The Redlands

The next time you walk through a home improvement box store, and visit the garden center, you most likely will see a section of tropical plants.  I know that when I lived in Cleveland, and especially when the long grey winter was about to make me homicidal, I would find relief from my blues in looking at, and occasionally buying, a spider or schefflera plant to add a bit of greenery inside to contrast the white outside.

Now, I live close to where much of this plant stock is grown.  It is an area south of Miami and north of the Florida Keys called the Redlands.  And I could not be happier about it!  Farm land, interspersed with little nurseries, each an incredible adventure waiting to happen.  Harry and I have had such fun landscaping our yard and our business from this area.  We drive down little dirt roads and discover the most amazing places.  Often no one speaks English and we have to practice our really bad Spanish.  I am not sure if I am asking the price of an item or if I can purchase their youngest child.  We hop on their rickety golf cart and away they go to show us their bounty.  One time an owner made Harry sit with him under a homemade canopy and the gentleman produced a gallon of whiskey from under the table to share a drink and stories with H-bomb.  Other properties have livestock, goats and chickens running about the plants.  Road side stands or little tables set up along the road sell the most exotic fruits I have ever seen.  And my favorite fruit stand sells perhaps the most fantastic treat ever after a day on the water in nearby Everglades National Park - a fresh coconut milkshake.  I thank my grand kids for introducing me to that selection when I would normally pick something as exotic as strawberry-banana. 

And the Orchids.  Holy cow.  I landed right in Orchid heaven.  A little hobby I started up north with a few plants I struggled to keep going under lights in the winter has taken hold of me and made me a crazy woman.  I fuss, baby, fertilize, apply fungicides, lament, and nurture maybe a hundred plants.  I cannot get enough.  People sell them from cars on the side of the road up "there" in the Redlands.  There are nurseries, orchid shows and festivals.  I volunteer at one that draws people from all over the world.  Who knew that there was such mania about a plant species? 

After golf this week "up in Miami" I took the rural way home and passed a cart loaded with Heliconia Rostratas (lobster claw).  I saw these growing wild in the Amazon rain forest and have wanted one for my own ever since.  Woohoo - $9 for a five foot tall plant - and I could not wait to get home from work the next day to dig a hole in our yard of coral rock and get this into the garden. 

Learn Something New Every Day

This fruit is called Canistel.  I visited 'Robert is Here', which is a fruit stand/animal park/tourist attraction on the way to and from Everglades National Park and a short ride from the golf course I played.  Robert has the most interesting array of exotic fruits and also the best fruit milkshakes EVER!  My favorite is coconut - a selection I would never normally make but my grand kids discovered it's simple perfection on their last visit.  The fresh grated shavings stick in your teeth and you get to keep enjoying even when the shake is slurped up.

After a particularly painful round of golf,  my friends took me for a shake on the way home to console me.  Not only did I have TWO two stroke penalties (hitting wrong ball, and hitting the flagstick lying on green with my putt), and did not win one hole in the skins game, my golf ball fell out of my pocket into the toilet and I had to fish it out.  My friend Sandra quickly quipped "well, at least you got it in the hole."

The highlighted milkshakes at the stand all had Canistel in them and so I bought one to try.  You eat it when it is absolutely soft to the point of rotten, and when you cut it open, it has the faint aroma of pumpkin.  Not particularly appetizing.  But the fruit has the consistency and taste of egg custard and apparently is phenomenal in shakes, custards and sorbets.  Not exactly something I would eat by itself - a few tastes were enough - but fun to discover a new fruit.  Apparently the strawberry/canistel shake is "to die for". 

There's No Place Like Home

How is it suddenly post holidays and the New Year?  Wow, the Fall flew by.  I measure time in several ways, such as: between dentist check-ups, football season, when it is time for the Masters, and how Christmas comes before I am ready for it.  Well, the Browns totally disappointed once again, but that is my normal so I just learned to enjoy my Sundays in the leather Lazy-Boy watching them fail.  And Christmas was very close behind a late Thanksgiving, however, I still managed to get the gifts bought, wrapped and sent and even made Mom's kolachi.  I did get a by from my sister on cookie baking but sadly, that means no frozen sour cream cookies in my freezer.  It is just not the same without a frozen Christmas tree to enjoy in February.  Decorations were at a minimum, but that is OK, because I headed to O-H-I-O for Christmas with family.  Which also means, since I have moved, that I have little to do but enjoy the fruits of others' labors.  I fear I am going to owe my sister and niece a lot of payback for all of their fantastic entertaining.

The view from the plane window upon approach to Hopkin's airport was foreboding, because the weather remained the usual Cleveland winter grey for the entire visit. But, if we didn't have the horrible winter weather to complain about, what, besides our faltering sports teams, would bond Clevelanders together so tightly?  Upon arriving at the airport, my first thought was, these people, even all bundled and pale in contrast to what I left, are my people! We are tied to a common denominator - we love our city and, perhaps, we love to complain about it!  Not that I would want to move back, at least from November through April, but visiting is still coming home.  Old friends, family and neighborhoods, I am attached to them forever.