Then, our tree found us.  It was a big, beautiful citrus tree with six different kinds of citrus fruit grafted onto one tree.  It’s called a cocktail tree.  Grayson and I were in love with this lovely tree.  We both wanted it so badly, but it was pricey… about the same price as a cut Christmas tree and a new base for it.  We asked permission from the 5-year-old to substitute the cocktail tree for the Northern fir-tree.  She thought it was a great idea!

We brought the tree home, set it up in our usual Christmas tree spot, and spent the evening decorating.  A new tradition has been born.  We absolutely love our citrus Christmas tree.  I’m sure this idea is a contemptuous act to most die-hard Christmas traditionalists, but we live in Southwest Florida.  It still smells like Christmas around here, just more citrusy.  My kids are excited to plant the tree after Christmas and we’re already picking out the spot.  We’re definitely doing this again next year.

The six types of citrus grafted onto our cocktail tree. We made a Christmas tree ornament with them.

The kids are proud of our Christmas tree. Good... 'cause that's what it's all about.

Our new custom... a Florida Christmas tree.

The temperature was in the 80′s today, so we aren’t expecting snow.  It turned out to be a white Christmas though… Florida style.  We had a dump truck full of sand delivered for the kids.  They couldn’t be happier with their mountain of sand and cardboard sled.

Florida snow and sled.

We hope everyone has a joyful 2011 holiday season.

Come grow with us!

Dave weaving a small basket at Fort Myers Beach.

He starts the basket with the middle of the frond.

Dave makes it look easy.  I seriously doubt it’s easy.  The finished baskets are beautiful.  Dave has a website and sells his baskets from it, but he’s half the price if you buy them from him at Fort Myers Beach.  We definitely had to have one… actually two.  The baskets start out green since they’re still freshly cut and then they dry out and turn brown.  It’s not a bad thing.  The dried baskets are lovely.  I’d been searching for the perfect basket and I found it.  Writing this post makes me want to go buy more from him.  Maybe I’ll get one of his hats too… any excuse to go to the beach. 

Boys watching Dave weave the baskets.

The basket is taking shape.

These are the two baskets I bought.

Dave says that cats go bonkers over the baskets.  He said he makes some just to donate to the cats at the Humane Society.  Check out his website at Coconut Baskets.com.

Koby bought his own basket with his own money.

Come grow with us!

Umbuzi Dairy has a herd of over 70 Nubian goats.

Umbuzi Dairy will offer hard and soft cheeses, plus pasteurized milk.  They’ve just added yogurt to the list too because it’s the best yogurt ever.

They don’t have a finished website yet, but they’re working on it.  They can be found at  UmbuziFarm.com.

The goats at Umbuzi live in paradise. Isn't this pasture beautiful? The pink thing is for back scratching.

They created an incredibly clever way to milk lots of goats at the same time, then send them down the line and back out to pasture. It moves.

This is some of their equipment.

A commercial dairy requires perfection with temperatures, ph, and bacteria detection.

Umbuzi's friendly Nubian goats.

Pasture land at Umbuzi Goat Dairy in Southwest Florida.

Umbuzi is located in a rural area outside Ft.Myers, Florida.  They’re a family operated business with healthy animals and a beautiful dream.  Isn’t this the kind of food we all want?  Support for local business is a very good thing, no matter where you live.

Delicious goat cheese at Umbuzi Dairy. I just had to sneak a peek.

Come grow with us!

She isn't even 24 hours old yet.

Chloe's such an awesome mom!

Most dairy goat owners take the babies away from the mothers immediately.  It is especially important to do this if the mother has a common disease called CAE because it is easily passed to the baby once it’s born.  We’ve chosen to allow our Nigerian dwarfs to keep their babies for a short time (probably a month).  Our goats are CAE free which is one of the reasons we’re letting them stay together.  If you want to learn more about birthing goats, check out Fias Co Farms website.  I believe it’s one of the best for goat information online.  Nothing beats having friends with goats though.  We’re very thankful for ours.

No social issues for this baby goat.

Chloe can't stop licking and cuddling her baby.

Neither can we.

Lots of hugging...

... and more hugging.

The maternity ward.

