Finally, some rain. We got 2” yesterday with some real thunder, lightning and hard rain. That’s the first real rain in a couple of months and should have really soak the garden thoroughly. Rain water is not the same as well water when it comes to growing things. I guess there are nutrients embedded in the rain that don’t exist in well water but you can sure tell the difference in growth rate. Of course the downside to a storm this time of year is that it’s caused by a cold front moving down from International Falls and within a day or so our temps will drop dramatically.

They got me. A few months back I decided to take advantage of then current low interest rates by refinancing the house. All went well until the new bank said that, per FEMA, we needed flood insurance. When we took out the original mortgage in 2003, Chase required flood insurance which cost us $250/year. No big deal. When we refinanced (with Chase) in 2008, the requirement for flood insurance went away. Nice. Now the new bank said that FEMA once again required flood insurance. We had to produce what’s called an elevation certificate and based on that, we ended up with the insurance that cost $500/year. We came close to pulling the plug on the refinance when the estimate first came in at $2000 until we produced the elevation certificate. A month after closing I get a call from the insurance company saying FEMA took another look at the elevation certificate and determined that we needed a $2000 policy, not the $500 one we agreed to. Well that’s not exactly true – what FEMA said was that for the quoted $500, the house is only insured for $19,000. That would be ok with me but not for the bank. At this point there is no recourse – I can’t back out of the refi because it closed and we have a new mortgage. I can’t change insurance companies simply because they simply act as an agent for FEMA and it will be the same for all insurance companies. I checked on that and it’s true. And to add insult to injury, I have to have the surveyor come back and resurvey the property. As if the property moved or something. Lucky for me the original survey company still exists so it will only cost me $250 for the resurvey. It seems clear to me that FEMA is broke by virtue of Katrina etc so they decided to just reach into my pocket. My house hasn’t moved so it’s in no more flood danger today than it was 10 years ago or 3 years ago. I guess I could just pay off the mortgage and tell them to jam their insurance scam but that wasn’t the way I wanted to roll on into the future. Too bad they don’t send the FEMA guy to the house so I could ………………………..

One tradition that seems to me has been trashed over the years is the college bowl game season. Used to be that all the games were played on New Years day in warm places. You knew who the teams were and cared about the results. That has been completely devalued with loads of games throughout the month of December and among teams that were barely able to put together a winning season. What’s the San Francisco Bowl, the Take a Homeless Person to Lunch Bowl? Where Portland A&T plays Iowa T&A and the best part of the game is the half time show. Bowl games you never heard of among teams you never heard of. I guess it’s just as well they’re all on ESPN instead of regular network TV. Real men don’t watch football on cable or satellite. We’re antenna on the roof kind of guys. At least they had a little respect and put the Florida – Penn State game on a regular channel.

Congratulations are in order for my bride. She won the 2010 Crescent City Bridge Club player of the year award. Somehow in bridge they keep track of the games played and points awarded throughout the year. She, obviously, had the highest point count in 2010. Wonder what it’s going to be like living with a champion?

Well today I can answer a burning question – how long does it take a potato plant to break the surface after planting the tuber piece. I am not at all calibrated on that process so after a couple of weeks I start to get nervous that maybe nothing is happening underground. Not to worry, 25 days later out popped the first sign of green. The interesting thing is that unlike germinating a seed where a tiny, barely visible thrip of a leaf makes an appearance anywhere from 3 to 10 days after planting, the leaves that pop out from the potato plant are heavy, deep green and quite robust. I do remember from last season that it seemed to take forever so I don’t think the colder than usual weather has slowed the process. I planted the cut pieces onto a bed of leaf mulch and then overtopped them with another 4-6” of leaf mulch. My thought is that this provided a warmer bed than a soil bed and better protection from the cold. Right now I have half the designated row planted in little red potatoes. The other half is about 75% available with two heads of cabbage remaining to clear it totally. Those will be picked next week at the latest and the first batch of Yukon Gold’s planted. I checked on the ones I pilfered from Nancy’s stash and they have started sprouting nicely.

