Month: July 2023

21 July 2023

As the Pointer Sisters exclaimed, I’m so excited!

I got to shower today!

First off, I actually did my morning walk, albeit the shorter one I normally do along Riverland Road. It was only 83°F when I started out with 86% humidity. The good thing about Riverland is the shade along the sidewalks. The full walk is around 1.9 miles but I cut it short and it was around 1.5.

When I returned home, I began the task of raking leaves. That mango tree is insatiable in leaf shed. After raking, I swept that area and then begin to work on cleaning the pool filter.

This was a challenge for me. I have to lift the filter out of the canister. The wet pool filter cartridge can weight a good deal over the five pound limit I’m restricted to for my left arm. I was able to pull it out with my right arm. Then came the moment of truth after cleaning it with a water hose – picking it back up and placing it back within the canister. I have to use both hands to do that because there is a steel rod that runs through the center of the filter when you put it back in place and an aerator that sprays water along the top of the filter. The rod part is easy but the aerator is a plastic tube that doesn’t want to cooperate. In any case, I made it and managed to get it operational again.

Next up was to check the chemicals in the pool then wash down the patio deck and get the iguana poop off the pool deck. After that was accomplished, I then sprayed weeds in both the front and the back.

When I got back inside to the A/C, I checked my weather app and it said the feels like temp was 103°F. No argument from me on that report. I do admit to feeling light headed (more than usual) during the raking and spraying parts. I’ve noticed that occurs a lot when I have to bend over or when I look upward. Not sure that’s due to the surgery or my blood pressure medicine.

Anyway, after spraying of herbicide, I always take a shower. I peeled off the temporary bandage over the incision and jumped in the shower. I managed to only slightly dampen the bandage with the plastic covering over the drain insert. That’s the first shower in eight days. I don’t seem to be as black and blue as before but the bandage over the drain insertion is pretty bloody.

___________

Yesterday I told you about pink purslane and how Dr. Pullen studied the family for his PhD. As I walked Riverland, I looked down and saw Portulaca oleracea, or common purslane.

As you can see, it has the fleshy stems and leaves but with yellow flowers. One thing I forgot to mention about purslane yesterday is the fruit is a capsule that splits along its circumference and the top pops off exposing the seeds within the capsule. That type of opening is termed circumscissle and is rather unusual. If you look carefully at the bottom of the photo, among the pink stems, you can see little round white “bowls” attached to the stems. One even still has seeds in it and looks a little like a face staring back at you.

The way the seeds are dispersed is by raindrops hitting the remaining bowl of the capsule and splashing the seeds out. Personally, I think the pink purslane is a little more attractive. Every time I see the common purslane, it always looks a little ragged – like it has had a bad week.

After lunch, I climbed into bed and read about an hour on my iPad and then napped. I must have conked out from all the effort this morning because I slept for an hour. I waked just in time for our afternoon thunderstorm. Hopefully, I’ll have no lightning strikes close to the house.

I checked online yesterday about survivability of palms with lightning strikes. They don’t. Some trees managed OK but the web informs me that the most the palm will probably survive is a few months. Again, I’ll miss the shade it provides. It probably won’t be the last palm I lose to lightning. Florida is the lightning capital of the U.S.

Stay tuned!

19 July 2023

Today has been a little calmer than yesterday. At least no lightning bolts destroying trees – yet. The afternoon is still young.

One good event that did happen yesterday was I reconnected by phone with an old coastie buddy, Chip Sutton, an electricians mate on board the CGC Reliance. His cubby was next to the radio room on the Reliance and we depended on him to keep our electronics running.

I never will forget the day we tried everything with out main transmitter, an old tube model and we couldn’t get it to work. Chip worked on it for hours and finally threw up his hands and said there was only one thing left to do – give it the smoke test. I asked “smoke test?” He said “yea, you run the resistance up enough and see what burns out in the transmitter and that’s probably causing the problem.” It worked!

He now lives in north Georgia at a place called Sugar Hill. I know the place. It’s on my way to the waterfalls of North Georgia and I pass that exit on the interstate all the time. Next time I promised to stop in and chew the fat with Chip.

Before I was discharged from my hospital stay at Holy Cross, their app MyChart scheduled me for a visit with my primary care doctor. I showed up and when he walked in, he looked at me and I looked at him and we both wondered why we were there. He and I concluded that when I falsely tested positive, the person entering the information must have automatically scheduled a follow up with the primary. We talked a little and he was pleased I looked well and then I left.

Holley and Jim stopped by this afternoon and marveled at my lightning modified Bismarck palm.

