dirty bike from rain spray (the floor could use a cleaning too!)

Somehow I managed to ride 100 miles today! First time I rode that far since the Horrible Hundred back in November ’93 (I think that was the year). I’ve been contemplating a 100 mile ride for a couple weeks, as I have been up to 68 miles on 95 degree days without feeling too bad. Today it was quite nice, mostly cloudy (and some rain) with mid 80s for highs! But I was not thinking I would ride so far since I rode 3 hours off-road at San Felasco yesterday afternoon & only slept a little over 5 hours last night. My ride started with the discovery of a gas tank in the middle of the paved Gainesville-Hawthorne trail. It was right by a sink & had a trail of gasoline flowing across the pavement towards a sink in Paynes Prairie State Park (connected to the aquifer!). I quickly surmised it had fallen off the back of a maintenance vehicle & called Bubba (Rick) who works as a Parks Biologist with his office a quarter mile from this sink. He got right on it! A little further down the trail I ran into the Park maintenance people and told them what I saw. It appears it had slid out of the bed of the guy who blows the trail clear of leaves. The spill could have been prevented if he only took the time to close his tailgate! One of my pet peeves has been the litter that come falling out of the back of pickups, by fools that treat it as a trash can only to have it blow out in the wind when driving (I see this all the time & I imagine you have too). Seeing this disregard for the environment by Florida DEP (stands for Don’t Expect Protection) staff reminded me of the time I got a ticket by FDEP cops for running the stop sign on this trail. That really burned me up. These guys are totally useless at enforcing rules to protect the environment, but yet they give me a $134 ticket for blowing a stop sign, when I clearly looked both ways. Coincidentally I ran into a FDEP cop at a stop sign at mile 32 today and came to a complete stop!

So enough venting at authority. I continued my ride. Hit Hawthorne at mile 18, back to road into park at mile 32 (saw cop). The gas tank was removed (I later found Bubba removed it). I got back to Hawthorne at mile 46 & arrived back  home at mile 64. I did see the guy who spilled the gas spreading sand over it on the way back. So it was looking like rain, but I still had energy (it was actually forecast to rain earlier). I took a little break at home, grabbed some lunch, recharged my ipod shuffle & waited out a storm. The reason I did 64 miles was because I wanted to see how that would go, knowing one more trip to Hawthorne would give me an even 100 miles. I thought I should wait, but the weather did seem to be clearing & it was quite nice weather temperature wise. So I decided to go for it! I was riding surprisingly strong & noticed I felt stronger on the last two thirds of the ride than the first third. Around mile 80 the rain caught up to me. Not too hard, but did make me take off the ipod shuffle I clip to my helmet (music keeps me gong!). I got to Hawthorne the 3rd time at mile 82 & rode the 18 miles back in a bit of a drizzle. The whole ride took a little over 6 hours riding time and I maintained a 16.3 mile per hour average

yesterday's mushroom find (Chanterelles)

speed. I’d like to be faster, but that is OK, especially considering it includes the hills 6 times & 4 times through the 2 mile city stretch with some hills & many stop signs.

So after showering off & giving my sweet doggies some love. I treated myself to dinner made from the mushrooms I collected while biking yesterday. Not the biggest score ever, but adequate for dinner! Usually I go the olive oil & garlic route, but decided to go more Asian tonight. I first sauteed some  sweet Vidalia onions in some sesame oil. I next added some

DINNER!

broccoli, a little organic soy sauce & some rice vinegar. Finally I added the Chanterelles & a splash of Agave Nectar! I know I was hungry, but this had to be one of the best mushroom concoctions ever!

So now Bubba has invited me to join him for another 3 hour ride at San Felasco early tomorrow morning?

As I write this I am supposedly taking the online Florida Driver Improvement course (in another window). What a waste of time and money ($20), you have to be logged in for 4 hours, but you can just skip to the quiz at the end of each section and guess at answers. If you get one wrong, it just lets you guess again. However, so far I was able to guess all correctly without even reading the text. I do have to wait until 25 minutes expires though before I can submit that I completed this particular section (just checked, still 18 minutes to go!).