I thought for sure that I’d be growing bananas by now since this global warming thing has been going on now for quite some time. Instead I’m studying catalogs seeing what the next level of frost protection cloth is going to run and how much additional protection I can get. Instead, my one banana plant looks belly up for sure this time. I’m thinking about digging it up and shipping it off to Al Gore.

Had a first time experience last night. Simon became an Eagle Scout and we attended the induction or award ceremony. I’m glad he has that behind him now. He worked hard and was go go go up until about 2 years ago then seemed to lose interest. I hated the idea that he had put so much into scouting and then at the pinnacle, backed off. He fooled me and came back to complete the requirements and get the job done.

I was a bit surprised at the number of people in attendance and just how many people really cared about Simon’s achievement. I learned at the ceremony that only 2% of the kids that enter scouting achieve the Eagle rank. The ceremony itself was a nice combination of formality and personal touches. Tom had prepared a slide show of photo’s taken from Simon’s first scouting experiences, through various award ceremonies, camping trips and ending with his Eagle project. Brought back lots of memories. One thing that surprised me was that he was awarded an American Flag that had been flown for a day over the Capitol building in Washington. Apparently that’s something that’s done by the state’s senior senator, Bill Nelson. All in all it was a night I’ll never forget.

We’ve had a straight week of nice weather and a few more days ahead before it gets cold again – although not as cold as we experienced a few weeks back. It really shows in the garden. The cold weather we had didn’t kill anything but it set the whole garden back quite a bit in terms of growth. Now it’s going gang busters again and starting to look like a real garden. We’ve been picking more than we can eat so the quilt group and bridge crowd are benefitting accordingly. Whenever we’re invited to an event we volunteer to bring the cole slaw. Not sure what vitamins you get from cabbage but whatever it is, we probably have an overdose going. Some broccoli going on and within the next couple of weeks we’ll be rolling in lettuce of several varieties and cauliflower – assuming that we don’t revert to the deep freeze.

Still lookin’ for the spec’s. All my hot spots are now dry spots.

This was an interesting New Years season. We went to Tom’s NY eve party and enjoyed meeting Some of Tom’s students and co-workers along with seeing the Richardson’s again. And meeting Kelly, Tommy’s girl friend. Then on New Years day, Kassem dropped by for the evening with his fiancee. It was really special to meet all the young ladies in these guys lives, Kelly, Jackie, and Julia, Simon’s girl friend. They were very much alike in that they are all in college, very engaging personalities, and all cute. Kelly shares the co-host role with Tommy on the Missouri university radio station. We’ve heard her often so it’s nice to be able to put a face behind the voice. Jackie has a degree in Psychology and continuing on in Radiology; Julia is a budding Journalist at Florida. Of course seeing kassem again was the highlight. He’s completed two tours as a marine in Afghanistan and we are so happy to have him back here safe and sound. He has another 6 months or so and then plans to go back to college and pursue a teaching career. That seems to be the path this generation of Sheronik’s have chosen and we’re proud of all of them. We had one funny moment when Kassem first came into the house. It had been 5 years since he’d seen his cousins and when Olivia walked up to him, he introduced himself – “hi, I’m Kassem”. He simply did not recognize her. When he saw her last she was a little girl, now she’s becoming a beautiful young lady. We all cracked up to see the shock on his face.

And we were again treated to a smoker feast. Tom smoked 16 chicken quarters and, as before, they were incredible. You absolutely won’t find any better smoked barbecue than he fixes up. It was perfectly side matched with our latest cole slaw mix – blends of cabbage and carrots. This time it was Derby Day and Early Jersey Wakefield along with Nantes carrots. I think this may be the best blend yet.

Need I mention the crowning glory of a Florida win over Penn State or the total devastation wreaked on the Big 10 conference. The SEC dominance was not a big surprise to me but I truly enjoyed watching TCU down Wisconsin.

So all in all, this is one of the best New Year’s in quite a while.

