Rainbow River Canoe Day

This past weekend, Kyle and some friends of ours went canoeing down the Rainbow River.


We rented aluminum canoes at K.P. Hole county park and paddled upstream, towards the head springs (Rainbow Springs, where there's a much bigger state park apparently). We didn't make it all the way to the head springs, mainly because you have to return the canoes by 4 p.m.

Having grown up around the Atlantic Ocean and St. Johns River, I am still amazed and thrilled at how clear the spring-fed waters of Florida are. You could see all the way to the bottom, which in some places was very shallow and covered with aquatic grass (Strap-leaf sagittaria), but in others went so deep that there were divers and snorkelers - this is all limestone and sand, making the water appear a gorgeous turquoise. Throughout the sandy bottom you'd see little boils bubbling - water from the springs pushing up through the limestone.

My only other clear-water river experience has been in the Santa Fe, near Ginnie Springs. Sadly, the first thing I noticed at the Rainbow river was how clean it was. I never saw a can or bottle at the bottom of the river (although we did find one beer can floating in some marshgrass).

This is in stark contrast to the Santa Fe around Ginnie, where we never return from a "float" with less than five or six rusty cans and slimy bottles that Kyle picked up along the way. Because Ginnie Springs is privately owned, they can allow people to bring alcohol, and the majority of these park-goers are young and stupid, getting wasted and tossing their trash wherever they are, including the river.

The county and state parks prohibit alcohol, in fact, K.P. Hole prohibited any food or drink in disposable containers. Seems you've got to make rules just to keep the water clean, and that's heartbreaking.

The Rainbow river was so beautiful, and due to the time of year, it wasn't very busy. It was warm enough for Kyle and his friends Adam and Cori to snorkel (with wetsuit-like tops), but not this Florida girl. I don't get wet until June - at the earliest. I was still wearing a sweatshirt, after all.

Cori, who is the best fisherman I've ever met, caught a nice bass - we released him after the photo.

We saw a ton of birds, including a king fisher, bald eagles, cormorants, cranes and anahingas (snake birds, called so for their long, slinky necks - they're fantastic swimmers and fishermen).

The day was wonderful, and reminded me just how lucky am I to live in such a beautiful state.

Too Hot to Blog

The AC is broken in my office, and it's 82 degrees - in the office.

Me and Emily are dying, while the rest of our coworkers are trying to make the best of it (easy to say when you've got a fan, adorable-coworker-who-shall-remain-nameless!).

I don't mind heat. Hell, I grew up in Florida with no air conditioning. I love the beach. I like working up a good sweat. But sweating at your desk while you're supposed to be thinking - that's not a good sweat. Usually when you're sweating, you're enjoying yourself, be it exercise, outdoor activities, lounging about in a bathing suit, engaging in, you know, a loving moment. Looking up information on shallots as a plant for your fall garden? Not so much.

Add the hassle of evil, sneaky Best Buy credit card minions and a bed that won't be showing up for another month, and you've got misery. Seriously - imagine the hell of trying to find a human to speak with on the phone, and then that person's first language is obviously not English and their whole job description is "Whatever you do, don't let them drop the 'credit protection plan.'" Now add stickiness and heat.

Yeah, it's that kind of day.

Wildlife on the Job

Our building has a nice swath of nature around it. Thanks to our fabulous landscape instructor Erin, we have a beautiful garden right outside the door. We haven't taken photos since it got gorgeous (just installation photos of guys in jeans and camo hats with shovels and dirt). But I did take a photo of a butterfly feeding from our firebush plant.

Most of our flowering plants are popular with butterflies, which means there are days when walking up to the building is a lovely, Disney-like experience.

We have a bit of wildlife, mostly squirrels and birds. My coworkers have been entranced by a huge hawk that frequents the pine trees. I'm not much of a bird person, so I've been blowing them off: "Pfft, you guys are obsessed with that thing."