So why am I taking this class? Because I was caught in a set-up by GPD that was supposedly to reduce pedestrian and bicycle accidents. Obviously I do care about this, as I ride my bike or walk as often as I can. I even read the article in the paper about this ticketing operation the morning of my ticket. So what happened? I was driving out to go kayaking on Lake Alto on a Monday morning. I had to go by CVS to pick up my meds (I have asthma) & ended out taking 16th ave to Waldo road, a route which I seldom take. Immediately upon turning on this road, I see cones out, cops around & I’m in a school zone (pretty distracting huh?). However, it is past normal school start time (it was 11am). But I came in off a side street so I am not sure if I somehow missed a blinking light. The driver in front of me seems to be going slower, so I just follow him as we pass by cones, Northeast Park, people on the sidewalk, a guy beside the road & more cops.

Suddenly a cop steps out & signals the guy in front of me to pull over. I think, glad it was him & not me. But no, I get pulled over too. I think we must have both been somehow speeding? I prepare to explain how I came off a side street and missed the school zone sign when he tells me I failed to yield for a pedestrian. I have no clue what he is talking about, though I did quickly remember the article in the paper. That article said they were ticketing everyone, no exceptions, so I did not bother to argue with him. Instead I decided to show him empathy that he had to be wasting his time harassing otherwise law abiding citizens. So I ask more about their set-up & he shows me how they operate it. He shows me a plain clothes policeman who is at a cross walk (the only sign is a 6 inch tall little yield sign). He steps about 18 inches into the road (actually this only gets his foot at the outside edge of the bike lane) and waits. He just stands there he gives no real indication that he is wanting to cross. In my case, I think he was standing there when I was at least 200 feet away. So this time they are catching drivers going the other way & they pull over 5 in a row! I mean this makes puts the Waldo speed trap to shame. They have so many tickets, to give, the stooge spends most of his time waiting for the cops to be ready for more suckers! [OK, just washed a couple dishes & took the quiz for the next section of the class. that took a minute, so I got 39 minutes to wait until I can submit that I finished this module].

So after accepting my ticket, I headed on to go paddle. Of course I was upset, but I also should know a lot about dealing with such emotions. My initial thought was to fight the ticket. But I quickly decided that at this point I should try to let it go, as I know better than to fight the law. Sure there are some things worth fighting for, but this was not one. Besides, if I spent time focusing on getting out of the ticket & failed, they would win again. So I decide to enjoy my day & I did. I paddled around Lake Alto a little, then headed down the canal to Little Lake Santa Fe. There was a raccoon that was swimming and retreated up into a fort that was made by the roots of a big tree. Pretty cool little swim in home he had, would have thought he was a beaver! I got to see the regrowth of the Santa Fe Swamp on the north side of the lake. Then stopped by Fritzi’s house for lunch. I only saw one person filling in wetlands & I did not get that good a view (pretty good for that lake). Had nice conversation, then headed back in some pretty strong winds & waves, but luckily my kayak is self bailing. The lake was still pretty cool as this was April 19th.

So I do get back home & decide to write to my city commissioners about this. The more I think about this, the more I realize how backwards this approach is. The newspaper article said only 20% of people were following the law. So why turn 80% of the population into law breakers? Shouldn’t that say something about the laws. Then I thought about the people I work with (I’m a social worker for those who didn’t know) who can’t afford their existing bills, much less a ticket. The newspaper article said the problems were near the University, but this set-up was on the lower income east side of town not any where near where pedestrian accidents are occurring. Of course to enforce there would cause major traffic jams, so why not pick a quieter road, where it is easy to pull people off to the side. Besides, if they did this on University Ave or 13th Street, they would likely cause a pedestrian to be hurt. Also, the city is in quite a budget crunch and this is easy money ($154 ticket, without the extra $10 charge to pay online).

