Our Town 2017 MAY-JUN (High Springs & Alachua)

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MAY/JUNE 2017 | VOL. 15 ISSUE 03

— ENVIRONMENT —

Space, Earth & the Oceans

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Solid Waste and Resource Recovery

Help milk cartons educate your

child.

Imagine what you can turn into something educational.

Your empty milk carton may not look like much now, but since it is 80% recyclable paper, it can be recycled into high-grade paper. In fact, the milk cartons you recycle today can be transformed into [OL ZJOVVSIVVRZ `V\Y JOPSKYLU ^PSS SLHYU MYVT [VTVYYV^ ;OL UL_[ [PTL `V\ ÄUPZO H JHY[VU VM TPSR remember to toss it in the blue recycle bin. After nourishing your child’s body, your milk carton can be recycled into a book to nourish your child’s mind.

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CONTENTS

M AY/J U N E 2 0 1 7

G R E AT E R A L A C H U A C O U N T Y

| V O L . 1 5 | N O. 0 3

IN THIS ISSUE >> WE BRING YOU STORIES ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT WITH A FOCUS ON SPACE AND SEA. LEARN ABOUT THE INTERESTING CREATURES THAT SWIM BELOW US, THE REMARKABLE CONSTELLATIONS ABOVE US, AND HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN SEED BOMBS THAT WILL SPROUT INTO COLORFUL WILDFLOWERS. IT’S TIME TO BLOOM! C O V E R I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y N E I L M c K I N N E Y.

FEATURE STORIES 20

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OUT-OF-THIS-WORLD Interested in some extraterrestrial extracurricular activity? The Alachua Astronomy Club is a publicly supported organization of people who enjoy looking at stars and planets and who love to communicate their excitement about the heavens to others.

WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE Learn about the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and how it manages more than 575 species of wildlife and more than 700 native species of fish.

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WILDLIFE REHABILITATION CENTER Hoo hoo hoot ya gonna call? From birds to marsupials, this sanctuary provides aid to animals in need.

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INVADERS ARE LURKING They may be pretty but they don’t belong. Take a look at the invasive and exotic plants in Central Florida.

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MAGNESIA SPRINGS: THEN AND NOW From Alachua County’s most popular attraction to a lingering memory for Florida natives, these healing springs attracted visitors for decades.

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CONTENTS 38

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FUN SKY FACTS Ever wonder why the sky is blue? Or what makes the sound of thunder? Read on to discover more!

CONNECTING THE DOTS An exploration into some of outer-space’s greatest treasures — Constellations.

SPROUTING SMILES DIY Seed Bombs! Get ready to plant some love around your neighborhood. A fun springtime project the whole family can enjoy!

MOONLIGHT CANOEING There’s beauty all around us – even in the dark. The Santa Fe Canoe Outpost in High Springs hosts this unique adventure once a month during a full moon.

A WORLD BELOW US Exploring our Oceanic Final Frontier. Read about the aliens of the deep and the explorers that have ventured into the abyss.

COLUMNS 36

EDUCATION MATTERS

by Christina Miller

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NAKED SALSA

by Crystal Henry

142 DIFFERENT NOTE

by Albert Isaac

132 HEALTHY EDGE

by Kendra Siler-Marsiglio

REVIEWS 98 READING CORNER

by Terri Schlichenmeyer

FLORIDA’S SPACE LEGACY Since the dawn of the Space Age in 1957, we’ve been sending ships into space. Read preserving historic space exploration sites before they vanish and some history about the space program.

124 GATE CRASHING

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THE GOOD, THE BAT AND THE BUGLY How to ensure you’re promoting an environment for both the bests and the pests. It can be surprising to learn the benefits these “pests” actually provide.

100 Charity Winners 102 Taste of the Town 110 Community Calendar

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TO SEE A SAWFISH Learn about an endangered species that can be found in our Florida waters. Scientists estimate a recovery rate of 100 years for this animal.

Special Section

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MEEKO FARMS Two friends take on organic, small-scale biointensive farming. Ideally, the partners wish to grow as much produce on the smallest amount of farmland possible.

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NATIONAL PARKS OF SOUTH FLORIDA One writer’s experiences visiting the Everglades, Big Cypress and Biscayne National Parks - the original home of “The Swamp.”

by Brian “Krash” Kruger

INFORMATION

117 Gainesville Food Fest

The articles printed in Our Town do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Tower Publications, Inc. or their editorial staff. Our Town Magazine endeavors

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CLEAN CREEK REVIVAL It’s time for spring cleaning – literally. Lean how local organizations work to keep the rivers and springs in Alachua County beautiful.

to accept reliable advertising; however, we can not be held responsible by the public for advertising claims. Our Town Magazine reserves the right to refuse or discontinue any advertisement. All rights reserved. © 2017 Tower Publications, Inc.

“I’d given up hope until I went to UF Health.”

— Shirley Nielsen West Palm Beach, FL

“I was having severe abdominal pain and mostly bedridden for nine months.

Nobody had an answer. I had given up hope until my best friend took me to UF Health. Within two hours, a team diagnosed me with a rare vascular disorder.

After immediate surgery with Dr. Thomas Huber and a short recovery, I found joy again in the things I love most, like my family, friends and beloved dog.”

At UF Health, we can handle any heart or vascular problem you have, from the routine to the complex.

Hear more of Shirley’s story at UFHealth.org/Shirley.

To make an appointment, call 352.265.0820.

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PUBLISHER Charlie Delatorre ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER

Anthony B. Agrios, MD Joseph S. Iobst, MD Jean C. Cook, MD Nicole Scogin, MD Shelley Russell, ARNP, CNM

Hank McAfee EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Albert Isaac editor@towerpublications.com MANAGING EDITOR Ericka Winterrowd ericka@towerpublications.com

Julie Rischar, ARNP, CNM Kristen Cook, ARNP, CNM

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Bianca Favata, Cameron Cobb, Crystal Henry, Gabrielle Calise, Hayli Zuccola, Jordan Albright, Mary Bridgman, Peggy Macdonald, Savanna Kearney, Stephanie Richards CREATIVE DIRECTION + DESIGN Hank McAfee, Neil McKinney ADVERTISING ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES Jenni Bennett jenni@towerpublications.com Helen Mincey helen@towerpublications.com Nancy Short nancy@towerpublications.com INTERNS Cameron Cobb, Savanna Kearney

Take care

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CALENDAR SUBMISSIONS If you would like us to publicize an event in the greater Gainesville area, send information by the 1st day of the month prior to the next issue. For example, submissions for the March/April issue are due by February 1. All submissions will be reviewed and every effort will be made to run qualified submissions if page space is available.

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OUR TOWN MAGAZINE IS PUBLISHED BI-MONTHLY BY TOWER PUBLICATIONS, INC. REPRODUCTION BY ANY MEANS OF THE WHOLE OR PART OF OUR TOWN WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION FROM THE PUBLISHER IS PROHIBITED. VIEWS EXPRESSED IN THE EDITORIAL PAGES DO NOT IMPLY OUR ENDORSEMENT. WE WELCOME YOUR PRODUCT NEWS. INCLUDE PRICES, PHOTOS AND DIGITAL FILES WITH YOUR PRESS RELEASE. PLEASE FORWARD PRODUCT SAMPLES AND MEDIA KITS TO REVIEWS EDITOR, OUR TOWN MAGAZINE, 4400 NW 36TH AVENUE, GAINESVILLE, FL 32606. WE CANNOT BE RESPONSIBLE FOR UNSOLICITED PRODUCT SAMPLES.

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EDITOR ’ S LET TER

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Sea, Space and Our Environment Want some good news? I could use some. I recently read that there are over 5 trillion pieces of plastic littering the ocean — but the good news is, the Ocean Cleanup Project hopes to remove 40 percent of that plastic over 10 years. Instead of using nets, the project uses solid screens that catch the floating plastic, but allows sea creatures to pass underneath the barrier with the current.

In other news, NASA’s Juno spacecraft reached Jupiter last year, flying 1.8 billion miles to explore the gas giant. According to the Los Angeles Times, it reached the planet on July 4th just one second off its scheduled arrival.

And the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed changing the manatees’ status from endangered to threatOne of the many grouper I caught while fishing with Dad in the Florida Keys and, on this particular mid-1970s outing, accompanied by a ened. This doesn’t mean childhood friend (left). that manatees aren’t still in danger, but it is a recognition that their population around Florida has increased to more than 6,000.

So, with Sea and Space in mind we offer you this edition of Our Town Magazine.

We think you’ll enjoy it!

Albert Isaac, Editor-In-Chief

— CORRECTIONS —

“Wishin’ you a pot o’ gold, and all the joy your heart can hold”

386-454-5348 715 NW Santa Fe Blvd High Spring, Fl 32643

In the March/April 2017 edition of Our Town magazine, there were errors in the story, “A Summit for a Cause: Causseaux Adventures Reach Peak in Climb for Cancer.” The Climb for Cancer Foundation does not have corporate sponsors nor does it collaborate with cancer centers in other countries. The Climb for Cancer Foundation offers several climbs and treks all over the world in an effort to raise awareness and funds for families affected by cancer.

In our story “Nature’s Time Capsule” the age of the rocks was incorrect. The rocks in the Harvey Sharron Bat Cave Field Laboratory are 35-50 million years old. The cave was donated to Santa Fe College by the Jefferson Smurfit Corp. paper company.

In the article about the Gainesville Cycling Club, in the Gainesville edition of Our Town, the ‘captain’ of the Hokey Pokey group is Chandler Otis.

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Wood Buildings

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Metal Buildings

M AY/J U N E 2 0 1 7

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At the Florida Museum through Sept. 4 Did you know that there are more than 6,700 species of frogs, but scientists continue to discover new ones every year? Also, frogs don’t need to drink. Instead, they absorb water through their skin!

Welcome to the colorful world of anurans — commonly known as frogs and toads.

According to its website, the Florida Museum of Natural History’s interactive exhibition features fascinating living frogs, each adapted ingeniously for survival in locations around the world. Experience some of the most visually stunning, vocally pleasing and remarkably adaptable life forms on earth.

Guests are invited to search for hidden frogs, activate calls, and perform a virtual dissection in this hands-on, minds-on adventure. The exhibition allows visitors to discover the important role frogs play, including serving as indicators for the health of our environment.

There will also be hands-on activities for visitors to examine the stages of metamorphosis. Spin a zoetrope to learn how frogs jump, and perform a virtual frog dissection to better understand the anatomy of these creatures. Come marvel at the skeleton of the world’s largest frog in the “Frog Frame,” and try to guess the differences between frogs and toads in “Frog or Toad?” Don’t forget to activate recorded frog calls in “Create a Chorus.” Let the fun learning commence!

The exhibit explores all aspects of frogs, from their biology and natural history to their role in human cultures. Visitors will learn about frogs’ importance to ecosystems and the peril they face in a changing environment. Stunning images by renowned wildlife photographers offer a glimpse of the vast pallet of frog diversity in our environment.

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PHOTOGRAPHY: CAREY JAMES BALBOA

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CONTRIBUTOR S

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M AY/J U N E 2 0 1 7

CRYSTAL HENRY is a freelance writer and columnist born and raised in West Texas. She received her B.S. in Journalism in 2006 from the University of Florida. She is in love with the Florida landscape. ces03k@gmail.com

BIANCA FAVATA is a third year advertising major at the University of Florida who was born and raised a Gator. She loves traveling, photography, painting, playing with her bunny and eating hot fudge sundaes. bfavata@ufl.edu

GABRIELLE CALISE is a junior journalism major at the University of Florida and freelance writer.

In her spare time she enjoys collecting vinyl records, taking photographs and watching movies. gcalise@ufl.edu

CAMERON COBB is a senior journalism major at the University of Florida as well as an Air Force veteran. She loves traveling, writing, ballet and all animals (her favorite being her rescue dog, Maggie). cameronacobb5@gmail.com

PEGGY MACDONALD is a native Gainesvillian and the executive director of the Matheson History Museum. She has taught history at Florida Polytechnic, Stetson and UF. She is also the author of Marjorie Harris Carr: Defender of Florida’s Environment. peggymacdemos@gmail.com

SAVANNA KEARNEY is a junior journalism major at the University of Florida and freelance writer. Her hobbies include reading, writing, taking photographs and petting dogs. savannak@ufl.edu

STEPHANIE RICHARDS is a freelance writer and a native of suburban Chicago. She was the Story Editor for The Sturbridge Times Magazine before recently moving to Newberry from New England. She loves to exercise, volunteer and spend time with her family. sarichards7@gmail.com

HAYLI ZUCCOLA is a New England native who enjoys listening to music and traveling. After graduating high school with her AA degree she got her Bachelor’s in Journalism from the University of Florida.

