Kumquat Festival

This past weekend was the big yearly Gasparilla pirate festival in Tampa.  We have as yet to attend it.  An article in the Tampa Bay Times challenged readers to attend the Kumquat Festival in Dade City instead of doing the other festival in Tampa, just for a fun experience with small town ambience.  Dade city is about an hours drive northeast of Tampa.  With a one year old and a child almost turning four it sounded like it was not that far of a drive.  However, by the time we reached the town limits of Dade City, the younger child, Clarissa, was screaming and quite literally trying to pull her hair out!

It was necessary to park at the fairgrounds, a distance from the festival, and board a bus.  The big purple astro-themed bus totally charmed the little ones and for the rest of the day we had some very happy children.  It also helped that it was a cool overcast day, and we did not have to deal with the brutal heat, which had been a downer for us at other festivals. 

Just maybe you are wondering what are kumquats.  From our travels in Texas and Florida we do know that they are a small citrus fruit similar to the orange.  As we walked around the festival grounds (located in the heart of downtown Dade) I chanced upon a lecture as to how to eat them.  They are too small to peel, rather it is best to pop the whole fruit in your mouth.  DO NOT try to separate the peel from the fruit while chewing because then you will only taste the bitter peel.  Taken together it is possible to get a burst of sweetness in your mouth.  I tried to eat one some time back and I did not care for them and am unwilling to try again!

John liked the kumquat pie, and had already taken a bite before I could snap the picture.  The pie is made with the same ingredients used in key lime pie.   For cooking purposes the whole fruit is pureed and then strained.  At the festival we saw many products made from the fruit: dressings and marinades, jams, soda, wine, and ice cream.  I noticed bits of the peel in both the ice cream and pie, which is a turn-off for me.  Just the reason that I do not like orange marmalade.

As I mentioned previously, we had a very pleasant day wandering the many booths scattered over several streets.  And we happened upon one celebrity- the Queen of Pasco County who is pictured above.  We found a wide selection of food to choose from, including a hot dog with no black grill marks for our picky grandson Nathan.  There was musical entertainment for our dining pleasure, as well as available chairs, at the large lawn located in front of the courthouse.  We listened to many fine classical/operatic musical offerings from the local music store while our little ones found other children and toys to play with.

We stayed much longer than we thought we had planned and bought a variety of local craft items.  Clarissa was able to get her afternoon nap in also, so our trip home was fairly pleasant.  It also helped that we took major highways and moved a bit faster than our earlier trip.  For our trip then, John wanted to see some of the countryside between Tampa and Dade City.  Unfortunately young children do not appreciate rural beauty!

An Evening with Harry Belafonte

The Tampa Bay Times (Jan.11) had a interesting article on this singer and social activist.  He was interviewed by Piper Castillo who asked him why he was speaking in Florida when just last year he was to have said that he was making no more public appearances.  His talk was to be given at USF this past Tuesday, and he said since it was a university he "simply wanted to accept it".
I am so thankful that John and I had the opportunity to hear him speak.  It was part of the annual Martin Luther King Jr. week at the University of South Florida.  Mr. Belafonte was an adviser to MLK.

It was a good hour hours drive from our home into Tampa, during rush hour.  Getting into the university and through the campus was another story (a very large school with close to 50,000 students).  However, Marshall Student Center Ballroom was fairly easily found and a few parking spots were still open.  We grabbed a quick bite of supper in the student union and then joined the long lines waiting to get into the ballroom.  Students got first priority, the "community" had to line up behind them.  Turned out there was no need to fear about not getting a seat, after everyone was seated there were a few empty rows left.