So I’m still in class, I had a 50 minute session, so I took the dogs for a walk. I must say the online option is much better than the class! So back to the title ‘FUCK YOU GPD’. I mean they are so racists that recently several off-duty officers were caught egging prostitutes in a historically black neighborhood while drinking and driving. All they got was a reprimand! The University of Florida pig who was with them and only reprimanded has continued his racist bias, by most recently shooting a defenseless African Graduate student in the face at point blank range. Blew his jaw off! The man was unarmed, surrounded by 5 officers and had polio. When I first moved into town, GPD was successfully fighting off a citizen’s review board. The idea may finally be happening, but it will be worthless as they are proposed to have no actual power. GPD is notorious for violating first amendment rights and victimizing rape victims. I know that police departments across this nation are just as bad and some worse (so Fuck You too!!!). At least the Alachua Sheriff’s department treats citizen’s with respect. Perhaps that is because the Sheriff is an elected position? Also, the GPD officer who ticketed me was respectful, though I gave him no reason to be otherwise.

So I just took my final exam in Driver Improvement School! It was a little different in that the questions seemed slightly harder, 40 questions & you did not get to keep guessing at each question, you had to answer all questions and submit at once. You did get to keep taking it until you pass. I had to get 80% and actually got 92% on first try! Guess I could have done better if I actually read the material!

Here is an article in the local paper about this ticketing scam: Drivers call crosswalk sting sneaky and ‘a total setup’ (I guess I should have written the paper instead of the commission)

So if you made it this far I will give you the treat of seeing the emails I exchanged with our city commission after my ticket. If anyone can understand Mayor Hanrahan’s Coal Mine Analogy, please explain it to me!

My first email to the city commission:

Subject: Stop Punishing Law Abiding Citizens!

Dear City Commissioners,

I had the joy of being caught up in your enforcement of laws requiring motorists to yield to pedestrians waiting to cross NE 16th Avenue Monday. I had read the article that morning, drove down the road (not a usual route for me), where police were around, school zone was present (though it was 11am) and traffic cones were in the road. I saw everybody going slow and was trying to figure out what the fuss was about. However, In this confusion, I failed to stop for a man who had one toe in the bike lane at the pedestrian crossing. I was actually following another car that also did not stop for him. So yes, I made a mistake and I  am one of the 80% who don’t always stop for pedestrians waiting to cross a road. So I get to pay the city $154, lose my safe driver status and have my car insurance go up.

I care very much about pedestrians and ride my bike or walk whenever I can. I also had a friend killed by a motorist on 441. I get very frustrated by the lack of courtesy from drivers and always yield until I make eye contact (even when I have the right of way). This is an important issue, but you get no respect from me for enforcing rules this way. The officer who wrote me the citation was trying to do his job, but he knew that it was a unfair setup. I could tell he felt bad about having to ruin people’s day for something that 80% fail to do. He showed me how they were doing it and yes, 4 out of 5 did fail to yield, despite clearly seeing cops around. So many people broke the rules, they could not pull everyone over.

Yes, I broke the rule and I will likely pay the ticket without fighting it in court, I can afford it. However, I am a social worker and I can’t help but think about my clients and other good citizens of this community who are barely making ends meet. Many of them use this road & they can’t afford the cost of this ticket. To them, this could be the straw that breaks their back.

Clearly you have found the gold mine of easy ticket money, that will have the Waldo Police jealous. However, when you are wondering why incumbents struggle in re-elections, think of the cruelty of ticketing otherwise law abiding citizens for rules that 80% violate. I know budget times are tight, but what about all the tax  breaks you gave to developers? What about the morale of your police officers that have to be put on such ridiculous assignments? Does the city even understand the facts? The newspaper said that we have the second highest number of pedestrian injuries out of 22 medium size counties. That really means nothing unless you look at actual pedestrian usage of roads and crossings. I would venture to bet that with UF students, we have far more pedestrians than any of those other counties. Common sense says that you look at a rate per pedestrian usage time rather than just number of total number of injuries.

