New Gardening in Florida (and some baking)

[JuliettaRossi]

So the contractors came back today. They admitted they were the ones who took the items from our property and stated that they threw them out. The house next door was sold to Offerpad so we involved them immediately, especially after one of the workers for nasty with us.

Offerpad fired the company immediately, had them leave the property and barred them from ever working for them again.  Now we are just worried about retaliation by the workers or company. I have a feeling we will wake up to smashed car windows and/or slashed tires.

Offerpad has offered to pay us damages, but I just want my pineapples back...the trellis, while it shouldn't have to be,  can be rebuilt. We need to figure out what to ask for in payment for the items now.

[JuliettaRossi]

So....after the pineapples were taken, I kinda just...I dunno. It's been too fucking hot outside. Nothing is really growing and the pollen is inert in this kind of temperature. There has been no gardening going on. In fact we moved the canopy I was working under, further back into the yard since the top was torn up by a storm. We have put up sail shades and they have been nice for sitting under in the evenings after work while working on paddles. I was making myself leave the computer for at least a couple hours each evening to take advantage of the fading daylight and earn some side money.

Also, I did have a really nice mammoth sunflower growing. Something gnawed the sunflower head off. That in combo with the pineapples being taken was just virtually the end of my being outside this summer. I did get 2 cucumbers off the vines up front and a roma tomato off one of my many tomato plants. The Autumn Beauty sunflower bloomed like crazy. It's bloomed so much that the heads no longer created seeds...I've cut a number of them off and there was only one with seeds. The plant spends so much energy making flowers it can't do anything else...

My mother did come up for her birthday. I made another batch of my vanilla latte cookies which are sooooovery good and the peach upside down cake.
I was also craving Coconut Drops. I haven't had them in many years. I tried them the first time at an open air market in the Bahamas where I also first had conch salad (yum!). If you've been to the Bahamas or Jamaica you might have tried these. They are wonderful! They are super simple - chunked fresh coconut, grated fresh ginger, brown sugar and corn syrup. It's essentially a Caribbean praline. Some people include some ground pepper into it, I don't. I find the ginger is enough of a bite.

We were given a bunch of blueberries and lemons s couple of months ago. The result was lemon blueberry bundt cake. So very good! I will certainly be making this one again!

Tom Kha Gai - Thai chicken and mushroom soup, is my comfort food. It's what I crave when I'm not feeling well. I've started making batches of it lately. Coconut milk, fresh lemongrass, fresh grated ginger and cloves of garlic, all stirred up with some chicken thighs and sliced mushrooms.

I tried my hand at making pickles. OMG... I love garlic dill pickles. I always have. I grew up eating pickled sausages and I like pickled eggs. So the pickles...I made 4 smal jars in the first batch. I gave a jar to the neighbors and they returned the empty jar 2 days later. I gave them another one and set out to make more. Yesterday I made 5 large jars plus another smaller jar.

I've also been making jars of bruchetta mix - tomato, red onion and garlic with red wine vinegar, rice vinegar and olive oil. I add balsamic vinegar when serving. I made another two jars yesterday in addition to the 6 jars of pickles. I also made a fresh pineapple salsa (since I bought a pineapple for planting the top again. I mixed pineapple, tomatoes, red onion, orange bell pepper and cilantro - perfect for thin salty tortilla chips.

I worked on vegetables and fruits all day yesterday. I chopped 2.5 bulbs of garlic. I chopped so much garlic the oils ate away at the skin on my fingers - essentially a chemical burn. I couldn't get the oils off my fingers no matter how many times I washed my hands.

This morning I made blackberry Danish. I cheated with it - using a roll of crescent dough, which is less expensive than a roll of puff pastry. I'm sure it would have been better with the puff pastry, but the cost on some things has just gotten crazy.

We took a day trip out to a wildlife area about an hour away. I'd been watching the social media of a friend who was going there virtually every weekend. It's free to get in and you can certainly spend the day there. We left right before dusk. We were actually surprised at the number of gators because it is sooo very hot. They come out more when it's cooler out - sunning themselves on the roads because the water is too cold, especially during the winter months. Lots of birds, a bunny, and tons of insects - especially dragonflies.

We have a new kitten. Pretty sure she's a Maine Coon mixed with a calico or torty. She's soooo soft and fluffy and loves to play. She has so much energy - running through the house and playing all day. The other animals have adjusted to her for the most part - aside from a few swats by her huge ass baseball mitt paws. She's gonna be a huge cat.

We've been going back to the local dungeon. It's changed a lot - a whole new set of people. Virtually no one we knew before Covid. It feel strange to be back in the room, among people I don't know anymore, but it felt good to be able to play again as well. They needed a good restock on paddles as well, which we were happy to oblige.

So Hurricane Ian...I'm sure you've seen the videos and photos on social media and the news. They aren't just showing you the worst of it. Florida - especially the west coast, looks like that right now in a very widespread area. Central FL is flooded - still a week after the storm and the waters continue to rise here. The east coast wasn't spared. The beaches are completely washed away - the waters coming up to breaker walls or areas that were gently sloping dunes or beach barrier areas look like the edges of sinkholes. Piers are washed away - some that included restaurants. St. Augustine/the NE corner of FL flooded as well. Southern FL did not escape - they had tornadoes and high winds. Private planes were flipped like they weighed nothing. Roofs were ripped apart. The only place that seems to have escaped was where the storm was originally forecasted to hit - the panhandle.

