Way Too Many Words About Way Too Little Of Importance, Once Again

This morning I was out kicking the bamboo, as one does, and when I got to the old barn/shed/whatever it was, I decided to take this cabbage palm's picture. 
Wait. I just did a plant ID on it which said I have a Chinese Fan Palm there. 
I have no idea. I thought I remembered planting it back when we were clearing our lot in Apalachicola of some of the volunteer cabbage palms and brought some home to plant. What if they're ALL fan palms? 
Good Lord but I am ignorant. You'd think, wouldn't you, that after living in Florida for most of my life and being surrounded by various types of palms, most of which I love, I'd be able to at least identify the cabbage palm which is the state tree? 
I think. 
Welp, no, I just looked up "state tree of Florida" and that would be the Sabal palm. 
I give up. 
I took a picture of a palm tree! 
And can you see that stalk of bamboo apparently growing out of the back of it? When I tell you bamboo is extremely good when it comes to hiding itself before it's too big to kick over, I am not kidding. That is exactly what I mean. 
And that stalk goes up about twenty feet. 

I was determined today to get things done. And I did up to a point. I got back out in the garden and pulled some more weeds. I have the weeds there mostly well under control but I know how these things go and I have GOT to get some mulch going. It's not perfect at weed prevention but it helps. It also helps to retain moisture so that I don't need to water as often. We here at Casa Luna do not BUY mulch except for the occasional few bales of pine straw we use around certain plants in the yard. Of course we have enough oak leaves to fill a silo but that would require raking which I used to do but I got spoiled when Glen started cruising the streets of neighborhoods and loading up bags of already thoughtfully raked up leaves left on curbs. This is the time of year when that generally happens as the oaks seem to retain their leaves until the new baby ones push the old granddaddy ones off, filling up yards which then fill up the bags. People do not have the same attitude about leaves that we do which is that leaves are fine on the ground where they land and since we don't really have any grass, it's not like they are killing anything and in the end, they break down and provide more nourishment for the soil. 
Where the, you know, invasives grow. 
But Mr. Moon has been way too busy to spend time driving his truck up and down suburbia and god knows I'm not doing it. 

Boy. I can take the smallest subject and just go on for hours about it, can't I?
Yes. Yes I can.

So in the garden I planted some of the Seminole squash seeds I'd bought. I am quite interested to see how this experiment goes. I did not plant that many seeds because how many squash can I actually use? Although they will keep for a year in a cool, dry place. 
But I am of the mind to just check this situation out before I commit myself to planting a plethora of pumpkins. 
Yeah. I just wrote that because of the alliteration. But it says what I wanted it to say so what the hell? 

I then cleared a space to plant my zinnias in and I got a lot of those in the ground which makes my heart happy. 

Isn't that a neat and tidy zinnia bed? 
I am certain I planted the seeds too closely together but that is what I do. 
I watered the new seeds in and that was about all I did. 
However, since I had spent a long time on my knees yesterday pulling things out of the ground, spending time on my knees today putting things IN the ground, my lower back, hips, and buttocks (I love that word) told me that they all needed a damn break and so although I had planned on doing more hydrangea bed weeding, I just couldn't. 

So I came in and made a stock with crab legs and claw shells and some shrimp tails along with various vegetables like onions, celery, and garlic. I have in mind to make a sort of seafood chowder with the meat from those shells and tails and that will be the base of it. Once you've got the stock made, the rest of it does not take long. I'll strain the stock and use it in which to cook some potatoes and more celery and onions and also a few carrots along with some cauliflower, maybe, with mustard greens and corn and then make a sort of roux for a white sauce type thing to thicken the chowder, add evaporated milk in lieu of cream or half and half, wine, and finally the seafood which will only take seconds to cook. 
Ooh. I just thought of how good some red peppers would taste in it. 
The more vegetables and colors the better. Knowing this, I am always suspicious of cauliflower. I mean- is it really a vegetable if it has no color in it? Of course potatoes don't but that doesn't matter. Potatoes are one of the staffs of life and as such, are not judged by the standards we use for other vegetables. 

Speaking of the staffs of life, I made some more baguettes yesterday and although these are not as flat and unrisen as the ones I made before, they are still not anything you'd see served in a French cafe. But they have whole wheat flour in them which I pretend makes them better for us. I will toast some slices of that and our supper will be done. 

Mr. Moon will be heading up to Lake Seminole tomorrow to get back to work on that flooring. He said he could only take about three days of that (talk about sore hips, lower backs, and buttocks) before he needed to come back and rest. 

The family is in the process of discussing our Zombie Jesus get-together on Sunday. I'll be going to town tomorrow and will buy a ham (ham holidays are my favorite) and I do believe that I have enough cooking greens in the garden left to make a nice pot of those for the meal. I'll make bread of some sort, probably either Challah or angel biscuits. I shall ask the children which they'd prefer. Lily will be bringing a cake for the Gibson's birthday part of the celebration, Jessie promises deviled eggs and perhaps fun drinks and maybe fruit salad? May has offered to make a salad and bring hummus and whatever else we want. Chips? Salsa? 
Of course. 
Hank and Rachel probably will not be coming which is a great sorrow but completely understandable. I know Rachel does not want to travel to Lloyd and then be uncomfortable for hours and Hank wants to stay home and be with her. 
We shall miss them. 

I wonder if there will be an Easter Egg hunt. I imagine there will be. The youngest ones will be disappointed if there's not, even if the Easter Bunny is no longer believed in. I still find plastic eggs occasionally in the yard from previous years' hunts and to my mind, dying Easter eggs is one of the magical joys of life. 

While it's still fresh in my mind, here's my favorite sign I've seen from all of the ones posted online from the protest. 

I stole this from Jeff Tiedrich's Substack daily newsletter, Everyone's Entitled To My Opinion. 
I like him because he cusses even more than I do with no regard to what anyone thinks. I read that newsletter daily along with Heather Cox Richardson's Substack daily newsletter, Letters From An American, which is an entirely different sort of newsletter but one I absolutely trust. I read it via Facebook and that link is HERE. 
Her newsletter is far more scholarly and serious but I like having the balance between the profound and profane. 

I guess that's about it. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Little patch of cheerful Oxalis. Mr. Moon was about to mow and I wanted to take their picture before that happened.