Oh You Red Bellied Woodpecker You

Thought I would share a couple of photos of the red bellied woodpeckers that have been eating the ducks corn lately. They get one kernel and put it in the tree bark and then pound the living daylights out of it. I think the one with the cardinal is a female. The male's red coloring on the head touches his beak.

Just Amusing

A headline in the Police Briefs section of our paper reads, "Police search for mulch spreader on the loose." I just hate it when those machines get separated from their tractors and wander off on their own. Oh wait. Someone cut open mulch bags outside of a supermarket and spread the mulch in front of the door. I can't even think of what this was about. And finally the paper makes sense or at least the person who placed the Found ad makes sense.
Parrot: Found small parrot. Owner can be claimed by parrot.

Passion Vine Oddity

I found what I think is an oddity growing with my plants this morning. I found a miniature passion vine with mini flowers and mini fruit growing on it. I've never seen one like it and after searching the web I can't find another! For those who don't live in these warm climes, a passion vine can grow very big. They grow up giant oak trees and spread over long distances. Some have fruit and some are only desirable for the pretty flowers. All the flowers are pretty much the same, just different colors. The vines that produce edible fruit have white and purple blooms. The flowers are very pretty and are suppose to symbolize the crucifixion. The passion flower's petals relate to the Apostles, the cornea to the crown of thorns, the five anthers to the five wounds and the three stigmas to the three nails.

The passion fruit is a round ball usually about tennis ball size. They fall off the vine when they are ripe. The juice and seeds are encased in a hard pithy shell. You can eat the goo inside and it is very tasty. To get the juice, I have found that the easiest way is to split the ball, scoop out the goo and put it in a blender. After pulsing the blender for a while, the goo, juice, and seeds separate. If you put is all through a sieve the seeds stay behind and you are left with a mix of goo and juice. You can use this in place of any other kind of juice. I add it to fresh squeezed orange juice and it "brightens" up the flavor of the oranges. Hmmmm yummy.

Photo 1 is a regular size passion fruit. They start out green and as they ripen they turn brown and eventually shrivel up and fall off the vine when ripe. Good planning by Mother Nature because they are so high in the tree I couldn't get them. The shell is very hard and there is no damage when they fall from the trees. Photo 2 is a regular passion flower. Photo 3 is the mini flower. Photo 4 is the miniature passion vine with fruit and flowers. Photo 5 is the mini fruit. Photo 6 is the mini flower with a quarter and Photo 7 is the mini fruit with a quarter.

I am curious to see how much juice I get from each of the little passion fruits. Hope I can find them after they fall off the vine!

Timing Is Everything

The Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test scores in reading and math came out today for the 3rd-graders. It seems that I am right. The reading score for our county dropped 3 points from last year. The math score dropped 5 points and is now 8 points lower than the state grade. One of our assistant superintendents said that the grades are not representative of our school district. Every kid took the test so how much more representative could it get? Maybe we should look to the heads of our schools for where the problem originates.
Speaking of heads, the Education Secretary for the US, Arne Duncan, said this week, "Our children are competing for jobs against children in India and China today, and those children are going to school 25, 30 percent more than us." I mean really, we should have an advantage if they are in school more. Gives our kids more hours to work.

New Math

I finally realize why kids can't do math any more. Our schools have had big budget problems here and one way to balance the meager budget is to cut teacher's salaries. The Superintendent of Schools proposed to slash $14 million from next year's budget. To reach that figure, they negotiated with the teachers union and finally reached an agreement. Teachers and aids who have more than 26 years experience had their experience raises cut 1% this year. All experience raises for everyone else were halted. Under the agreement the 26 yr. + teachers get their 1% back and everyone else gets their negotiated experience raises. This will cost the district $360,000. Here's where the negotiations get difficult. All employees hired after July 1, 2009 will get less in their experience raises after 26+ years. This new schedule will save the district $400,000. Ok. Here's where I say WHAT? How does a savings of what they calculate to be $40,000 end up being $14 million? How do they calculate a saving of $40,000? Assuming you have the same number of teachers 26+ years from now you might save $40,000. How does that save us anything today? Wouldn't it cost $360,000 in the next budget year? Oh well, the kids aren't to blame. Maybe the school board doesn't know what to teach them.

Rain Again

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Our rainy season has come early. It has been raining for a couple of days now so I decided to run out between the raindrops and take photos of some of our fruiting plants that have started to flower and fruit. One fruit that I haven't grown before (and I only know one person in the area that has) is kiwi. I planted a couple vines last year but before they could grow and produce, the deer ate every leaf and then the entire vine. They didn't recover very well but I bought two more vines in April. I planted these in large pots and dug up the stunted ones and put them in pots too. I moved them closer to the house next to a fence. They have to have a sturdy place to grow. The most amazing thing is that one has started to bloom! This is a female plant and the male hasn't started to bloom yet so it won't set little kiwis, but this bloom is very exciting. Photos 1, 2 and 3.

Photo 4 is of our McCalister fig. It is a large tree - over 10 feet tall. On either side you can see little figs forming. Photo 5 is the green ischia fig. The fruit stays green. It turns slightly yellow when ripe. Birds and other fig loving animals are fooled and don't know the fruit is ripe.

Photos 6 and 7 are of Brassos blackberries. These are very juicy and sweet. The largest one is about the size of a quarter.

Photo 8 is a Robinson tangerine.

Photo 9 is a Zill mango.

Photo 10 is a ripe Surinam Cherry and Photo 11 is a pecked one and an unripe one. The largest of these is bigger than a nickle and smaller than a quarter. They grow on bushes.

Photo 12 is a Miracle mango. Photo 13 is an Ice Cream mango and Photo 14 is a Fairchild mango.

Photos 15 and 16 are of a red pineapple. They are pretty rare and this will be a big one.

Photos 17 and 18 are of a Giant Thai Jujube. This is a new variety just introduced into this country. It is extremely rare. The fruit will get almost apple size and tastes similar to a green apple. It is crunchy like an apple. I am espaliering this one and a smaller (fruit size) thornless jujube on the side of our barn.

That's all I got before it started to pour again. This fruit growing thing is really pretty interesting and is so different from the Northeast.

Car Dealerships to Close

As I am sure everyone knows by now Chrysler is shutting down over 700 dealerships across the country. I really don't get it. Doesn't Chrysler sell their vehicles through the dealers? Most paid Chrysler money to open the dealerships so they are independent. They pay Chrysler for each car they sell. They pay Chrysler for the parts they use to repair cars. How are they costing Chrysler money? Don't they generate revenue for Chrysler? As much trouble as we have had with Chrysler products I wouldn't mind at all if Chrysler went out of business, but I don't understand how closing your retail outlets benefits your bottom line.