 Mr. Belafonte needed some assistance with climbing the step onto the stage.  He will be turning 91 years of age in March.  Had a stroke a couple of years ago which he said affected his inner ear and equilibrium.  He started his talk mentioning his childhood in Harlem.  Spoke lovingly of his mom who kept her dignity despite the family's poverty.  He is very thankful that, at the age of 4 and again at twelve, she took them to her place of origin, which was Jamaica.  There he found a "sense of humanity" not found in Harlem, and spoke of it as creating another "dimension" in his life.  He also mentioned having a Scottish grandmother.  Nurtured by that community in Jamaica he was helped  to understand African Americans-  the rage that is over-whelming, the indignities of racism like no where else in the world.  And he decided to deal with life from the Black perspective.
Mr. Belafonte was not ashamed to brag that he has met some of the greatest men and women of the 20th century.  Eleanor Roosevelt "gave me the ability to move in the white community".  With her friendship, and that of many others "I am by far the winner".
In young adulthood Belafonte entered acting school and started a life-long friendship with Sidney Portier.  It was the role Belafonte had in the play Of Mice and Men ( a part written for him which required musical  talent) that started his singing career.  Lester Young (American jazz tenor and saxophonist) heard him sing and encouraged him to begin a singing career.  Folk singers Lead Belly and Woody Guthrie were some of his influences in his singing career.  Belafonte found his singing career to be a powerful platform for social activism.  "Being an artist was not my intention".  He mentioned one singing gig he had in Florida, where the KKK harassed him for singing to white women.  He found out fast that America does not look too kindly on people of color trying to make a difference.
In the 1950s he met Martin Luther King who invited him to join him.  He commented that MLK had a brain with so much information, a humanity steeped in religion.   He spoke with such insight and "had an impact on me"-" I found reason to be engaged in their mission".
 He stated that we need MLK now as we have been run over by commercialism and materialism.  We are to busy making money, getting so careless that we do not care about the abused and poor.  We, as Americans, have a chance of loosing our vision altogether.  We have to resurrect our humanity.  It is in only in America where Blacks have to live in the "belly of the beast".  They went from slavery to years of segregation and discrimination, all equally cruel.
Our institutions have failed us.  Too much emphasis in schools on STEM courses, less on the humanities and arts.  Belafonte mentioned a couple of times that he has been involved in the criminal justice system- meeting with young people serving years in prison for non-violent acts.  What a waste of talent.
 As to current times- he commented that it is "curious" how our 45th president got elected, how the other candidate received the plurality of votes and lost.  Donald Trump has called certain nations "s-holes", he has no sense of how white Europeans created the problems those countries have today.  Belafonte made mention a couple of times on the importance of the United Nations, especially for third world countries.  That is the only platform or recourse they have for their issues.  Current administration of our country wants to dismiss the United Nations as it is irrelevant, but it is relevant- it is made up of us.
That was about the gist of what he said.  Time listening to him was about an hour and a half, it went too fast for me!  I felt very fortunate to have heard him.  

Wintering in Florida

Yes, it is cold here, but every time I complain about that I have to realize that while it is 56 degrees for daytime temperatures here, it is 20 degrees or below further north!  We are flirting with freezing temperatures at night- and I have brought my outside plants in for the time being.   Last Saturday we revisited the Florida Botanical Gardens and it was such a joy to see so many blooming plants!  That is what is so wonderful about Florida- we may have a cloudy sky with no sunshine, but bright colorful plants are always around!

Pictured above is the flower of the aloe plant, in case you have ever wondered what its flower looks like.

 

 I found this corner of the garden quite pretty with a blooming powder puff tree.  It is in the foreground of the picture.  In front of it is a bougainvillea bush with a purple variety of the flower coming out of the middle of it.  And speaking of blooming plants, there is a hibiscus tree that blooms pretty much year around near our daughter's driveway.

 

I took a picture about a year ago with our granddaughter Clarissa being held under that blooming pink hibiscus tree.  In the picture below I caught her running below the blossoms.  Certainly she is an infant no longer!

Now to turn the calendar back a bit to last fall.  John and I attended our church retreat, which was located outside of town about 150 miles. John found some time on his hands, so he assisted the ladies with making blankets.  No sewing required,  just some skill in tying strips of cloth together!

Will end this with a picture of our Christmas morning.  Our son Dan and his wife were with us.  In the picture above Dan and Melissa are assembling a marble maze for the little ones.
We are now well into the new year.  John and I will probably be here in Florida for a few more months.  Where we head out after that remains uncertain.

Selby Orchid Show

Selby has a Tropical Conservatory where the orchid show was ( I believe it ran until Nov.22).  They still have a goodly amount of orchids on display year around, however.  There are 27,000 species of orchids, which have adapted to life in the trees where they are better positioned to receive light.  Seventy per cent of them are in that category, the other 30 per cent are terrestrial.  I have seen the yellow lady slipper in hikes through wooded areas.  Another terrestrial is pictured below.

Before I go any further I first need to say that I am not all that knowledgeable regarding orchids.  Information in this posting is from interpretive signs in the conservatory.  Pollinators for orchids are bees, butterflies and birds.  One exception is the Darwin's orchid from Madagascar.  In the garden's Museum of Botany and Arts in the Payne mansion (another fascinating place in the park) is on display a moth nearly identical to the subspecies that pollinates that orchid.  It has a long nose to reach down into the flower.  The tiny seed of orchids are dispersed on air currents to suitable germination sites.  Pictured below is King Serendipity, one of the many gorgeous orchids on display.

The theme of this orchid show was "Science and Splendor of Orchids Through the Four Elements of Nature"  A garden docent challenged us to figure it out for ourselves while touring the show.  I could understand water, earth, air- but fire?  We soon discovered that there are some terrestrial orchids that respond well to fires occurring on a regular basis.  Looking at the display (pictured below) with all of its red highlights I immediately got it!  Most of those flowers are not orchids, but the colorful display was a clue to look at the interpretive sign regarding fire and orchids.

From the book The Orchid Thief I learned that in the latter years of the 19th century there were many avid lovers of orchids who traveled to areas heavily populated by the flower and remove them for a variety of reasons.  There is one swamp in the Everglades where this happened.  I have seen an occasional orchid in our tour of swampy areas, maybe there would be more had that not happened.  .