Pedestrian safety is very important, and many things can be done to improve this situation. However, you have chosen the worst solution, that does far more to diminish already poor respect for the City Commission and GPD than it does to improve public safety. If you have plans to get re-elected, I am offering you a golden opportunity to use some common sense and admit that turning 80% of the electorate into traffic violators is no way to educate the public. We have a very high poverty rate in this city and many people, especially on the east side cannot afford one more blow to their economic well being.

I work hard to try to make this a better city and urged many of my friends to come out and vote for the winners in the last city election. Please show us that you really care about this community and stop ticketing 80% of your electorate! Stop regressive policies of burdening the poor people in our community while you give endless tax breaks to the rich developers!

Sincerely,

Tom W___

Mayor Hanrahan’s response:

Dear Mr. W___ – Please accept my apologies that you were caught by this effort, despite your normal commitment to safe driving, walking and biking conditions.

To clarify the intent of the program, however, this effort is intended to reduce injuries and deaths related to distracted driving and failure to yield the right of way.  It was not designed as a revenue enhancement program, and I am doubtful that it will break even, much less lead to great new sources of income.

Our concern is really that our pedestrian injuries are unusually high, yes, in part because we have so much walking and biking in our city, by design and public policy.   You are correct that the metrics might be viewed from another perspective, but our intent is simply to make this a safer place to get around, by any chosen means.    To me, the analogy might be something like: “The deaths due to lung cancer are only higher in West Virginia because so many people smoke and work in the mines here…. If you removed those factors we wouldn’t have a significant problem, so there is no need to focus efforts on smoking cessation and mine safety.”    I hope that analogy explains some of our thinking.

Again, clearly you are an active, responsible and valued member of our community, and I am regretful that you are having to now deal with this.

Sincerely,

Pegeen

My response to Mayor Hanrahan:

Dear Mayor Hanrahan,

Thank you for taking the time to respond to my concerns. However, apparently I did not make my points clear in the first email. I certainly feel pedestrian safety needs to be improved in this city, I only question the means. My main concerns are the following:

1) What is the most effective way to improve pedestrian safety when 80% of the electorate are not following current law?

2) How will these efforts affect our most vulnerable populations?

3) Why enforce at 11:00 am on NE 16th Avenue crossing?

On the first point, I believe that when 80% are not following the current laws, clearly that should indicate that we should look beyond simply stepping up enforcement of existing laws. We need to examine the problem in more detail and think outside the box. Can we really scare people into following these laws? As you like analogies, I think a much more appropriate one would be how we handle yielding at train crossings, especially in areas where drivers are likely to be distracted by many things going on around them. Every single crossing I know of that has any sort of high traffic, heavy pedestrian usage or other potential for distraction has a train sensor and physical guard installed to prevent injury. Even in rural areas, it is hard to find a crossing that does not at least have a blinking light. Would you think that ticketing people who fail to yield to trains would have been a more appropriate means to increase safety? Perhaps they tried that at one time, then decided to accept the reality of human nature. We are not perfect and sometimes we get distracted and make mistakes. Luckily someone was insightful enough to realize these facts and decided to focus on how we can best reduce harm.

The second point is about fairness and financial hardship. A $154 fine may not be a unreasonable burden to us, but I work on a daily basis with people who are facing both extreme financial hardship and major medical conditions. These are worthy citizens of our community (I actually believe every human is worthy) and the impact of this fine (and points on their license) is potentially devastating. When they are not at doctors offices, they already spend most of their time trying looking for work and trying to seek assistance with rent, utility bills, medical bills or other needs. Perhaps another analogy would be how we enforce environmental laws on farmers (who are actually causing harm to water quality, rather than just having the potential for harm). Yes, laws are on the books, but at some point we decided that simply enforcing monetary penalties would be an undue financial burden to those farmers that are already struggling to make a living. So what do we do? We formulate Best Management Practices. We provide education about these practices and resources to help them reduce harm.

Finally, why target NE 16th Ave at 11 am, when clearly the problem is at much busier locations and times of day? Was this found to be a particularly dangerous crossing? Perhaps it was just more convenient and politically acceptable to enforce in an area that would not cause major traffic backups? Imagine the complaints from appropriate enforcement where the actual injuries are occurring. That might even be bad for commerce? But if you really believe that strong enforcement of existing laws is the best way to improve pedestrian safety, why not do it at the time and place where injuries are occurring?