My neighbor across the street agreed to cut it down just before bulk trash day (1st Wednesday of the month) for $400. I suggested $500. That’s one damn big tree and you really have to know what you are doing when you fell that thing. It’s worth it. Most tree trimmers would charge at least a thousand for a tree that size. He always low balls me on price – the benefit of being a neighbor, I guess.

Holley and Jim brought over some plums, some couscous, a book, and some flowers. That’s the most flowers I’ve gotten in a long time. Judith and Chris sent me some yesterday and today I got some from Jim and Holley!

I feel well loved! Giving flowers to a botanist is always a good idea!

Tomorrow is my first post surgery meeting with Dr. Burgers. I hope I can get the very large bandage off and a small one in its stead to cover the point of exit of the drain. The big bandage is a pain.

I’m still doing bathing wipes. It’s been a week since my last shower and even though the bathing wipes help, it’s not the same as a good, long, hot shower. I also long for the day I can get back in the pool. I suspect the drain will stay in another week unless there’s a miraculous change overnight in the color of the fluid.

___________

Today’s plant is Seagrape. From the photo below, I think you can see why it gets the name. When the “grapes” get ripe, you can make jelly from them.

Just as an aside, scientifically, Seagrape is one word since it is not a true grape of the Vitaceae family. That holds pretty much through science. It’s dragonfly not dragon fly and tsetse fly not tsetsefly.

This is a native plant of South Florida, the Caribbean, Bahamas, Bermuda, and tropical America. It’s a member of the buckwheat family, Polygonaceae.

I always took my botany students by this plant to show them what “clasping” stipules look like. Stipules are leaf-like structures at the base of some leaf petioles (leaf stems). Most stick out from the plant but in this plant, they wrap around or “clasp” the stem.

Seagrape can get tree size. I’ve seen some very large specimens in peoples’ yards and also in some of the local parks. Wikipedia suggests they help stabilize dunes and can shield sea turtle hatchlings from the lights of the city and ensure the hatchings head to sea (and towards the moon over the ocean).

I’ve never had any jelly or jam or wine from the grapes but am always on the lookout for it.

The family Polygonaceae is also know as the knotweed or smartweed family as well as buckwheat. One genus of plants is known as the edible buckwheat (Fagopyrum) and the genus Rumex is known as the sorrels, edible in salads.

My first experience with the family was in an Aquatic Plants course taught by Dr. Pullen at Ole Miss during my first year of graduate school. Several members of the genus Polygonum are known as aquatics or semiaquatics. One characteristic of the family is that it often has swollen nodes (a node is where a leaf attaches).

I got a real introduction to the family while on my cross country trips to national parks. The genus Eriogonum is very abundant out west. Here is what I’ve photographed so far.

Genus/Species	Common Name	Location
Coccoloba uvifera	Seagrape	Bahia Honda State Park, Florida; Secret Woods Park, Fort Lauderdale
Eriogonum arborescens	Santa Rosa Island Buckwheat	Santa Rosa Island, Channel Islands National Park
Eriogonum arcelatum	Bakers Wild Buckwheat	Grand Canyon, South Rim
Eriogonum fasciulatum	Redtop Buckwheat	Joshua Tree National Park
Eriogonum flavum	Yellow Buckwheat	Yellowstone National Park
Eriogonum grande	Island Buckwheat	Santa Rosa Island, Channel Islands National Park
Eriogonum hemipterum	Chisos Mountain Buckwheat	Big Bend National Park
Eriogonum inflatum	Desert Trumpet	Death Valley National Park
Eriogonum jamesii	Antelope Sage	Cedar Grove, NM
Eriogonum latifolium	Coastal Buckwheat	Twin Peaks, San Francisco
Eriogonum leptocladon	Sand Buckwheat	Grand Canyon, South Rim
Eriogonum marifolium	Marumleaf Buckwheat	Crater Lake National Park
Eriogonum microthecum	Slender Buckwheat	Grand Canyon, South Rim
Eriogonum occidentalis	Western Dock	Mount Rushmore National Monument
Eriogonum ovalifolium	Cushion Buckwheat	Canyonlands National Park; Yellowstone National Park; Crater Lake National Park
Eriogonum tomentosum	Wild Buckwheat	Torreya State Park, Florida
Eriogonum umbellatum	Sulfur Buckwheat	Yellowstone National Park
Oxyria digyna	Mountain Sorrel	Bugaboos, British Columbia
Polygonumm bistortoides	American Bistort	Crater Lake National Park
Rumex acetosella	Sheep Sorrel	Crater Lake National Park
Rumex hastalus	Sour Dock	Reed Bingham State Park, Georgia
Rumex hymenosepalus	Canaigre	Arches National Park
Rumex obtusifolius	Bitter Dock	Reed Bingham State Park, Georgia

One of the weirdest I’ve found in the family is Eriogonum inflatum or Desert Trumpet. It takes the inflated petiole to the extreme.

