The October Thing is Always in November

Last night we enjoyed the 20-something anniversary of the October thing. Only it is always in November now. It began in October and kept sliding forward year by year until  it settled in to the second weekend of November, or thereabouts. But everyone kept right on calling it The October Thing. It is always on a Saturday night. That hasn't changed. The whole family goes over to the lot my parents own on the banks of a small lake, where they've strung lights, set up a few tables and chairs, and my step dad has a lovely campfire burning. All the children can't resist playing in it. They start with sticks, then surreptitiously sneak other things in to it, like paper plates, until they get caught and get in trouble. Of course now it is the younger kids. The older kids play other pranks.

Everyone brings some food to share. We never coordinate, so we never know what it will be. Last night it was mostly cookies and chips. But there was also my sister's incomparable devilled eggs. And my brother brought "long tailed frog," also called "swamp lizard." Some people call it alligator meat. Because, of course, that is what it is. I had the tiniest piece I could find, just so I could honestly tell you I have eaten alligator meat. Nope, it doesn't taste like chicken. Maybe like pork... I guess it is "what eats the other white meat." A very mild, rather chewy meat.

The main course, though, is hot dogs that we all cook on forked metal cooking poles. I cook mine until it is bubbling, but it is usually still ice cold when I bite in to it. Last night I got it done really well. That was a first. It doesn't matter, really, because the main event is roasting marshmallows. Everyone has their own special way of doing it. One young niece likes to cook them, but not eat them, so she is always going around begging everyone else to let her cook theirs. Her special technique is to catch them on fire, blow them out when they are bubbly and blackened on the outside, then present them to the recipient. I like to get them toasted medium brown all the way around so they are a little crispy on the outside, and melty on the inside. Perfect! My once a year treat. My step dad always makes his hot spiced cider, too, and has leaves it on its own special table in a tiny crockpot.

We talk about all kinds of things. We talk politics and religion and sports, hunting and fishing, video games, tell funny stories and plan future get togethers. My brother brought his pet raccoon last night. It loves to drink soda out of his cup. A teenage niece recited "The Man From Snowy River," Australian accents and all. Sometimes we sing, and one year a son who'd had a dancing lesson taught the box step to a younger cousin.

Gradually, later then they'd intended to stay, different families begin gathering up chairs and children and heading for home, usually taking chips or cookies with them. Everyone is full of marshmallows and root beer, and smells like smoke after our once a year, micro-camping family adventure. 

Florida the Cool

The temperatures may be hot, but Florida is really a very cool place. Sure, we have insects...
And alligators, too
But where else will you see Mr. and Mrs. Whooping Crane walking down the sidewalk?
And, we have pelicans!
Of course, sometimes even pelicans can get a little wild.
But we have a trump card - the beach! Kind of puts everything in perspective, doesn't it?

(These are all photos taken by my family around Southwest Florida)

You Might Be a Floridian If...

You know the four seasons really are: almost summer, summer,
not summer but really hot, and Christmas.

"Down South" means Key West

"Panhandling" means going to Pensacola.

You think no-one over 70 should be allowed to drive.

Flip-flops are everyday wear.

Shoes are for business meetings and church.

No, wait, flip flops are good for church too

Socks are only for bowling

Orange juice from concentrate makes you sick

Sweet tea can be served at any meal.

An alligator once walked through your neighborhood.

You smirk when a game show's "Grand Prize" is a trip to Florida.

You measure distance in minutes.

You have a drawer full of bathing suits, and one sweatshirt.

You get annoyed at the tourists who feed seagulls.

You never use an umbrella because you know the rain will be over in
five minutes

All the local festivals are named after a fruit. (Although we do have a Shrimp Festival, and I'm not sure Swamp Cabbage is a fruit...)

A mountain is any hill 100 feet above sea level.

A good parking place has nothing to do with distance from the store,
but everything to do with shade.

Your winter coat is made of denim

You can tell the difference between fire ant bites and mosquito bites

You're younger than thirty but some of your friends are over 65

It's not "pop." It's "soda" or "coke."

Anything under 70 is chilly.

You've hosted a hurricane party.

You go to a theme park for an afternoon, and know when to get on the
best rides.

You pass on the right and honk at the elderly.

You understand the futility of exterminating cockroaches.

You can pronounce Okeechobee, Kissimmee, Withlacoochee, Okahumpka and
Loxahatchee.

You understand why it's better to have a friend with a boat than have a
boat yourself.

You've driven through Yeehaw Junction.

Bumper stickers on the pickup in front of you include various fish, the
NRA and a confederate flag.

You were 8 before you realized they made houses without pools.

You were 12 when you first met someone who couldn't swim.

You've worn shorts and used the A/C on Christmas. (We actually ran the A/C once, trying to make it cold enough so we could have a fire in our fireplace).

You know what the "stingray shuffle" is and why it's important!

You could swim before you could read

You have to drive north to get to The South

You know that no other grocery store can compare to Publix.

Every other house had blue roofs in 2004-2005

You know that anything under a Category 3 just isn't worth waking up for.

You dread lovebug season.

You are on a first name basis with the Hurricane list. They aren't Hurricane Charley, Hurricane Frances...but Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne.

You know what a snowbird is and you hate them. (Well, that might be a bit harsh. We only hate the sheer volume of them clogging the roads!)

You know why flamingos are pink.

You think a six-foot alligator is actually pretty average.

You haven't seen snow.

Tornadoes/Tornado warnings don't scare you, and you laugh when your friends from outside of Florida get scared by lightning.