Had another otter happening. I was out in the boat trolling for specs, hearing this strange sound. Sounded like someone noisily eating with loud chomps intermixed with sneezes. I’m trying to figure what in the world I’m hearing when I catch sight of movement in the lilly pads and up on a stump. It was a big otter chowing down on something. When he spotted me, he slipped off the stump and headed right towards the boat, spitting and sneezing with his head and neck way above the water line. I quickly reeled in since I was afraid he would get tangled up in the lines, a potential disaster. Then I spotted a second, smaller otter back in the pads. So I think I must have been too close to a nest and the big guy was warning me away. He followed me for quite a bit and was within about 25′ of the boat so he clearly wasn’t the least bit afraid of me. He then headed back to the area where I first spotted them. I did a big loop then headed back towards that same spot and sure enough, he swam out to greet me again. Bet in a couple of months there will be a few more little otters swimming around. Several years back there was a family of 5 swimming around in the spring. They were there all the time and then one day just disappeared so it seems that they make the appearance at the start of winter and then head for other waters when the time’s right. What was also neat was a couple of owls flitting around in the trees in the same general area. Big guys too. I frequently hear owls but it’s not too common to actually see them flying around during the day. Probably has something to do with the weather.

The pictures are intended to give you an idea of the water level at the dock. It’s now within a few inches of an all time low from our perspective. My neighbor says it’s the lowest since he’s been here – 1984.
The pic that shows the base of the cypress tree is interesting since that tree normally sits in 2-3′ of water.

I guess I shouldn’t complain so much about the cold considering what’s happening in the northeast and most of the country. What makes it so frustrating here is that it isn’t supposed to get this way so you don’t prepare for it or have the coping materials. Our blood never thickens so we’re in constant summer mode internally. My biggest problems are not temperature but wind. Half of my frost blankets had blown off the garden and/or endured more rips and tears. Some of my pvc support structures were laying over so that wasn’t a total success either but I’m for sure on the right track. There was no frost Sunday night because of the wind but there was plenty Monday night and Tuesday morning when the winds calmed. It didn’t get any colder this time than last week and I survived that ok so I’m hopeful now. Rather than having Nancy sew up the frost cloth, going to try my old favorite, duct tape. And I’m going to make a trip to Harbor Freight to get some welding clips to use instead of clothes pins. A welding clip has a much stronger spring and wider lips so it should be more effective at clipping the cloth together. I also need to get more concrete weights on standby down at the garden to secure the edges and keep the wind from getting up under the cover. I ran out of concrete blocks and used garden tools – shovels, hoes, rakes, etc but the wind was strong enough to just lift those up and off. I have plenty of time to get all that together since it looks like we’re in for a 4 day stretch of uber cold. That makes the second 4 day stretch this month and probably the 10th day to hit the freezing point – but who’s counting. I just need to buy a book entitled Gardening in Alaska or something along those lines.

Did get some citrus tree damage this time around. Not sure how significant but got the curly leaves which means at least dead foliage. Won’t know for a while whether or not that has any implications for next season. Certainly it’s early enough in the season that there were no blossoms or new leaves yet to be damaged but not sure how deep into the wood this goes.

There could be one silver lining to this cold, particularly in the southern part of the state. It should kill off some of the non-native predators that have been introduced by dumb asses. That would include the Burmese pythons and iguanas that are now living in the everglades and any place they can crawl or slither from there. This year should set them back quite a bit. Unfortunately the snook which have migrated this far north will probably also be hammered.

And of course the lake continues to drop as the fern growers pump to protect the crops. This is the lowest I’ve ever seen the lake in December. I have seen it this low before but this is March low not December low. We have two more months of potential freezing weather and three more months of dry weather. The drier than normal summer and fall with not even a close call on hurricanes left us starting the dry season with a deficit. If it really gets as low as I anticipate, I’m going to take a shovel and dig out some deep holes to attract fish when the water returns to normal levels. Wonder if the lake bottom muck would be good for the garden?

Reprieve – after the frost melted and we had two days of sunny, 70 degree kind of weather, all the plants recovered. But this coming week I get to try out the new cover scheme in earnest. Supposed to have three straight freezing nights but there’s nothing in the garden that is not fairly well hardened at this point. My only concern at this point is trying to get the covers on tonight. The wind is absolutely howling and trying to handle a 30′ x 50′ cover in the wind is really a challenge. I’m hoping that it lays down before dark so we have a fighting chance.

