very energy efficient. Heck, nowadays I don't own a hair dryer and I don't own a popcorn machine. 

     Later they invented microwaved bagged popcorn, and I have to admit that I used to love to eat this. As an adult, I never eat this! They are loaded with polyunsaturated fat and salt, which none of us should be eating. So I went on a quest to make the perfect home popcorn with no additives.

     I tried to cook popcorn on the stove. Several messes later I decided maybe microwaving would be better. I set no less than two hand towels on fire in the microwave until I discovered this technique.

     Find your favorite covered glass dish, whether new from the store or used from the thrift store. Cover the bottom of the dish with one layer of kernels. Add a dash of your favorite oil and spices if desired. Cover dish with its lid (not a towel) and put in the microwave on high for 4 to 5 minutes. Each dish and microwave varies, so you will want to work with your setup until you find the exact sweet time to pop about ninety percent of the kernels without burning the rest. In my 1.5 quart dish from Walmart it is exactly 5 minutes. Use towels to protect hands when removing from microwaving, take off lid and let cool, and then done! My kids like salt added, spices, honey, and other things. I like plain.

These prices are from the Walmart website.

PopSecret family pack 12 packages for $6.18, cost per serving $0.52.

Popcorn from scratch, cost of additives negligible, Great Value Yellow Popping Corn 32 ounces, serving per container approximately 13 of the 4 tablespoon size, $2.28, cost per serving $0.18.

     After mathing this up, it is clearly better to make popcorn from scratch and have no added chemicals. As a bonus, the kernels last for years whereas the popcorn bags go bad in less than one. The first time I tried to cook up old gross popsecret was probably the last time I cooked up bags of popcorn.

     I bought this dish many years ago from Walmart. Im surprised I haven't broken it, considering how often it I used and how my house is the place glassware goes to die. Thy have a similarly sized glass dishes with lids for about $30. Or better yet shop your thrift stores.

     By the way, you can't pop dent corn sold as animal feed. It's unpopable. Read all about that here.

Roth IRA Conversion Ladders

      I definitely need to learn more about this idea. I really like the concept that you can withdraw at any time to help pay for health insurance costs.

https://www.investopedia.com/how-roth-conversion-ladder-works-5214808

     Over the years, I have been religiously placing the maximum amount of after tax money into Roth IRAs, which I had thought was the smartest thing to do. As long as it sits in an account somewhere for I believe 5 years, you may withdraw the bulk of it to use as you please. In the past I have only ever withdrawn the money once, and that was to pay down on my mortgage. Some would say that was a bad move, but ultimately it set me up a lot closer to my financial goals than you would think. And if you figure out what your future costs of living are going to be, then you can set yourself up to withdraw that amount every year. Or most of the amount.

     Recently I learned about the Roth IRA conversion, which is a way to move money out of a 401k (pretax money) and into a Roth IRA (post tax money). Why would you want to do this, as you are going to be taxed on the distribution as if it were income? The truth is that you wouldn't want to do this move if you were working and earning income, as it would raise your taxes. You would want to do this if you are retiring early and have no income, but you want to use your 401k money to live off of. You would withdraw just the money you need to live from for each year, then it must be held in the Roth IRA account for 5 years to avoid penalties. During the first 5 years you would have to live off some of your other invested money before your 401k turned Roth IRA money becomes available. And each year you would rollover another future year of living expenses to be held for 5 years and then used. Doing this conversion does incur income tax burden, meaning, you will have to pay income tax on it as if it is income.

     Sometimes it can help to see some numbers associated with something like this. Here is a graphic I found on the web, this assumes your annual expenses are about $50k. I have already worked out my potential future annual expenses assuming I don't move and don't have a car Mr. Moneymoustasche style, is about $10k, with the bulk of that being the cost of health insurance and food.

     I find this trick to be ingenious, as you are not normally allowed to take any distributions from your 401k until age 55, as long as that is your current job you are retiring from, or 59 1/2 otherwise. 

     I tried calling my 401k company and rolling out some of my money into a self directed IRA or conversion, but they wouldn't let me! They said I was too young. But they also said if I was a former employee I could do whatever with the money. Way to go, hospital organization, why don't we just encourage healthcare workers to leave by holding their 401k money hostage and not allowing them diversified investments? Whoops was that out loud?