I believe we elect our commissioners for their insight, passion and intelligence. I encourage you all to use these talents to look specifically at this important issue and consider means beyond simply ramping up enforcement and awareness of existing laws that clearly do not adequately address the problem.

Thank you again for your consideration and I hope I have now made my points clearer in this email.

Sincerely, Tom W___

I also received responses from Commissioner Donovan & Commissioner Elect Wells:

Dear Mr. W___,
Thank you for your observations and insights.  Very sorry you had this experience.  Our goal is to get drivers to pay attention to this law and reduce the risk to pedestrians.  I continue to feel it is a valid means and end.  But I hope you do not have the experience again.
Yours,
Jack Donovan

Tom,

I was aware that they were issuing widespread warnings, but not that they had started ticketing (GPD described this initiative to the Bike/Ped board a couple of months ago, and received a very positive response from the boardmembers). I know they could do this enforcement on 9th St (where cars never stop for pedestrians) and likely many other places — but thought they would focus on high pedestrian density areas.

–Randy

(photo from Atlas of Florida Vascular Plants)

This morning I started out by leaving my house & catching the Gainesville-Hawthorne trail to Hawthorne. It started out with a light rain, then just switched to humid. Riding around Gainesville lately is like getting exercise & sauna all in one, it really feels good to sweat and I was dripping every ride this week (yesterday my mt. bike ride was so humid I soaked my socks and the inside of my shoes from the sweat dripping down my legs (I know, gross!)). Anyway, about 6 miles on the trail, coming back from Hawthorne, I took State Road 325 headed down towards Cross Creek. About 5 miles down, I take a right on State Road 346 towards Micanopy before getting to Cross Creek. At this corner I noticed on my ride last week that my favorite milkweed, Sandhill Milkweed (Asclepias humistrata), was close to going to seed and I was exited that by this week I would be able collect a couple seed pods! Sure enough, there were some just popping! I brought a plastic bag in my new camelback and I promptly collected them! I have always loved this plant. It has distinctive purple veined leaves and would be a great addition to my native wildflowers. I tried to grow it from seed in Orlando about 12 years ago. I got them to pop up, but they never quite took off. This time I think I’ll try building a little hill of yellow sands this time & see if that helps!

From there I pass over the River Styx on the way to Micanopy. Funny, as I often think of death on my bike rides. Not in a scary way, but more curious as to how. I was wondering the other day how ‘death by squirrel’ would look in my obituary? That day, I must have nearly hit 20 squirrels that get confused when I approach on them on the paved trail. My road bike has arm rests so I can tuck down, but I am not in as much in control then. I try to hiss at them like a cat & that usually helps break their indecision about which side of the trail to head to! I have really been lucky accident wise in my life. I’ve flown over the handle bars more than 100 times in the woods with nothing more than a scrape or bruise (I did crack some ribs one time on pavement, but that was not too bad). I have probably run into 200 poisonous snakes. I actually nearly ran over my third moccasin of the season out at San Felasco on Wednesday. I could not stop, only had time to pop my feet out of my clipless pedals & lift them up. I thought I ran over it, but barely missed it. At least this one moved off the trail, so I didn’t have to pick it up with a long stick. It was only about 2 feet long. The bigger ones tend to hold their ground so I have to move them. I have also been in about 12 car wrecks without injury. Maybe I’m jinxing myself, but I seem to be quite lucky, considering some of the foolishness I have gotten into over the years. I really don’t think I am afraid to die, though I don’t expect it to happen any time soon. I am trying to live authentically these days, so if something does happen to me, please know I was happy, loved and fulfilled! The River Styx does look beautiful at the 346 bridge, I may have to launch my kayak there one day & see how far up I can go & head down to Orange Lake too. If I don’t get run over by an airboat, I could even try to go up Cross Creek to Lochloosa?

