Farther South

Over the weekend, we drove to Islamorada, in the middle Florida Keys, to visit a couple we've known for nearly 60 years. As usual when driving over to Miami from the Ft. Myers area and then south toward Key West, we noticed how much more tropical it is there than here.

Partly, I guess, that's because of the Gulf Stream, the warm waters of which hug the south coast of Florida. And partly, it's because Islamorada is about 150 miles south of an imaginary line drawn between Ft. Myers and Palm Beach on the east coast of the peninsula.

house near our friends' rental

Of particular note was the frangipani, which is still bare where I live, and is beginning to put out a few blooms on Islamorada. And the coconut palms, which on my island turn brown after a prolonged cold snap, are green and lush farther south, despite brushes with hurricanes and tropical storms.

The bougainvillea, which grow in both places, seem to flourish especially well farther south. (They have wicked thorns, no matter where they're planted.)

Bougainvillea

Islamorada beach

Because it was windy, we old folks chose to eat dinner indoors overlooking the beach at sunset one evening and watched one couple's barefoot wedding. In a few minutes, after that tableaux had cleared away, another young man knelt on one knee and held up to a young woman a small box, whereupon he jumped up and they enthusiastically kissed. I believe she said "Yes!"

Between You and I

The old English teacher in me is on a tear. Excuse me, but I can't sit quietly by on this beautiful Florida afternoon and let another day go by without complaining about some rampant grammar no-no's.

I don't know about you, but I curdle inside when I hear somebody say "between you and I" or "him and I." These gaffes are coming from people who should know better - such as news anchors on television and newspaper reporters. My mother, who taught Latin, would be appalled.

Are grammar rules not taught in school any more? Are children no longer learning that only the objective case of pronouns, such as "him," "them," "us," "her" and "me," can follow prepositions such as "with," "for," "in," "between," "among" and "to"? And only the objective case of a pronoun can be the object of a verb, as in "I drove him to the mall."

Subjective case pronouns such as "I," "he" and "she" can only be subjects of sentences, as in "He and I went to the mall," but I often hear "Him and I went to the mall."  Ouch.

The big trouble comes when the subject of the sentence or the object is compound - as in "He and I" or "him and me." You wouldn't say, as I used to tell my college remedial English students, "Him went to the mall" or "Sally went to the mall with I."

There, I've said it. Time to calm down now.

Do you come across grammar goofs that bug you? Please drop me a comment or an e-mail.

A Continuum

tabebuia or golden poui tree

The seasons don't arrive in a clear-cut manner in southwest Florida. Rather, there are trees and plants blooming at all different times of the year, oozing through the seasons, one might say.

Mango trees bloom here in January and February, and now, at the beginning of March, sport fruits the size of a thumbnail. They will grow bigger and bigger and  ripen in June and July, depending on the variety. "MangoMania," a festival surrounding the fruit, is scheduled in our area in July.

Citrus trees bloom in February or March, and the fruits are ripe in November or December.

This week, it is the golden poui, also known as the tabebuia or trumpet tree, which has taken center stage. Tabebuia can also be pink, but yellow is the predominant variety around here. My impression is that the leaves fall just before the bright yellow flowers appear. These blooms last only a few days and fall from a tree all at one time, leaving a golden carpet underneath.

When friends up north ask if we miss the change of seasons living in a sub-tropical environment, we say, "no" because we have our seasons, depending on which plants are blooming at any given time. We can tell that it is April, for example, when the frangipani trees, which have been completely bare all winter, suddenly put out green leaves and yellow or pink flowers. In fact, some friends who live in Connecticut for half the year, say they time their trip northward by the eruption of frangipani flowers.

Just as trees up north are losing their leaves, in September and October, the silk floss tree  explodes with big pink flowers. This is neither here nor there, but interesting: its trunk is covered with nasty thorns.

Grandma's Cookies

My Grandma Fannie Mae Capel

Some friends of ours, both very good cooks, have been surprising each other with dishes made from their mothers' recipes. I recently went through my card file and found a recipe  from my grandmother, interesting to me because of the strange way the ingredients are listed. When she made them, these cookies always tasted the same, regardless of the imprecision. Probably, the trick was to use the same cup every time.

I love them. I hope you will, too.

                                 Chocolate Macaroons

Piece of butter the size of 2 eggs

2 T cocoa

2 coffee cups full of sugar

4 eggs

2 tsp. vanilla

3 cups flour

2 tsp. baking powder

Melt butter. Stir in the cocoa. Remove from the stove and stir in the remaining ingredients. Roll small balls in powdered sugar. Place them on buttered cookie sheets and bake 12 minutes at 325 degrees.