The cream colored Nigerian dwarf is next to kid (give birth). Her due date is today!

Loring and her two LaManchas. They are a breed of goat with small ears and a BIG personality. They're my favorite breed. Everybody has their favorite breed.

 The 5-year-old in the tutu has named the new baby goat “Glitters”.  We laugh every time we say it.  I was hoping we could persuade her to find a different name, but I don’t think we’re going to win this one.  However,  the baby will be going to a new and wonderful home at Alva Island Farm  soon.  She’s planning to name the next babies… Puddins’ and Sprinkles.   Great.

Glitters.

Come grow with us!

First, he attributes his survival to leaving the first set of doctors that were treating him.  A second opinion can save your life.  His second opinion, Dr. Razier, saved his.

Secondly, he had more paintings to paint.  Jesus is an artist.  He usually paints hearts and angels, but he does whatever his heart and mind tell him to do.  He sees hearts in everything from a hole in a t-shirt to tree branches. He keeps track by taking pictures of them and has hundreds. I wonder if he follows the hearts or if they follow him because I don’t see ‘em.  He has also seen an angel.  She visited him in his hospital room and told him he wasn’t going to die from his brain tumor because he still has things to do.  His tumor reduced in size immediately afterward. Was it truly an angel or an overly hopeful imagination on cancer drugs? It doesn’t matter… he survived with minimal further treatment. He doesn’t care if anybody believes him because it’s his own incredible story.  It’s not my story to publish on the world-wide web, so I left out the details, but I think of this story all the time and feel joy.  I want to hear this story again and again.  People need stories like these.  I’ll ask him to forgive me later.

Jesus and friend.

One of Jesus' art studios. He's slowly turning every room of his house into more studio. Artists do that.

More studio.

Some of his work hanging in his living room.

His partner, Chef Art Smith, lost 120 pounds. Jesus turned his old trousers into a piece of art.

 My friend and I were having dinner at Chef Art Smith’s new restaurant in Atlanta, Georgia.  I was telling her all about Jesus and bragging about his hearts.  She points and says, “you mean… like those?” I turn around and look at the wall behind me and sure enough, it’s Jesus’ hearts.

Jesus' art hanging in the new restaurant, Southern Art in Atlanta, GA.

 Jesus’ depth of color and texture is mesmerizing.  Everybody loves his work.  My favorite pieces are his manhole covers.  He’s travelled the world and sketched manholes in hundreds of cities.  He’s got some exciting stories about these adventures.  I wish he’d make a book with all these sketches because they’re absolutely gorgeous and there’s so many.  I asked him if he’s worried about somebody copying him.  Even if they did, they would never be as good as Jesus’ originals.

Jesus telling the stories behind his manhole covers. Don't even think about touching a manhole cover in China!

Jesus has a great story on how he obtained this Chinese manhole cover.

I lost track on which city this cover is from... he has over 500.

Paris.

Beverly Hills.

Stacks and stacks of the most amazing works of art.

The colors are out of this world.

Check out the online gallery of some of his work on his website at Susejart.com.  Make sure your sound is turned on.  Oh, and keep your eyes peeled because his art is starting to pop up everywhere!  A little birdie told me that Lady Gaga just purchased a piece.

We love you, Jesus.

Come grow with us!

Our watermelon vine taking over.

I started a watermelon plant from a seed.  I did it on a whim and had no expectations for the poor plant.  The seedling grew, I hardened it off and transplanted it smack in the middle of one of my garden beds.  I had some good sized cherry tomato and basil plants in the same bed.  I truly didn’t believe the young watermelon plant would survive.  I gave the seedling sunshine and water, then ignored it.  It seemed stunted to me at first and I wasn’t surprised.  I kept thinking I should just throw the little plant out, but didn’t get around to it.  The next time I checked on it, it was growing wildly in every direction.

The die off can be seen in this photo.

I figured I’d just end up with a ton of vine to pull and no fruit.  The summer weather was really heating up with temps in the 90′s, lots of rain and 80 degree nights.  Watermelons like 80 degree daytime temperatures and 60 degree nights.  They prefer it hot and humid.  Even though watermelon plants need lots of water, too much wet weather can cause all kinds of problems. Our vine had millions of stink bugs on it.  We don’t grow ours for profit so we didn’t even try to fight them.

