New Gardening (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.

[JuliettaRossi]

So it's been a...while.

A lot has happened since Oct 2022. No real gardening. Some baking. A trip to Arizona (which I will also post about later). A lightning strike. Some medical issues (to read a little bit about that, I did write in the Storyteller's Café about this).

But, since watching 60 Minutes yesterday, I've been thinking about butterflies. For those who didn't watch it, Anderson Cooper went to Mexico where the Monarch butterfly flock to. The story about their lifespan and the fact that they essentially turn off their sexual organs to put that energy toward living three times longer in order to make the pilgrimage to Mexico is nothing short of amazing. The fact that no butterfly that is there has ever been there before - these are butterflies that simply know they need to migrate there at a certain time of year... is even more astounding.

It is certainly worth a search online to watch the segment. It was extremely interesting (including a little segment about how to warm up cold butterflies on the ground). Butterflies are hugely important as pollinators. Bees are too of course, but butterflies, wasps (as much as I dislike them) and other flying insects all do the work of making sure we have food to eat. Bees seem to get the bulk of the fame when it comes to this (rightfully so, but they are not the only ones).

In my previous gardening posts I would sometimes post pictures of butterflies that happened by, but in the span I've been gone from this blog, I started planting purple passion flower. It's a beautiful plant but it grows crazy and is very invasive, however, it's a native here, so.. I let it take over anything and everything here and with passion flower comes a certain butterfly and their caterpillars - the Gulf Fritillary which is also a Florida native.

So over 2023 and 2024 I was raising caterpillars in an enclosure. Yeah, it sounds strange and it is. The plants outside were getting decimated. When I say gone, I mean like one day you go outside and the entire side of the house is covered in passion flower vines with a ton of beautiful strange alien looking flowers and some fruit growing as well.... and the next day, it could be reduced to sticks. I think at one point I counted over 60 caterpillars caught in one day. 

Now, I hear you asking... why are you catching them??

So, caterpillars have a very slim chance of becoming butterflies. Between birds and other creatures, they often become a snack. Or they cocoon in simply horrible places and get stepped on, hit, crushed, etc. For example... over the weekend a caterpillar attempted to cocoon on the edge of the sliding screen door... The door that gets opened and closed probably 4-6 times a day as I let our idiot cat in and out. The cocooning wasn't successful either... so there was a dead caterpillar just hanging there a few days before it fell off (I tried to recall it was there so as to not crush it, but after a couple days it was apparent it wasn't gonna make it - it dies in process of cocooning).

So... in effort to help the caterpillars become butterflies, I would capture them and put them into a screen enclosure, make sure they had plenty of passion flower leaves (from another neighbor's wall) and when they hatched from the cocoon, I would release them.  Since I was doing some of this after I started having medical issues, I let some go at my mom's place after she moved up here in efforts to help spread the wealth. 

It's super easy of course. The hardest thing is capturing the caterpillars. They are spiky. I try NOT to touch anything spiky/furry (see also the horrific tussock moth caterpillar... if you EVER see one, steer CLEAR). They like to cling, so a stick is generally the easiest thing to capture them with to place into the screen enclosure. Then I fill it to near overflow with leaves on the vine. I leave them on the vine and arc and curl the vine in order to give them even more locations too cocoon from.

 See...Spiky... Spiky is a no-no. Even when the internet tells me they don't sting... Nope.

In cocoon form they look like leaf litter. It's easy to NOT see them, unlike Monarchs which have BEAUTIFUL cocoons. They show off in every stage while the Gulf Fritillary does not. The strangest thing... is that the cocoons move. If the cocoon is disturbed at all - touched, grazed, blown by the wind, etc... It will wiggle. It's creepy and fascinating all at the same time. You know inside this strange brown papery looking thing is a caterpillar turning to goo and then turning into a beautiful butterfly.