Do Ducks Eat Shrimp Tails?

 

     They absolutely do love to eat raw shrimp tails and shrimp peels.

Utilizing Food Waste on the Homestead

      The kids have been driving me crazy lately with what they will eat and what they won't eat. Literally worsened by the idea that their other family just gives them whatever they want, even going so far as to leave the house to drive to get takeout for them. Obviously I am not a fan of this kind of thing, nor am I a fan of encouraging picky eating. So I decided in my frustration to just start cooking whatever I want for myself, and if they don't like it then they can make themselves sandwiches. Mmm... sandwiches.

     The high prices of foods have also changed my life. I used to shop at the good grocery store that had everything, now I shop at two stores to save money, Walmart and Sav a Lot. I particularly enjoy how Sav a Lot has a huge Latin section with dried peppers, tortillas, and many other staples being really inexpensive. One day at Sav a Lot the freezer section had a big bag of frozen whole tilapia, very cheap. Of course, I knew that I wasn't going to get much usable meat from those little fishes, but it was kind of an experiment too, as I wanted to see if the cats would dig in. 

     I got the fish home and defrosted them, the my oldest saw them in the fridge. She, of course, hates me and everything about my life as she is a teeny ager right now. She looked at me like I was absolutely crazy when she found the fish. But then she offered to do the gutting and skinning which she wasn't too bad at. It turns out you have to have a really good knife for skinning, which I have since picked up from Walmart for a few dollars. 

     So the skin and heads and tails and fins all went into a bowl for the cats. Another thing I learned from this experiment is that my male cat who loves ham, sliced turkey, and cat treats will not eat fresh fish; my female cat who loves ham and bits of chicken, will eat fresh fish. She will only eat three small bites before she is full though. I should retry this picky eating with two hungry cats who have had an empty food dish for a few hours.  🤔

     I put the rest of the fish pieces outside for the ducks to eat, which they quite enjoyed. And I learned that the ducks love fish but they prefer it to be cut into bite sized pieces. The heads, which I had not cut up, stayed in the dish for a while before they disappeared into the compost. I don't think they ever did get eaten. But the fins and tail and spine all got eaten.

      So now I deliberately buy foods that have waste so I can feed it to the ducks or rabbits. For example, did you know ducks like to eat shrimp peels and tails? Who knew. And the rabbits absolutely love banana peels, orange rinds, and apple cores. These guys turn waste foods into compost.

Rabbit Forage in Florida

      I get quite a few questions from people asking me what I feed my rabbits, especially after they find out that I feed them almost completely out of my yard. 

     Keep in mind that I live in the deep deep south on the west side of Florida. Most of the year I have some kind of green stuff to give them, even if it is just grass. 

     I don't knowingly give them plants that I know to be toxic, like pokeweed, poinsettia, amaryllis, ferns, cherry laurel, 4 o'clock, croton, and crinum, though I do have those in my yard.

Grasses

     When I feed grass, I always try to offer a higher protein feed with it, like my go-to water hyacinth, which I like to refer to as the alfalfa of the South. 

     - Bahia grass

     - Papyrus

     - Elephant grass, also called Napier grass

     - Sedge

     - Crabgrass

Herbs

     Rabbits can eat everything we can eat and more. These plants are seasonal, and they may have a whole bunch of one plant on one day and then a whole bunch of another plant the next day. They have no digestive issues, despite what you might read online when it comes to varying up diets.

     - Mulberry

     - Pear

     - Hibiscus including Chinese and Turks Cap

     - Roses including thorns

     - Grape leaves

     - American Beautyberry

     - Loquat

     - Gingers, including False Cardamom, Shell, and Shampooo

     - Cannas

     - Perennial Peanut

     - Daisies, especially Spanish Needle

     - Tradescantia species, including Spiderwort, Purple Heart, and Small Leaved Tradescantia

     - Sages, including Tropical Sage and Swamp Sage

     - Hoja Santa

     - Copperleaf

     - Spanish Bayonet

     - Citrus anything including Lemon with thorns, Tangerines

     - Sprouted Dent Corn

Other stuff 

     There are a few plants that they can eat, but maybe they don't like so much. These are what they eat last or not at all.