But yesterday the hawk sat on a pine branch long enough for everyone to start talking about it, for such a time that finally, I figured I should at least be social and go look at the thing. Having a chance to size it up, I have to admit I was impressed. It's HUGE! And it's a beautiful golden brown color.

He (they've decided it's a "he") was obviously stalking something or chilling, because I actually had time to grab my camera and ease outside for a photo. I really had to zoom, so it's fuzzy.

Flower Photo: Morning Glory

There's a mass of azaleas that grow under a big oak tree that's near my building. In the mornings, you can often see one or two morning glories peeking out among the green azaleas (they bloom in early spring).

The Power of a Link

We're going to be working with an agency to design the new site we're working on and while putting together some information for them, I was running our Gardening in a Minute site's numbers (shout-out to Google Analytics!).

There was a HUGE spike in visits on June 7 - more than twice our daily average. That's great, but something that weird, you've gotta dig a little deeper. Looking at the sites through which people found us (did they Google us, click a link on the university site, etc.) I see an equal number of visits coming through www.baynews9.com, a Tampa Bay television station's Web site.

Visiting baynews9.com, I find an article published on, yep, you guessed it - June 7, titled "Gardening: a growing trend as fuel prices rise." And what should they list in their "more information" links but little 'ol Gardening in a Minute.

So a significant number of people who've probably never heard of us before are now aware of our Web site, all because of a simple link. Luckily, the radio show will soon air down in Tampa, so they'll be able to hear us, too.

Big Sugar's moving on out - of the Everglades

U.S. Sugar is selling pretty much all of their land, which is in and around the Florida Everglades, to the state for $1.75 billion. Like a lot of other people, I'm a little confused. I have four questions:

1. Why? People in the Florida sugar industry are saying this spells the end for U.S. Sugar - the nation's largest sugar producer.

2. Where did the money come from? From what I've seen, Florida isn't exactly flush with cash.

3. How does this affect the sugar industry? Or the struggling citrus industry? Turns out U.S. Sugar is also the third-largest citrus producer in Florida. (Do you find that weird? I did.)

4. How will this affect the little South Florida towns that exist only due to U.S. Sugar?

Time will offer more answers - Gov. Crist is just making an announcement on this deal today.

Article in St. Pete Times

I mean, this great - land that's being used for agriculture will be returned to its natural state and that can't be anything but good for the Everglades, right?

I guess that makes five questions.

I'm Coming Clean

This is supposed to be my professional blog. But then I realized - I don't want to write about my job - at least, not the technical aspects of it. Because I'm not a techie.

There, I said it.

I fell into this web thing by accident, and it turned out to be a lot of fun. I like it. I like the technician aspect; I like making things, having something to show in the end. I'd be a terrible manager. I just don't find "technology" being that exciting to write about. Use, yes, but write about? I'll leave that to "Wired."

Maybe I'll write about the other parts of my job, like how I'm learning so much about plants and stuff, due to that being the point of the organization that I work for.

The web site that takes up most of my time is http://gardeninginaminute.com, for the one-minute radio show produced by my department.

But I also have Florida Master Gardener Program, Florida School Gardens Competition, and the Center for Landscape Conservation and Ecology.

As you can see, they all use the same template, and that's the template created by Solutions For Your Life, the public face of the University of Florida Extension Service.

My department works closely with the UF environmental horticulture department. What's "environmental horticulture," you ask? Good question. Stupid phrase. It means all plant stuff, except the stuff you eat. Flowers, landscape plants, turf (that's what the industry calls grass - they don't like the word grass).

But since we our show covers all sorts of gardening, we do the food stuff, too - fruits and veggies.

Like I said, I'm learning quite a bit. My coworkers are experienced in agriculture, botany, sustainability - and they're all writers. With masters degrees. Yeah, I feel a little stupid every now and then. But I try to take in every they're teaching me.

Maybe I'll write about that.