One of the prettiest I’ve found is Cushion Buckwheat (Eriogonium ovalifolium).

Stay tuned!

18 July 2023

I certainly seem to lead an interesting life. In just this year alone, my home flooded on 22 April, I got a cancer diagnosis on 23 April, and today, my Bismarck palm in the front yard was struck by lightning. It was the second palm in the front struck by lightning (August 2020) and the second flood (from my dishwasher that required all new flooring and all new cabinets – August 2020). Certain months seem to be more interesting than others.

I had finished lunch and was relaxing in bed with my iPad when I heard an approaching thunderstorm. It turned out to be an intense electrical storm. I got up to turn off the computer and was heading into the kitchen when a bolt of lightning hit and a millisecond later was a burst of thunder. I knew it had to be very close and in the front yard and the only really tall structure was my Bismarck palm.

It almost died last year and it had finally come back and seemed to be thriving even though there were several holes in the trunk where iguanas and birds had taken up residence.

I peaked out the window and saw some fibers along the trunk.

Fortunately, it didn’t catch fire!

I assume the tree will die. I suspect it’ll cost a pretty penny to remove but fortunately the neighbor across the streets tends to all my palms. He was surprised it survived last year. The real question is did the lightning travel underground and kill the Queen palm next to the front fence? The bolt certainly played with the electronics in the house. My alarm system defaulted to the original setting. Previously, I silenced the beeps when you open or close a door and now it is back to beeping on door openings.

I’ll miss this palm. It provides great shade. I raised it from a 50 gallon container when it was only about 5 feet tall. Tom Green purchased it for me on his license as a palm dealer from a local nursery and he helped me unload it and put it in the ground. Everyone comments on it as they walk pass the house.

___________

Holy Cross sent me a test result yesterday about the pathology of my lymph nodes. Dr. Burgers sampled three lymph nodes in my arm pit. All three were negative for cancer. I’ll find out more about the test on Thursday when I meet with her about the surgery and when she checks on the drain. I admit that my lymph nodes under the left arm are very sore and tender. I also seem to have some swelling above what was the left breast.

I’m not sure when I became familiar with lymph nodes. I suspect it was as a kid being examined by Dr. Clark, our family physician in Morton. He would often feel up around my throat, under my ears and down my neck and under my arm pits and ask if I were sore. If I replied yes, he would tell me my lymph nodes were infected.

Over the years, I learned to check them myself when I was not feeling well and the nodes most sensitive were the ones in the arm pit region.

You’ve probably heard that humans have a closed circulatory system: the heart pumps blood away from the body via arteries which lead to arterioles which lead to capillaries which lead to venues which lead to veins which lead back to the heart. That’s pretty spot on but it doesn’t address the lymphatic system which drains tissues and then feeds the fluids back into the circulatory system. The lymph system is an open system, not closed. So technically, if you are addressing the circulatory and lymphatic system, we don’t have a closed system of circulation.

__________

Fortunately for me, prior to the electrical storm I managed to make Mother’s recipe for fudge.

I watched her make this a million times and there’s something comforting about making it, particularly on a rainy day. The yellow you see is the butter that I greased the dish with so you can get the fudge out without it sticking to the pan.

It’s a pretty simple recipe with sugar, chocolate powder, milk, vanilla extract, and I add a little Karo syrup and peanut butter and regular butter. She would remove it from the heat when it reached soft ball stage and let it cool a little then whip it until it began to set up. I’ve tasted better and creamier fudges but this is my preferred texture and taste and probably just because of nostalgia of cooking it with my Mother.

OK, I admit. I’m tired of floods, tired of cancer and tired of lightning strikes. I’d like my excitement in the form of trips to exotic locations in the U.S. I need to get back into the woods and recalibrate. Sadly, I’ll be more than a little constrained for the next 15 weeks with recovery from surgery and the beginning of chemotherapy.

Stay tuned!

17 July 2023

This is a second hand telling on an event that happened on Saturday. Keith called me to check on me and I could tell he was emotional. He proceeded to tell me of a shocking event.

A group of dog walkers, including long time friends Keith and Joel often meet at a small park along Victoria Park Road. It’s called Annie Beck Park that runs along Karen Canal, part of the extensive set of canals that gives Fort Lauderdale its moniker of Venice of America.

