100 Air Potatoes from Jay Blanchard Park

As fall cools things down, exotic/invasive hunting begins again. I teach a Yang Style Tai Chi Class in Jay Blanchard Park (See Meetup.com then East Orlando Self-Defense Group). As I was waiting for class to begin I picked off 100 Air Potatoes. I'll take them home and burn them.

My new Cuban Anole eating machine

           This Florida Snapping Turtle spent all day Tuesday with me. It came to work with me, went to a UCF Eco-Advocates meeting with me, then in the evening a Florida Native Plants meeting. It behaved so sweetly the whole day. It spent hours with its head in my arm sleeping through the meetings.
     I tell people, "Don't be decieved, when this thing eats its not pretty." Tonight (Wednesday) I fed it six Cuban Anoles and one dead Finch from the animal hospital I volunteer at.
    Note in this picture this Florida Snapping Turtle is very swollen. I cured this water retention, a skin infection it had and a bad smell too. It is doing much better now.

Three Anolis Sagrei and a Feral Cat

     There are so many Cuban Anoles here in Orlando you can catch them by hand. Just on my walk from my car into work this morning I caught three. All three will be fed to some rehabbing animal at the Wildlife Hospital.

     I released ten Doves and one Sparrow for the hospital yesterday. I went inside my house for one minute, came back out to make sure they had flown away and a feral cat had showed up out of nowhere. I was unable to catch the cat, but I did scare the whiskers off of it.

     (Update) I after finding a pile of Dove feathers on my front porch I declared war on the feral cats in my area. I finally did catch this Dove killer with a "Have-a-heart" trap baited with cat nip flavored food. Just FYI I I do have a permitt from the goverment to catch domestic feral cats.  I think the goverment should put a reward out for every cat you can bring in, dead or alive.

Blanchard Park

Before my self-defense class I took out 11 Cesar Weeds and found a new infestation of Japanese Climbing Fern.

Big Tree Park

     I met some friends at Big Tree Park in Sanford Florida the other day. I was suprised to see a fair amount of exotics in this very well kept park. I just couldn't help but jump the boardwalk fence and rip out four fifteen-foot Chinese Tallow Trees. There was Cesar Weed and Air Potatoe there also, but only in small forms.

My Green Army

     I haven't been out of action. But I've been away from blogging. I've begun a big project that is going very well. I volunteer at Back to Nature Wildlife Refuge. We raise many young animals including Blue Jays, Opossums, Crows, Box Turtles, Raccoons, Gopher Tortoises, Grey Cat Birds and many more. We often raise these animals from very young, we teach them what food is. When ever I find a Cuban Anole on the property I feed it to one of the baby animals. I'm teaching them to grow up and go out Cuban Anole hunting! I'm teaching native animals to go out and hunt exotic invasive species.

     It is also good to get these animals off of baby animal food and into a more natural hunting diet. BTN does not keep the animals, we rescue them, raise them, rehabilitate them, then release them.  

Cesar Weeds (Urena lobata)

     This is my log of efforts to rid Florida of exotic and invasive Cesar Weed. This plant is a catagory II invasive plant under the Dept. of Environmentl Protection. It takes over low level forest and crowds out every other plant. I collect these plants and take them home and burn them. You can't use them as fertilizer unless you mulch them to the smallest peices, because you will be planting their seeds.
     It took my years to rid my 5 1/2 acre property of them, now I've branched out to all of Central Flroida.

2/6/11
     I have been fighting the worst Flu I've ever had. For the first time in days I felt good enough to drive to the store. So I also stopped by Lake Mills and pulled out 70 baby Cesar Weeds. Just doing that made me tired and I had to stop and rest. There is no adult plants here and I got 90% of the newest baby ones.
     Once I get over this Flu, I know this will be the year I rid several Orlando parks of every last Cesar Weed.

1/22/11
     I went with my friend Sara today to join in on the Great Air Potato Raid 2011. Along with Air Potatoes we took out 281 Cesar Weeds.