Florida summers…………………..

They are like a marathon you don’t want to run…

 

And the finish line is at the peak of Hurricane Season!!!

 

What a fun, blue ribbon race.

Why do I live here again…….?

I’m really not sure…….

I’d bolt for the North at the first opportunity, if it weren’t for the fact that I have two, born & raised, Floridian children…….and they don’t know what COLD is and wouldn’t want to follow me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You might be asking what is the correlation of any of the words in the title of this post?

There is a segue to it all…….(in my head).

And here it is…….

………….Florida summer heat (yuck…..moldy/mossy yuck)…………..we have a great many large water tanks for the various livestock………….most of the tanks are close to 100 gallons of water………….you can’t dump those big guys as often as necessary to efficiently break the mosquito life-cycle…

 

 

*****Mosquito Life-Cycle*****

So an alternative has to be found to stop the mosquitos from reproducing profusely in the tanks…

Goldfish (i.e. Comets; Feeder-Fish; Bait-Fish) not only eat mosquito larvae, but they also clean up the algae on the sides of the big tanks.

(There are special mosquito-eating minnows——-but they were too small and kept washing over the rim when topping off the tank’s water with a hose.)

 

*****The Common Goldfish*****

Okay, that explains one of the words in the title…

 

One of the side benefits is saving the rubber bands that come on the plastic bags that the goldfish come in…….they are good/sturdy rubber bands…….

I like them.

I save them.

You know what else has good sturdy rubber bands?

 

Broccoli.

They come with hefty bands holding the stalks together.

I covet those too.

They all get saved in an empty Bag Balm (goat udder cream) tin in a kitchen drawer.

………….that’s three out of five title words explained………….

I’ll skip to the frozen peas now………….

I don’t know why~~~but a friend of my older daughter said that if you put frozen peas in the water with goldfish it helps their ear-bladder…….or was it their gill-kidney…….or maybe it’s their scale-equilibrium…….

……..honestly, I don’t remember…….but it helps keep goldfish healthy in some mysterious way.

I don’t question things………….I just drop a few dozen peas in all the tanks…

Je ne sais quoi………..

~~~~~~~one term left to explain ~~~~~~~

Eastern Equine Encephalitis…….

…….apparently it’s running rampant in Florida now…….

……..humid, water-sodden, hot Florida…….

*****Brain-Swelling Mosquito-Borne Virus Found In Florida*****

(It wasn’t just “found”, it’s always been here.  We inoculate the horse’s annually for it.)

So there…….now the title’s completely explained…….

I had to get loads more goldfish, for all the livestock tanks, treat them to frozen peas, while hopefully keeping the mosquitos in check.

The desirably sturdy rubber bands came with the bargain…….

 

And really broccoli has nothing to do with anything……..

Except it’s a heart-healthy vegetable…