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MARY WOOD BRIDGMAN is a retired lawyer who grew up in Alachua County. Her work has appeared in national, regional, and local publications. Mary, an active member of the Writers’ Alliance of Gainesville, is an alumna of the University of Florida. marybridgman@msn.com

JORDAN ALBRIGHT loves to learn and explore as a photographer and freelance writer. She is a proud alumna of UF where she studied Dance and Photojournalism. Her passion is learning about your passion. jordanalbrightphotography@gmail.com

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RESEARCH & EXPLORATION >> ALACHUA ASTRONOMY CLUB

STARRY STARRY NIGHT

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Out-ofThis-World

OUR TOWN MAGAZINE

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PHOTOGRAPHY: ANDY WILLIAMS

The Alachua Astronomy Club: An Extraterrestrial Extracurricular W R I T T E N B Y B I A N C A F AVATA

E

ver noticed the huge sculptures of planets while driving down NW 8th Avenue in Gainesville? Ever wondered how they got there? Thanks to the Alachua Astronomy Club, the Gainesville Solar Walk (as the sidewalk exhibit is called) contains planets sized and spaced out along the side of the road proportionally as they would be in our solar system (at a scale of 4 million to one). The original project started out with signs placed along the road, but those began to go missing. So, in 1998, the city of Gainesville, the Alachua Astronomy Club and artist Elizabeth Indianos worked together to create the durable and unique Solar Walk we enjoy today.

The Alachua Astronomy Club is involved in all things galactic. For those interested in stargazing, learning about the expanse of our universe through a telescope, hearing interesting guest lectures, or learning the history behind constellations at the Santa Fe planetarium, the Alachua Astronomy Club is definitely worth a try.

“Astronomy is fascinating for many people wondering what’s out there in the universe,” said current Alachua Astronomy Club President Jerry Cheney in a phone interview.

Cheney has been interested in astronomy and the sciences for a long time.

“I had a small telescope for years; I could see Jupiter and Saturn but not much more than that,” he said. “I retired a couple years ago and decided I wanted to do this as a hobby.

So, I joined the club, got some telescopes and a camera or two, and now thoroughly enjoy it.”

He was inducted as president this past January and now oversees and coordinates public meetings, Star Parties and many other astronomy-related activities.

The Alachua Astronomy Club has a total of 150 members — a fairly large group of amateur astronomers. Young and old, well educated or novice, everyone is welcome to participate at their leisure. The club simply gets together to enjoy fellowship and to exchange ideas on astronomy.

Monthly public meetings take place at the Florida MAY/JUNE 2017

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RESEARCH & EXPLORATION >> ALACHUA ASTRONOMY CLUB

The colors of the Orion Nebula make it many people’s favorite nebula, including Jerry Cheney.

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RESEARCH & EXPLORATION >> ALACHUA ASTRONOMY CLUB

The sun sets at the Rosemary Hill Observatory as members prepare to view the night sky.

A beautiful night sky featuring the Moon, Venus and Mars.

Members set up their telescopes for the Transit of Venus gathering (bottom right) and for International Observe the Moon Night (above) at the Newberry Star Park.

Museum of Natural History. After a quick business meeting and snack break, a special guest lecturer speaks on a topic that can range from current findings to the birth of quantum physics. Most guest lecturers are from the University of Florida Astronomy Department. The high-quality lectures happen to be Cheney’s favorite aspect of the club.

months [at the planetarium] and presents the night sky that’s occurring at the time, and tells us the folklore of mythology associated with the constellations that are visible at that time of year,” Cheney said.

“Occasionally, he has special programs he puts on, like in January we had a program on the planets, and it was set to music ... which was very nice.”

“We normally try to have our Star Parties when the moon is not out because moonlight cuts down our ability to see some of these objects.”

“I’m a scientist by training and general disposition so I enjoy some high-quality science,” he said.

Quarterly meetings at the Kika Silva Pla Planetarium at Santa Fe College are quite the treat.

“James Albury graciously hosts us every three 22 |

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Two or three times a year, the club is invited out to the Rosemary Hill Observatory. Rosemary Hill is an optical research observatory owned and operated by the UF Astronomy Department. The stars brilliantly contrast with the night sky out in Bronson, PHOTOGRAPHY: LISA EAGER, ANDY HOWELL, HOWARD COHEN

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RESEARCH & EXPLORATION >> ALACHUA ASTRONOMY CLUB

Detailed image of the Waxing Quarter Moon viewed from Hidden Oaks Elementary School.

A brilliant, detailed image of the night sky featuring Comet Lovejoy.

The Alachua Astronomy Club sets up for events at Rosemary Hill Observatory (top) and Hickory Ranch at Paynes Prairie (above).

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which is 30 miles outside of Gainesville. Although this particular stargazing event is for members only, Star Parties are welcome to all.

Star Parties are where members and the general public can wander around looking through each other’s telescopes, discussing objects seen through the lenses, asking questions and learning about the expanse of the universe. Star Parties take place once a month, weather permitting, at the Newberry Star Park, located in the Eastern Newberry Sports Complex.

“They can come out and ask questions about astronomy and telescopes and we show them what we see that night,” Cheney said.

One of the club’s goals is to educate the general public. Beyond Star Parties, the Alachua Astronomy Club participates in school outreach programs. Four to six times a year, the club holds a presentation at a public school, where the children are able to peer through telescopes.

These programs are usually held earlier in the evening, so the children aren’t able to see a full night sky, but the club tries “to teach the students as much as possible,” Cheney said.

One of the largest activities the club is involved in is called Starry Night, an event hosted by the Florida Museum of Natural History. About 1,0002,000 people show up to the event in late October, and astronomers from UF set up their equipment as the Astronomy Club sets up their telescopes. With food, a portable planetarium, and other pop-up activities, the free event contains astronomical proportions of fun.

When peering through a telescope into the night sky, one might see all sorts of interesting objects.

There are plenty of galaxies present, along with nebulae (clouds of gas and dust), colorful stars, double stars, clusters of stars, even globular clusters, which are clusters that contain thousands of stars in close proximity.

PHOTOGRAPHY: LISA EAGER, HOWARD COHEN

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RESEARCH & EXPLORATION >> ALACHUA ASTRONOMY CLUB

“We normally try to have our Star Parties when the moon is not out because moonlight cuts down our ability to see some of these objects.” Cheney said, but sometimes they’ll plan a Star Party to view the features of the moon.

Planets are amazing to view up-close as well. Cheney takes a special interest in astrophotography, along with other members of the club. Currently, he enjoys photographing the details of Jupiter and Saturn.

Surprisingly, it’s rather easy to take pictures of solar system objects, because of the fact that the Sun produces plenty of light and our planets reflect plenty of light.

A very sensitive camera is not needed. Most photographers simply attach a small, cylinder-like video camera to their telescope.

Cheney said a laptop is necessary to operate the camera when photographing, but it’s “relatively easy to do so.”

Then, in post-production (i.e. Photoshop), “they take multiple images and then use software to combine all those images together to draw out as much detail as possible,” he said.

After a bit more photo editing, voila — there’s Saturn in its finest glory.

What’s needed for you to get involved in the club?

A general interest is all that’s necessary.

“Some folks come in with very little experience in astronomy

and have never used a telescope, and then we have folks who have several telescopes and have been doing this for 50 or 60 years,” Cheney said.

This wonderful contrast means the more knowledgeable members mentor the newbies.

Surprisingly, it’s rather easy to take pictures of solar system objects, because of the fact that the Sun produces plenty of light and our planets reflect plenty of light.

“Our members are happy to explain as much as they can to those who don’t know as much,” Cheney said. The Star Parties are a perfect opportunity to do that.

The Alachua Astronomy Club’s next big event — the Kanapaha Moonlight Walk — takes place Saturday, May 6, at the Kanapaha Botanical Gardens.

“The gardens open up their facility for those who want to view the garden and also look through telescopes,” Cheney said.

“We encourage anyone who has any interest in astronomy to come out.”

Upcoming Astro-Events in Gainesville KANAPAHA MOONLIGHT WALK Saturday, May 6 7:00pm – 11:00pm Kanapaha Botanical Gardens, 4700 SW 58th Drive. Enjoy the park and walk through the gardens before the observing begins. No charge for AAC members. 352-372-4981.

ALACHUA ASTRONOMY CLUB PUBLIC MEETINGS Second Tuesday of each month 7:00pm – 9:00pm Florida Museum of Natural History, 3215 Hull Rd. Join the fun for an exciting and interesting evening.

STAR PARTIES Saturday, May 27, June 24, July 22, August 19 8:30pm – 11:00pm Newberry Star Park, 24880 NW 16th Ave. Everyone is invited. Set up one hour before. Event contingent on weather (“GO” or “NO GO” will be given at 12:00pm day of event). www.alachuaastronomyclub.org.

May 9 - Speaker: Jim Weichold, Professor of Astronomy, Santa Fe College.

STARRY NIGHT Friday, October 27 6:00pm – 10:00pm Florida Museum of Natural History, 3215 Hull Rd. Come out to one of the biggest astronomy events of the year. See a portable planetarium, look through telescopes, and more at this free event. www.flmnh.ufl.edu.

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June 13 - Speaker: Dr. John Axe on Resolving the Riddle of the Sun’s Neutrino Flux.

July 11 - Speaker: James Albury, Planetarium director and co-host of the weekly TV show “Stargazers.”

August 8 - Speaker: Emily Moravec. www.alachuaastronomyclub.org.

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ENVIRONMENT >> FISH & WILDLIFE CONSERVATION

LET THE WILD RUMPUS START!

Fisheating Creek Wildlife Management Area is part of the 5.9 million acres of wildlife management areas in the state. Florida’s WMA is one of the largest in the nation.

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Where the Wild Things Are W R I T T E N B Y C R Y S TA L H E N R Y | P H O T OG R A P H Y C O U R T E S Y O F F W C

FWC is an acronym that most Floridians have at least seen but may not be totally familiar with.

The letters stand for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, and the people who work there stand for everything that makes Florida the ecologically diverse, outdoor-enthusiast state that it is.

In a nutshell, the job of the FWC is to protect and manage more than 575 species of wildlife and about 700 species of fish in the state of Florida, said Katie Purcell, assistant director of the FWC Community Relations office. That’s the F and W portion. The C part, the commission, is Purcell and a group of more than 2,000 full-time employees who work together to balance the needs of Florida critters and their homes with the needs of millions of people inhabiting the state. The best way to do that is through conservation.

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The roseate spoonbill is just one of the 575 species of wildlife in the state that the FWC works to protect. Declining populations of the spoonbill tipped off researchers that the water management in the everglades needed attention.

CONSERVATION According to the FWC website, last year the Florida resident population reached almost 20 million, and about another 105 million folks stopped by for a visit. One of the main draws for visitors is Florida’s teeming wildlife and lush landscapes. According to the FWC website, recreational boating and fishing alone brings in more than $20 billion and 200,000 jobs each year.

Conservation means healthy wildlife.

Healthy wildlife means healthy tourism.

And healthy tourism means more money for conservation. So it’s increasingly important for the FWC to make sure both people and wildlife can coexist in a delicate balance.

They do that through the development of species management plans. The Wildlife Management Area in Florida includes 5.9 million acres, making it one of the largest wildlife management areas in the nation.

They help balance the ecosystems of the marine estuaries, plant communities and wildlife habitats in the state. The FWC leads the attack on invasive and exotic species of plants and animals that threaten the natural native plant, animal and human residents of Florida. They also create and implement conservation programs to protect animals, such as manatees, Florida panthers and sea turtles, to help their populations come back and thrive.

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RESEARCH One way the FWC directs conservation efforts is by using scientific research to guide their decisions for wildlife and fish populations and habitats. The Fish and Wildlife Research Institute studies and provides data on habitats, fisheries, and plants and animals that are harvested or endangered. Their findings are used by the federal, state and local governments, universities, recreational and commercial fishing and boating interests, as well as everyday people and organizations. They monitor coral reefs and evaluate maps of freshwater plants. They keep an eye on harmful algal blooms, such as red tide, and they keep an eye out for fish and wildlife diseases. The office maintains a collection of fish and invertebrate specimens, and they develop best-management practices for conserving and restoring our resources.

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ENVIRONMENT >> FISH & WILDLIFE CONSERVATION

HUNTING AND FISHING MANAGEMENT It might seem counterintuitive, but one way the FWC protects wildlife is through hunting and fishing. The job of the Hunting and Game Management division of the FWC is to make sure both hunters and wildlife populations are safe.