We had a nice Christmas at Tom’s house. As usual the food was good with a smoked prime rib being the crowning achievement of the smoker to date. It was a beautiful day and we were a able to eat out in the screened porch. And Tina put together a very impressive spread of cookies with a coconut encrusted, lime flavored morsel that hooked me – and I’m decidedly not a cookie or sweets person. Or maybe it was the cranberry pistachio beauties. I liked the texture of those more but the flavor of the coconut/lime was killer. I wanted to be sure so I ate enough of both to confirm that it was a dead tie.

I was extra surprised to unwrap a dream surf reel compliments of the Lake Mary Carbones. Since I was a fairly young guy, the ultimate salt water reels were made by a company call Fin Nor. Originally they were machined from solid blocks of aluminum or magnesium or some exotic material with each gear and part hand crafted. Aside from ultra smooth operation, they were famous for the stability of the drag system which means you could hang a very large fish that spooled off lots of line and the drag pressure would remain constant no matter how long the run. Most drags heat up, then tighten, then snaaaapppppp. When Tom and I visited the Outer Banks a few months back, I spotted one on sale at a tackle shop we visited but even though it was the best price I had ever seen, I just couldn’t bring myself to pull the trigger on something that I didn’t really need. When I got home I told Nancy that I screwed up and should have gotten it. So I was blown away to unwrap a present and find the Ahab 8. I need to fill it with a line commensurate with the reel and this is more than likely going to cost me a new rod. I have plenty of rods but …………. you just can’t put this reel on any old rod. I think everybody else got plenty of stuff too but I wasn’t paying all that much attention after the Fin Nor hit the air.

The other thing I really enjoyed was having the now grown up grandkids around for a few days. I can carry on adult level, interesting conversations with them and just relish watching their personalities mature as they diverge into their own areas of interest and expertise. I loved teaching them things when they were little but now love learning from them and being able to kid with them as emerging adults. They all have a nice sense of humor so we can work on each other in a playful fashion.

The garden is history. An unforecast frost nailed it last night. The thing that destroys me is that I spent the week preparing for the cold predicted for Sunday so it would have been a nothing deal to cover it. I think I’ll box up the ruined stuff and send it to the weather guys at channel 2.

Got a small surprise when I went out this morning to turn the compost pile. Not to get too scientific but composting is an exothermic process – meaning it gives off heat. I’ve always known that. It’s what you want to happen and is why you turn the pile regularly – to replace the oxygen the process is consuming. It was about 40 degrees out and I noticed that when I turned the first pitchfork full, it was a bit steamy. Either that or it was powder from the wood ash I had piled on the other day. I put my hand it in expecting to feel warmth and instead got a nice burn. Believe it or not, it was hot enough to burn the skin. Nothing to worry about but a good reminder of what’s going on with those microbe critters and confirm that the process goes on no matter what the outside temp is.

Spotted a large otter in the lake today. He was suspiciously cruising the area where I catch the most spec’s. Since I’m the only human that really fishes for them in this lake, I guess I can split the catch with otto.

The Florida Maple tree has turned from green to yellow almost overnight and, if history holds, will drop all the leaves within a week. Break out the leaf mulcher. This particular tree was the inspiration or driving force behind getting the mulcher in the first place. Over the course of a year, most of the leaf mulch is oak – and lots of it – so this will give the mulch critters a nice change of pace to munch on. This season has to be a giant thanksgiving for them with a wide variety of vegetable leaves and citrus hulks to go along with the usual fare. This batch will have a distinct tomato flavor since the plants that froze were loaded with unripe, damaged fruit and made up a new layer on the compost pile.