While the cookies are still warm, place them in an air-tight container; otherwise, they will get hard.

Do you have some of these recipes from your parents and grandparents? Please e-mail them to me at carolelrod1@gmail.com, and I'll print them in my blog.

Paradise East

My husband and I have been living the tropical lifestyle for more than 20 years now. It is strange how life has its twists and turns, and you end up where you never dreamed you would. In our case, forsaking the snow and sleet of the Midwest came about because my husband, Ed, was asked by a friend to go to Montserrat, a Caribbean island, and help rebuild houses after Hurricane Hugo in 1989.

Invited to return for a proper vacation the next year by the woman who had provided him housing during the hurricane trip, he - and I - spent a week with her. We did the same the following year - and began looking for a small house to buy for month-long getaways in the winter. I was still working as a newspaper reporter, but he could conduct his insurance business by phone and fax while we were "on island."

It wasn't only the weather that made up our minds to buy. The laid-back lifestyle appealed to us, and the people were so warm and friendly. In fact, a couple of people he met on his first trip, on seeing us the following year, said, "Welcome Home!" That was powerful.

Paradise East

The plan was to spend several months a year on Montserrat when we retired. That came about sooner than I thought possible when I discovered I was old enough and had been employed long enough to remain on my employer's health insurance as a retiree, and my husband could remain as my dependent. Neither of us was quite old enough for Social Security, but he would continue working.

And thus began our four winters on Montserrat.

The concrete block house had two bedrooms, one bath and a living/dining/kitchen combination. Plus, a big plus, it had a swimming pool. Because the house was located on the east side of the island, we named it "Paradise East."

Snakes Alive

An update on the great python hunt in the Everglades: As of this week, only 50 Burmese pythons have been killed by the 1,547 people who signed up to take part in the month-long hunt, which is sponsored by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation department. It ends Sunday, February 10.

How many pythons are out there in the swamps is anybody's guess. Estimates are from several hundred to several hundred thousand. What is known for sure is that the snakes are well camouflaged and growing bigger every day on a diet of just about everything that moves. The big ones - ranging to 15 feet and even larger - have no natural predators, so man is about the only way for the pythons, an invasive and non-native species, to be kept under control.

Several hundred people who signed up to participate in the state-sponsored hunt are professionals, but most have come out for a lark - from as far away as Canada. There's some prize money involved, including $1,000 for the biggest snake caught in both the amateur and professional categories.   

Some female pythons have been found with 50 eggs inside. So what are the chances, really, of decreasing the overall number of these creepy crawlies?

Rapt About Raptors

I've written once before on this blog about bald eagles, but today I'm focusing on another raptor that is more common in my neighborhood: the osprey, otherwise known as the fish hawk. Brown, with white crowns and chests, these big birds are incubating eggs now, having returned to nests they left last spring.

Nests are commonly built in the notches and crooks of dead trees or on platforms built especially for the ospreys atop tall poles. It's not unusual to see the adults flying down to the ground to pick up dead grass or vines and carrying them up to the nest. These will make a soft lining for the eggs. The outside structure of the nest is made of large sticks, which the ospreys carry in their talons. (They drop quite a few as they try to fly.)

Ospreys, which can have a six-foot wingspan, seem to use the same nest from year to year and just "redecorate" when it's time to start a new family.

I've heard the big birds can live to be 15 years old. Osprey mate for life - with maybe a little hanky-panky on the side - but generally they are loyal companions.

Mostly, ospreys eat fish. On the island where I live, meals are close by and easy to catch, so there are many ospreys. One of the adults of a pair, primarily the male, is the fisherman, providing dinner for his wife while she sits on the eggs. All the while he is out fishing, she hectors him with a loud, repetitive "cheereek."

Although a pelican plunges head-first into the water to catch his dinner, the osprey enters the water feet first, catching prey in his talons. He may be flying high in the air when he spots the fish he and his wife will eat for dinner. As he flies back to the nest, he orients the fish so it's carried headfirst for better aerodynamics. One of our friends observed that the male will then fly past the nest carrying the fish to see if his mate approves. After this display, he flies to another tree or pole where he filets his catch. There usually is a lot of squawking back and forth while this is going on.

Osprey parents are busy tending the eggs for five weeks and then the young chicks for 10 weeks after that. Partly, their care is supposed to assure that a bald eagle will not feast on their treasured babies.

Fledglings may not start their own families for several years. There is much to learn, including how to build one of the huge nests - which can be as big as an old-fashioned wicker laundry basket. One year, we watched some young osprey trying without success to construct a nest; despite many attempts, the sticks wouldn't stay put in the tree-top they had chosen. The next year, they or another pair about the same age, succeeded, but in a tree 100 feet away.