They are one of the leading conservation divisions, because if the ecosystems aren’t protected, there won’t be any animals to hunt. A healthy animal population is a great incentive for 30 |

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hunters to take an interest in the environment. The HGM focuses mainly on waterfowl, small game, deer, wild turkey and alligators, and is responsible for the rules and regulations for more than 5.9 million acres of public hunting lands. They also manage hunter safety courses and public shooting ranges, which helps to ensure that hunters are up-to-date on the laws, ethics, conservation efforts and responsibilities they have in owning and using firearms.

After a hurricane in 2016, seven manatees were stranded in a golf course pond (shown above).

The FWC saves lives through rescues and disaster responses like these.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is known for its involvement in hunting and fishing regulations and licensing. But the organization also leads efforts to help young Floridians develop a love for the outdoors through programs and classes.

COMMUNITY The FWC also creates a sense of community and stewardship in the outdoors through programs for young Floridians.

They encourage children to get involved in hunting and outdoor recreation to raise the next generation of FWC caretakers and they lead efforts to encourage hunters, government agencies, researchers and the public to work together to protect and manage wildlife. One of their most successful programs is the citizen scientist, where community members help the FWC gather important data about the wildlife in their own backyards. The community relations department handles all the social media for the FWC, and they have thousands of photos for the public to access on Flickr.

CITIZEN SCIENTIST One of the best ways for people to get involved with the FWC is through the citizen scientist program. It’s a way for everyday citizens to be the eyes and ears for the FWC. There isn’t any special training of degree required. Simply report what you see when you’re in the great outdoors, whether hiking the dense trails or sitting in your own backyard. The FWC website has a list of wildlife species that people can report on, and they have a list of surveys for people to take to help the FWC gather specific information.

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ENVIRONMENT >> FISH & WILDLIFE CONSERVATION

The bullseye snakehead is a non-native species of fish that is monitored by the FWC. Their population is being watched, but according to the FWC they’re fun to catch and tasty to eat.

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Florida has some of the nation’s more stringent rules for keeping wildlife. The 6,000 plus licensees that own wildlife in Florida, including zoos and private citizens, have to answer to the rules and regulations of the FWC to ensure their wild animals are safe and well cared for.

The FWC also includes more than 1,000 members, and 853 trained and sworn officers who patrol more than 8,400 miles of coastline, over 13,000 square miles of offshore waters, and more than 34 million acres of forests, parks and wildlife management areas.

They have full police powers, and they serve and protect both people and animals in Florida. They conduct search-and-rescue efforts, and they save about 1,000 people per year. They patrol wildlife areas to protect people that other law enforcement officers typically don’t patrol.

Boaters also have the FWC officers to thank for maintaining, constructing and repairing 200 boat ramps in the state, and the placement and maintenance of the waterway markers they all use.

OUTDOOR RECREATION The FWC is the agency that conducts safety training and classes for Florida hunters and boaters. They teach classes on bird watching, fishing and hunting, and they provide programs such as fishing clinics for children and classes to help people who have never been on more than a hike to their mailbox.

DISASTER MANAGEMENT The FWC also responds to catastrophes such as oil spills, ship groundings and natural disasters.

They screen for diseases in Florida wildlife, and they serve as wildlife coroners, reporting on the cause of death for manatees, bears, panthers, sea turtles and other animals.

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HOW TO GET INVOLVED Purcell said the FWC values the support of the community. The FWC website has information about the various programs and organizations for people who want to get involved.

For more information visit www. myfwc.com.

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ENVIRONMENT >> FISH & WILDLIFE CONSERVATION

Be a citizen scientist this horseshoe crab spawning season in Florida WARMER MONTHS ARE APPROACHING, AND THAT MEANS IT IS PEAK MATING SEASON FOR HORSESHOE CRABS. Biologists with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) are asking the public to report horseshoe crab sightings.

Horseshoe crabs mate year-round, and spring is the peak season to see them in groups along the shore. To identify mating pairs, look for a smaller male on top of a larger female. Beachgoers will likely have the best luck spotting horseshoe crabs around high tide, within three days of a new or full moon.

For 15 years, citizens have reported horseshoe crab sightings to the FWC, providing important information about population distribution. Although horseshoe crabs have been around for approximately 450 million years, their numbers have declined in recent decades because of overfishing and loss of habitat.

If you see a horseshoe crab on its back, gently pick it up (holding both sides of the shell) and release it back into the water. Simple actions like this help conserve this species and the countless other species that depend on it.

The FWC asks the public to report sightings through one of several options. Go to MyFWC.com/Contact and go to “Horseshoe Crab Nesting Activity” for the “Florida Horseshoe Crab Spawning Beach Survey” link.

You can also report findings via email at horseshoe@MyFWC.com or by phone at 866-252-9326.

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Education Matters EXPLORE YOUR CELESTIAL NEIGHBORHOOD WITH YOUR CHILDREN CHRISTINA MILLER HAS BEEN THE PRESIDENT OF A PRIVATE SCHOOL IN GAINESVILLE FOR 39 YEARS. SHE HAS A BA IN ELEMENTARY EDUCATION AND A MA IN CURRICULUM DESIGN, AND ALSO HOLDS CERTIFICATION IN MONTESSORI EDUCATION FROM AGE TWO TO MIDDLE SCHOOL. CHRISTINA LOVES TO TRAVEL, ESPECIALLY TO EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCES. BOATING IS HER FAVORITE PASTIME. SHE HAS ONE DAUGHTER AND ONE GRANDDAUGHTER. tinamms@millhopper.com.

IF YOU ARE EXPERIENCING SPRING FEVER AND ARE LOOKING FOR WAYS TO BOND WITH YOUR CHILDREN THIS TIME OF YEAR, LOOK NO FURTHER THAN THE SKY ABOVE YOU.

while looking at masses of scattered stars helps to develop visual closure as children connect the dots to form a constellation.

Starting with a good constellation map is necessary. Mr. Printables is a good company to acquire simple constellation maps.

There are a multitude of arts and crafts activities such as sewing cards, rocks and sidewalk chalk, marshmallows and tooth picks, and push-pin viewers, which will help your child become familiar with hildren are awe inspired by the stars and often miss the opportunity because of a bedtime constellations such as The Big Dipper and Orion. There are many other inside extensions that are fun to do, including setting up a star schedule. This makes stargazing a special treat.

There are many teachable moments that connect with astron- lamp or turning a bedroom ceiling into the night sky with stick-on omy. It is a connection with nature as well as mythology and it stars. We all know how much today’s children are well versed with is how early explorers navigated. Finding constellation pictures their electronics. I recommend apps such as: Star Chart, NASA, and Night Sky Lite, to name a few.

There are also worthwhile books for children such as “Roaring Rockets” by Tony Mitton, “Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me” by Eric Carle, and “The Big Dipper”

by Franklyn Branley and Molly Coxe. This last book is a must read for beginning a journey in stargazing and finding constellations as well as “Once Upon a Starry Night” by Jacqueline Mitton and Christina Balit.

Children benefit by having a vision of the universe so that they can better understand ne 8 June 5 - Ju their place in it. Books can only take them so far but an outing can be unforgettable.

20 ly Ju 17 Selecting an evening with a new moon is July ideal and a spot where city lights do not compromise the view. However, bundling 10 Aug 7 - Aug up together on a blanket in the back yard can be wonderful too. “Family Days Tried and Tested” has instructions for setting up an empty wading pool with blankets and pillows for such an occasion. The new moons coming Hitting - Pitching - Defense up are May 25 and June 23rd. The Big Dipper Catching - Base Running - Live Games and Orion are two that are easily identified.

9am-12:30pm Orion is seen facing southeast. The three stars in Orion’s belt make a straight line and rise perpendicular to the horizon. Try locating it yourself before setting out with your child.

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SCIENCE >> FACTS ABOUT SKY PHENOMENON

Fun Sky Facts Ever wonder why the sky is blue? Or what makes the sound of thunder?

Why is the sky blue?

Although we see the sun’s light as more of the color white, according to nasa.gov, it’s made up of all colors. You can see all these colors when white light shines through a prism (a specially shaped crystal). Light energy travels both in waves (with blue light waves being the shortest and red being the longest) and, aside from a few special circumstances, in a straight line. If something gets in the way of light as it travels, it is reflected, scattered or bent (the special circumstances previously mentioned). When sunlight hits the Earth’s atmosphere, the particles within the air get in the way, causing it to scatter. Blue light is then scattered in numerous directions, because it is traveling in shorter waves than those of the other colors, thus creating the blue sky we all know and love!

What makes a rainbow?

Chase all you want, but it’s highly unlikely you’ll ever find that pot of gold at the end of this natural wonder. Rainbows are illusions that don’t necessarily exist in any specific location because of their intangibility, according to scijinks.gov. Rainbows happen only when the conditions are just right, that is, water droplets must be floating in the air, the sun behind you, and no clouds covering the sun. When light shines through the aerial water droplets, that light bends slightly, and when those wavelengths of light bend at different points, we get the multi-colored rainbow. From our view on the ground, we can only see part of the rainbow (the semi-circle formation), but people in airplanes flying in the sky sometimes get to see the full 360 degrees of beauty.

As far as double rainbows go, this happens when there is a second reflection made inside of the suspended water droplets. Not only does a double rainbow appear above the original one, but the orders of the colors are reversed as well.

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Sunrise…

Sunset As we learned with blue light traveling in smaller wavelengths than others (creating a blue sky), the same phenomenon occurs with the colors seen during sunrise and sunset. The sun’s light has to travel its longest path through Earth’s atmosphere whenever it is rising or setting and closer to our view of the horizon. By the time it reaches our eyes, most of the blue light has been scattered, and instead we see the longer wavelengths of colors like reds and yellows (the combination giving it the warm, orange hue). The droplets that make up clouds are much bigger than light waves that we see, which allows them to scatter light with minimal color variation (light refracted by clouds assumes the color of incoming light). This is why clouds appear to be white during the day and orangey-red around the time of sunset/sunrise. Because the air is a bit cleaner and dryer during the fall and winter months, sunsets/ rises will typically be brighter at this time of year.

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SCIENCE >> FACTS ABOUT SKY PHENOMENON

Clouds Although they look like soft, fluffy cotton balls, clouds are made of water droplets and ice crystals too miniscule to see floating through the air. Closer to the ground, these droplets turn into water vapor, causing them to rise high into the sky. Some of the vapor attaches to tiny pieces of dust floating through the air and forms a tiny droplet around each dust particle. When billions of these droplets merge together they become a visible cloud. Types of clouds that rise highest into the sky include Cirrus, Cirrostratus and Cirrocumulus. These clouds are thin, white and veil-like. Clouds that hang mid-way in the sky include Altostratus, Altocumulus, and Nimbostratus, a continuous dark gray rain cloud. Low-hanging clouds, which are the thick, white fluffy ones we are most familiar with, include Cumulus, Stratus, Cumulonimbus and Stratocumulus.

Nephology is the study of clouds, and in about 340 BC, the Greek philosopher Aristotle wrote “Meteorologica,” becoming the first to study these meteorology miracles.

One. Two. Three… BOOM! Lightning Facts Lightning is hot. Very hot. In fact, that bolt you see is over 40,000 degrees Fahrenheit, according to eo.ucar.edu. As a bolt of lightning heats the path of air it travels through, it causes it to expand rapidly. That expansion is what causes the sound of thunder, and though both happen at the same time, we notice a delay because light travels faster than sound. That time delay between the flash of light and the crash of thunder lets you know how far away you are from the area that was struck. For every five seconds that pass between the two, the storm is a mile away. According to livescience.com, the National Weather Service encourages individuals to take cover if the sound happens 30 seconds or less after seeing the light. Heat lightning is actually just lightning that’s too far away (over 15 miles) to hear the thunder.

Supermoon A supermoon occurs when a full moon coincides with its closest approach to Earth on its elliptical orbit, resulting in the largest view of the Moon from Earth. The Moon’s closest approach to Earth is known as its “perigree.” According to National Geographic, the most recent supermoon was December 14, 2016, when it was just 222,737Ëmiles away from Earth. A supermoon had appeared November 13 of the same year — the biggest and closest supermoon since 1948. The next one will be May 25, 2017, and the very closest supermoon this century will happen on December 6, 2052.

