An Idyllic and Simple Life

The Wonders of Nature

Since arriving in Florida a few months ago, we have settled into a slow-paced, idyllic lifestyle, which we are enjoying immensely. Our typical morning starts with coffee on the dock. While Chris casts a fishing line, I marvel at the constantly changing environment around us.

The wonders of nature are abundant on the lake and never cease to amaze me. On any given day, we observe multiple types of birds, herons, egrets, limpkins, ibis, hawks, gulls, and osprey, to name just a few. They often land in the grass next to the dock to feed at the edge of the lake.

One day, I was surprised to see a stork. The following day, he flew just above us, lighting on the tiniest branch in the tree above us. It was comical to watch him attempt to balance himself before finally flying away.  On another occasion, a hawk with a fish grasped in his talons flew right in front of us. It is a pleasure to watch the birds of prey diving into the water, most often without success, but now and then coming up with a prize.

The abundance of small lizards that we see constantly brings so much joy to me. I never get tired of the little guys, most often running across our path, but sometimes sitting next to us puffing their dewlap and bobbing up and down to look menacing.

Last week, while sitting on the dock, I spotted something that appeared to be a snake swimming toward me on the lake. As it drew closer, I realized that the back-and-forth motion was not a snake after all but instead an alligator. Its head rested motionless at the water’s surface, and what I had seen was his tail’s motion propelling him steadily forward. I look for him every time we are on the dock. We have spotted him a few times, mostly swimming near the center of the lake, but one morning right by the dock while we were drinking our morning coffee.

Blueberry Picking

Part of our low-key lifestyle has been visiting berry farms. We enjoyed our visit to the strawberry farm, but it was a drive to get there. I was ecstatic to learn that we had a blueberry farm only a few miles from us.

We went early one morning, and in no time, had picked three pounds of the delightful morsels. I enjoyed wandering through the bushes hunting for perfectly ripe berries.

I started looking for recipes to get the most out of our berries. I had frozen some of the biscuits we had used for our strawberry shortcakes. It was an easy adjustment to the recipe to make a blueberry shortcake. Not having to bake biscuits made for a quick and easy recipe that tasted just as good as the original version.

Next, I found a recipe for a no-bake blueberry cheesecake. The recipe used canned blueberry pie filling, but I used cooked-down fresh berries instead. It was an easy recipe to follow, but it didn’t set up as firmly as I would have liked when I pulled it out of the refrigerator. While it didn’t look great, the flavor was spectacular. I wonder if using fresh berries instead of pie filling affected the texture.

We put berries in our oatmeal, ate them as snacks, and put them over vanilla ice cream for an exotic treat. We ran out of berries before we finished creating yummy treats.

More Blueberries

After our trip to the Florida Keys, we went back to the berry farm for more. I knew the blueberry season was coming to an end, so we made a point to go sooner than later. As it turns out, the farm was closed, but they allowed anyone who stopped by to pick what berries were left. We quickly picked another three pounds of gorgeous berries. The farm rewarded our berry picking effort by only charging us for two.

Armed with another beautiful batch of berries, I next attempted to make blueberry gelato. I altered a recipe I had previously used for pistachio gelato. Unfortunately, I had some issues. First, I mistakenly used a half-gallon bottle of milk instead of a quart. That wasn’t a big problem as I had plenty of berries and could prepare more of them.

As soon as I poured the hot milk into my berry mixture, the lemon juice in the berries curdled the milk. Mortified, I quickly did some research. I learned that I might be able to fix it by blending the mixture. I pulled out the immersion blender, and it seemed to do the trick.

After I chilled the mixture, I attempted to strain the seeds out but found that the process also ended up straining out a good bit of milk curds. After churning the mixture, I had what appeared to be a cross between a sorbet and a gelato. It was tasty and had a nice texture, but it wasn’t the delectable treat I had wanted.

My final recipe, Fresh Berry Scones, turned out to be delicious. My original intent when berry picking was to create some fantastic recipes and then dehydrate the rest. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any berries leftover to preserve. I guess I’ll need to pick a lot more next year if I want enough to get me through the off-season.

We have spent the last few years simplifying our life and working toward the goal of homesteading. While the past year’s events have given us a topsy-turvy existence, we have enjoyed being nomads for a while. We are more settled for the time being. We have a small garden and have been able to do some foraging. We love what our existence has become and are enjoying this uncomplicated life.