I have stared evil in the eye. Actually it was just a bird. But it was way scary. On our last day in Austin, Kim and I spent an afternoon decompressing at Mozart’s Coffee. If you ever get to Austin and you love coffee, go there. They roast their own coffee on site, and we happened to be there on a roasting day. The smell was intoxicating. Fresh smoke from roasting beans wafted across the deck and, well it was delightful. (Can you tell that we love coffee?) I had a double espresso and the flavor was rich, delicious and better than most coffee I’ve ever had. Plus, the shop had a huge outdoor deck overlooking Lake Austin. The perfect place to sip an espresso and relax a little before heading home.

Being outside, there were birds. Some cute little ones begging for a snack, some larger ones flying to and fro, looking for nesting materials and then, there was evil incarnate. That’s what I’ve named him. Maybe to make it sound less scary I should just call him George (sorry if your name is George, I’m sure you aren’t scary at all). So anyhow George was a big raven or crow and he was sitting on a branch not too far from our table. A little bird comes hopping along and all of the sudden we hear this bone-chilling screech, kind of like when Jim Carrey makes the most annoying sound in the world in Dumb and Dumber, except not funny. So of course, we look over, kind of frightened and George has puffed up his feathers and is looking at us like some sort of spawn of Satan, evil and menacing and he’s got one foot stomping down on a frightened little bird that hopped near him. Then out of nowhere he starts dancing around like a bird of paradise from BBC’s Planet Earth series. Needless to say, the little bird flew away quickly, and more than a few customers at the coffee shop gave George a wide berth. In a few seconds, he had rearranged his feathers and flown off like nothing had happened. Fortunately, no ill omens have followed us home from Texas. We even found some lucky pennies getting on our flight to Tampa, so I figure that counteracts any bad luck from George.

One of the things we realized while traveling and enjoying the slightly different landscaping in Texas was that so many people that live in Florida aren’t from Florida. Kim and I can’t say that. We are born and raised in Florida. We were even born at the same hospital, just 5 weeks apart from each other. But we know that you hail from all over the country. We’ve talked to folks from just about all 50 states and from plenty of different countries. And there is one thing in common. Gardening in Florida is different. Everyone says to us ‘I had a beautiful garden in Pennsylvania, but here in Florida I am struggling.’ So this Saturday at 10am, we are having our first ‘New-to-Florida’ Gardening seminar. I’ll touch on as many Florida gardening issues as I can think of, and then I’ll answer questions for as long as you have them. We’ll make you a successful Florida gardener.