Even the "underside" of their wings is neat looking I think. The white dots are shimmery. Since I have passion flower still overgrowing everywhere and a large patch of lantana - both are host plants for them, I have butterflies daily flying through. I haven't been capturing them this year due to work being crazy and needing to move (on FRIDAY!) - my mind has been elsewhere. I don't know how many I raised over the past 2 years though.

It's easy to help raise butterflies to release. A simply screen enclosure is literally ALL you need outside of whatever food source/host plant that the butterfly you decide to raise needs. Not all use passionflower and lantana. Be prepared for your plants to get EATEN. Your garden may not look "pretty" at times, but if you aren't feeding something, you don't really have a garden.... 

If you do decide to raise them, then they hatch, leave them in the enclosure for a little while - until they are actively moving. Remember they JUST hatched, If you can catch them emerging from the cocoon you will see just how wrinkled and "wet" their wings are. Those wings need to extend and dry. Once they are consistently flapping those wings and maybe flying or moving around the enclosure a little, you can let them go. If it is too late in the day, hold off on releasing them until the following day. They need time to find food and shelter during daylight hours. A release too late in the evening will sometimes end up in a bird swooping in for a snack (even though Gulf Fritillary's have a defense mechanism in the mode of chemical release against predators). You want to give them a good basis for survival - you just spent days rooting for crazy little caterpillars to turn into goo and then into little flying jewels like magic!

[JuliettaRossi]

Arizona.

I have to say, I only ever thought... brown.... when I thought of Arizona. I'm from Florida. I like my world green and lush and rainy and humid and... ok, not humid. That part sucks. But, in all my years I've NEVER wanted to go to Arizona. Never wanted to see the Grand Canyon. Not interested in deserts and canyons.

So, two years ago, my father invited me on a trip to a cabin that his uncle owned in Arizona. He was paying my way. I'd get to see him, and my half-sister and her soon-to-be husband. I would be traveling out with one of his friends from when he was younger and his grandson. I wasn't looking forward to that part. First off... huge political and moral and ideological differences between all of us and this man that he grew up with. I think you probably can guess who leaned which way...

Anyway. so dad. He and I have had a very strange relationship. He wasn't around most of my life. His mother was particularly nasty to my mother before and after I was born including trying to get one of my father's friends to say he was my father (my grandmother was sleeping with the friend... if that gives you any insight here on relationship issues...). Of course the judge asked if this was true and if he would be willing to take a paternity test, etc. Sooo... you get the outcome.

Anyway, fast-forward to high school. He was invited to my graduation. Prior to that he would come into town to dive or go to the races, or see friends and would maybe stop in for a half hour to see his kid. There was always a different, more important reason for him to be here. After graduation he was particularly nasty to my mother and I asked him to leave and cut all contact with him for MANY years after that. We have spent the last few years getting acquainted with one another and I've been able to see my half-sister a handful of times. I still haven't seen my half-brother since I was maybe 10 during a brief trip out to see my father on the other side of the US.

The flight was fine. The drive in through Arizona from Phoenix to the small town is where the cabin was was long... at least another 3 hours... After two flights, a layover in Atlanta, and then 3 hours in a truck with the kid and his ignorant-ass grandfather, I was going out of my brain. The drive was really pretty though. My father drives like a nutjob though and we were in a huge pickup truck hauling a toyhauler with a dune buggy in it, and he was freaking me out a bit on the cliff-side roads.

The cabin was a great little spot in the middle of nowhere. There was a little pond that all kinds of animals come to. Scrub jays came by the feeders outside the patio daily as well. It was surrounded by juniper. I've never been so sick. I've never had allergies. I experienced my first ALLERGIES when I got to Arizona. My nose didn't fuckin stop, sore and scratchy throat, swollen itchy eyes, nosebleeds (just enough to be allowing but not gush). Yeah... I was cute. Lemme tell you. I've never understood allergies until I went there. I live in the land of YELLOW pollen and have never had an issue. Until then. The only saving grace was it was cool out and there was no humidity which was amazing.

