Digging Holes In Rock

The Florida Keys are unlike the mainland of Florida because they are made of limestone rock, not sand, like the rest of the peninsula. Geologically the islands more closely resemble the Bahamas and in neither place does agriculture flourish. In the Bahamas they grow some local products the way they used to in the Keys, using holes in the rock filled with humus that turned to soil and caught rain water. In the Keys digging holes is best left to machinery.

I called in Octopuses Garden of Big Pine and they showed up when they said they would and dug with a will while the three of them were there with their bobcat equipped with the vicious looking augur. I have yet to receive the bill but I expect it will be somewhere around $600 and that would be a bargain for a little more than an hour's work with that hydraulic loveliness.

I have heard that my neighbor to the south covets the lot that separates our homes. He lives Up North where he owns a lucrative restaurant and where his small children go to school. Nonetheless he wants the lot between our homes for a swimming pool which makes as much sense to me as wanting a space shuttle launch pad. But in ay event a little used pool would be a perfect neighbor as far as I'm concerned. So while the lot is empty I figured it would be a good time to get the holes dug.

We have lots of room around our little house on a regular sized lot simply because the house is so small. Most people build out with large homes and no offsets but I liked this place seven years ago exactly because of the mature coconuts, the leafy sea grapes and the privacy. The potted plants just accumulated without a proper plan.

It was a delight to watch Tod, Dan and Pablo dig holes, plop the trees in and fill in the dirt. It was luxurious, though I was not completely idle, as I had to cut back some branches and clear some palms and pack them up for the yard waste truck on Friday.

Augur up, then scoop out the dirt, put the tree in and push the dirt back in. I took pictures.

It was great paying by the hole, because every time I suggested a new location Tod was enthusiastic. He was also trying out a new hydraulic power take off for the augur and it went with a will into the rock. Great stuff.

It is a good time of year to get the work done as the snowbirds aren't here yet so we had no audience for our work and the the bobcat did the job with no passing traffic interruptions.

It was an hour well spent. My trees are planted and secure in the ground, not subject to tipping over when the wind blows, as it has been blowing lately. The fruits of my labor are in the cans and awaiting Friday's yard waste truck.

The pots are gone, the trees are planted in a long line, the mango, the avocados, the Key Lime, the pomegranate, the hibiscus, the fig tree and the blueberry, the bananas, and my favorite tree the jackfruit grown by me from a seed and now it's four feet tall and in the ground.

And there's room behind the new "hedge" if not for a tennis court at least for a picnic table if so desired.

Tod, the owner and the landscape enthusiast of the highest order. I want to hire him again to do something, anything.

Dan, from Pittsburgh, in awe of the camera shy Pablo from Guatemala who works like no one Dan has ever known.

And Cheyenne who slept through the whole business.

My hedge will be brilliant and already it's making huge changes in how I feel out in my own octopus's garden. Cleaner, tidier and still offering privacy with room for many branches to grow. This cyclist was out of sight:

Now I've got to figure out what to do with my iguana garden on the deck.

Bloody lizards are wrecking everything. A radical rethink is in order there too. The hole digging was a great afternoon's work and I'm glad that got done. My kind of gardening. I wonder if we can dig holes for them too?

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Mallory Deserted

Mallory Square, the waterfront destination in Key West for the sunset celebration street fair is usually seen as a place filled with people and turmoil. I was there the other day and snapped a few pictures just because... Perhaps because it wasn't packed with people and it was for a change a quiet spot, good for contemplation.

Stephen Mallory, whose bust is among those in the Pez Garden nearby, a shady square filled with bronze heads of important Key West people properly known as the Sculpture Garden, is best remembered as the Confederate Secretary of the Navy. That this square is named after him seems impenetrable when you consider Key West accidentally remained part of the Union throughout the unpleasantness between the States in the 19th century. At the start of hostilities the captain of the small detachment of artillery in town marched to Fort Zachary in the dead of night and would not be moved from the fort, declaring for the Union and taking the sometimes unwilling town with him.

 

When I first saw Mallory Square it was rather more tired and rundown than it is here. But in the truly ancient days past it was a working harbor with warehouses and wooden docks and bustling commerce. These days the most it gets is a smaller cruise ship tied up, which if it stays into the evening garners the ire of the vendors who crowd the square and buy permits by lottery to be there and make money.

The sign above welcomes people to turn their backs on Mallory Square, just past the Maine Monument, a Navy installation which remembers the sinking of the USS Maine in Havana in 1898. These wrought iron gates open up to the world of Mallory Square commerce, dust catchers sold by the ton.

Everyone is scratching around to see what they can find at Mallory Square.

Me? I sometimes remember that during the day this famous spot can be just the place to take a quiet reflective break. More than commerce there is history in Key West and that's what interests me. Hold the dust catchers, I'm going to daydream.