     - Sago Palm

     - African Honeysuckle

     - Agave

     - Sycamore leaves in the fall

     They get some human food too. My family once asked me why I dont have a compost bin. The reason is because the rabbits eat most human foods, but I don't feed them meat or oily things, not that I have a lot of that around to throw away. 

     - Apple cores 

     - Pear cores

     - Banana peels

     - Orange and Lemon peels

     - Limp fennel

     - Basil,  Cilantro, and herbs that have been forgotten 

     - Pepper tops with seeds

     - Uneaten peanut butter and jelly sandwiches

     - Dry or weird bread

     - Leftover plain popcorn

There's Something Going On With The Economy

      The other day I was at a big box store on the west side of the adjacent county, which is where I work now. And I was looking to see if they had jalapeño or red pepper jelly, which is wayyy better than normal jelly for your great American traditional sandwich, the peanut butter and jelly. Or as my kiddo said when she was little, the belly jelly sandwich.

     The store did have pepper jelly, but it was oddly sold out of normal flavors of jelly, like your standard grape and strawberry. Even gone was my other favorite, blackberry. Apple butter was gone. Oddly apricot and mint were there. And hot pepper.

     Most of the peanut butter was also sold out, but the more expensive brands were there, plus the few jars of store brand. Not a jif in sight.

     Then I noticed that all the store brand cheap bread was bought out, but there was plenty of Nature's Own, now $4 a bag. And plenty of that disgusting Sara Lee bread.

     I'm not sure if it's a reflection of our economy or the high homelessness on that side of the county. Or both. 

Grapple Part 1

 

     Having noticed that the organic apple juice that I have been occasionally buying is nonexistant in the grocery stores right now, I decided to try the Welch's grape juice concentrate method of making homemade wine. I remember years ago when I first started learning about homebrewing that you could make a subpar wine this way, but I also remember reading from a homebrewing book that you couldn't ferment any juice with ascorbic acid in it because that preservative inhibits yeast formation. So, I never did try it until now.

     There is a homebrewing store near my house but I have never been in it. One time I wanted to pop in and see what they offered but the woman running the store made me stand out in the heat with the kids for what seemed like minutes while she secured her yappy dog. So I turned around and left. After I tied everyone into their car seats she came to my window and apologized for having to secure her therapy dog. 

     This blend of grapple is seven juice concentrates of grape and one gallon of organic apple. I figure even if the grape doesn't ferment it will still taste pretty good.

     It's the most active ferment I have ever made, with bubbles rising and the airlock pinging on day one. I even took a video. The glass of the carboy is not very clear so forgive the quality.

Imitation Starbucks Egg Bites

• 3 cups egg whites or 8 large eggs
• 1 cup cottage cheese
• 1/2 cup roasted red peppers, diced
• 1 cup spinach, finely chopped
• 1 cup monterey jack or cheddar cheese, shredded

Blend the eggs and cottage cheese together, then add this and the rest of the ingredients to the greased silicone molds. Bake at 325 for one hour or until egg whites are set.

     While I was making this recipe I realized that I no longer had any muffin tins for some reason. So I had to use the use the silicone molds, and cook and eat the rest of the mix immediately, which wasn't bad at all. I didn't have any spinach or peppers, so mine were just duck eggs, cottage cheese, and shredded cheese. And it was surprisingly good.

Would the pet cats eat baby rabbits if they were hungry?

     With the current inflation rate being predicted to be at 15%, I can't help but question my spending habits. I'm trying not to have a mentality of scarcity, as I am happily employed, but I have been rethinking all of my spending in light of my long term goals, which are to hopefully retire early, preferably away from the city, and sell plants. And grow my own food of course.

     I used to have pet parrots, and they were wonderful, but expensive and hard to keep up the maintenance with. Now I have pet ducks, which surprisingly, are providing quite a bit of eggs, which I have been enjoying. They are paying for themselves. But they require quite a bit of maintenance as they need their water to be clean.

     And I started breeding the rabbits again, I need to use their manure creating abilities to help me with the garden. I also thought that they could be eaten at some point, but now that they are small, I wonder if they could be cat food. Or if I could make baby rabbits to create cat food.