The next day we toured around the area of the cabin - to a canyon down the street. How many people can say they have a canyon at the end of the road? There was juniper everywhere. I love the trees - they are absolutely amazing - they look like tortured souls stretching toward the sky. It's likely what I was allergic to... There were also some pinion pines which were pretty interesting. I'm used to slash pines here, Australian pines which were planted to suck up the swamp water and make Florida inhabitable ages ago. Those and melaleuca trees (which smell like French fries to me, so yay) were used for the same purpose but are invasive here.

  

We drove all over the area, went into town and did some shopping and had lunch at a cute restaurant I loved called The House. They had really good chicken tenders with house made hot sauce (unlike Crystals or anything else - it had a really good flavor) and it had this little treat/ice cream shop on premises. There was a huge open yard with a stage where a band was performing, people were dancing, playing cornhole, lounging and drinking beers, etc. I was trying to be good, so the tenders were it for me, but the ice cream looked so good. I really wish we had gone back - the food was that good.

  

We went to Silver Creek Restoration Area - a prairie type area - a creek, animals here and there, all kinds of plants and trees. It was a nice, relaxing first day. There was mullien, lupine, hawthorne and Field Crescent butterflies everywhere. That afternoon my father took out the dune buggy and we followed in the truck to an overlook - more juniper and pinion pines, barberry, some agave and a view that was pretty amazing.

  

The cabin is in a little off-the-grid area with BUMPY roads that get worse the closer to the cabin you get. It's kinda perfect for tearing around in a dune buggy, but my back was pretty upset with the bumpiness honestly. I didn't even try the dune buggy - I left that to the guys. We took a drive to another property in the area - a place called Sunset Ranch - they care for older and infirm horses.

The following day we stopped on the way out of the local area to take a look at an old broken-down, falling apart church that was VERY small and on a trailer. Complete with stained glass. There were still broken shards of colorful glass inside (I stole a shard but don't know what happened to it - I think I left it in the cabin). There was evidence of a hive of some sort on the ceiling, now long gone.

 

Then we headed out to Pinetop. This was an unexpected aspect of Arizona. It was green and lush and forested and I LOVED it.  I'm very much a water sign - a Scorpio (with Scorpio rising and Cancer moon). I can't stand being away from water. This trip was already drying me out. I was having to put lotion on multiple times a day. My nose bleeds were ridiculous. I was using nasal spray and eye drops. I was falling apart! Pinetop was different. I got to see snow for the first time there! In the middle of May! It was already on the ground (so I've still never seen snow fall) under trees and along side the roads as we went further into the mountains. We stopped at fast-flowing Billy Creek and the guys tried their hand at fishing while I rolled up my jeans and waded into the ICY water. It was the first thing on my mind (after touching the snow silly!) - I had to get my feet in the water. I stayed in until my feet were so frozen I couldn't feel them...

 

I found all kinds of things while there - I'm a rock hound - always have been and the area around the cabin was littered with agate. The first thing I found was a beautiful little clump of white bubbly calcite right next to my first bit of snow I touched. It was like a gift, which I quickly snatched and put in my little plastic baggy I carried for just this purpose. I left Pinetop with little pine cones of different types of conifers, stones, feathers, and little clippings of some of the plants to identify later - creeping cinquefoil, sweet violet, horsesugar trees, dandelions, prairie smoke and more mullien. The whole area was amazing and I really hated to leave. We stopped at a little restaurant and had a late lunch/early dinner before heading back to the cabin for a perfect sunset.

 

The next day was a trip to Canyon de Chelly. This was little touristy for me, but still pretty neat to see dwellings in the cliffsides, small homes down in canyons all alone in the middle of nowhere. I probably looked like a crazy person with my back to the canyons half the time, taking pictures of plants and such. There was an eagle that was flying in the area which was pretty neat as well. Purple milk-vetch, scarlet gilia, yellow-eyes cryptantha, cliff fendlerbush, a few beautiful king cup cactuses - lots and lots of types of cactus... I ended up buying mom a set of earrings that were dreamcatchers complete with sinew and a small bit of amethyst wrapped around a teardrop-shaped bit of silver. There are people trying to sell all kinds of things there. If I had more money I would have bought one of the carvings from one of the native kids out along the lookout areas. He was doing amazing work.