As I passed by Micanopy on the short stretch of 441, I stopped to eat my first (and only) granola bar of the trip at a little over 2 hours into the ride. I actually started off thinking that I had forgotten to pack a spare bar, so I was trying to stretch the one I had. But I did discover I actually had 2 in my bike bag (this one was even pre-expiration date!). I stopped at a picnic table in front of the Blue Highway a pizzeria. It was fairly non-descript & closed, but after eating & hydrating, I checked the menu on the door & it looks really tasty! Not sure if I could eat much pizza on such a long ride, but they did have some nice looking salad & such. If I had been an hour later, they would have been open! Maybe next time?

Next I headed up State Road 234 towards Rochelle where I rejoin the trail. I crossed the bridge over Camp’s Canal, just as a nice couple were finishing their canoe paddle down the Potano Trail. They had rented the canoe from Kate’s Fish Camp. Sounds like a fairly good trip and they just had to call on the cell phone for their pick up. There is a little place to park there & I think I will launch my kayak there soon. Previously, I have paddled down the trail by launching at Lake Pithla-chocco boat ramp. I have been most of the way down Prairie Creek but had not quite made it too Camp’s Canal because of late afternoon starts & friends who lose steam. Of course, going that way, you paddle upstream on the way back. I do prefer to go upstream first, so I am excited to launch at Camp’s Canal next time. The couple said the canal was clear! Sounds like a couple snags on the creek, but my kayak has little draft, so hopefully I could glide over them? They said the yellow flies weren’t too bad, so maybe I can try that adventure soon! Anyone interested in joining me?

From there, I had a fairly smooth ride back, though I was pretty weak headed up the big hill at the park. But I made it home to my loving doggies! Not sure about the whole camelback thing. It does allow me to bring plenty of water (I am notorious for forgetting to drink as I already appear to have a camel metabolism). Hopefully it will start tasting better soon! Apparently it is made from PET which is not supposed to be toxic like PVC, but it sure does have a chemical taste. Part of the problem was I put ice in it & used tap water (Gainesville has horrible tap water!). My first ride with Brita filtered water was a little better, I just figured, why use filtered water if I was using unfiltered ice? I am making some filtered ice for the next ride! It was nice having cold water for the first half of the ride, though it was so humid, that the perspiration on the pack was quite wet, but I had my cell phone in a ziploc anyway (I guess I have enough plastic with me). OK, time to walk my dogs & plan my next activity (other than work)!

Trail Bikers at San Felasco (not me)
(click on photo for trail info)

No, I did not have heart issues! I am referring to my mountain bike ride on the new trail at San Felasco Hammock State Park informally named the Defibrillator. It is the most recent trail to be added out there a couple months ago. It is a 2.5 mile single track loop & has what I believe is the most vertical elevation change per mile of any trail in peninsular Florida. Sorry to be bragging, but I have been biking quite strong lately and am proud I managed to do 5 straight laps this afternoon without putting my foot down. Not the fastest pace, but made all the hills each time including one that is quite steep in 3 places and long. Not that technical yet as erosion has yet to expose the roots, but it is necessary to maintain a certain amount of speed to keep your track on the ups. Didn’t use the Granny gear, but did go to the lowest gear using the middle chain ring on that steepest hill. Other nice part was that I timed it between storms this afternoon. It had come close to raining, but ended out missing the park & dumped to the south in Gainesville instead. The result was cloud cover, breeze & temperatures in the 70s. Best part, is I had the whole trail to myself (my buddy Ben was jogging back on the Cellon Creek Loop). Between it being Friday afternoon and the scary looking skies, everyone else must have been scared off!

I also witnessed the results of an apparently fertile Spring! I nearly ran over a couple turkey poults that were hunkered down in the middle of the trail. There must have been about 10 of these cute little birds & their momma made quite a fuss when I came up on them in the trail. Also ran into a bunch of baby piglets and their momma 3 times as I did my loop. They were also very cute only about 8 inches long & could have scooped a couple up the first time as they were separated from their mom and they could not make it across the trail before I cut them off. Being feral hogs, they had quite the color variation, with the cutest couple being white with black spots.