Can you see the watermelons?

The kids started noticing baby watermelons all over the vine.  They’re really cute.  I let them grow to maturity.  I wasn’t sure when to harvest them so I studied up.  I read that the stems should turn brown and wither and the bottoms of the melon should have a yellowish patch.  The stems never changed from their green color and the the vine started to die off, probably from blight.  I had healthy-looking and enormous watermelons all over the place and they were screaming “pick me”.  I figured I’d better harvest them whether they were ready or not. They looked pretty, but I still didn’t hold out much hope for them. I’ve bought plenty of watermelons at the supermarket that looked beautiful but were completely void of flavor.  

A baby watermelon. Awww...

I let Grayson be the taste-tester.  As we cut into them they burst open with a big pop. “Well, what does it taste like?”, I asked with eagerness.  He replied with gusto that it was the best watermelon he’d ever tasted in his life.  He’s a watermelon lover, so I trust his review.

Homegrown watermelon.

I harvested all the melons at once and ended up with lots of watermelons to give away.   I was asking everybody I knew if they wanted a watermelon.  We gave our goats lots of watermelon too and they went crazy over it.  Now there’s watermelon vines growing where we were leaving the fruit for them.  Good thing we have lots of honeybees!

So, how do you grow a seedless watermelon?  It’s quite interesting.  The seedless watermelon is called a triploid and it is grown next to a seeded variety called a diploid.  Click here for the rest of the story on growing seedless varieties.  We’ll stick to the heirloom varieties in our yard.

My grandmother used to cut up her watermelon and freeze it, then make smoothies with it.  Fresh watermelon juice with mint and salt is one of my all-time favorites.  Check out Mom-a-licious for a watermelon margarita recipe. Don’t forget about watermelon gazpacho.

Sweet melons!

Growing watermelons has now been added to our list of “must grow in our yard”.  We’re going to try some different varieties this time.  We’ll use crop rotation and grow them in a different area of a garden.

Come grow with us!

Our homeschooling classroom.

I am frequently asked if socialization is an issue.  The answer to that is a big… NO.  We get involved with clubs, community and volunteer stuff, and lots of sports.  I’m constantly telling Grayson that we can’t do it all.  Two clubs and two sports at a time is about all I can handle.  It’s still difficult to make time for friends and family because our schedule is booked solid all the time.  We have a list of things a mile long that we want to do.

People also ask if homeschooling is difficult for me.  The first year was a learning curve but I’ve found my groove.  There are times when it feels burdensome, but it is an absolute blessing most of the time.  If that changes, we will cross that bridge when we get to it.  For now, we feel so lucky!

We are members of a huge homeschooling association in Florida called The Florida Parent Educators Association.   They are incredibly helpful with so many homeschooling topics.  They also host an enormous (over 30,000 people) homeschooling convention in Orlando every year that is worth attending.  It answered many of my questions and surpassed my expectations.

A dog's eye preserved in a container of formaldehyde.

We love our home classroom.  The dog’s eye in the above photo is for educational purposes and sits on Grayson’s desk.  I’ve noticed that when he gets frustrated with something he’s studying, somebody inevitably makes a joke with the eye.  It provides instant comedic relief and a giggle.   Thank you, dad! Can we have a heart with heartworms wrapped around it too?

Come grow with us!

]]> http://pickmeyard.wordpress.com/2011/08/31/homeschooling-in-florida/feed/ 3 pickmeyard homeschool classroom dogs eye http://pickmeyard.wordpress.com/2011/08/27/hatching-a-dinosaur-egg/ http://pickmeyard.wordpress.com/2011/08/27/hatching-a-dinosaur-egg/#comments Sat, 27 Aug 2011 19:13:05 +0000 PickMeYard http://pickmeyard.wordpress.com/?p=2487 ]]> We hatched some modern-day, baby dinosaurs out of their eggs this week … alligators!  It’s a fantastic experience, but it’s only legal at Gatorama in Palmdale, Florida (it’s the only place I know of in Florida, anyway).  Gatorama only offers this to the public for 11 days at the end of August.  We try to go every year, but sometimes we blink and miss it.