 

After the canyon we went to lunch at a place I found online - my one request was for frybread so I picked Junction Restaurant. I wasn't gonna leave Arizona without having it at least once. Good gosh.... it's sooo yummy. Maybe it's my native genes screaming lol but I love fry bread. The place we went to had a dish where they put tender slices of pot roast along with lettuce and onion and tomato onto it along with fries. Since no one else had ever tried fry bread (really dad?? you've been out to Arizona a hundred times or more) we ordered a plate for the table - it was drizzled with honey and sprinkled with cinnamon. Ugh so good...

The next day was The Petrified Forest. This was - in my mind - right up my alley, however, no one wanted to stop and see anything  (I HATE TRAVELING WITH OTHERS SOMETIMES!). The park had a ton of evening primrose and mariposa lily everywhere. So pretty! We did stop into the gift shop (mostly so I could go the nerdy get my national park book stamped thing, just like at Canyon de Chelly), pick up a few stickers and look at the pictures and letters from people who had taken stones from the park only to befall "terrible things" - attaching those incidents to the fact that they had taken a stone from the park, and they would mail them back. There is also a picture window showing a large fallen piece of wood turned petrified and an old photograph from the times of old-timey cars showing people in 1920s clothing in front of the same thing. Apparently once upon a time people would travel out there and load their vehicles with pieces of petrified wood and take them back east until the park was well wiped out.

 

Phacelia, prince's plume, Stansbury's cliff rose, petroglyphs, stone ruins, ancient trees turned agate that created a bridge. The park is large and I probably could have spent more time there exploring it. Instead we left and went into Holbrook where Route 66 passes through. The town is seemingly frozen in time. Teepee shaped hotel rooms, old rusted pick up trucks, petrified wood EVERYWHERE. We stopped for lunch at a restaurant called Mr. Maestas. It is cluttered with historical ephemera of all kinds. The walls, the ceilings, everything is covered with some sort of old advertisement, toy, packaging, pictures, etc. They also sell antiques and jewelry... I probably never would have picked this place, but it was probably some of the best food we had during the trip. I got the Navajo tacos, which I mean... more fry bread? Yes! Please!

 

That night my half sister and her boyfriend came to stay at the cabin with us. They were going to stay another week after we left. They brought alcohol... My first taste of sippin cream... OMG... Appalachian Sipping Cream in Banana Pudding flavor... good gosh this stuff was fantastic. We spent the evening working on puzzles, making pasta with meat sauce, and watching tv. The next day my father's friend didn't want to do anything... so no one got to do anything... We stayed around the cabin and cooked and baked and worked on puzzles. Did I mention I HATE traveling with people? The day after it was time to head back to Phoenix for the flight home. I was ready to seriously run away. I couldn't imagine hours on the flight home with these two...

The drive back to Phoenix, my father took a different route - one that tested the brakes of the truck and toy hauler... Windy, steep and narrow, the roads back smelled of burning rubber and brake pads. We stopped for a few minutes at Salt River Canyon rest stop. I was white-knuckling the whole trip... Three very LONG hours in the truck ready to simply be sick and at times unable to look out the windows, instead staring down at my feet in the back seat of the cab of the truck.