     What would you do if you couldn't buy cat or dog food anymore? Or if you had to choose between nutritious food for you and good pet food for the animals? I suspect that a lot more people would stop buying cat and dog food and start giving them people food. Or perhaps baby rabbits and duck eggs?

Farming While Female

     Have been having a problem with Isabellas rabbit kits escaping the big cages, which I had thought were secured with hardware cloth and chicken wire. Luckily for me, lawnmower 1 and 2 came back several times to their moms cage, no doubt because they realized they needed her milk.

     Stopped into a big box hardware store not near my house, and wandered around for a while trying to find hand shears, which I never did find, and also vinyl covered hardware cloth, which I absolutely need to fight the baby rabbit escaping problem. I had just previously bought a new dog crate to use as a rabbit tractor from rural king, where everything is easy to find. Except buckets.

     Wandered around. Checked the Fencing section. Checked the wood section. Checked out every section.  Then finally decided to ask employee, who happened to be male. 

     "I'm looking for hardware cloth, preferably 1 cm by 1 cm, it's like a mesh, preferably vinyl coated, where is that on this store?"

     Him, "Hmm. Not really sure, Trish do you know?" He asked as he stopped another employee. 

     So I described it again, and she said that the only cloth they carried was painter's drop cloth on the painting.

     When I realizes how north this conversation was going, finally I (probably) literally rolled my eyes and said, "It's for the chicken coop."      (I don't even have chickens.)

     He pointed directly at one of the walls and said, "The chicken coop wire is right there."

     When I made it over there, the hardware cloth was there, and I did find the vinyl coated stuff behind the other stuff. And it was called hardware cloth, I wasn't speaking a foreign language or using butter knife house repair tool language.

Pond plant question

 

Hi. I’m in Riverview. I have a small pond 4’x4’, with waterfall. Looking to get some plants for it. Can’t find anywhere. Lily, hyacinth, etc. Havecsny suggestions? Thanks, Matt iy, hyacinth, etc. , Matt

Welcome to the world of pond plantings! I have several large and small ponds here at my house in spring hill, the taro in the picture I originally purchased from a vendor at one of the USF botanical gardens spring or fall events. It was tucked in behind stuff and very overlooked. My whole garden theme is permaculture and edible, and of course it is hard to find and grow most of those plants well. We can feed Florida with water plants if people were just open minded.

I have this black Taro and the regular large elephant ears, and papyrus. I also have water hyacinth, which I eat, the rabbits eat, and the ducks I got this spring love to eat. I bought them originally online, possibly because you aren't allowed to sell it here due to it invading local waterways (it is a problem at some state parks south of here.) I sell it on Etsy here and can ship it to you.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/1206813854/water-hyacinth-edible-floating-plant?ref=listings_manager_grid

And grow it in all of my ponds, none of which have waterfalls or circulation.

One of my other favorite pond plants is cannas, of which the native variety has yellow flowers. The leaves and corms are edible.

I have experimented with azolla and water cress, neither of which worked out for my big pond, possibly due to frog predation or heat stress. I use goldfish as my mosquito control in the two larger ponds and nothing or bt dunks in the smaller ones like in the picture.

But you asked where to get these things. Hmm.. there was a pond place I liked very much in Dunedin, it is small but has a lot of different (expensive) lilies, which I am not as interested in. You're in Riverview so you're not far from Tampa Pinellas and Sarasota, maybe you could find the local pond shops and let me know! As far as edible plants, there is a very nice nursery in Howie in the hills I quite enjoy called A Natural Farm. And I'm always scoping the sales at any botanical gardens I stop at, like nature coast botanical gardens by me and boo tower gardens near Orlando.

Huh. Riverview. You can grow avocado and sugarcane there. The cannas might not even freeze in the winter there. I'm jealous.

Muscadine Grapes

      One grapevine planted several years ago now yields more grapes than I can ever harvest. This year I was able to reach four quarts of grapes for eating. They are sweet and crunchy. You know they are ready to harvest when the grapes are soft and springy, if they feel hard then they need more time on the vine. They seem to last quite a while in the refrigerator. Yes Muscadine grapes have seeds in them unless you are able to get a variety without seeds. 

