After a long period of detente, the rats are back!
Near my compost heap, I found a huge dead rat with a long tail. I also recently observed the remnants of a smushed rat in our driveway. Coincidence? I think not. It made me wonder about the incredible timing of the rat crossing my driveway at the exact moment a car pulled up and ran it over. And if I’m finding dead rats around town, I fear there must be a huge population of live ones congregating around my house.
The last time I saw a rat in the compost heap, Zeke and I had gone to rake it and as Zeke put the rake in, a rat leaped out. I was behind Zeke and he practically mowed me down in order to escape, leaving me slack-jawed and stunned at his desertion. So much for my knight in shining armor! That incident was around seven years ago and, since then, nary a rat sighting. Until now.
Elsewhere in the garden, my lychees are going crazy! I got this free tree from a Miami-Dade giveaway ten years ago and I’ve never had any lychees at all. I tried pruning it, watering it, fertilizing it and nada, until this year; I have scads of them. The problem is the tree has grown very tall and the lychees are WAY up there, so I have to get a huge ladder and risk life and limb to harvest them. But I will because I love lychees!
Most of the ones that have fallen onto the driveway have little bite marks on them. I tasted a few red beauties the squirrels haven’t gotten to and they are delicious. Although the thought did occur to me that it might be the rats (not squirrels) that are eating them. Yuk!
My Malika mangoes are prolific this year as well. A ton of teardrop-shaped green beauties, with multiple fruit on each branch, await ripening. I cannot wait to taste them, as they are the best mango I’ve ever tasted. Sweet, fragrant and creamy, the Malika is a dessert mango that doesn’t have any of that fibrous stringiness or turpentine taste some mangos have.
My little herb garden, sadly, has been a victim of the Miami heat! It’s been so hot this May, starting with last week, the temperature, with the heat index, was 112 degrees! It’s been the hottest May on record in Miami. After harvesting a few cherry tomatoes, the rest have fallen off and the plant is basically dried up. My basil however, which usually struggles, is doing great, as is the oregano and mint.
They are all in the Lamiaceae family. The Mexican oregano is going gangbusters- it’s pretty much an indestructible plant and my parsley (Italian and curled) is doing ok but it looks like something is eating it. Rats, perhaps?
The sage is doing well, and I have two pepper plants- jalapeño and banana that are producing peppers. My banana trees are alive and well (no bananas today though) and I have a solitary pineapple, which needs to grow a bit more before I cut it off its stalk to eat. Also, some milkweed plants sprouted up in my garden from flying seeds and I’ve spotted some caterpillars on them. Hurray! I love to see the swallowtail butterflies flitting around the garden, with their yellow and black wings and blue skirt.
I’ve been working hard this week on revamping Foodie in Miami. I want to improve the look, make it easier to opt in to subscribe, but most of all, organize the recipes into categories so they are easy to find and use. Unfortunately, I ruined my computer last week during Emma’s baby shower. I was trying to transport my laptop to show a slideshow of Emma as a baby. I put it in the same bag as a tiny vase with water in it. The vase tipped, the water spilled and my laptop was history. I hate when that happens.
It’s not just the expense, but the aggravation and time involved. I’m not techy at all so having to reinstall things, retrieve things, trying to figure out the iCloud and what it actually holds, has been torture this week. When things like this happen, I try to discover what lesson I can learn from my mistakes.
My conclusion? Don’t rush.
Don’t try to transport a laptop in the same bag as a vase with water to save two minutes of time. That two minutes of time has cost me over $1000 and days of my life. Kind of like Zeke taking the short cut in Costa Rica where he shattered his ankle going down the rocky embankment, instead of taking the paved road. Not worth it! Don’t multi-task. I just read an article that says multi-tasking isn’t really possible anyway, so I’m giving up on that fantasy and I’m going to focus on one thing at a time.
Which is what Eckhart Tolle talks about in his book The Power of Now as the way to true happiness. To be in the moment, to concentrate fully on the one thing you are doing and be completely present. So, if you’re brushing your teeth, brush your teeth, if you’re cooking dinner, cook dinner and if you’re walking across the floor, walk across the floor thinking about putting one step in front of the other; not of the past, the future or what may be.
What I will be concentrating on in the near future single-handedly is updating Foodie in Miami. Oh, and getting rid of those darn rats!
Up Next: Hopefully, a new and improved Foodie in Miami.
