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.