Alligators are a part of our life in SW Florida.  We have to be careful in our yard because they tend to lurk in the bushes at the edge of our riverbank.  We are always alert when walking around our yard.  It isn’t a frequent occurrence to see one in the yard, but it is very common to see them coasting around our yard.  It’s kinda like a moat that doesn’t quite go all the way around our castle.  So, forget the dogs, beware of the gators… it’s a dead-end.

Alligators are a threatened species in Florida, even though there seem to be a lot of them.  Apparently, only 2% survive into adulthood in the wild.  The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service grants a special license or permit to handle the gators.  It is illegal to harass or feed alligators in Florida.  If an alligator is fed, they lose their fear of humans, and then we’re really in trouble.

Alligator feeding at Gatorama... Yikes!

A little girl holding a young gator at last year's Swamp Cabbage Festival.

An alligator nest... and big moma's always near-by!

That's me helping a baby alligator out of the egg.

Loring & Grayson hatching baby gators.

Helping baby alligators into the world.

The baby gator is still attached to its egg with an umbilical cord.

Enormous alligator skulls.

The owner of Gatorama holding a baby gator.

Alligators are a part of our environment in Southwest Florida.  There’s a lot of water around here.  We try to stay a healthy distance from them.  However, if you ever find yourself face-to-face with a gator on land, you can toss something to the side of its snout and it will go for whatever you tossed to it.  It might buy you a few seconds.

Come grow with us!

We have a regal jumping spider that hides inside her thick, cottony web on our gate and she is very perturbed with us. We know her hiding spot and check on her several times a day. These spiders are considered to have the best eyesight of all bugs.  We have one living in our mailbox too.  I think I know why they’re called jumping spiders… because they make me jump!

A Regal Jumping Spider that lives on our gate. Can you see her in her web?

The highly venomous black and brown widows have also made their homes all around our yard.  I admire them for a second and then I quickly squish them.  There’s not enough room for both of us for obvious reasons.  I’ve run across several of them in my garden and I don’t let them out of my sight for a second, not even to get my camera.  Their egg sacs are a tell-tale sign that they are close-by.  The eggs look like mine bombs… round, light-colored and spiky.

Widow spider egg sacs in our macadamia nut tree.

A spider that we are seeing in every square foot of our yard (not really, it just seems that way) is the beautiful and intimidating orbweaver.

The tropical orbweaver weaves her massive web every single evening at dusk and then removes her entire web every morning at dawn.  It took us awhile to figure out what she was doing.  Since Grayson and I milk the goats late at night, we’ve gotten used to the nocturnal critters, (especially the skunk that the dog keeps bothering).  We analyze the spiders every night and try to get as close as we can to get a good look.  It’s never comfortable though.  All it takes is a quick tap on the arm and a “watch out!” to send me to the moon.  Either I get Grayson or he gets me but it always ends with a scream.  I know he’s going to do it too and it still scares me.  I think we freak these poor spiders out way more than they freak us out.

A big, beautiful and nocturnal tropical orbweaver.

A tropical orbweaver in her nighttime web, right next to my car.

The garden orbweavers build their webs every morning and take them down for the night.  Isn’t that amazing?  As the female gets older, she gets bigger and scarier looking.  They’re colorful and big and build elaborate webs.  They are as intimidating as a spider can be, in my opinion.  However,  they are not venomous to people and are rarely known to bite.

A colorful garden orbweaver.

A garden orbweaver on the riverbank. She is one of hundreds along the bank.

I was wrong.  The Golden Silk Orbweaver is as intimidating as a spider can be.  They tend to have huge, golden bodies and long spindly legs with tufts of black bristles… yikes.  Every Floridian knows this spider well.  They’re very common here. They look like they would be terribly venomous, but they’re not (to people).  I’ve been told they will bite, but a wasp sting will cause you more pain.  Fortunately, I don’t have first-hand knowledge of this.  However, I have had them land on me many times when trail riding with my horses as a kid.  The spiders would always want off me fast.  The frantic screaming must have scared them away.