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SCIENCE >> FACTS ABOUT SKY PHENOMENON

Hail Facts Hail, a type of precipitation, consists of irregular lumps of ice. The ice is formed during thunderstorms in an environment of strong, upward motion of air and temperatures below freezing. Thunderstorms that have a strong updraft lift hailstones towards the top of the cloud where they encounter liquid water below freezing temperature and the hailstones grow. The hail falls when it gets too heavy for the thunderstorm’s updraft to support the weight of the ice. The stronger the updraft the larger the hailstone can grow, according to the National Severe Storms Laboratory.

Hailstones can grow up to six inches and weigh up to a pound. The heaviest hailstone recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records dropped in Bangladesh in 1986, weighing 2.25 lbs. The largest was just under 8 inches in South Dakota in 2010. Hailstones can fall anywhere from 20 miles per hour to 110 miles per hour if they’re heavy enough. Unfortunately, there’s no effective way to prevent hail, although Europeans in the 18th century did their best by ringing church bells and firing cannons into the clouds, according to National Geographic.

Fire Whirls & Dust Devils Dust devils and fire whirls, while closely related, involve two very different elements: earth and fire. According to National Geographic, dust devils form when hot air rises and combines with pockets of cold air, causing a rapid spinning effect. They’re usually small and harmless, but can occasionally grow large enough to become dangerous. Dust devils don’t usually get bigger than three feet wide, with winds of about 45 miles per hour, and they usually dissipate less than a minute after forming. Fire whirls, also known as fire devils, fire tornados, firenados and fire twisters, form when a wildfire creates its own wind, thus forming a spinning vortex of flame, according to National Geographic.

Fire whirls are much more dangerous than dust devils, moving slowly, with winds of up to 100 miles per hour. They are usually one to three feet wide and 50 to 100 feet tall. Fire whirls can last for an hour or more, and cannot be directly extinguished. A 300-foot tall fire whirl, called the “dragon twist,” devastated Tokyo during the Great Japan Earthquake of 1923.

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MYTHOLOGY >> LEARNING ABOUT CONSTELLATIONS

SECOND STAR TO THE RIGHT

Connecting the Dots An Exploration into the Depths of One of Space’s Greatest Treasures — Constellations W RIT TE N BY C A MERON COBB

T

he night sky. A nocturnal kaleidoscope of wonders, twisted every evening to introduce a celestial masterpiece of diverse combinations and patterns.

The majority of space extending beyond the confines of our planet remains foreign and inconceivably vast, but we’re privileged with the opportunity to marvel at these evenings of darkness that blanket the sky and teem with an immeasurable number of stars just waiting for the connections imagination provides.

One of the (very) many astronomical phenomena are constellations, a word that derives from Latin appropriately meaning “group of stars” or “stars together.” Constellations are clusters of the brightest

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stars we are able to see, said Naibí Mariñas, a lecturer in the Astronomy Department at the University of Florida. The stars that make up each constellation may appear to be close to the others that form the overall picture, but in reality, they’re incredibly far apart and spread out in multiple directions. Our minds simply transform them into 2-D displays.

On a clear night, you may find that your eyes search for things such as familiar Dippers, a renowned hero’s belt, and bears both great and small, but that creativity had to stem from somewhere.

The constellations as we know them in the U.S. date back to Babylonian times, Mariñas said. After Alexander the Great invaded Babylon, the concept of constellations made its way into Greece, where they integrated these dotted images with aspects of Greek mythology. Though we adopted the Greek’s

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MYTHOLOGY >> LEARNING ABOUT CONSTELLATIONS

Ever catch yourself looking into the sky on a cloudy day and finding all sorts of forms and figures in the clouds?

The same idea can be compared to how constellations came about.

interpretations, the specifics of constellations differ from culture to culture. For instance, the images and meanings determined

by Native Americans won’t be the same as those of the Greeks.

The Mayans created their own meanings as well, and even recognized a second kind of constellation group known as “dark constellations.” Dark constellations were conceptualized from shadowy patterns (created by dust) visibly laced throughout the Milky Way’s ban of light (similar to how the more-familiar stellar ones came to be, only the images were fabricated from those dark patches versus stars).

Ever catch yourself looking into the sky on a cloudy day and finding all sorts of forms and figures in the clouds? The same idea can be compared to how constellations came about. People saw objects in the stars and shared those discoveries with others.

The 88 constellations originally had a plethora of fundamental 46 6 |

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The Orion Nebula (M42). Estimated at 24 light years across, and 1,300 light years away, it is the closest region of star formation to us.

uses, Mariñas said, such as for navigation. The Egyptians even aligned their Pyramids of Giza with the north under the assumption that constellations could help guide souls to the afterlife.

They also used constellations as a way to tell time. Seeing six constellations rise every evening, the Egyptians factored two hours of rising time for each, then totaled it to create a 12-hour night. By that logic, they divided the day into the same amount of time, thus making up the 24-hour day. Though thanks to human and technological advancements, constellations nowadays need not be more than aesthetic ways to locate a specific spot in the sky, she said.

Unless you’re an astronomer or devout lover of latitudes and longitudes, it may be a little overwhelming to have to find something in the giant puzzle that forms our view of outer space. Constellations help simplify that search, so for example, PHOTOGRAPHY: WILLIAM DUEEASE

if you’re wanting to observe the Orionid meteor shower, simply pinpoint where the familiar Orion constellation is, and that’s where you’d find it happening, Mariñas said.

Though their existence may be constant, the visibility of constellations is entirely determinate upon the time of year, Mariñas said. From Earth’s perspective, as it orbits the sun, there will always be two parts of space divided; one half being “in front” of the sun and the other to the “back” of it.

Constellations in front of the sun will show during daylight hours (which is why we are unable to see these), while those in the opposite direction prominently shine at night.

Cities with bright lights aren’t the best place to go hunting for constellations, as the excessive light diminishes their visibility.

But if you’re lucky enough to find yourself with a clear view (Mariñas suggested around Paynes Prairie), some of the constellations observable in this region (time of year depending) include Cassiopeia, Orion, Ursa Major and Ursa Minor (the great and little bears, respectively), Taurus and Gemini.

Speaking of the last two commonly recognized constellations, Mariñas mentioned there are some important things to keep in mind when it comes to astrology. First and foremost, the term astrology is not interchangeable with astronomy, as the two are entirely different studies. Astronomy is a science, while astrology is better considered to be a pseudoscience (set of beliefs that get mistakenly referred to as being based on scientific method).

Passed along from the Babylonians as well, the constellations making up the zodiac were assumed to be auguries (signs of what the future holds). This knowledge was relayed to Greece and maintained popularity during the Middle Ages, as the Greeks, too, thought the zodiac was a reliable way to uncover predictions for upcoming events.

Though the practice went against Islam and the Catholic Church, this certainly didn’t stop it from continuing. Regardless, Mariñas said there is no real relation between the zodiac or any constellations when it comes to forecasting or revealing personality traits (sorry horoscope fanatics). Even though, it is still interesting and fun to figure out and helps provide a sense of the constellations’ presences throughout orbit, Mariñas said.

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Picture a straight line piercing th through hro r uggh Ea E Earth rth rt h and extendi extending through space behind th thro r ug ugh th tthee center of the sun and out into the area of spa paace c beh will move it. As Earth’s orbit continues, that imaginary line wi it ill ll m accordingly, and the various constellations it points to along acco co ord rdingly, alo lon lo o the wayy m make up those constellation w wa ma ake u p th hos o e of the h zzodiac. he od o diac. Whatever constell lat atiio io that straight on dayy yo born determines stra st r igghtt lline ra in ne wa wass in no n th thee da d you u we were b orn or n de dete t rm te r ines Keeping this mind, don’t yyour yo ur zzodiac ur odia od iiaac a sign. Keepin in ng th his iin n mind nd,, do d n’t stay too fi xated on what you may have considered tto oo xa xate ted te d on maay ha h ve v con onsidered bee yo to b your urr ssign ign ju ig ign jjust ust st yyet. et.

Aligning with A lign li g ing wi ith h time, the number of zodiacs zodiac acs (12) (1 12)c 2)) conveniently con o veeni n ently worked with the established d 12-month calendar.

This left each zodiac sign 12-m 12 -m mon ntth h cal a endar. with wi th h its its ts own own w 30-day timeslot (say, if someone waas born was born bo n May May 10, it was said that they’re astrological lo ogi gicaal sign was Taurus), but in reality, because constellations front co ons n tellations differ in size, the sun stays in fro of the the h larger ones for a lot longer than the smaller s ones. that same line on nes es.. For example, according to nasa.gov, nasa.go imagine ima l extending from Earth h and piercing thro through the sun is pointing to the constellation llation Virgo. Because this is a larger constellation, stay within Virgo for 45 days, the line ne would w day ays while a smaller one, Due to changes such h as Scorpius, would only be for seven seve days. d

and shifts over time, the original incremental determination for the horoscope dates is inaccurate, meaning the zodiac sign for that May 10 birthdate is now Aries.

Not only that, but there is one other lesser-known significant element about the zodiac — an entire constellation nif ccalled Ophiuchus. For those born between Nov. 29 – Dec. 17, that imaginary line pointed to the constellation Ophiuchus (a serpent-wielding being), according to the Huffington Post. However, for the Babylonians, a 13th constellation didn’t exactly correspond with the “12-month calendar,” so it was essentially just left out until 2011 when astrologers finally included it as a zodiac sign. ast Regardless of the lack of influence constellations have when it comes to things like personality traits and predicting the future, the zodiac (and the many other constellations) are still extraordinary sights and, ultimately, pieces of history. With there being so much more to constellations than just a set of classified dots, there are many reasons to search well beyond the basics. One of the best ways to discover more about the spectacles of space is simple: look up.

The constellation is named after Heracles, the legendary strongman from Greek mythology, with Hercules being his Roman equivalent.

NEW

ZODIAC CAPRICORN:

Jan. 20 - Feb. 16 AQUARIUS:

Feb. 16 - March 11 PISCES:

March 11- April 18 ARIES:

April 18 - May 13 TAURUS:

May 13 - June 21 GEMINI:

June 21 - July 20 CANCER:

July 20 - Aug. 10

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DATES

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Sept. 16 - Oct. 30 LIBRA:

Oct. 30 - Nov. 23 SCORPIO:

Nov. 23 - Nov. 29 OPHIUCHUS:

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DIY PROJECT >> SEED BOMBS

IT’S DA BOMB

Sprouting Smiles DIY Seed Bombs Ready to Bloom!

S TORY A N D PHOTOG R A PHY BY ERICK A WINTER ROW D

C

reating floral beauty is a great way to spruce up not only your lawn but public spaces as well. Some call this “guerrilla gardening.” Think less civilian warfare language and more uniting neighborhoods by spreading floral cheer. These seed bombs will sprout not only colorful wildflowers in neighborhoods and other public spaces, but lots of smiles too. Follow these simple instructions and you’ll have a wonderful spring activity the whole family can enjoy.

SEED BOMBS

8-10 pieces of colorful paper Food processor 1-2 packets of wildflower seeds Flower cookie mold Strainer Sponge Large bowl Water

STEP TWO: Now it’s time to put the soaked pieces of paper into a food processor. Add some of the remaining water that was in the bowl into the food processor. Now slice the pieces even smaller by using any of the different chopping features that are available on the food processor. Add more water if necessary.

STEP ONE: Rip 8-10 sheets of colorful paper into small pieces.

Then put them in a large bowl and add enough water to cover all of the pieces. Let the paper soak for about 15 minutes.

STEP THREE: Make sure the food processor is turned off, then remove the sliced paper and put directly into a strainer.

(It helps to put the strainer over a bowl of some sort so

MATERIALS:

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the water can be collected.)

Now take a sponge and press on the paper mixture. The goal here is to soak up as much excess water that the paper mixture may be holding. Once completed, the paper will still be moist but it shouldn’t be soaking.

STEP FOUR: Create your first layer in the flower cookie mold. Put enough of the paper mixture to fill about half of the cookie cup, and then sprinkle wild flower seeds on top. About a pinch or two of seeds should suffice.

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STEP FIVE: Once the seeds have been added to each cup, it’s time to put the second and final layer of the paper mixture into the flower molds.

STEP SIX: Allow the seed bombs to dry for about 24-36 hours. They don’t have to be bone-dry to be removed. More than likely they will start sprouting after two days — even if they are still in the molds.

STEP SEVEN: Now comes the fun part … finding the spaces where you will lovingly drop some seed bombs. Neglected roundabouts, planters or flowerbeds work really well.

The great thing about seed bombs is that you can lob a couple from a car window, while on a walk, or even from your bicycle. Remember: the best seasons for seed bombing are in the spring and autumn, and if you can coincide with heavy rainfall all the better.