Unfortunately the hog population is way out of hand at this park right now & they really destroy the native understory vegetation. The park used to trap a bunch to keep the population under control. But being this is Florida and budget constraints always screw up everything the government tries to do, they ran out of money for their contractor allowing the population to explode. Now to get it back in control, they will have to spend way more than they would have if they just kept it going in the first place. Similar government waste can be seen on exotic plant control at this park. A few years back, they contracted someone to kill all the Exotic Tung Nut trees out there at great expense and use of herbicide. However, they did not bother to come back the next year and kill the seedlings. So again, it has as many or more than when they started, our tax payer dollar goes to waste & this failure can now be used to justify not spending more funds on control. I did actually spend several days walking around pulling seedlings when they were young enough to pull easy, but I could only hit certain areas & now they are way to big to pull by hand.  Reminds me why I had to quit my government job working for the Water Management District.

Anyway, I do really enjoy the trails out there as they have over 30 miles of single track now! As an ecologist, I do question the placement of some of the trails that are going in fairly undisturbed habitat & will likely result in erosion problems. They also have a tendency to go a little to far down slopes that have active seepage during wet times of the year (of course they build the trails during the dry winter & sometimes miss this fact). But all & all, they do try to do a good job & appear to be getting better at trail placement by not placing too many long stretches that don’t have a place the water can flow off the trail to minimize the rilling effect. They certainly do provide a lot of recreational enjoyment & bring many paying visitors to the park. There is a very active group of folks that maintain these trails & I have much appreciation for the work they do (I need to drag out early one Saturday to pitch in!).

So that was my nice afternoon start to the Memorial Day weekend! I topped it off with a nice Sushi dinner. Hoping to make it to Cedar Key for Kayaking on Sunday! I hope you all have a good weekend too!

Blue Curls (Trichostema dichotomum), from my yard in Downtown Orlando (Fall 1998)

This weekend I was pleased to discover the re-seeding of Blue Curls in my Gainesville yard! It was one of my favorite wildflowers in the backyard of my first house when I lived in Orlando. At that time I bought some from a native plant nursery & it re-seeded pretty well in my yard. However, I was not having such luck in Gainesville yet.

For my Gainesville yard attempt, about 4 years ago, I collected wild Blue Curls seed from plants along the San Felasco Mountain Bike Trail. I planted them in little pots, but they never came up that year. However, the following spring they finally came up & I was able to plant 3 of them. They grew big, but only one flowered & not for that long. So I was thinking I lost them after they died last winter. I had kind of forgotten about them until yesterday I noticed about 30 seedlings growing where the one did flower! I am now quite excited to have another addition to my seed bank!

I have also had luck propagating several other wildflowers from wild seed & even got wire grass to seed. As I am trying to grow mostly pineland species, I have found starting in pots with potting soil is not the best and certainly advise against the use of mulch if you want to have any re-seeding. As Florida pinelands are characterized by low organic matter due to fire & leaching, removal of topsoil & organic matter works best for me (especially when rehabbing a formerly sodded yard).

Horsemint (Monarda punctata)

I found a pretty good trick for my house in the duck pond. First I scrape off the weeds & top couple inches of top soil. Then I dig a hole elsewhere in my yard about 2-3 feet deep until I hit the yellow sands. I dig these sands up & try to spread it an inch or 2 thick across the cleared area. Next sow in the wild seed in the spring. The only real resource other than sweat that goes into this is that watering is needed to get it going if the spring is a dry one. In Florida pinelands, there is quite a bit of natural variability in wildflowers depending on how wet the spring is (of course burning plays a huge role too). So I do water as I put a lot of work into gathering and planting wild seed. Of course being downtown & being opposed to mulch, I have many weeds trying to come in and also some of my native wildflowers (such as horsemint, (right)) can crowd new wildflowers I am trying to establish. When I do my yellow sand technique, I usually don’t have weeds the first year, so that is a big head start. However, they eventually find their way in & I have become very good at identifying seedlings when they first pop up, so I can keep overcrowding down.

