Daddy, Would You Like Some Sausages?

Holy smokes! What is Ms. Wacahoota holding in this picture? By golly, it's a SAUSAGE, the seed pod of the South African "sausage tree." On a recent visit to Leu Gardens in Orlando, shooting the TV show "Your Southern Garden," my co-workers returned bearing sausages for us all to marvel at.

And yes, Kim put googly eyes on them...


For more information:
Harry P. Leu Gardens: www.leugardens.org
Kigelia (sausage tree): www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kigelia
Kim (Googly Eye Master): www.cannasandbananas.blogspot.com
Emily (Ms. Wacahoota): www.gardenliving.blogspot.com
Your Southern Garden: www.yoursoutherngarden.com
Tom Green, "Daddy, Would You Like Some Sausages?": www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLh8MnKeoAo

My Lilies Bloomed!

Thank you, John!! I don't know what kind these are, but they're gorgeous, and they smell really good.

I Lied Again...

...But for a worthy cause: To promote my fellow displaced Northeasterner's new blog, The Other Side of the Ocean. This is Jenna: We both ended up here in North Central Florida, her from Cape Cod and me from New York. As it did for me, her transference across the Mason-Dixon line has resulted, willingly or not, in a new life. Like me, she's still trying to make sense of that.

Okay, I lied. But we had to get our pictures of our weekly guest stars in...

Muscadines



Scuppernongs

It Took Me Four Days to Hitchhike From Saginaw...

The Michiganders (by descent) are off to the ancestral homeland for a two-week vacation...next post will probably be from the road.

My Wonderful Flowers from a Wonderful Man

You'll forgive the self-indulgence, I hope...it's been a while since a man routinely showed up at my door with bouquets.

Gnome Reich

It's true...even Nazis are down with the gnomes these days.

Cones in My Car

Some friends, who shall remain nameless, decided yesterday would be a good day to break into my car, which was parked in our office parking lot, and seat some cones with googly eyes in the driver and passenger seats. This is what I discovered when I unlocked my car at lunchtime:




I had had no inkling that this was in the works. Our building has been pretty empty this week, including most of the usual suspects for such a prank. The prime suspect was at lunch. My driver's side window was barely cracked open, making me wonder whose snakelike arm could have slid down to the door lock. No one was there to witness my jumping around, hand flailing, and baffled shouting: "Who did this? Who did this?"


These are the cones comfortably snuggled up in the passenger seat, where I moved them so I could drive...and where they surprised me again this morning.

It's A Baby!

Brian and Susan's baby is pretty dang cute...

Diver Down

Extreme Scalloping Adventures in the Gulf of Mexico: July 12, 2009

Homosassa Springs


The Scalloping Grounds


Dixie Starr in Her New Bikini


Diver Down Flag


John


Nikki & John


Our Sweet Haul


Beer & Bands

Florida Pic of the Day

Scallop Season

It's scallop season in Florida, and yesterday we went scalloping out of Homosassa Springs. More scalloping adventure info to follow, after I upload my pictures.

Get With It

Here's a little difference I've noticed about Floridians and Northerners: Up North, when we want to indicate that we'll return somebody's call, we say, "I'll get back to you" or "I told him I'd get back to him later." Down here, it's almost invariably, "I'll get back WITH you." Or, if your boss is instructing you to liaise with someone in another office, she'll say: "I told Jill you'd get WITH her this afternoon."

Where I come from, that would mean you were going to make sexy time with Jill this afternoon. Not so in the South! It still sounds weird to me. Even John says, "If she doesn't get back with you..." ...and I have to take a moment to remember what it means.

I Totally Heart John Moran...

...Florida nature photographer extraordinaire. And here's why: http://www.johnmoranphoto.com.

Taking Out the Grass

Jen discovered this while researching for work. We call it our turfgrass professor friend Jason's "worst acid-trip nightmare."

Welcome Back, Erin!

After an eight-month hiatus studying gnomes in the German forest, gnomologist Erin has returned to the Blogosphere. Check out her blog, Conspicuously Bright. (Erin is the slightly skeptical one in this picture.) But be warned: if you're a scrapbooker, this is not the blog for you!

Lady of the Day

Lady Gaga

Man & Machine

On Tuesday, John delivered his beloved tractor to its new owners. It was an important moment for him--the close of a chapter, as he called it. I decided to document the event. I thought he'd like to have some "farewell tractor" pictures...and I like seeing him in Wranglers.

Tea Partay

In honor of my friends back home.