 

Because we were insanely early, we ended up eating a late breakfast/early lunch at of all places - First Watch, which we have here in Florida and I could go to at any time if I actually wanted to.  When I travel I want to eat at unique places. Hole-in-the-wall places. Eat where the locals eat. I'm not eating at a national chain or at some 4-5 star hoity-toity restaurant. My father travels a lot - usually to go diving. He goes all around the world and it always amazes me that he doesn't eat anything "new & exciting," but I do understand you don't want "new & exciting" when you are in a wet suit in the middle of the ocean diving... Doesn't always work out well... lol It drives me crazy when he tells me he had toast and eggs and fruit at the hotel restaurant though! If anything he's the adrenaline junkie, and I'm not, but we both have a huge love for traveling that seems to have been passed down to all 3 of his kids. I'm the one who is daring with food though, especially while traveling. My half-sister hikes and has done so all over the US while my half-brother travels the world fishing...

My mother on the other hand... doesn't care to travel. I took her on a trip to New Orleans to try to change her mind about how she felt about the place she hadn't been to in decades. She remembered a dirty town she rode through as a kid. Most of her memories were tied to my grandfather dragging the entire family from FL to TX straight without stopping. Her memories of TX weren't great either so traveling became something ingrained in her that wasn't fun. She enjoyed her time in NOLA. I'd been there a number of times for Mardi Gras, but never outside of that time. I purposefully took her later, early in the summer to try and avoid the biggest crowds. I showed her my favorite places, found some new ones, ate some GREAT food, got to go to the zoo, and we stayed in the house of an actor who lives in the Garden District instead of a hotel. In the end she loved NOLA.

So I got off topic... The trip to Arizona was great. We had another trip planned again for May of last year - this time without the friend of my father's, but I ended up getting ill again and having surgery to solve all those issues finally which squashed my going out to the cabin. Then the cabin was sold early this year, which saddened me. It was a great place off the grid - quiet, surrounded by nature. Even if the roads needed a serious grading. We are still planning on maybe returning to the area again in the future simply because the area is so neat. Maybe rent a home and stay a week - go to the Grand Canyon and over into New Mexico. I still need to try the pie in Pie Town, NM... and to seek out more fry bread!!

[JuliettaRossi]

So I just moved. Again. This isn't about moving though.

About 6 years ago now I guess, I started having medical issues. I had a doctor who wouldn't really help. She wanted to fix part of the problem, but not the main problem. I was essentially bleeding out. I ended up in the hospital for blood transfusions, had a minor surgery that relieved a small part of the problem, but I continued having most of the problems until they became a huge problem near the end of 2023. I ended up in the hospital a few times for more blood transfusions. I had developed a heart arrhythmia due to low blood volume, blood pressure issues (akin to POTS) and I was so anemic I was barely able to stay awake again just like 5 years previous.

Anyway, this is also not really about that either. Part of the symptoms I was attributing to the anemia and the blood loss was an issue with my hands. I was going through phases with my hands swelling, burning, being really sore and sensitive to heat. I was doing ice baths with my hands throughout the day - keeping a large tupperware container and ice packs at work to switch out as the water warmed up.

I've always had issues with heat bothering my hands but I never connected it to anything more, until this move. Because I had attributed the need for the ice baths to the anemia, and I've not been anemic since surgery last year corrected the problems I had been having for 5 years previous. At nearly the start of the move on Friday, my hands swelled up, turned red and blotchy, tingling and burning and became super sore. But... I had to move, and moving involves LOTS of use of your hands. So, by the middle of the day my hands were so red, they were turning purple. I was taking quick little breaks to run cool water over my hands, but had to keep going.

I also noticed that the back of the roof of my mouth/soft palate was sore and sensitive to anything I ate and to anything warm/hot, so I mostly just had water all day when I remembered to drink anything. We kinda considered that this might be contact dermatitis, but the connection to how the back of my mouth was feeling and I'm not sure if my feet were experiencing the same thing or just angry at the girl who sits at a desk all day, being on her feet all day suddenly. 

The following day we moved some more but not like on Friday - I was honestly having trouble moving lol - my entire body was angry at me. Sunday was cleaning and by the time I was done my hands were super sore again and tingling like crazy. There was more moving today. More sore hands, more ice baths. I've tried Voltaren gel and ibuprofen, but neither have really worked. I'm carrying cold packs in a small cooler with me to try and get the heat in my hands down.

