STEWARDS OF THE LAND
Mary and I share a profound love for our land. We have four water wells on our property, our drinking water comes from one of the wells so we have a keen interest in seeing that it is not tainted with fertilizer, pesticide, petroleum or other chemical products.

We also love the wildlife in Florida (the animals not the outrageous beach parties). After eight years in California with practically no animals or birds around our home, coming to Florida has seemed a bit like moving into the middle of a zoo.

Florida is home to giant man eating lizards, both alligators and crocodiles are found in the swamps and marshes. We've never had either on our property but we're always vigilant when working outside.

Behind our home is a pond that is about an acre in size. We had the pond stocked with fish right after we bought the place. We relied on our supplier to get us the correct balance of fish to form a viable aquatic system that pretty much maintains itself. So far it is a huge success, we have some catfish that are over two feet long now, there's also Tilapia, Bluegill, Grass Carp, Guppies and more. Softshell water turtles climb out and warm themselves in the afternoon sun on the western shore of the pond, some of these are over two-feet in diameter. Banded water snakes slither out of the pond to get warm, they swim along the shore in the evening and feed on small fish. A small Tri-Color Heron comes and feeds on small fish every day, his yellow beak and green legs provide unique contrast to his deep lavender colored wings.

At night a whole new cast and crew appear. Raccoons and opossums come foraging, looking for treats in our bird feeders. A large Blue Heron feeds from the edge of the pond, stalking fish in total darkness. We've seen coyotes, wolves and deer come and eat the leftover corn we put out for the daytime ducks.

By far the most interesting and intriguing guests are the wild peacocks, they come and beg for snacks every day. The peafowl spend most of their daytime hours foraging in our shrubbery for small lizards and insects. They were released into the wild over a dozen years ago when hurricanes devestated the zoo's. People who come to our property see these colorful large birds roaming around or sitting on the roof of our home and always ask "who owns those"?

"They own us" is our reply. We love them, they are gentle, very quirky and extremely entertaining to watch. To see them go through their yearly mating cycle is like no other bird, that massive tail of eyeballs all comes out at the end of June and they grow a new one again starting in the Fall so they can hopefully find a mate to seduce in the spring.

PLANTS
Mary is still formulating our long term crop strategy, our mild winters open up lots of exciting options. Bamboo is a favorite of ours, we have a stand of Emerald bamboo that is over 40 feet tall. Currently we're experimenting with propagating several varieties of bamboo, we both like the varieties with green canes that blend in with the other indigenous greenery.

We have two artesian wells on our property, I had no idea what an artesian well is until we moved here. Ours are both very deep wells, they go down over 150 feet and permeate a rock layer that pressurizes the water beneath it, this natural pressure forces the water to flow up and out of the well without a pump, you just open the tap and out comes water you can drink or water plants with. One of the artesian wells feeds our second, smaller pond which is in our agricultural area. The other artesian well is near our house and feeds the main larger pond.

Bananas are Mary's other big crop plan, she has several varieties she bought online from other Florida nurseries. We've been nurturing them inside the screened-in cage over our swimming pool, this cuts down dramatically on insect damage to us and the plants during the extreme temperatures and bug population of July and August. She has begun moving strategic plants out to the agricultural area where they are watered by underwater lines fed from the artesian well. Bananas really like warmth, sun and water.

WATER QUALITY
The artesian well located in our agricultural area produces amazing water for plants. I used a spectrometer to check for salt content, another little meter for reading the total dissolved solids and a third meter to test the PH of the water. We are lucky because not all well water is low in salt, this is a critical thing because most plants don't like salt. We tested and verified this on a single bamboo plant before we watered all the bamboo plants. We also verified that banana plants don't like salt in their water. Fortunately our water is low in dissolved solids, very low in salt and the PH is 6.6 which is perfect for plants. We have sent samples of our drinking water to an independent lab for safety testing, no lead or petroleum content was our test result, that's a very good thing.

OUR FARM
My father grew up on a farm in Kansas, all my life he had plant experiments going on all around our home. He had plants in the basement growing under grow lights. There were glass jars of water with roots of something growing in practically every window of our house, he had several cactus which lived for over 30 years, all sorts of strange plant experiments indoors and outdoors. Some of it must have rubbed off on me along the way because I'm having a great time playing with Mary and plants.

Mary was probably a plant in a previous life, she might be partially plant now, her love for them is boundless and she enjoys nurturing them, looking at them and at times torturing them, all in the name of science. This has resulted in us having quite a few interesting and unique things growing around the place. We are both fans of tropical plants especially the varieties with massive jurassic-park style leaves.

We're still testing and evaluating various crops to grow, we've got stacks of Mother Earth News magazines here for inspiration and ideas. While we love animals neither of us is drawn to raising them, we could never eat them either, we personify everything so it would be like eating a relative. Bamboo, bananas and critters are keeping us very busy right now.