Will Allen & Growing Power

Here's a NY Times article everyone should read. This story about composting and local food growing in an urban environment is amazing. Thanks to Sarah for passing along the good info.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

And how swiftly life would descend on the boys, as well. First the panic that maybe they’d have to go through it alone, then the quick marriage to prevent that grim fate, followed by relentless house and car payments and doctors’ bills and all the rest...They’d gravitate to bars like her mother’s to get away from these same girls and then the children neither they nor their wives would be clever and independent enough to prevent...Their jobs, their marriages, their kids, their lives--all of it a grind.

~Richard Russo, Empire Falls

It's All Gravy

What does "gravy" mean to you? We were having this conversation at lunch today. Evidently Southerners think of "gravy" as something far different than your average Northerner expects to eat at Thanksgiving, or on any plate of pot roast and mashed potatoes.

In the South, "gravy" is white, made of flour and milk, and often served with sausage and biscuits. "Brown gravy" is what we Yankees think of as "normal gravy." That's the gravy made from meat drippings--fat and juice mixed with flour and seasonings.

Emily says you can eat white gravy on anything--she and her family eat it three or four times a week!

White Gravy



Brown Gravy

Say It Ain't So

Regional accents are one of America's most fascinating characteristics to language appreciators. For example, down here we say "bowled" instead of "boiled." Hence: "After that two o'clock meeting, I'll be ready for some bowled peanuts." And: "Kaity can eat her weight in bowled peanuts, can't she?" And, when you're annoyed with someone: "She was just makin' my blood bowl."

Snack of Dreams

Here's a common Southernism that, prior to living here, I only ever saw from car windows at roadside stands as I flew through Dixie. The boiled peanut is roughly the Southern equivalent of Northerners' deviled eggs. They are easy to make, well loved, and leave only a little, biodegradable refuse: a portable treat with character that can be carried to picnics, barbecues, and parades, and lends its bearer a dash of pizzazz. It's a food that tells a story, lets people know where they are, and, depending on their presentation and taste, can make or break a social reputation. Down here, they're as common as cornbread or watermelon. Everyone makes them for the Fourth. They're salty enough to burn your mouth and soft enough to melt on your tongue--tres Southern!

Independence Day

This Fourth, I went to a small town called Micanopy, about ten minutes south of Gainesville, for the annual parade and fish fry.

The parade commenced at 10:30 a.m. We sat under a blooming crapemyrtle in folding chairs, drank lemonade, and watched...

Wildlife Artist Float


One of many antique tractors in the parade...four of many blonde, red-white-and-blue-clad kids running around waving flags.


The 4-H float, with my friend Emily and her kids Will (blond boy at far left) and Kaity (on the other side, red bow) aboard. Emily is the proud descendant of Florida Crackers and grew up in an orange grove.


Antique John Deere.


Horseriders dressed as olde-timey Crackers. They made quite a loud popping sound with their whips.


All hail the All-American.



Outside the Micanopy Museum, a "homemade tractor" and some other ancient, lichened machine parts have sat so long, the trees have grown over and around them.



Dixie: The Episcopal Church of the Mediator.



Veranda of the Herlong Mansion, a historic inn.



And Independence Night...

Kim's basket o' wonders...



Our twenty-one-gun salute!

Goodness, How Delicious!

My Midwestern mama used to sing me this Civil War ditty when I was growing up in the frozen northland. Where she learned it, I never knew, but I can't recall a time when I didn't know what goober peas were. In fact, I've gotten to educate at least one Southerner about "goobers" since I've been down here.

Evidently the first printed version of this song was published in 1866. Notice the names on the music sheet: "A. Pindar" (also a peanut nickname) and "P. Nutt."

Sitting by the roadside on a summer's day
Chatting with my mess-mates, passing time away
Lying in the shadows underneath the trees
Goodness, how delicious, eating goober peas.

Chorus:
Peas, peas, peas, peas
Eating goober peas
Goodness, how delicious,
Eating goober peas.

When a horse-man passes, the soldiers have a rule
To cry out their loudest, "Mister, here's your mule!"
But another custom, enchanting-er than these
Is wearing out your grinders, eating goober peas.

Chorus

Just before the battle, the General hears a row
He says "The Yanks are coming, I hear their rifles now."
He turns around in wonder, and what d'ya think he sees?
The Georgia Militia, eating goober peas.

Chorus

I think my song has lasted almost long enough.
The subject's interesting, but the rhymes are rough.
I wish the war was over, so free from rags and fleas
We'd kiss our wives and sweethearts, and gobble goober peas.