I'm sensitive to anything warm - including sunlight and my own skin. So sitting in the car and I place a hand on my leg - my fingers burn. Getting them in the sunlight coming in the car...they're burning. Going from the car to the store, they're burning from the blazing heat outside. To give you any idea of my usual... I'm ALWAYS cold. Hands, feet, etc...even after not being anemic this long, I still keep a ton of blankets on the couch, a heater at my desk (and yes, I live in FL...), fuzzy socks, etc.

So, like many people... I went to Google. I know I shouldn't. I hate it when others do it (and I have a cousin who is an absolute hypochondriac). I started trying to find out what is going on with me and if I needed to get to the doctor asap or if I could delay until after the move. I have a few more days of moving - a couple more trips with the car and some more cleaning before I'm done. I plan on going to an urgent care once things are done and settled here. I also reached out to my father to see if anyone on his side had any of these kinds of symptoms, since I knew there was nothing like this on my mother's side and was told no.

So...what Goggle popped up with was something called erythromelalgia (EM). It's also called "Burning Man Syndrome." The characteristics are redness & soreness of hands, feet, mucus membranes, ears and/or face. It has no cure, but there are medications that help. It's triggered by heat, stress, exercise, dehydration, spicy foods, and caffeine. It was stupid hot here, so yeah - heat, stress, dehydration, exercise all checked boxes. There are different kinds of EM - In secondary, it's a byproduct or symptom of something else - like Multiple Sclerosis. In primary, it's familial or sporadic.

So, the next step is an urgent care once I'm done moving. Get some medication - hopefully gabapentin to try. I have a muscle relaxer here which I might try in the meantime (since muscle relaxers were on the list of medications for EM). Then request a script to a neurologist to start testing to rule out other things (like MS or as one woman claimed - and I take this, of course, with a HUGE grain of sand - West Nile, which I got a number of years ago while in NY, but I don't know that there is ANY evidence of any link there or just a person on the internet trying to connect dots to the one thing she had years ago) and see if ultimately the evidence does point to EM.

Yay for more medical issues... Either way, hopefully this flare up is abating. My hands and feet are really warm, red and sensitive to heat still. We had dinner last night and I didn't think about it when I ordered, but I got wings... Yeah. not spicy, but warm in temperature, so I had to wait until they got cold before I could eat them. I'm trying to remember to drink - gatorade and water as much as I can remember to drink and soak my hands. Looking forward to seeing a doctor soon to hopefully get answers.

[JuliettaRossi]

So, ever the procrastinator (some of my writing partners know this, and I apologize!)... I still haven't gone to the doctor. Missing a couple days of work has seriously put me underwater at work. I'm drowning in work. So, still super stressed. There are still boxes everywhere. Mostly in a 2nd bedroom so I can just close the door and act like they aren't there for a while. No guests for a while since the bed isn't even put together - the mattress and boxspring are still on their side.

In the meantime. There have been some ups about the new place. The previous people kept a small garden outside. Initially, because of how the houses are situated, I simply assumed it belonged to the person next door. Turns out there is no one home next door - his grandson came by to get the mail and make sure things were ok and I asked about the garden, which the grandson said grandpa does nothing outside, so... not his. So there are some tomato plants, some onions or leeks and some green peppers which are going bonkers. I already cut one off one of the plants - it's beautiful! It will be going in stir fry in the next day or so probably.

This also got my want to garden up again. I still have all my seeds from the years previous and I've been adding to them. So, some potting soil was bought. I have an enclosed back patio and it's pretty private thankfully because the neighbor is driving me bonkers already...

Every time I'm outside he finds a reason to come out and talk and keep me from going inside and it's seriously out of hand already. I dread walking the dog or having to go out to the mailbox... His front door faces mine and there are just a few feet between our houses. He has a hurricane door (glass) and he uses his cat condo thing to prop the regular door open so the cats (and he) can see outside. He has no job and is on disability so he has no one to talk to and nothing to do (yet his mommy lives up the street in the same development). I get it. He's lonely, but... I generally have to get back inside to work. Even a couple minutes away from my computer and my job notices.