Pretentious Flower

      It must think it's hot stuff being the biggest only flower blooming in the entire neighborhood. Also pretty much every plant in this picture I would be willing to part with.

Do Ducks Eat Tradescantia Purple Heart?

 

    Things are so expensive. A bag of plain chicken food without the additives to promote egg laying is about $20. When you factor in the cost of the baby duck food I have already given them, at this time I have spent about $40 in nothing but feed for these ducks. That makes them kinda expensive if I was owning them for meat. So any supplementation that I can give them from my plants would be a good thing.

     Between the corn sprouts and the water hyacinth, I have learned that they will eat Spanish Needle, but they won't eat Papyrus. And today I covered their splash ponds in Tradescantia Purple Heart, also called Moses in a Boat. It's a lovely succulent that grows in deep shade and is used often around here as a groundcover. Previously I had determined that the rabbits do indeed like it.

     Covered the splash ponds in Purple Heart, and then went on to do the next chore. By the time I turned around they were eating everything in sight, including the Purple Heart.

     That day they didn't finish their chicken crumble food or the corn sprouts because they filled up on healthy plants.

     Ducks love water hyacinth.

Alternative Duck Feeds

      You may have seen that I have been trying to sprout seeds to feed the ducks in order to feed them as naturally as possible and as cheaply as possible. I am a strong person, and I did carry 50 pounds of chicken crumble from the road to my house in order to make sure I had something for the ducks, but it wasn't fun. As awesome as having the ducks are, buying food isn't one of the things that I prefer to do for them.

     You may also know that my rabbits, when not breeding, eat a diet of alfalfa pellet and things I grow and harvest for them. I buy about two bags of alfalfa pellet a year. During the spring summer and fall, they eat water hyacinth, grass, and perennials. I always have them mulching things that I am trying to clean up in different areas of the yard. And they help in the kitchen too by eating banana peels and orange rinds and other waste.

Both of my dishes covered with Spanish Needle and Water Hyacinth

     When I first got the ducks I started them off with a bag of duck starter food, because I heard that it was wise. I heard that they need the niacin that is added, that if they don't get enough niacin it causes developmental problems. I also heard you could add brewers yeast for niacin, but when I looked up the cost of brewers yeast I discovered that it was cheaper to just buy the duck feed for the two chicks. And easier.

     Now that they are almost full grown, I have been researching as much as possible how and what to feed them. Most sources say regular chicken feed is fine with no supplementation needed until they start laying, and then you give them chicken layer feed.

     I watched a few YouTube videos about what they like to eat, of which there are not too many. Most people suggested pond plants, sprouted grains, and not much else. I bought some cheap dent corn, $9.00 a bag. At first they weren't interested in it at all, so I fed a bunch to the rabbits. Now they eat the sprouted corn if they are hungry, so win win. When I blow through this bag of corn I am going to get a bag of black oil sunflower seeds or birdseed and try sprouting that for them.

(Eats all the Spanish Needle)

     As for growies, so far their favorite food appears to be water hyacinth. It's very nutritious as well, some sources citing it at up to 60% protein. I eat it as well and so do the rabbits. It has a strange mouth feel but tastes just like green beans. Their next favorite food so far appears to be Spanish Needle, my good friend Bidens alba. I cut the leaves into bite sized pieces and throw it right into their water. The only other plant that I know for sure that they will eat are squash leaves, which were growing on a volunteer pumpkin in their enclosure. And they didn't want to eat that I think, they were just hungry that day and mad about the corn sprout situation, because at first they wouldn't eat them. Maybe tomorrow I will chop up some papyrus into the water and see if they will go for that.

Can you make Popcorn from Dent Corn in the Microwave?

      It turns out that the ducks don't seem to like corn sprouts very much, even though I think they are pretty good, and so do the rabbits. 

So what am I going to do with 40 pounds of whole 🌽? I guess I will slowly sprout it for the rabbits, since they seem to enjoy it so much, and I decided to try to pop it in the microwave like I pop regular popcorn for the kids, simply, plain with no butter or oil. 