Here are a couple more pictures of flowers in my Gainesville yard from past years:

Standing Cypress (Ipomopsis rubra)

Rough Skullcap (Scutellaria integrafolia)

Before going to the talk I looked on the web for critiques of his work, as I have often noted that biologists that stray into politics can often present fascist, Malthusian based solutions to society’s problems. I found a really interesting commentary by Richard Smith at www.selvesandothers.org/article12682. Smith points out that Diamond does a good job of demonstrating how societies that fail to alter ‘core values’ are vulnerable to collapse. However, Smith asserts that when Diamond provides solutions for modern society, he actually fails to question our ‘core value’ of capitalism. Indeed during the question period Diamond referenced Churchill’s famous quote about democracy (“It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried”) and applied it to our economic system. Instead he proposed your typical ‘feel good’ solutions of lobbying, voting & screwing in some florescent bulbs. Of course these things may help, but it did seem to me that he could not recognize his own ‘core values’ (as Smith points out). The idea that we can ‘have our cake and eat it too’, is quite popular today among mainstream environmentalist and is also quite compatible with corporate agendas. Perhaps Diamond does know that we must look at this ‘core value’, but is not willing to say so out of fear of irrelevancy. Of course, he also sits on the board of the corporate friendly World Wildlife Fund.

I must admit that I was very impressed with his analysis and think that if he were willing to admit that economics and politics are not his expertise, his environmental analysis would fit well with the ideas of many anti-capitalist and direct democracy theorist (as Smith demonstrates in his commentary). I must also commend Diamond for not jumping on over-population as the major problem when asked. He stated that it was one aspect, but did say that consumption was much more important. Listening to him talk and the crowd reaction, I did get the feeling that if this is our leadership in creating sustainability then our society is destined to collapse. I believe diversity of socio-economic political systems is the key. We must develop and promote alternatives to our dominant system. Hopefully, these systems can grow as our current system continues to fade due to it’s inability to adapt. A really good new ecofeminist influenced book “Eco-Sufficiency and Global Justice: Women Write Political Ecology” (edited by Ariel Salleh) describes examples of many such alternative models and theories. While I did find Diamond’s talk to be interesting, I would be really excited if the sponsor of this talk, University of Florida Office of Sustainability, were to invite one of the authors from this book to speak.

Imagine what could be done if we gave those same tax breaks to local businesses that have a history of supporting Gainesville & a genuine commitment to this town. Obviously I am not the biggest promoter of capitalism, but in a market society, if it takes 98 million dollars to get a developer to build, that should be a sign that the market isn’t there for this sort of development. So what do we end out with?
Gainesville’s ‘Field of Dreams’!

Now, I am trying to improve my gas mileage by accelerating slower and not going faster than 60 mph (I recently heard that every 5 mph you go over 60 adds 30 cents a gallon to your gas costs, though I believe that may be for bigger cars than mine). Driving slow is difficult as I have always been somewhat of a lead foot! I even put a note on my speedometer to remind me (it says “Easy, Leadfoot!”). Driving up US 441 today the speed limit goes up to 65 mph. Coming off a red light, I start slow, but I’m in the left lane (haven’t broke the habit of moving to the empty lane). So, this guy next to me speeds up to 60 mph and parks it by me. Now I got an SUV crawling up my butt & I want to let him by (after all that used to be me). I gently speed up to pull past this guy, and of course, he speeds up right beside me. Next, I try slowing down & the @#$%er slows down too! (maybe he is mad at my bumper stickers?) Next thing I know I am honking and gesturing worse than if I was driving leadfoot style! Finally, I slow down enough to get behind him (of course by now we both have cars on our butts & I have to cut between him & his tailgater). But, I do manage to chillout, laugh & put the cruise control back to 60 mph. Obviously I still have some adjusting to do!

The bike ride was nice, found my first Chanterelles & Oyster Mushrooms of the season! Four ticks on me, but only one got a bite of me (that I found so far!).