Here’s to dropping happy bombs — ones that grow both flowers and love!

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laptop, or smartphone with the 98.9 Smooth Jazz App for iOS or Android.

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ADVENTURE >> MOONLIGHT CANOEING

MOON RIVER

THERE’S BEAUTY ALL AROUND US – EVEN IN THE DARK

Moonlight Canoeing STORY A N D PHOTOGR A PH Y BY JOR DA N A LBR IGHT

My boyfriend and I are constantly looking for new adventures to experience together.

We enjoy exploring North Central Florida’s rivers, lakes and springs and have done so by camping, swimming, canoeing, hiking and tubing. Usually the setting of the sun is our sign to go home, or to cozy up around a campfire. We had never considered experiencing nature at night until hearing that the Santa Fe Canoe Outpost in High Springs hosts Moonlight Canoeing once a month during the full moon. We checked for the next full moon and made it a date.

We arrived at the Outpost just off 441 as the sun was setting. After we checked in and got our paddles, we followed the 54 |

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boardwalk illuminated by tiki torches to the bank of the Santa Fe River. I was under the impression that it was going to be a guided excursion, but the Outpost employees encouraged us to go as far as we’d like at our own pace. Eventually, the direction we were sent would lead us to a ‘dead end’ at River Rise Preserve, three miles upstream. The Santa Fe River disappears into a sinkhole in O’Leno State Park and flows underground for three miles before resurfacing at River Rise.

“Every trip is unique,” said Johnny, a longtime employee of the Outpost.

With a push, the warm glow of the tiki torches dissipated and it was as if we entered a black and white film. It was a cloudy night and our only source of light danced in and out of cloud cover. The moonlight created beautiful textures by contrasting canopies lining the sides of the river with the night sky. While I was admiring the patterns, my boyfriend imagined what it would look like in color.

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At some points, we had to take out the flashlight to navigate the river and at other points the moon was so bright it cast shadows. As our vision was limited, sounds became more curious — splashes and rustling leaves were left to our imagination and our paddling became an audible rhythm. One of the most beautiful experiences was seeing a great white heron fly across the dark landscape.

Moonlight canoeing wasn’t shaping up to be quite as idyllic as I had imagined. There were no fireflies or animals singing and dancing around us like in many Disney movies. I found myself wishing my boyfriend and I were closer, but we chose a canoe over a kayak for its stability. He steered, and I sat in the front. That being said, we were able to experience the trip separately and together.

Paddling in the dark took the perception of depth away. The water was black and only reflected as much as the moonlight would allow.

We traveled through stretches of rocky shoals and depths that our paddles couldn’t reach. At one point I squealed — I had put my paddle in to help row and something moved under it. I was certain it was an alligator, but my boyfriend shined a flashlight, and assured me that we were just in shallow rocky water.

At the beginning of our trip, I was excited and confident. As time went on, the darkness and long stretches of silence played with my mind. After about an hour and a half paddling upstream, we still hadn’t reached the ‘end,’ so I suggested we head back to the Outpost. So we turned around, and after a couple minutes, we met the guides on the river. Talking to them gave me the energy to continue, so we turned back around and paddled one more mile to complete our mission.

When we reached the end, I couldn’t believe it; the river disappeared and we found ourselves in a cove surrounded by Cypress knees and trees.

I felt an overwhelming sense of accomplishment and happiness; I had pushed through my fears.

Paddling back to the outpost was much easier than paddling upstream. And the route was familiar, as if we weren’t in the dark anymore.

Was it romantic? Not particularly. I thought the canoe kept us too far apart. Was it an incredible experience? Absolutely. Experiencing nature under the night sky pushed my comfort zone, physically and mentally.

Now we can’t wait to go on our next adventure together. I know on our list is canoeing the Santa Fe River again — in the daylight.

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We made it to River Rise where the Santa Fe River emerges after disappearing into a sinkhole at O’Leno State Park and flowing underground for three miles.

My boyfriend steered the canoe and did most of the rowing on this trip, allowing me to focus on the beauty of the moonlit landscape.

The Outpost staff light tiki torches to illuminate the path to the bank of the river. They also build a campfire to relax around after your canoeing adventure.

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UNKNOWN TERRITORY >> DEEP SEA EXPLORATION

VOYAGE TO SEE WHAT’S ON THE BOTTOM

A World Below Us Exploring Our Oceanic Final Frontier W R IT TE N BY A LB E R T I SA AC

W

hen most people think of the Final Frontier, thoughts of Star Trek may come to mind. But in reality, it’s often said that we know more about the planets in our solar system than we do about the deep ocean.

Oceans cover 71 percent of the Earth’s surface.

In fact, according to oceanicinstitute.org, these vast bodies of water contain 99 percent of the living space on the planet. So why do we know so little about the deep blue sea? As inhospitable as space is, it doesn’t have the crushing pressure of the deep sea. Send a craft to the bottom of the ocean and it’s like having 50 jumbo jets pressing down upon it. And it’s dark.

Out in space there are things to see. But even the brightest lights will illuminate only a short distance in those murky depths.

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The deepest part of the Earth’s ocean is the Mariana Trench, located in the western Pacific Ocean, which is also the lowest point on the Earth’s crust. A slot-shaped depression within the Trench called the Challenger Deep is the deepest known point on Earth, according to the Oceanic Institute, with an estimated depth of 36,200 feet. The depression is named after the British Royal Navy survey ship HMS Challenger, whose expedition of 1872–1876 made the first recordings of its depth.

For some perspective, if Mount Everest were placed in the deepest part of the Mariana Trench there would still be over 7,000 feet of water above it. By comparison, the deepest part of the Grand Canyon is approximately 6,000 feet.

In a nutshell, the first 200 meters (656 feet) are the open ocean. The marine life we know lives at this depth — where there is light, according to noaa.gov.

Below the open ocean is a place of very little light

The Trieste II (above) is shown in April 1975 at Mare Island Naval Shipyard near the completion of her overhaul at the yard.

The Trieste II (right) is seen shortly after her new float was completed at Mare Island in November 1963.

Lieutenant Don Walsh, USN, and Jacques Piccard (top right) in the Bathyscaph Trieste.

The U.S. Navy estimated that at maximum depth, the vessel’s passenger sphere withstood the weight of five battleships. called the Twilight Zone. But once past the 1,000-meter mark (3,284 feet) the water is completely devoid of light. At this depth, ocean temperatures plummet to 39 degrees F. and the water pressure can be 1,000 times that of Earth’s atmosphere.

Despite these crushing statistics, three men have traveled into this dark and foreboding abyss. In 1960, a “deep boat” named Bathyscaphe Trieste, manned by U.S. Navy Lt. Don Walsh and Swiss scientist Jacques Piccard, traveled to the bottom of the Challenger Deep. Drs. Walsh and Piccard became the first people ever to view the hadopelagic (hay-duh-puh-laj-ik) zone — the ocean abyss below 20,000 feet, according to noaa. org. (The term hadopelagic derives from the Greek word Hades,

for “underworld.”) The U.S. Navy estimated that at maximum depth, the vessel’s passenger sphere withstood the weight of five battleships.

More recently, in March of 2012, film director and adventurer James Cameron (Avatar, Titanic and, fittingly, The Abyss) climbed into the Deepsea Challenger and completed the deepest solo dive ever. It took Cameron two hours and 36 minutes to descend to the bottom of the Challenger Deep, nearly 7 miles down. He spent hours drifting across the seafloor and gliding along its cliff walls, the whole time collecting samples and recording video, according to nationalgeographic.com.

The 2.5-story-tall sub boasted a lot of technology, including MAY/JUNE 2017

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UNKNOWN TERRITORY >> DEEP SEA EXPLORATION

The Bathysphere was a unique spherical deep-sea submersible which was unpowered and lowered into the ocean on a cable, and was used to conduct a series of dives off the coast of Bermuda from 1930 to 1934.

The Bathysphere was designed in 1928 and 1929 by the American engineer Otis Barton (right), to be used by the naturalist William Beebe (left) for studying undersea wildlife.

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isolation from all of humanity. I felt like I had literally, in the space of one day, gone to another planet and come back.”

But despite the crushing pressures and lack of light, life does exist in this extreme place, including microorganisms living in hydrothermal vents, deep sea corals, fish and many other bizarre creatures. In fact, Cameron’s dive discovered microbial mats — bizarre-looking, filament-like clumps of microorganisms — living

UNKNOWN TERRITORY >> DEEP SEA EXPLORATION

a sediment sampler, a robotic claw (that malfunctioned from the crushing pressure), a “slurp gun” for sucking up small sea creatures for study on the surface, and temperature, salinity and pressure gauges. Additionally, the craft was equipped with 3-D video cameras and an 8-foot tower of LEDs to pierce the dark abyss. But the goal of shooting in 3-D video was not merely to delight future audiences.

It’s likely that most of all marine life may be discovered this century.

“There is scientific value in getting stereo images because ... you can determine the scale and distance of objects from stereo pairs that you can’t from 2-D images,” Cameron told National Geographic News before the dive, according to the article.

Cameron said his goal was to search for life at the bottom of the sea.

“We’d all like to think there are giant squid and sea monsters down there,” he is quoted as saying in a 2012 Washington Post article. But he didn’t observe any giant monsters. Nor did he see any fish. He saw nothing larger than about an inch across.

“The impression to me,” Cameron said, “it was very lunar, a very desolate place, very isolated. My feeling was one of complete

off chemicals from rocks 35,803 feet beneath the surface of the Pacific Ocean. This microbial community dines on the byproducts of a chemical reaction between mantle rocks and water, known as serpentinization. This reaction creates heat and gases that are an important energy source for microorganisms. Researchers have speculated that a similar setup may have sparked the chemical steps that led to life on Earth, according to LiveScience.com.

Cameron’s expedition also included two unmanned seafloor “landers” — large contraptions dropped to the seafloor from a ship. The landers were equipped with instruments to collect samples and data. They also had cameras to take photographs of life lured to the craft by bait.

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UNKNOWN TERRITORY >> DEEP SEA EXPLORATION

The sub’s four external cameras are a tenth the size of previous deep-ocean HD cameras. The housings were designed by the DEEPSEA CHALLENGE team, and the cameras themselves were created from scratch, from the sensor up.

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Seven miles below the surface, high definition cameras recorded images of several never-before-seen species. Some swam into the collection tubes and were brought to the surface, such as 7-inch-long amphipods — a shrimplike crustacean that is thought to scavenge fallen logs in the trench.

According to the live science webpage, “Tests reveal the creatures contain compounds that help tissues and proteins function better at high pressure, including scyllo-inositol, a compound identical to a drug used in clinical trials to break down the amyloid plaques associated with Alzheimer’s disease, said Doug Bartlett, a microbiologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego.”

Microbiologists have since identified 43 new microbial species, yet, according to deepseachallenge.com, there are 18,000 of the 20,000 individual microbes that remain to be analyzed. Biologists have identified two new species of those amphipods (the shrimplike crustaceans) and the deepest sea cucumber ever observed. Additionally, researchers are growing cultures under conditions that mimic the high-pressure, low-temperature environment of the ocean’s trenches.

Up to two thirds of plant and animal species in the world’s oceans may be undiscovered, according to a study of the oceans’ biodiversity published in 2012. Some of the highlights of this study state that experts and statistics predict that fewer than one million marine species exist; 70,000 species may already be in specimen collections waiting to be described. It’s likely that most of all marine life may be discovered this century.

Life, it would seem, finds a way to exist even in the most inhospitable places.

There are aliens deep below the surface — here’s a small sampling of these amazing creatures of the deep.

The Giant Squid Release the Kraken. These deep sea monsters, with eyes the size of dinner plates, are indeed giants; the largest of the elusive giants ever found measured 59 feet in length and weighed nearly a ton. Each of the giant squid’s eight arms, and its two, longer, feeding tentacles are armed with hundreds of suction cups lined with sharp, finely serrated rings of chitin. These suckers serve to attach the squid to its prey. It is common to find circular scars from the suckers on or close to the head of sperm whales that have been attacked by this formidable foe.

Giant Spider Crab

Frilled Shark

What can measure up to 12 feet from claw to claw and be found foraging the ocean floor a thousand feet deep? The giant spider crab. These behemoths, native to the waters off Japan, are thought to be the largest arthropods on Earth.

These living fossils prefer to remain 5,000 feet below the surface and are rarely seen by people. The frilled sharks share many physical characteristics of its ancestors that swam the seas during the time of the dinosaurs.

UNKNOWN TERRITORY >> DEEP SEA EXPLORATION

What’s down there anyway?