Anyway, I'm getting back into gardening. I need to get away from the computer after work and I have a few hours of daylight. Today I repotted some cactus pups pulled from the old house before we moved. I also repotted a plant I got at a local plant and craft show a few months ago. And I've started things from seed again. Today was Parisian carrots, 3 types of basic (sweet, spicy and cinnamon), and some cilantro, along with some bell peppers (including Aloha variety which I love), garlic chives and planted some of the seed from the yellow canna plant from in front of the last house that I collected. I also started some more seeds inside plastic bags. Did you do that little "science experiment" as a kid (or were you NOT raised in the ghetto)? Usually lima beans, placed in a plastic bag with a little bit of paper towel so you can watch the lima bean, which is simply a seed, split and a yellow or white tendril comes out of it - the root system starting, snaking through the minute holes in the paper towel to take root while it grows. Before that it was saving the little milk carton from the lunch milk and planting the lima bean into some soil and leaving it in the window of the classroom to grow... There was no outside garden.

Well a lot of seeds grow really well in plastic bags - some are too tiny and do better with just being placed into soil or those grow pods that swell from hot water. Plus, I can prepare all those bags and seeds inside in the AC! So I've got a few types of beans (2 types of cowpeas/black-eyed beans, dragon tongue beans, lima beans - because I'm still a southern girl, and black beans - because I'm from Miami), watermelon (crimson sweet & sugar baby), tomatoes (marglobe, purple bumble bee, pink brandywine, Oregon spring, rio grande, roma and san marzano), and skyscraper sunflowers - all prepared tonight. I'll work on more tomorrow - more sunflowers, some okra (just for the flowers!), and maybe a pumpkin variety and some more ornamental flowers.

I really miss my sunflowers so I can't wait to get those growing. I'm considering placing some netting along the outside of the patio room to give me even more privacy and so I can grow a bunch of types of morning glories and moon flowers again.

There is an area along the side of the house I may clear out. There's a few very sad looking plants there. I think I could possibly set up some netting between the ground and the eave of the house to maybe plant some cucumbers. Maybe even mix it with some morning glories so it looks pretty.

On another front, I couldn't wait to bake here. The kitchen is quite large compared to the last couple places I've been at. I still haven't unpacked everything and I realized halfway through preparations that I left stuff in the cabinet over the stove at the last house by accident. I was making German cucumber salad (gurkensalat) and realized I was missing 2 of the vinegars I use... So, I'm sure I'll get dinged by the rental agency for leaving stuff behind by accident... I'm too fucking short and completely forgot about the last few bottles up there.

Along with the cucumber salad, I made the pineapple salsa because I haven't had it in ages, and I found a recipe for cheesy grits (from a local restaurant that is known for them) and made that along with a seriously good coconut cake. That was the first thing that started the menu. Everything was for mother's day. Ribs were also made.

The coconut cake was the best part though, if I do say so myself... I short-cut the recipe slightly. I made the coconut filling and the coconut frosting and I toasted the coconut to cover the outside of the cake with. The cake itself... why mess with perfection? I bought Dolly Parton's coconut cake mix and I UP the coconut. Instead of milk, I use coconut milk, I add coconut flake to the batter, along with a healthy amount of homemade coconut rum vanilla extract.

So this weekend will probably be lemon bars and or lemon cake. No lie, Trader Joes has a pretty damn good lemon loaf cake mix. I also doctor this one though. Instead of ANY water, I used lemon juice - fresh squeezed. Same in the icing. I also use a microplane to zest all the lemons and use a good portion of that in the batter as well.

I also have I think 5 gallons of mulberries... I'm gonna have to start using them, so I see a crumble or buckle or cobbler in the future...