We have a golden silk orbweaver living outside our back door now.  I keep holding my camera up close to her so I can get a photo, but she starts to bounce up and down on her web when she sees me.  Sooo, there’s no photo.  These spiders are often referred to as the Florida banana spider as well.  I found a great website that has lots of Golden Silk orbweaver photos and great information about them… click here.  The site says they always have banana spiders throughout their barn in the summers.  On one particular summer, they took notice that every spider packed up and disappeared a week before a major hurricane hit.  This might be a good reason to keep them around.  If the spiders are too much to handle though, they can easily be relocated without touching them.  Tear down their web and they will rebuild it somewhere else.

For a really fun bug blog, check out The Bug Lady.  My favorite post is the one about the Brazilian Armadeira spider… it tries to kill you.  It is also referred to as a banana spider, but this species is the most venomous spider in the world.

I hope I didn’t give you the heebie-jeebies with this post.  We all live with spiders, even in the big cities.  If it makes you feel any better, Florida’s Fabulous Spiders says that bees and wasps kill more people in the U.S. every year than spiders and snakes combined kill in ten years.

A garden orbweaver spider in our garden with her dinner... a lizard!

Come grow with us!

Grayson taking his shots for his 4-H photography contest.

Grayson didn’t use all these photos in the contest.  He did win several first place awards with a few of them though and I wanted to share some of our favorites with you.  Here goes…

Florida cattle.

A Southwest Florida cowboy and his horse.

Resting Florida cowboys.

The photos are all from a child’s perspective, but I have to add commentary to them.  I can’t help myself.

The following photo looks like an environmental nightmare.  However, the plant has a Department of Environmental Protection office right on their property.  When the smoke gets thick, they immediately take action to lessen it.  It was particularly thick when Grayson shot this photo.  There was hardly any smoke (and a boring photo) just a few minutes later.   Southern Garden Citrus has 3 million orange trees that absorb 613,000 tons of carbon dioxide each year.  They use predator insects for pest control and only use chemical methods on particular trees when necessary.  Their orange groves provide habitat for lots of wildlife such as fish, birds and deer… and too many wild hogs.  They don’t discard any part of the orange.  The pulp, skin and oil are all used for products.  Florida is the 2nd largest producer of oranges in the world, (Brazil is 1st, but it’s a fact that Florida oranges are juicier).

Southern Gardens orange juice plant. The third largest in the nation.

Organic Florida farm. The sugarcane is planted as a wind break.

Organic Florida farm truck.

I hesitated to post the following photo.  All political views and solutions aside, this is how the food gets to most tables.  We have to grow more food.  Most countries consume more than they produce. According to an agent at the University of Florida IFAS office, there is expected to be 30-50 billion people on the planet by 2050.  Food will become a scarce commodity.  Out of the 7 billion people on the planet, 1 billion of them are starving right now.  How do we keep up with the food production? It would be detrimental to the U.S. to rely on foreign food production.

Grayson’s perspective is that this guy gets to garden and get paid for it. (I think I need to have Grayson pull more weeds).   The dust in this field on the day Grayson took this photo was unbearable.

A very hard job.

Sugar cane fields behind the U.S. Sugar Corporation in South Florida.

A controlled fire in the sugarcane fields of Clewiston, Florida. Planting begins in late August.

Sugarcane can live, and is productive, for 4-5 years on good mulch soils before it is replanted.  In Florida, rice is grown in rotation with sugarcane.  51% of sugar comes from cane and 49% comes from sugar beet.  Sugarcane used to be sprayed with nasty chemicals several times a year to control a pest called the cane borer.  However, a small wasp (called Cotesia) was brought in and it kills the sugar cane borer.  So, sugarcane is not sprayed with chemicals for pests anymore.  They do spray a fungicide though.  They’re working on new varieties that will not be as susceptible to disease and will have increased production… probably genetically modified, which I am against.

Florida is the nation’s largest producer of sugarcane with over 400,000 acres.  Did you know the average American eats (or drinks) 67 pounds of sugar a year?  Florida is also the #1 producer of sweet corn, watermelon, bell peppers and snap beans.

Morning on the Caloosahatchee River.

This is our six-toed urban farm cat. He uses those paws like hands.

Grayson's honeybees coming home.

Our Labradoodle and LaMancha (paws and hoofs).... best friends.

Come grow with us!