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Conch Fritters

They look like hush puppies, balls of corn meal scattered through with bits of green pepper and conch meat. Conch (pro: konk) is a mollusk and the meat is rubbery and white and flat when removed from the shell and pounded to give it some tenderness. Some people eat it raw, "cooked" in lime juice and they call it conch salad but I prefer conch fritters where the corn at least gives some flavor. Steaks are best because the conch is dipped in delicious batter mixture and deep fried. Well, anything tastes good when fried. Personally I'd rather let the conchs alone and leave them to wander the sea floor very slowly and deliberately minding their own business in their shells. If not you can buy Honduran conch in Key West, Honduran because local conch have been fished almost to extinction. Now we do the same to the Central American variety in the name of tradition involving some weird meat that tastes like a bicycle inner tube. Go figure.

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People On Duval Street

Some random shots taken as I strolled Duval Street. The Five Guys Burger and Fries downtown is doing well at Duval and Truman and now they are opening a second spot at Overseas Market where the old Key West Diner all-you-can-eat place used to be. They still see the need to advertise.

Flying by bicycle, the best way to see Old Town. Unless you like to walk. Or ride a scooter.

This guy, doing a valuable job in the heat of October, looked incongruous waiting at the light with his cart, negotiating the intersection as though he should have been making "Vroom! Vroom!" noises as he pushed.

Trader Joe's grocery chain is reaching critical mass I think. My wife loves the fact that they are as close as Naples, and expected to move into southeast Florida before too long. A chain one can like, I suppose. We lived and died by Trader Joe's in Capitola when we lived in California and you will still see all sorts of products from the chain around our home. Trips out of state have always netted a quick visit to Trader Joe's in Atlanta or Chapel Hill or Chicago... I had a friend suggest Trader Joe's should move into the old Waterfront Market!

Burly mountain man riding Flatistan looking around for..? Curves on women...men...or roads? Who knows.

The relief of shade. Even now in mid October temperatures are in the mid 80's and there is only a hint of a chill breeze after dark.

The body as canvas, if you like that sort of thing.

The body as cushion:

See those naked backs? I told you it was hot, even inside the Bull.

Hot enough to be wearing only shorts and no one bats an eye on this street. Pretty soon shorts will seem excessive for some fantastically minded exhibitionists.

Children and Fantasy Fest don't really mix but I bet I will get some pictures later this week of weird nudity and children all on the same street. Some parents haven't a clue.

I saw the black dude who dresses like a pirate in a leather tricorne like this one. He was cycling home on Stock Island so I'm thinking this is another pirate fantasist. Pirates never roamed Key West in history but they are all over the island these days.

This is one way to earn a living:

That pink bag would be a perfect match for my Crocs. I wanted to steal it but...middle class morality prevailed.

June Keith on her blog www.junekeith.com had a devastating critique of Hemingway the Man, which made for interesting reading and I couldn't get it out of my sad as I watched them crowd "his" bar which I don't think would've quite to his taste as it stands.

But that's what it's all about, the fantasy, the image, the escape. And here it all is, the famous street, the heart of Key West's escape, in glorious technicolor.

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A Pirate In Key West

 

I am not a huge fan of pirate nonsense or small children and combining the two you'd think would send me over the edge. He however seemed rather appealing, though how he managed it I am not at all sure. When someone asked Fred why he didn't want children he replied deadpan: "I prefer to have disposable income." an unworthy sentiment of course, and yet...it keeps coming to mind. The other line I really like a lot is when well meaning people interfering in my life suggest I'll like children when I have them. Which leads one to ask onsefl, what if I don't, what do I do then? Take them to the pound? Drop them off at your place? Luckily the issue has never come up, nor shall it at this late stage.

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Sleeper Awake!

I was on Whitehead Street and I saw a couple of tourists occupying my favorite table downtown. This is where I come with a con leche from Jeanna's Deli, more properly known as the Courthouse Deli these days. That's the convenience store across the street from the Green Parrot Bar. The table under the banyan tree in front of the county courthouse is a good place to take a break while downtown. As these tourists figured out.

When I first spotted them he was pointing a video camera straight in her face, from less than a foot and he appeared to be interrogating her, which struck me as rather odd behavior but she didn't seem to mind. Maybe she's given commentaries on home movies from all the world, and perhaps her piquant commentary will persuade hordes of her relatives to come to Key West in search of the Fountain of Youth or some other such fanciful thing. Mind you considering their company not ten feet away that sort of encouragement would be quite astonishing.

For all that he was fully dressed and pointing away from the happy couple I could not really consider him to be the best possible advertisement for Key West's undoubted charms. I suppose I should have taken the opportunity to point out the value of the constitutional protections he enjoys by lying in the grass in a public place on a weekday afternoon, completely unmolested. All I could think was how does Naples (Florida) manage to be so clean and tidy and bum free while Key West can't maintain the same distinction? It all adds to the quirky nature of the Southernmost City, I suppose.

The tourists on Whitehead photographed above were not actually photographing the bum, he whom they affected not to notice. They were charmed by actual Key West quirk:

It really is a pretty spot at 500 Whitehead Street, all grass and trees and shade and chickens in the shadow of the county building.

The sylvan scene marred only slightly by the presence of the determined sleeper in their midst.

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