SW FL, by far is the most changed area of the state. I grew up going to the beaches of Sanibel & Captiva. I have jars of seashells - memories of vacations with my mother, walking the soft sands of the beaches at the water's edge, dolphins in the water and baby sting rays flapping by; the Sanibel Stoop and the Stingray Shuffle; sunsets and the Green Flash. The islands of the west coast are magical. I know a lot of media has been devoted to these two islands when there is also Pine Island/Matlacha/St.James City, Ft. Myers, Cape Coral, Port Charlotte, Venice, Naples, Marco Island. I'm not ignorant - I know why the focus is on Sanibel & Captiva. They are they where the homes of millionaires are. They are the snowbird homes of rich northerners. We talk about tourism here like Disney is the only draw. Come Thanksgiving time, the west coast is overrun by northerners fleeing  the snow. They stay up until around Easter and head home again. We could only afford a one or two night stay there in one of the small hotels at any time, and a week at a time when I stayed with family friends who rented homes. Glorious hot summer days, Cuba Libres, soft sand under foot and seashells in a beach pail. It's all I want in life...
Snowbirds bring in a TON of money to the area. The surrounding areas of Lee county are mostly republican, made up of elderly retirees and rich folk. Jobs are scarce and will be even more now. Rebuilding will take years if not decades. The road to Pine Island has been restored thankfully - the people there are not as wealthy as those of Santiva, so it was imperitive to get that one washout area repaired as soon as possible.

Prior to the storm I never would have shared the hidden gem of Sanibel, selfish to keep it a closely hidden place. The names of Sanibel and Captiva have been the talk of the media this past week however. You are seeing the after pictures and videos and if you've never been there you simply don't understand. These islands were true old Florida. There were no chain stores or restaurants (outside of a 7-11 franchise location). There were small mom & pop restaurants and shops and motels. They had names like Shalimar and Blue Dolphin - both of which were wiped clean off the map, Baileys and Jerrys - the two grocery stores on the island - the latter of which was famous for their exotic birds, all of which died during the storm, Joeys Custard and Island Cow and Doc Fords (owned by one of my favorite authors). A month ago we thought the worst thing was the fire at the Island Cow - how wrong we were.

Even if your favorite place survived, it likely had feet of water inside. Many owners are coming back - relieved to find even a shell of a building while inside it looks like a tornado happened and the floors are slick with a dark layer of muck. This applies to homes as well as shops and restaurants. The newer buildings and those built into the mangroves seem to have survived, while those with beautiful beach-front access bore the brunt of the damage. The barrier islands are a unique place and Sanibel and Captiva have been working to restore mangrove and buffer areas and those areas were some of the ones that survived the best.

There is one way on and off by way of the causeway - I'm sure you've seen the pictures of the bridge washed away in 5 places at this point. This happened at points in the 3-mile bridge where the bridge actually touched or rested on land - what little of it there was. That land was washed away, eroded by the rushing storm surge and with it, the asphalt and concrete of the causeway. Traffic jams are common during high-season on Periwinkle but give way after a short distance as people peel off onto limited side streets, shops and eateries. There are bike paths and beach accesses with long boardwalks where you can sometimes hear alligators croaking a warning to not come any closer, especially at breeding season. There is Ding Darling wildlife center where roseatte spoonbills gather, Blind Pass where the juncture of the two islands create a swirl of harsh waves and flurry of shells, the Bubble Room and their delicious Orange Crunch cake and quirky decor and Mucky Duck, Mad Hatter and Lazy Flamingo among many others for good food. Gramma Dot's for breakfast - they have a boat in their entrance area now - their location was on a marina area that saw quite a bit of damage. I never would have talked up this place I love before, but now they will need outsiders more than ever. They will need your help to recover but also will need the tourism dollars. Once the islands are on the path of recovery and open to tourism, please come. Leave your troubles and worries behind as you pass over on that Happy Highway to the islands. Slow down, take a walk, look for the little brown bunnies that everyone is hoping survived the storm, try to find that elusive Junonia shell (and get your picture in the local Islander newspaper for doing so). Come get some fudge at Bailey's and maybe a postcard or two to send a little bit of the island to loved ones. Bring the sunscreen and some bug spray (the mosquitoes and noseeums are horrific at times, especially closer to sunset/dusk), your bathing suit and some comfy flip-flops.

The destruction you are seeing on Ft. Myers beach - is because they have no buffer - no mangroves, no conservation aspect. It's a small spit of land that hugs the coast built high with hotels and condos. There was nothing to help stop the waves and lessen the winds except those buildings, the pier, the restaurants that were a party destination. The damage there is extraordinary. It looks like a war zone covered in fine white sand.

We got lucky where we are - we only lost power for a few days and we are technically on "high ground" if there is such a thing here. Once the storm passed it got cool out so we were able to sleep with the sliding glass doors and windows open. The same thing happened here after Hurricane Wilma 17 years ago. There is extensive flooding here though - homes and businesses underwater.

If you planned a vacation here in the coming weeks and months, your travel plans might be impacted. I hope they aren't. If they are, please be gentle with the people of this area. They are trying to acclimate to their new normal and the long road of recovery ahead. Some might have been displaced to other areas and have lost everything. We all need the tourism dollars here - more now than ever and we need people to come back once we have come back from this.