You eat ice cream cones in the winter, because it's finally cool enough so that it won't melt instantly down your arm

You save your sweater for summer when everyone's A/C is so cold, you are freezing in their houses or cars

(Thank you to my youngest son for sending me this! My sons are true Crackers, not transplanted Hoosiers like me, and will never let me forget it...)

Gator Glen

My brother has a rather unusual and interesting job. He's a licensed trapper for nuisance alligators. The other day he helped trap two. One was 8 ft. long, discovered in a sewer drain by city workers. The other was a 10 ft. long gator in a canal. If you go here you can see the news report and video. Be sure to watch the second video, it's the coolest! He's the guy sitting on the gator's back at the end.

You may notice the mouth is taped shut. Guess who taped it? He doesn't kill the gators unless they have killed a person - this one is headed for a gator farm in Lake Placid. He used a boom box playing baby gator sounds to attract the gator in question, then uses a loop to catch it, or sometimes a gaffe gun of some sort. Once he wrestles the madly fighting alligator to shore (they roll over and over, once breaking his finger in the process!), he has to sit on its back and tape its mouth shut. Then he can load it on the truck.

It's not that surprising that he would end up doing something like this. His first camping trip was when he was one month old, as you can see above. My sister and I are 9 and 12 in the picture. We hiked, swam, fished, canoed and camped and he was always included. I remember once my step-dad (his dad) asked us if we wanted to see an alligator when we were near a swamp or pond, probably in the Everglades. We said sure, so he began making soft "unh, unh, unh" sounds that he said were the sounds baby alligators make when they are in distress. Then he got a wicked little gleam in his eye and said to my mom, "Hand me the baby! If I dangle his tender little toes in the water, the gators will come right over!" She squealed and held my brother tighter and my step-dad grinned from ear to ear.

His dad taught him everything he needed to know to be an outdoorsman, and he always has been comfortable in the great outdoors. He hunts, both with gun and bow, fishes (and cooks an incredibly delicious fish dinner with his fresh fish, even though he doesn't eat fish himself), canoes, hikes, and camps.

And now he's added gator trapping to his repertoire! Kinda cool, don't ya think?
He wants people to know that what makes an alligator a nuisance is feeding them! I have been swimming, fishing and canoeing with gators, but when they are wild they mostly leave people alone. We had a gator in the pond near us that people wouldn't stop feeding - my son used to go stand on the bank and when the gator headed his way, he'd bean it between the eyes with a rock. That way it didn't know whether it was going to receive food or pain. It's possible he saved a few neighborhood kids that way! If you are concerned about alligators hurting people, or even if you are concerned about the gators themselves, the best thing you can do for them is leave them alone. People are killed by gators all the time, so you could save lives by not feeding them. Not to mention that the gator will have to be destroyed if it eats someone!
Luckily if someone has a problem, they can just give my brother a call!

When Are Bugs Pretty?

No one thinks flies are pretty?! I'm shocked. I mean, look at the little guy, with his huge red goggles, his shimmery blue-green hide, and his little hook to hold on with! Though, to be honest, if he had been on my kitchen counter I'd of whacked him without a second thought. For me the demarcation line is inside versus outside. I've always been an outdoors girl, and I marvel at the beauty of all kinds of unusual things. Snakes, for instance. My mom says there's something heathenish about my fascination with snakes. But have you ever really looked at, say, a coral snake? They are really gorgeous. We have large indigo snakes here too. Once my young son was leaning against a tree by the pond and felt something on his leg. He looked down and there was a 5-ft. indigo climbing him! He did a frantic little panic dance and the startled snake dropped off. Evidently he'd never seen a tree behave like that.

I find many spiders and other unpopular creatures to be beautiful too. My sister and I loved ants when we were little and were always trying to make homemade ant farms, with moats around them. An awful lot of ants drowned themselves rather than stay with us! Maybe it's from growing up in Florida where you either get used to things or stay nervous a lot. We always did a lot of camping, so when we went swimming or canoeing, it was usually in a pond or lake, and there were often alligators nearby. Mostly they leave you alone, especially if no one has been feeding them. Unless they've been fed, alligators are pretty shy of people. I did get to swim with a manatee once, back before it was illegal to touch them. They have hides like elephants and faces only a mother could love. We have oodles of lizards and frogs. We watched quite a drama in our bathroom window one day. We heard what sounded like a girl screaming and ran to find the source. There were 3 frogs on the outside of the screen, but there was the glass of the window kind of trapping them. They were what was screaming! A snake was crawling up the screen, wanting to eat them. While he was trying to pick out the juiciest looking frog, a tiny spider started sidling sideways toward him, ever so slowly. Finally he reached the snake's head, climbed on and bit him right between the eyes! The snake jerked, then fell from the window. So the little spider saved all those frogs! Sort of made me think of the story of the mouse saving the lion.

I love watching all the little dramas unfold as long as the creatures are outside where they belong. Even birds, which are so beautiful and fascinating flying free, I've had no luck with inside. Once we had a parakeet named Midnight. It was basically psychotic. I figure it was because it was caged. Another time we came home to find a peach-faced lovebird clinging to our screen door. Someone's pet that had escaped, we thought at first. My son made a pet of it, and at first it was adorable. It would sit on his head and sing and act all innocent. Soon, though, it became an attack bird, refusing to allow anyone in to his bedroom except him - and then, it turned on him too. We came to realize that it had probably been booted out by it's original owner in self-defense! I use to like squirrels, too. Until one got down inside our bedroom wall! So, if any bugs could read this, the moral of the story would be - stay out of my house! The bugs in the pictures I posted were all found outside and left to live and let live, except the red and black one that I trapped in my kitchen! He was left in a jar to be admired until he expired.