     It turns out that whole corn from a bag from the feed store doesn't pop all that well. I now have a whole plate full of burned corn and about 5 pieces of popped corn.

     Sigh. Worth a try though. 

     Corn sprouts are good.

Sprouting Corn for the Ducks and Rabbits Part 1

 

    After doing much research, I have decided that I would rather sprout grains for the ducks than feed them prepared chicken feed. I will also give them prepared chicken feed, but I think it would be pretty cool to sprout corn or black oil sunflower seeds or really any grain, and be able to feed it to the ducks and rabbits. That being said, right now the ducks eat baby duck food, Water Hyacinth, and some leaves from Spanish Needle. Right now the rabbits eat Alfalfa pellets, water hyacinth, and plants from the yard primarily grasses and African Honeysuckle.

     There isn't that much information available about sprouting 🌽 for ducks. I chose corn because it was nine dollars for a fifty pound bag from the feed store. The black oil sunflower seeds are twenty dollars for a fifty pound bag. Or it may have been a forty pound bag. Much more expensive, but possibly more nutritious.

 

First overnight soak

   This particular brand had a lot of broken pieces of corn for a bag labeled whole corn. I may not get this brand again.

Turkey Anyone

 

     Not sure exactly what kind of bird this is, but I was surprised to find it near my place in West Florida, zone 8b, which is not very near any water sources. It was out after a rainstorm stalking through some yards occasionally pecking for bugs. Perhaps it's an escape, much as I lost some ducklings earlier in the year.

Isabella bunny

 

    Earlier this spring I decided that I missed having all the rabbits around to help me in the garden. Ok the adult rabbits didn't help me IN the garden, they helped me by creating small rabbits for the rabbit tractor. And they helped me by turning weeds into mulch and manure. But then the older rabbits passed away.

     Did you know rabbits live for 9 years or so? I didn't know that.

     I bought Isabella bunny from a young lady out in Weeks Wachee, off of craigslist. Now I just need a male rabbit. And then I can have baby rabbits in the tractor again.

     She has been transitioning well off of the commercial pellet she had previously been eating. I have her on the same diet as Princess, primarily alfalfa pellets, plants from the yard, and water hyacinth. They both have beautiful coats and clear eyes, seem to be a healthy weight. 

     And rabbits are by far, the best way to raise protein in suburban Florida.

Smartest Lizard on the Planet

 

     I bought a bee house from the local box store. I know, I know, I am such a sucker. It's made from bamboo pieces glued together and supposed to offer free rent for Mason bees. I have one Mason bee living in a hole in my rabbit roof, so I hung the bee house over there. One morning, while checking on the rabbits with my oldest son, we happened to see the smartest Lizard ever. He was hanging out and waiting for some kind of delicious morsel to appear, whether a bee or a spider I am unclear.

     I can't identify his species either. Other than the smartest Lizard species ever. Tiny alligators!

The Withlacoochee State Trail

       I have been hunting the entrances to the Withlacoochee State Trail. There is an entrance in Floral City on the north side of Orange Avenue. There is an entrance in Inverness in Liberty Park. There is an entrance in Hernando at highway 41 and East Norvell Bryant intersect. I still can't find where it is in my hometown Ridge Manor.

     Here is the official brochure.

Houseplants

      I never knew that there was quite a market for interesting but inherently useless houseplants. Maybe I am spoiled because I live in Florida and if I want a houseplant I can just dog something up from the yard and bring it in. Maybe I am in the wrong line of work.

Stuffed Onions with Italian Meat Sauce

 

     I love old recipes. It's not really because they are healthier, but usually they are healthier because they involved less processed ingredients. I love that most older recipes are simpler, with fewer ingredients and are usually cheaper and more easily acquired than a lot of modern recipes. I can't even watch cooking shows because as soon as the recipe calls for some expensive ingredient that I might have to go to a specialty store to get I look at the show like mystery horror fiction - fresh terragon? Pickled chives? Veal? Custard? Not going to happen.

     This recipe came out amazingly. I made the meat sauce the day of in the slow cooker, then baked the onions and meat sauce for about an hour in the oven. When I make it again I am going to supplement the hamburger with turkey burger, lowering the price without changing the flavor much, and baking the onion a little bit longer so it's more tender. But came out great for a first try.