Angler Fish Giant Tube Worms

The Blue Whale The largest animals on Earth, these mammoth mammals can measure up to 100 feet in length and weigh more than 200 tons when fully matured. Their tongues alone can weigh as much as an elephant, and their hearts are as heavy as an automobile. At birth, a blue whale measures about 25 feet in length and it grows quickly, gaining as much as 200 pounds per day while nursing on about 100 gallons of milk every 24 hours.

It is nearly unimaginable that a creature could live without light, under crushing pressure and in freezing temperatures, but giant tube worms have found a way — at 1.5 miles deep, no less. These marine invertebrates have adapted to thrive near hydrothermal vents, which are openings in the ocean floor that spew superheated water laced with toxic chemicals. Not only that, tube worms can grow as long as eight feet, tolerate rapid changes in water temperature (from boiling to freezing) and withstand water pressure up to one ton per square inch.

Perhaps the ugliest animal on the planet, the anglerfish comes in a wide variety of ugly — more than 200 species. The majority of these fish live about a mile deep in the Atlantic and Antarctic oceans but some can be found in shallow tropical waters. The female of the species has evolved a fishing pole-type appendage above its mouth tipped with a lure of luminous flesh to attract unsuspecting prey. With translucent teeth, a large mouth, and a pliable body, these creatures can swallow prey twice their size.

The diminutive male has no need for such an adaption, as it will latch on to the female and eventually be absorbed, losing its eyes and internal organs — except its testes. Not only that, a female may carry six or more males on her body.

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Atlantic Wolffish Living in rocky coastal waters and able to swim to depths of 2,000 feet, the Atlantic wolffish can grow up to five feet in length. They range from the Scandinavian coast to Cape Cod to the Mediterranean. Their diet of mollusks, crabs and sea urchins accounts for those intimidating teeth.

Vampire Squid Fangtooth Fish The deepest-living fish ever discovered, the fangtooth — also known as the “ogrefish” — has been found at depths of nearly 16,500 feet. While certainly formidable looking, this nightmarish creature only reaches about six inches in length, but its teeth are the largest, proportionate to body size, of any fish.

The fangtooth’s normal habitat ranges at about 6,500 feet.

No, it doesn’t feed on blood, but it does exist in the lightless depths of the deep ocean, comfortably at 10,000 feet. This diminutive denizen of the deep can reach up to about a foot in length, including its arms, and navigate the dark ocean with eyes that are proportionately the largest of any animal on Earth. The vampire squid gets its name from its dark webbed arms, which it can draw over itself like a cloak.

Their diet consists of sinking zooplankton, mucus and excrement, which is why they are small. Low-calorie food sources, along with near-freezing temperatures and low oxygen concentrations, limit animal growth.

Six-Gill Shark This shark can grow as long as 16 feet and enjoys a diet of other sharks, squids, crabs, rays and the occasional seal.

During the day it will cruise the ocean floor, as deep as 8,200 feet but at night it will swim closer to the surface to feed.

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Pacific Viperfish This Halloween horror show has teeth so oversized that it can’t close its mouth. The viperfish uses bioluminescent photophores on its belly to lure prey. Cruising at depths as low as 13,000 feet, these demons of the deep reach only about eight inches in length.

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SAFE HAVEN ANIMALS >> WILDLIFE REHABILITATION

SUNRISE WILDLIFE REHABILITATION CENTER

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S T O R Y A N D P H O T OG R A P H Y B Y H AY L I Z U CCO L A

Behind the door of a spacious wooden enclosure, a barred owl named Merlin hoots for attention.

Keeping his posture on a nearby branch, Merlin hunkers down to give himself a rather plump appearance. With eyes like dark chocolate spheres and a feather pattern that resembles a row of bars — hence the name barred owl — Merlin can melt the heart of anyone in his presence.

Still cawing in a language only understandable to him, Einstein, a nearby great horned owl, eventually joins Merlin’s one-way conversation. Einstein’s appearance varies from the barred owl in that he has smaller, golden eyes and a longer, slender body that’s topped with tufted ears.

The other permanent education owl on the premises is

Peach the Screech. Screech-owls are the smallest owls in North America — picture the height of a mason jar — and they are adorned with bright yellow eyes and tufted ears that are similar to that of the great horned owl.

This owl trio is great on its own, but this animal lineup wouldn’t be complete without Nova the opossum. Hiding away in her “Possum Palace” and eating an assortment of sweet grapes, Nova has a gentle and friendly personality that dismisses any other opossum presumptions. All four of these creatures are educational animals and have a permanent residence at Sunrise Wildlife Rehabilitation located in High Springs.

Nan Soistman had her first animal rehabilitation experience back in 2007 when she took in a nest of baby fox squirrels whose mother was killed by a neighbor’s cat. However, it wasn’t until 2010 that Soistman really became involved in rehabilitation and started to work under the Florida Wildlife Rehabilitators Association’s permits. Although she still works with the FWRA, MAY/JUNE 2017

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ANIMALS >> WILDLIFE REHABILITATION

The crowd favorite from the “Nocturnal Wildlife of North Florida” program is Nova the opossum (above).

Einstein is an educational bird (right) at Sunrise Wildlife and is featured in Soistman’s programs Eins “Ow of North Florida” and “Nocturnal Wildlife of North Florida.”

“Owls Pictured is an eastern screech-owl (left) that is in rehabilitation and Sunrise Wildlife. Soistman has Pictu an ed educational screech owl: Peach the Screech, who attends both her “Owls of North Florida” and “Noc “Nocturnal Wildlife of North Florida” programs.

in 2016 2 she broke away from the organization to form her own rehabilitation center and Sunrise Wildlife Rehabilitation was born.

— an Operating out of her house and backyard, Soistman is currently equipped to O handle any animal smaller than a crow, but she is planning to build a larger, octagon hand enclosure to take in owls and other birds with a bigger wingspan. Some of her past enclo patients include woodpeckers, ground doves, mourning doves, blue jays, black-bellied patien whistling ducks, squirrels, baby opossums, cotton-tailed rabbits and certain species whistl owls. of owls After S Soistman rescues an animal or retrieves it from someone who found the injured abandoned animal, Soistman goes through a checklist similar to what a person would or aband through at a hospital. She records where the animal was found so it can be returned go throu to its habitat after rehabilitation, along with the animal’s weight and what needs to be treated, as well as any other pertinent information. Sunrise Wildlife takes in animals that have been caught in barbed wire fences, hit by cars, or with injuries that can’t heal on their own.

Soistman’s front porch is filled with cages covered in greenery so recovering animals can feel at home. She spends her days feeding these creatures, which for birds means feeding every 30-45 minutes from dawn till dusk, cleaning cages, keeping records and answering phone calls from people who 68 |

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ANIMALS >> WILDLIFE REHABILITATION

have come across an animal in danger.

“You’re not just helping animals... you’re helping people,” she said.

Soistman posts helpful resources on her Facebook page in case a person comes across an animal they think is in distress.

While there is plenty of information online, Soistman recommends calling her first so she can record any valuable information about the animal and to see if it in fact needs to be rescued. Often times the parents of a baby owl or a lost-looking bird are right around the corner.

“Make sure you’re saving an orphan not creating one,” she said.

Taking care of these animals is a lot of work and Soistman clarified that this organization is a family affair. Her husband, son and her son’s girlfriend are all involved in some capacity with Sunrise Wildlife, along with volunteers. Whether it’s building the habitats or designing the website, this type of work isn’t a one-person job.

While rehabilitation is a large part of Soistman’s work at Sunrise Wildlife, educational programs are just as important.

Merlin the barred owl, Einstein the great horned owl, Peach the Screech and Nova the opossum are all educational animals and are used in the two programs Soistman offers: Owls of North Florida and Nocturnal Wildlife of North Florida.

Soistman and her critter crew are required to do 12 educational programs each year and Soistman schedules them by request. One of her more frequent locations is at O’Leno State Park, but other offsite events are available.

During the educational program, Soistman brings out colorful displays with information on each species she is presenting. While certainly educational, these programs are actually designed to enlighten people.

“It’s been documented that seeing a live animal instills a deeper appreciation and respect for all wildlife,” she said.

To see a list of upcoming events featuring the wildlife of North Florida or to learn more about what to do if you encounter an animal in need, go to the Sunrise Wildlife Rehabilitation’s Facebook page or visit their website at sunrisewildlife.org.

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or over 43 years, the family at A1 Pest Control has been serving the Alachua, Gilchrist, Levy & Dixie county areas with honesty and integrity. Started by Prieston & Wanda Jones in 1973, A-1 Pest Control remains a family-owned business. Current operators Justin & Karen Jones continue the company’s tradition of service through professionalism, trust and integrity.

“Trust is very important to us,” said Karen Jones recently. “We know our clients need to be able to trust who’s going in and out of their homes and property. If we wouldn’t let them in our home, we don’t hire them to go into our customers’ home.”

It’s that “service first” philosophy that has established A-1 Pest Control as a leader in our area when it comes to residential and commercial pest control and management.

Their trained, experienced technicians are dedicated to solving whatever current issue a customer may be having and then establish the best preventative measures to insure their long-term success.

Unlike other pest control companies, that long-term success doesn’t have to come with a multi-year, auto-renewing agreement. Justin and his experienced team of technicians will help to develop a plan that is affordable and right for each unique situation, allowing the customer to chose the options that best fits their needs and financial situation.

Let’s take flea & tick. A common problem in North Florida and with one of the warmest and driest winters in some time, fleas will be a real problem for many homeowners this summer.

The professionals at A-1 Pest Control can help take the stress

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“Trust is very important to us”

out of dealing with this common pest. From a thorough interior home treatment to a complete lawn service, fleas are a nuisance. A-1 can offer assistance and then present options for a more long-term approach to dealing with this common issue. Working with a Veterinarian will help assist in flea and tick infestations.

Another common question has to do with Termite treatment and prevention. With home construction on the rise again in North Central Florida, one of the most important things you can do to insure your foundation is done correctly, is to hire someone you trust . Many times contractors hire the cheapest bid for termite pretreats, this may not be the best option when considering the foundation for your new home. Without a proper barrier of termiticide applied, your home could still have gaps in its protection. From traditional treatments like Termidor to environmentally friendly products such as Altriset, A-1 Pest Control can provide a homeowner with options and the peace of mind needed to protect from these damaging pests.

From spiders to roaches, from fire ants to mosquitos, the experts at A-1 Pest Control are ready to help. If you’re looking for a pest control company to treat you like a customer instead of a contract, give the A-1 Team a call and find out how they can help.

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ECOLOGY >> INVASIVE PLANT SPECIES

FEED ME SEYMORE

Invaders Are Lurking A Look at the Invasive and Exotic Plants in Central Florida W R I T T E N B Y C R Y S TA L H E N R Y

T

he rainforest-like conditions of Central Florida provide a seemingly hospitable climate for plant life. And since plants provide food and clean air for the people and animals in the ecosystem, people typically associate healthy plants with a healthy environment. But not all vegetation is created equal. The Central Florida landscape is in danger, and there are intruders lurking in the bushes.

Florida is the entry point for about 75 percent of the plants that are imported to the United States, said Jim Fanning, president of Evergreen Lawn and Pest Control. Fanning said those imports are the source of the invasive plant species that are taking over the environment. These invasive plants can spread quickly and survive a multitude of

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environmental conditions. They might look pretty, but those plants can reduce the natural plant diversity in the area and choke out entire ecosystems.

Frightening Ferns There are basically two main species of fern that pose a threat to Central Florida, said Christen Mason, chair of the Florida Exotic Pest Plant Council —the Japanese fern, which is found in Central Florida and spreads north toward Georgia, and the Old World Climbing fern, which infests Central Florida and heads south toward the Keys. Like King Kong, these ferns are invasive species that climb their way to destruction. This plant has fronds that sprawl out and wrap themselves around tree trunks.

It not only suffocates the tree, but the leaves of the fern can steal the sunlight and shade out the plants

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Hydrilla is a quickly spreading nuisance that is found on every continent except Antarctica. With only an inch of water hydrilla can spread dense mats across the lakes and waterways of Central Florida, choking out native aquatic plants.

Harrowing Hydrilla

beneath it. This fern is also highly flammable, which makes it an easy vehicle for ground fires to travel up into the tree canopies and spread.

Mason said these plants are arguably one of the greatest horticultural challenges in Florida today. Their rapid growth and copious amounts of spores pose a threat to plants, people and wildlife. The ferns can produce up to 15,000 spores per square centimeter, which are spread by the wind, as well as by animals. The ferns create dense root masses under the ground, and in many cases standard herbicides don’t work right away to kill them.