All along Victoria Park Road and along all the canals are some of the most exclusive areas in Fort Lauderdale. For example, one house just a little north of the park sold this year for $5.75 million dollars.

The dog walkers are an eclectic bunch and it can be as few as three people and as many as 10. Like most friends, they got to know each other through their pets. It’s a pretty tight knit bunch and they often celebrate life events together: birthdays, anniversaries, national holidays, etc.

On Saturday, it must have been a gathering of at least six or seven standing together in the park when either a pit bull or pit bull mix jumped out of the open window of a parked SUV and attacked one of the small dogs of the group. After being stunned, they all jumped in to pull the attacking dog of the small, 14 year dog, to no avail.

Someone noticed that the SUV was occupied. Two went over and tried to rouse the person in the SUV to come get their dog. There was no response and they ended up shouting and banging on the doors of the SUV (both front windows were open) to arouse the individual. He was either asleep or passed out. They finally roused him and he jumped in to pull his dog off the other dog. The owner of the attacking dog finally got him off the little dog. The attacker then went after another small dog in the group. All the while, everyone was trying to keep their own dogs safe.

Finally the owner grabbed his dog, threw him into the SUV and sped away. Fortunately, two of the group had the presence of mind to photograph the tag of the SUV. Two people called 911 and two sets of police arrived. Joel and another of the group took the owner of the first dog attacked to the emergency vet but it was too late. Apparently, the attacking dog had broken the neck of the little dog. The owner was devastated and all of the dog walkers were in shock.

Two police reports were filed. One of the dog walker bunch found the Facebook profile of the individual and it showed the guy with his dog on his Facebook page. He was shirtless and he was easily identified by his heavily tattooed torso and arms.

Concerned that the police were not being aggressive enough, several phone calls worked their way up to the mayor. No one still knows whether the owner of the attacking dog was contacted or arrested.

This is an all too common occurrence. When I had Rocky and we walked in the neighborhood, he was attacked numerous times. That’s actually why I walked with a walking stick – to keep vicious dogs away from Rocky. Now, it’s just to keep me upright.

One friend in my neighborhood was walking her usual route with her two dogs when two dogs ran out from a house and attacked her dogs. She had to have both taken to the vet. The home owner was dog sitting for a friend and didn’t realize the dogs were vicious. Fortunately, he owned up to the deed and paid the vet fees.

Michel, when she lived in my neighborhood, was walking her dog when another jumped a fence and attacked her dog. She had to badger the owner over several days to pay the vet visit.

Fort Lauderdale has a leash low. Very few people obey the law. All the dog walk group at Annie Beck have their dogs on leashes which probably was the only reason many more of the dogs there were not injured.

Hopefully, the owner of the attacking dog will be held to account. I don’t hold anything against the attacking dog. It’s the owner that is responsible for his dog’s actions. I tend to believe there are no bad dogs, just bad dog owners.

Rocky was supposedly a pit bull mix but a gentler dog you would never find. He was never the aggressor in a dog fight. It was always him defending himself against an aggressor.

All of the dog walkers are still in shock and they are contemplating what they can do to protect themselves and their pets. I’m sure several are thinking of now walking with tasers and pepper spray. It’s sad that it has come to this.

_______________________________________________

I’ve previously written about this tree before but I do love it. It’s Sea Hibiscus.

The old genus and species was Hibiscus tiliaceus. What’s fascinating about this is, number one, it’s a tree and, number two, the flowers only open for one day and then change color and fall off the tree.

The petals turn from yellow to red and then fall of the plant intact. Only the ovary and stamens are left attached to the tree.

As a kid growing up, I knew of hibiscus as swamp mallow or rose mallow (H. moscheutos) or rose of Sharon (H. syriacus). Here in Florida, we mostly have the shrub known as Chinese hibiscus (H. rosa-sinensis). All belong to the mallow family of plants (Malvaceae).

Another relative of the hibiscus is the genus Gossypium better known as cotton. Both cotton and hibiscus tend to be tropical and both produce a woody capsule as a dry fruit. It’s cotton, of course, that produces numerous fibers around the seeds that are almost pure cellulose from which we spin the cloth. You can either praise or curse Eli Whitney for discovering a method of separating the seeds from the fibers.

According to Wikipedia, there are four species of the genus Gossypium: G. hirsutum (90% of cotton production) G. barbadense (8%) G. arboreum (<2%) and G. herbarium (<2%). If you were to remove all the seeds and fibers from a cotton boll, the remaining woody capsule would look pretty similar to the woody capsule of the hibiscus plant. By the way, one of my neighbors has G. arboreum. I had never seen cotton grow on a tree before!