Nailed it.

Water Hyacinth Recipe

      The hardest part about eating vegetables might be the texture. Or maybe because it's unusual, or not native to your culture. People question the safety of vegetables they have never heard of, as if it must be unsafe to eat if it's not available at the store, which is illogical. There are a great deal of vegetables we probably should be eating because they are sustainable and local, but aren't. Is that because big business controls everything?

This recipe is great with frozen broccoli if you have no mushrooms.

Water Hyacinth with Mushrooms and 🧄

A recipe by Chrissy.

-  4 cups water hyacinth, sliced into strips the size of green beans.

- 2 cloves of garlic, minced

- 3 teaspoons olive oil or your favorite oil, sunflower is good but coconut is so so.

- 1 cup mushrooms, frozen is ok.

Put the oil and garlic into your favorite cast iron skillet and bring to medium heat, then add mushrooms and sliced water hyacinth. Cook until tender, about 20 minutes, stirring and turning often.

Duck Enclosure and Ducklings

 

     These pictures were taken when the ducks were about three weeks old. My daughter had put a branch in the duck ponds, so they could use it as a ladder, which they needed when they were smaller. Now that they are larger they have no trouble hopping in and out of the water.

One Strange Duck Predator

 

     Not sure what kind of snake this is, here in suburbia, not near any water. But it got itself stuck in the duck fencing, and ended up getting eaten by something, not the ducks.

Ducklings, Week 2 and 3

  

    It's amazing how fast they are growing. They are eating a diet of baby duck crumble and water hyacinth, and nearly doubled in size. No escaping, just had the one predator attempt.

Spiderwort, Spring 2022

 

     Every Spring, around Alban Eilir, all the Spiderwort start blooming. The flowers are open in the very early morning, and as the sun rises they appear to be glowing 🟣. They are amazingly beautiful, and one of the few plants of early spring that is native to this area and edible. 

 

    Every year I transplant seedlings from the mowed areas to safer areas of my place. And every year I have more and more beautiful color in the spring. One year I used the flowers to color eggs, by sticking them to the egg and then boiling the egg in a wrapper. It came out amazingly.

Gratuitous Duckling Photos

 

     After I reinforced the lower areas of the enclosure with mesh wire fencing, we were ready to go and buy ducklings again. This time the store had a cheaper variety, the Pekin duck.

     They start off with yellow feathers and turn white. The store personnel had no idea about gender, but tried to tell me that higher pitched squeaking is an indicator of female birds. I hope they are female for the 🥚.

     On the second day I put some water in one of the containers, and I was so worried it that my daughter figured out how to use a piece of wood as a duck bridge, which they quickly figured out. Then I was worried that the water would be too deep. I said, "Do you think the water is too deep for them?" And right after I said it one of them diced underwater and started zooming around under there. I guess they figured it out.

Gone-lings, not Ducklings

      One of the more helpful learning tools in life can be learning from other people's mistakes. When I teach I often talk about some of my mistakes, to use as examples and to reassure the student that mistakes happen and it's what you do afterward that matter. 

     One of the things I learned is that small ducks can fit through really small areas in any enclosure to escape. It cost me the price of the birds I lost, about $25. 

     So these are not my ducklings, but my gone-lings. I hope they fed one of neighborhood cats or rats very well.

The Ducks Enclosure Part 2

 

     After much deliberation, I ordered a chicken enclosure from the Walmart website for about $300. I am one hundred percent sure that the enclosure came from China originally, as it was written all over the instructions and the box. It was not very easy to put together, largely because the diagram of the finished product showed the door on the wrong side of roof. But after following all of the directions I only ended up breaking one of the welds and had an enclosure. And the door is crooked.

     My daughter helped me with the netting, which is zip tied to the aluminum frame. It all looked great, so we went to the store and came home with three baby 🦆. She was so worried the ducks would be too cold with the night temperatures down in the 50s that she brought them in her room at night.

 

    The next day when I got home from work, the ducklings were gone. It looked more like they had escaped rather than that a predator had eaten them, as there were no mess and feathers. I have no doubt that after they escaped something came to eat them.