They can grow as a low carpet, or they can climb into the canopies forming thick skirts of vines that choke out native plants. Once these thick skirts are formed, it inhibits movement for people and wildlife. They have been known to completely cover the tops of trees in the Florida Everglades, causing a complete collapse in the middle of an island of trees.

Harrowing Hydrilla It’s not Godzilla but hydrilla that is the scary monster of the deep. Lake Okeechobee and other Central Florida lakes have been under attack from this invasive species for years.

It’s a very globally abundant plant found on every continent in the world except Antarctica. In the 1950s it was originally brought to the United States as a decorative plant for fish tanks and aquariums. But just a few dumped fish tanks later, hydrilla became a conquering menace of the Florida waterways. It was 74 |

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introduced to Florida in 1960, and in only 10 years it was found in every drainage basin in the state. Fanning said it is the most aggressive invasive aquatic plant in Florida, and it can grow about an inch a day. If given an inch of water, it can spread for miles forming dense mats on the surface of the water. The mats clog waterways making navigation difficult for people and wildlife, and it throws off the water chemistry and oxygen balance. It can also overpower other native aquatic plants such as pondweeds and coontail, which throws off the entire ecosystem. If left unchecked, hydrilla can drastically impact flood control.

Air Potato Although sometimes confused for the native yams, the air potato is an invasive yam with broadly heart-shaped leaves that is anything but loving to the Florida landscape. According to a report from the Florida Exotic Pest Plant Council, the air potato was introduced to this country from Africa during the slave trade, and it arrived to Florida in 1905. Horticulturist Henry Nehrling observed that this once ornamental vine soon formed impenetrable masses, and except for the kudzu plant, he’d “never seen a more aggressive and dangerous vine in Florida.”

This plant is a climber that can quickly overtake the native vegetation. According to the FLEPPC report, the air potato spits out tons of large aerial tubers that help it spread quickly and dangerously like a wildfire.

Mason said the air potato is more widely known by residents because it not only infests natural areas, but it has spread into

PHOTOGRAPHY: COURTESY OF UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA/IFAS CENTER FOR AQUATIC AND INVASIVE PLANTS.

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ECOLOGY >> INVASIVE PLANT SPECIES

Air Potato

Water Hyacinth

The invasive water hyacinth forms dense colonies that block sunlight and crowd out native species.

Air potato is one of the most commonly known invasive plants because of its prevalence in the backyards of homeowners throughout Central Florida.

Kudzu was originally promoted as a way to control soil erosion, but it quickly got out of hand. The hearty roots help it survive extreme climate changes, but fortunately control efforts have been fairly successful at keeping kudzu at bay.

Kudzu

people’s yards. However, p there have been successful strides in ridding the state of this pesky plant.

“We’ve seen a dramatic decrease in air potato following the release of a biological control,” Mason said. The USDA has a program that sends researchers to the country of origin for invasive plants. Researchers observe and collect insects that are detrimental to the invasive plant species, and they study them to grasp their effect on the environment. If selected for release, the insects are quarantined in the U.S., where they go through years of testing to determine that the insects won’t have a negative impact on the U.S. environment.

They look for bugs that can’t thrive and will sooner die than feed on any other vegetation except the targeted plant. Mason said very few insects are ever cleared for release. However, an air potato leaf beetle was released a few years ago in Florida, and since then there have been a few releases throughout the state.

The beetle chews holes in the leaf and slows the air potato down.

It hasn’t eradicated the plant, but it has significantly knocked the population of air potato back.

Each year there was a huge air potato roundup in Gainesville, but since the introduction of the beetle, volunteers have shifted the air potato roundup to a different species of plant because the air potatoes aren’t nearly as abundant as they once were.

“It’s been a very good success story,” Mason said.

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Water Hyacinth This water orchid is another sneaky invader that masquerades as a form of a native Florida plant, the frog’s bit. But according to a FLEPPC report, this floating faker came to the United States in the late 1800s at an exposition in New Orleans. By the late 1950s, this Big Easy brute had spread to about 126,000 acres of Florida waterways. It reproduces quickly, doubling its population in only six to 18 days.

“An acre of water hyacinth if uncontrolled can weigh more than 200 tons,” Mason said.

Even if its leaves die from a moderate freeze, the plant will quickly regenerate from the stem that is submerged under water.

The large water hyacinth mats have degraded water quality in Central Florida and have dramatically affected the local plants and animals.

Kudzu The nickname for this high-climbing intruder is the “foot-a-night vine.” This bad seed came to America in 1876 at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The U.S. Soil Conservation Service for erosion control originally promoted it, but in the early 1950s the U.S. Department of Agriculture got wise to its destructive ways. The plant forms giant masses that take over wooded vegetation, and it can completely choke out trees by shutting out all access to sunlight. This dark creature is drought tolerant, and a freeze will only superficially damage

PHOTOGRAPHY: COURTESY OF UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA/IFAS CENTER FOR AQUATIC AND INVASIVE PLANTS.

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ECOLOGY >> INVASIVE PLANT SPECIES

Brazilian Pepper

The Brazilian pepper plant is one of the most problematic of the invasive plants because it has colonized more than 700,000 acres. It was once thought to be ornamental because its red berries bloomed during the winter holiday season. But its aggressive growth has driven out native wildlife.

Chinese Tallow

the top of the plant. The roots can survive the cold, and it can take three to 10 years of herbicides to completely kill them. It has been historically present in over 2 million acres of land, but Mason said control efforts have actually been relatively successful.

Chinese Tallow A plant that is also known as the “popcorn tree” sounds like a child’s snack-time fantasy. But this tiny terror is anything but fun. Chinese tallow was originally introduced as an ornamental plant with the potential to be an oil crop. But this exotic tree has stayed true to its invasive roots, and has taken over the entire Gulf Coast. It thrives in roadside ditches and areas with wet soil, and it’s a prolific seed producer and a habitat hindrance.

Brazilian Pepper Mason said the Brazilian pepper has one of the largest distributions in the state.

“In Florida, Brazilian Pepper has colonized more than 700,000 acres,” she said. It’s the plant that you see along the road in December with little red berries, which are actually one of the main reasons it was planted in Florida. The plant is an evergreen, and right around Christmas time it produces red berries, so it’s festive, Mason said. It’s easy to grow, and it looks 78 |

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The Chinese tallow, also known as the popcorn tree. Invasive plants are not only dangerous to native plants, but the threat they pose to the ecosystem extends to humans as well. Some invasive plants can block waterways or invade wooded areas causing massive trees to fall and block the path of human and wildlife movement.

pretty. But when it invades, it creates dense, copious amounts of seeds that are spread by birds and wildlife. The aggressive growth displaces native plants, and the thickets formed displace native animals.

Mason said when native plants are displaced, native wildlife is displaced because their food sources are gone. But invasive plants can be a problem for humans as well. The thickets can impede flood control and clog waterways, which hinders our ability to move water to where we need it.

Florida relies heavily on ecotourism, but when the habitats that people are coming to see are destroyed, that tourism will stop. Not to mention, Mason said, the cost of managing invasive species is very high.

There is an extensive list on the FLEPPC website of plants that are behaving badly in Florida. But the best defense is a good offense, Mason said. Prevention is the best route to take, and education is the best route to prevention. When planting in your yard or community, be very careful in the plants you choose. Try to choose natives, but those aren’t the only option.

Look for red flags on plant descriptions at the nursery. If a plant is “very hearty” or can grow in all kinds of conditions, such as shade, sun, wet and dry climates, steer clear. If you see the words “rapid growth,” just turn and walk away.

To stop the invaders that are already here, join a working

PHOTOGRAPHY: COURTESY OF UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA/IFAS CENTER FOR AQUATIC AND INVASIVE PLANTS.

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group in your community. There are plenty of volunteer groups that host work days to remove invasive plants in the area. Remove and replace invasive plants with native ones or at least with non-aggressive exotic plants.

Fanning said when you cut down trees or shrubs, you should always treat stumps with herbicide to prevent them from growing back. And always dispose of trimmed branches and vines properly, especially if there are seeds or spores attached.

Sit in on meetings and get educated about the invasive species we have, then help to educate others. Sometimes it’s just a matter of getting the word out.

“When in doubt, plant native,” Mason said.

Contact your local extension office before planting, or look up your specific county on the Florida Native Plant Society website to find out which plants are native to your area. And don’t be afraid to reach out and ask for more information.

“The less pressure we have on our environment, the better,” Mason said. “We want to prevent the next invasive species in Florida.”

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FOR MORE INFORMATION: Florida Association of Native Nurseries www.afnn.org University of Florida Center for Aquatic & Invasive Plants plants.ifas.ufl.edu Florida Native Plant Society www.fnps.org EXOTIC & INVASIVE SPECIES: Florida Invasive Species Partnership floridainvasives.org Florida Exotic Pest Plant Council FLEPPC.org

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HISTORIC FLORIDA >> MAGNESIA SPRINGS

MAGNESIA SPRINGS: THEN AND NOW

Healing Waters W R I T T E N B Y H AY L I Z U CCO L A | P H O T OG R A P H Y P R O V I DE D B Y R O B E RT M OO R E

There’s no denying that Florida is home to some of the most beautiful springs on the East Coast.

Even Gainesville native Tom Petty couldn’t resist capturing Alachua County’s enchanting emerald springs with references to Glen Springs in his song “Dreamville.”

Before theme parks and tourist traps flooded the Sunshine State, the springs were the attractions that drew people to Florida even before the state was established with their claim of possessing unique healing properties. Magnesia Springs located in Hawthorne was no exception to the popularity of the springs.

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These five-gallon bottles, which are currently on display at the Matheson History Museum, were delivered by the Magnesia Springs Water Company. According to Moore’s book, trucks went from delivering 200 bottles to 500 bottles a day.

LABEL AND BOTTLE PHOTOGRAPHY: HAYLI ZUCCOLA

“The water was advertised as being able to cure everything but the consumption.”

Robert F. Moore, who is a member of the Alachua County Historical Commission and the Hawthorne Historical Society, wrote “Magnesia Springs in Alachua County, Florida: Then and Now,” to preserve the history relating to Magnesia Springs as well as its current condition.

According to Moore’s book, the spring’s recorded history dates back to 1817 when Spain still controlled the land that’s present-day Florida. In 1821, Florida became a U.S. territory and the land containing Magnesia Springs would change hands five times before Dr. Cicero A. Simmons bought it in 1873. It was Simmons who would build the first pool adjacent to the springs that would later be improved by John L. Brown, who divided the pool in half and added a bathhouse. Brown’s daughter Nellie married G. Hartwell Kelley and took over the ownership of the springs in 1928. Later the pools expanded to include a smaller wading pool and a larger pool that measured 30 feet by 90 feet. The fresh water from the spring would flow into these concrete pools and Magnesia Springs’ popularity grew along with the claims of the spring’s healing properties.

“The water was advertised as being able to cure everything but the consumption,” Moore said.

The water was so popular that it was the inspiration for a bottling company. Fivegallon bottles were delivered to homes and local businesses around the county, and water from the spring was soon being delivered at 500 bottles a day. But in 1949, a serious leak in the city’s lines caused contamination and as a result bottled water production increased; Camp Blanding requested between 800 to 1,000 bottles of the crystal clear water every week.

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HISTORIC FLORIDA >> MAGNESIA SPRINGS

Two concrete pools: a small wading pool and a larger, deeper pool (above), were created so the fresh spring water could flow into it.

These 1931 photos show a glimpse of the Magnesia Springs pools back in their heyday. The Magnesia Springs Water Company would bottle water from Magnesia Springs and deliver these five-gallon bottles to houses and businesses.

From 1952 until 1957 there was a statewide drought and the water couldn’t flow into the pools like it used to. To keep the business alive, 12 wells were drilled around and inside the pool to create a bubbling effect; the water flowing from the springs was cut off.

Cleaning the pools was no easy task and, as detailed in Moore’s book, the pools would be drained and scrubbed clean every Monday and filled back up for business on Tuesday.

The addition of the wells cut the time to fill the pools in half, and water drained from the pool would flow into the nearby Lochloosa Creek.

In 1964, former Gainesville City Commissioner and Mayor Gary Junior took over the property in 1997. After lying dormant for several years, Junior helped restore the springs, but they remained closed to the public.

Magnesia Springs changed hands several more times but has since remained untouched for the past 18 years. Today, the spring water isn’t as clean as it once was, partly because of nitrate pollution from fertilizer used by the forestry industry and the surrounding houses. Chlorine can’t be added to the pools because the water drains into the nearby creek, which means the pool only remains clean for a day or two before green slime again coats the surface.