In my travels, and in my backyard, I’ve encountered seven genera and 12 species of the mallow family.

Genus/Species	Common Name	Location
Eremalche rotundifolia	Desert 5-spot	Death Valley
Herissanthia crispa	Bladder Mallow	Bahia Honda State Park, Florida
Hibiscus coulteri	Desert Rose Mallow	Saguaro National Park
Malva arborea	Bush Mallow	Lands End, San Francisco
Malva parviflora	Cheeseweed	Santa Rosa Island, Channel Islands National Park
Sida ciliaris	Fringed Fanpetals	Bahia Honda State Park, Florida
Sida rhombifolia	Wireweed	Back Yard
Sphaeralcea angustifolia	Narrow-leaf Globemallow	Carlsbad Caverns National Park
Sphaeralcea coccinea	Scarlet Globemallow	Grand Canyon, south rim; Capitol Reef National Park; Badlands National Park; Zion National Park; Arches national Park; Pipe Springs National Monument; Red Cliffs, Utah
Sphaeralcea grossularifolia	Goosefoot Globemallow	Great Basin National Park
Sphaeralcea incana	Gray Globemallow	Cedar Grove, NM
Urena lobata	Bur Mallow	Myakka River State Park, Florida

So, from my one and only experience at picking cotton to the Rose of Sharon, the mallow family is firmly implanted into my memory banks.

16 July 2023

Fried cockroach for breakfast. More on that later.

I waked at 1:30 am and couldn’t go back to sleep. I think it’s because I slept so much yesterday. Around 2:30 I started to read a little and by 3:30 I was hungry. I mean really hungry. Waffle time!

I made blueberry waffles from scratch. As I was warming up the waffle iron, I started the bacon in a nonstick skillet. I kept noticing a strange aroma and I thought it must be coming from the waffle iron. I thought I had previously “cooked” the foreign smell out of it on a previous occasion. Oh well, on with the process of making waffles and frying bacon.

As you can see, the waffles turned out well. I ad libbed on the recipe by adding an extra tablespoon of sugar and a splash of vanilla extract. The blueberries provided a nice finishing touch.

As I took up the bacon, I drained the grease into a container and as I went to place the skillet on the stove, I noticed something on the eye. I thought a piece of bacon may have broken off. Upon closer examination, it was a flattened, fried cockroach. I can only assume he was on the bottom of the skillet and when I picked it up to place on the eye, I squashed him against the eye and the skillet. That was the peculiar smell. I’d just as soon not smell that again.

So what do you do after cleaning up, turning on the dishwasher and cleaning the bacon skillet and stove within an inches of their lives? I go for a walk at 5:30 am. The temperature was 80°F but the “feels like” temperature was 86°F. Combine that with 87% humidity and it was not a refreshing walk. It’s hard to believe it was so hot and humid and the sun wasn’t even up.

I don’t normally walk that early but it was nice to get out in the neighborhood and see who was up and about on a Sunday morning. I passed one walker and one guy was getting into his car to go somewhere. I also find it interesting as to who has their lights on and are actually up and those who just leave interior lights on during the night. For some reason, like me, most people leave portions of their windows open for viewing in. Anyone passing my house can look into my living room. If you time it right, you can see me running through the living room naked to get to the kitchen hoping no one sees me pass the windows.

For some reason, I’m not terribly sore from the surgery. The only real thing that bugs me is the bandage they placed over the drain which seems to irritate my arm pit. It’s the tape that is used to attach the bandage that bothers me. I’ll probably ask someone to come by today and change the dressing and allow me to get a good look at the area around the drain. I want to make sure it doesn’t get infected.

I must also feel pretty good to get up at 3:30 am and make a huge breakfast. I only walked 1.2 miles this morning but that was because of the humidity and temperature. After posting the blog, I may go back to sleep for a while. The only thing on my “To Do” list is grocery shop sometime today.

Today’s plant is jatropa.

This plant is a native of Cuba so it’s altogether fitting it should be found in south Florida. It’s a member of the euphorb family (Euphorbiaceae) and as such it produces a white latex when you break of a stem or leaf. It caused me great consternation when I first saw it in the neighborhood and actually had to ask my friend Joe what it was. It’s a pretty common shrub/tree in the landscape of south Florida.

Plant Care Today suggests it attracts monarchs, swallowtails and zebra longwing butterflies. I’ve never seen them on the plant but monarchs are attracted to milkweeds which produce a latex-like secretion which makes monarchs taste bad to birds. Some of the leaves are tri-lobed.

Stay tuned!