This particular tree drops a massive load of leaves but the mulcher cratered after only three loads. The thermal breaker stopped the machine and the smell of burning electrical matter was wafting in the air. I took it all apart to see if it was jammed but it was totally clean. Started it again, more smoke. I love the mulcher but this is the second problem with it. The first was the impeller blades which was certainly my responsibility – driveway rocks tore it up. But I’ve been very careful to suck up only leaves and maybe an occasional twig so this one is on them. I will say something for Shop Vac – when you call customer service a human answers the phone, no push one for English routine. I explain to the person that I need to speak to a service tech on the MV35 and she says ok, hold on while I transfer you. The guy that answers – on the first ring – is indeed the service tech and is quite knowledgeable on the product. I walk him through my symptoms and troubleshooting and he concludes that the motor is history. He asks how long I’ve had it – about a year. There’s a two year warranty so he says they’ll send me out a new motor – what’s your address. No further questions, no discussion about proof of purchase. Boom, it’s done. So while I’m less than satisfied with the product reliability, I’m 1000% satisfied with the service policies and personnel.

Heading off to the Lake Mary Carbone’s for Christmas. Tom bought an electric smoker on Black Friday and has been smoking his little heart out ever since. We got a taste of it last week with pulled pork. It was as good or better than any I’ve ever had. I think Baby Back Ribs and Prime Rib are on the menu for the holidays. Got my fingers crossed that Little Tommy makes it home from Missouri. There’s a large snow event headed that way and I hate to think about him spending Christmas in the St. Louis airport.

Did a dummy run on the new frost covering scheme last night. The weather folks decided at 5 PM that there was a reasonable chance of a “light freeze” in our area. Normally I would have just blown it off because the forecasters typically overstate the issue but since my erector set pieces were all in place, why not try it out. Nancy and I actually covered it in about 30 seconds, slick as a whistle. It helped that there was no wind at all, but still, it was orders of magnitude better than previously. I plan to reposition a couple of the supports and make it all a bit more stable for the season but all in all, very nice. As it turns out, sure enough there was a light frost on the cloth first thing in the morning. Not enough to damage anything but gave me a nice test of my system.

I mentioned planting beet seeds in the last post and just blew past it. Beets have been an annual frustration. I’ve tried several varieties and just haven’t had much in the way of success. At this point I don’t have soil or nematodes to blame so if I bend my pick again, we’ll have to stick to Publix in the future. I pulled out all the stops and planted 4 patches in 4 totally different garden locations. I used Miracle Gro soil mixed with bone meal, blood meal, and epson salts. Soaked the seeds for 12 hours before planting to accelerate germination. So if I bomb out again, that’s it. I’ll just chalk it up to some climatic condition or soil chemistry we have here that beets hate.

I ordered all the seeds for next season. These seed catalogs are designed by people cleverly targeting me. Each year I get the new catalogs secure in the knowledge that I have plenty of seed from the last season and don’t need any more. And I’m correct. But instead of just throwing away the catalog without opening a single page which would be the smart thing to do, I go through it, item by item. And before it’s over, I’ve ordered $60 in seeds I really didn’t need. These guys just keep coming up with new varieties and make them sound irresistible. I can’t believe it but I actually bought one new tomato variety that cost $5 for 25 seeds. What was I thinking?

According to the experts, the average return from a garden is $1/square foot. In Florida with our extended growing season, it should be at least double that. I reckon I have about $500 in it from the get go – 3 years – but more than half of that is in non-recurring costs, such as the frost covers, the pvc erector set, tools and garden expansion material. I guess if you count the tiller and the leaf mulcher, it gets closer to $800. But who’s counting. The regular annual consumable expenses seem to run about $100. So with my 1200 SF garden, I guess it’s a good ROI, considering only the cash investment. If I throw in my labor at three cents an hour, maybe it’s not such a good investment. To justify the whole thing I have to throw in the exercise I get that eliminates a gym membership – which I wouldn’t get anyway. And the gas savings from Nancy driving 15 miles to buy veggies. She still drives the 15 miles but doesn’t buy veggies so can I really amortize that gas? How about the savings in vitamin D supplements which I don’t need because I’m out in the sun working the garden? or is that offset by having the dermatologist burn off those nasty little cancer things that pop up from time to time on my sun blasted skin? No, after all the analysis, the biggest savings is probably that it keeps me so busy I have no time to sit at the local pub sucking up the suds.