“I could see what it might have been like in its heyday, and I was saddened that it was in such disrepair,” said Pat Moore, Robert’s wife and co-researcher for the Magnesia Springs

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book, after visiting the springs recently.

For Pat, seeing the springs in its current condition is a visualization of the importance of water.

“People have the idea that water is everywhere we don’t have to worry about it; it’s a natural resource that will just keep replenishing itself,” she said. “It’s not limitless.”

To spread awareness of both Magnesia Springs and his book, Moore will be hosting a free book talk at the Matheson History Museum on May 13. The presentaton is part of the museum’s current exhibit: River of Dreams the St. Johns and its Springs, which is on display until June 24.

Peggy Macdonald, executive director for the Matheson, wanted the sixth-month exhibit to appeal to both locals as well as people throughout Florida.

“This is how Florida was promoted,” she said. “Florida was marketed as a place with healing properties, and the springs were healing.”

Even Magnesia Springs, originally named Blue Springs, was changed to include the term “Magnesia,” which refers to the compound magnesium oxide.

As far as what the future holds for Magnesia Springs, no one knows.

“It will never be what it once was, and who are we to say what it might be,” Pat Moore said.

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EXPLORATION >> HISTORIC FLORIDA

GROUND CONTROL TO MA JOR OR TOM

Florida’s Space Legacy Preserving Historic ic Space Exploration Sites Before They Vanish W R IT TE N BY PEGGY M AC DON A LD

W

hen it comes to space exploration, n, fact follows fiction — or in this case, scicience fiction. Almost st a century before John hn F. Kennedy Space Center took shape in a marshy hy section of East Central Florida that would soon on become known as the Space Coast, Florida was the he site of the Moon launch in French novelist Jules es Verne’s 1865 book, “From the Earth to the Moon.” n.”

“Florida is the logical place to go,” explained ed Kenneth Lipartito. “It’s close to the equator.”

At the equator, the Earth’s surface is already dy moving at 1,670 kilometers per hour, giving rockets ts an extra boost.

Lipartito, who teaches the history of technology gy 86 |

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at Florida International University, was commissioned to co-author the book, “A History of the Kennedy Space Center” (University Press of Florida, 2007). He said that Cape Canaveral was a perfect site for launching because it was relatively remote, far enough away from people, on the ocean, and not near any overly populated areas.

“In a sense, that whole Cape Canaveral area grows up with the space program,” Lipartito said.

“There wasn’t much there before except a naval air station and a military facility and some fishing villages. So it’s kind of carved out of the wilderness

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EXPLORATION >> HISTORIC FLORIDA

“If we don’t take any risks at all we’re not going anywhere.” in the post-World War II era. It’s all pre-Disney.”

Almost 60 years ago, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I, the world’s first satellite. Although it was only the size of a beach ball, Sputnik gave birth to the space age and the space race between the world’s superpowers. The year after the Soviets launched Sputnik, Explorer 1 was launched from Cape Canaveral. It was the first American satellite to reach orbit.

“The Russians were first in everything,” said Beth O’Leary, a space archaeologist. “They had the first satellite, they had the first astronaut in orbit, they had the first woman in space, they had the first dogs in space.”

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America’s mad dash to catch up to and surpass the Soviets fueled the growth of Florida’s space industry and kick-started the Apollo program. On July 16, 1969, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins were launched into space from Kennedy Space Center and made good on President Kennedy’s 1961 pledge to send a man to the Moon and return him safely to the Earth before decade’s end.

“Early space exploration was really part of Cold War history,” said O’Leary. “Frank Borman said he considered himself a warrior in the Cold War.” Borman was among the first astronauts to gaze at the Earth from orbit and take the iconic Earthrise photographs.

O’Leary, professor emerita of anthropology at New Mexico State University, is the co-author of the new book, “The Final Mission: Preserving NASA’s Apollo Sites” (University Press of Florida, 2017). She has made it her mission to help preserve the sites where space exploration occurred, both on Earth and in space. With grant funding from NASA, she helped establish the 1969 Apollo 11 landing site on the Moon as a National Historic Landmark.

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“There’s over 110 metric tons of humanmade material on the Moon,” O’Leary said, ranging from the Apollo 11 Lunar Module Descent Stage to urine collection assemblies. The Lunar Legacy Project website catalogues all of the items left behind at Tranquility Base on the Moon during the Apollo 11 mission, which O’Leary and her fellow researchers looked at as an archaeology site.

“We found out there were some things that were left up there that really weren’t on any lists, per se,” O’Leary said. For instance, as a memorial, Apollo 11 astronauts left behind a mission patch from Apollo 1.

Fifty years ago, three Apollo 1 astronauts — Virgil “Gus” Grissom, Ed White II and Roger Chaffee — died when their command module caught fire during preflight testing

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EXPLORATION >> HISTORIC FLORIDA

Astronaut Eugene Cernan (above), the last man on the Moon, during the Apollo 17 mission in 1972.

An Apollo 11 lunar footprint (below).

The Space Shuttle Columbia launches from Kennedy Space Center, June 25, 1992.

at Launch Complex 34 at Kennedy Space Center.

Although NASA has not sent astronauts to the Moon since 1972, things remain largely unchanged on the lunar surface.

There are extreme temperatures on the Moon but there is no atmosphere or wind to disturb the equipment that was left behind by astronauts, so footprints and other signs of early space exploration remain intact, O’Leary explained.

Along with the Moon, other sites related to the space program merit historic preservation too, O’Leary said.

“A lot of space training was done in remote locations,” she said. “There’s a crater in Arizona where they tested the lunar rover. Those places are part of the history of space exploration and they’re just not as recognized.”

Many of these sites in Florida were abandoned when their function was completed. O’Leary and her colleagues are working to preserve the sites that were central to human space exploration as relics of the space age.

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“Getting those men to the Moon was probably the most extraordinary event in the history of humankind,” O’Leary asserted.

The Apollo Moon program was abandoned shortly after NASA completed the momentous achievement of the first lunar landing. However, Kennedy Space Center has continued to play a significant role in NASA’s space exploration program.

In 1975, the U.S. and the Soviets joined forces for the first time on the manned Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, a sign that Cold War tensions were gradually easing. Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39 was the site of the historic launch.

In 1977, Voyager I and II were launched from Kennedy Space Center. As the ‘70s came to a close, Kennedy Space Center was modified to accommodate the new space shuttle. On April 12, 1981, Columbia became the first shuttle to blast into orbit. The launch occurred 20 years to the day after Russian Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was launched into space in a Vostock I spacecraft,

becoming the first person to orbit the Earth.

The space shuttle was the first reusable spacecraft. Based at Kennedy Space Center, the shuttle program launched five different shuttles into space from Cape Canaveral a total of 135 times. Kennedy was usually the landing site as well.

Space travel on the shuttle became so routine that in 1984, President Ronald Reagan proposed the Teachers in Space Project. The winner of the Teacher in Space competition was Boston native Christa McAuliffe, who taught courses in economics, law, American history and an original course she designed, entitled “The American Woman.” Barbara Morgan trained alongside McAuliffe as a backup.

On Jan. 28, 1986, the Challenger took off from Kennedy Space Center for the last time.

Moments after launch, seven astronauts died because of a leaky O-ring gasket on one of the solid rocket boosters, which caused a catastrophic failure in the shuttle’s external fuel tank.

NASA abandoned the Teachers in Space Project after the Challenger catastrophe.

Yet, in 1998, NASA invited Barbara Morgan to return to NASA as an educator mission specialist. However, on Feb. 1, 2003, nine months before Morgan was scheduled to launch on the Columbia, tragedy struck the space shuttle program a second time. An investigation revealed that a large piece of foam fell from Columbia’s external tank and breached the shuttle’s wing, creating a hole that caused the deaths of the seven astronauts on board upon reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere.

For more than two years after the Columbia disaster, NASA suspended its human spaceflight program as it searched for a solution to the foam insulation problem.

The space shuttle Discovery finally launched in July 2005. To NASA’s dismay, video footage of the launch revealed that the problem with falling foam debris persisted. The shuttle program was already scheduled to end in 2010, but according to the Washington Post, some members of Congress started to call for its immediate end.

NASA resumed shuttle launches in 2006, averaging at least three launches per year between that year and 2011, when the remaining fleet of space shuttles — Atlantis,

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EXPLORATION >> HISTORIC FLORIDA

March 3, 1969: The Apollo 9 (Spacecraft 104/Lunar Module 3/Saturn 504) space vehicle launches from Pad A Launch Complex 39.

The sun comes up behind what remains of the gantry on Launch Pad 34 (right) on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

“Early space exploration was really part of Cold War history.”

Discovery and Endeavour — was retired. In 2007, Morgan — who narrowly escaped a tragic outcome as a potential citizen observer on the 1986 Challenger flight and a mission specialist on the Columbia in 2003 — joined the crew of the Endeavour and traveled to the International Space Station.

“If we don’t take any risks at all we’re not going anywhere,” Morgan said during a pre-launch interview.

For NASA, the risks inherent in the shuttle program proved to be too great. It was retired as NASA set its sights on Project Constellation, with the goal of developing a new Crew Exploration Vehicle (the Orion capsule) and resuming space travel to the Moon and ultimately Mars. On July 8, 2011, close to a million people flooded the beaches, rivers and causeways near Kennedy Space Center to watch Atlantis complete the final launch of the space shuttle program’s 30-year history.

NASA is still in transition after the end of the shuttle program. In addition, the nation is mourning the loss of some of 92 |

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the great heroes of the space age, including John Glenn, who died in December. Eugene Cernan, the last man to leave his footprints on the Moon, died in January.

Meanwhile, restrictions have been lifted to increase collaborations with private industry in space exploration. SpaceX has ferried supplies to the International Space Station. In addition, NASA and SpaceX are working together to make human travel to Mars possible by the 2030s. NASA and SpaceX recently announced that they have selected a landing site on the Red Planet. Taking things one giant leap forward, SpaceX aims to establish a human colony on Mars.

As NASA prepares for the future of space exploration, working in partnership with private industry, O’Leary and others are working to preserve Florida’s former launch sites. The historic Launch Complex 39 is both a monument to what may be the greatest achievement in human history, and a harbinger of what is to come in the next space age.

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have an excuse to go roller-skating again or ride bikes around the neighborhood on a Saturday.

But one of the best childhood indulgences I’ve had as an adult was on a trampoline.

I wasn’t lucky enough as a kid to have my own trampoline.

My cousin and I made friends with a neighbor down the road from my grandmother’s house who had one. The deal was we could use her trampoline if we cleaned up the trash in her yard.

Cyndi and I would spend the whole summer picking up Diet Coke cans and rogue grocery sacks, just so we could play crack the egg and try to double bounce each other into a neck brace.

When we were tired of jumping, we’d slather ourselves with baby oil and lay out on the shiny black top of the trampoline under the hot summer sun.

Once I had kids of my own, I knew we had to have a trampoline. It was one of those things I’d always declared to my mother when I thought she was being wildly unfair. I’ll show you, Mom. I’ll be a stand-up comedian, live in a mansion, be best friends with the Spice Girls and have my own trampoline room in my house. You’ll see.

Unfortunately, as an adult I chose Worry Wart Wilfred for my husband. We don’t use vetoes often in our house, but the trampoline was always a big fat no from him. Professor Responsibility had crunched the numbers, and it wasn’t worth the insurance risk if one of the kids’ friends came over and broke an arm.

So my trampoline dreams were crushed temporarily. That was until my friend asked if I wanted to take our little ones to preschool hour at the trampoline park. You had me at tramp. A trampoline park is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a huge space with wall-to-wall trampolines. They have dodge ball courts made of trampolines, basketball courts with trampolines, tramp ramps and walls you can run up made totally of springy magic.

I was so in.

We checked in and they gave us each a fresh new pair of gripper socks. Basically they turned me into Spiderman. I rushed my daughter to get her socks on because I couldn’t wait

to get out there and bounce into the foam pit. She got her last sock on and we went tearing off across what looked like miles of trampoline Heaven. I bounded across the floor bouncing higher with each step. My daughter struggled to keep up, but I just double backed and gave a big Tigger type “hoo hoo hoo hooo!” as I jumped and leapt circles around her. I couldn’t believe how young I felt. It was freeing and fun and fabulous.

Well for all of 3 and a half minutes.

My spirit was ready to bounce and do a quadruple backflip.

But my body was ready for a cup of apple juice and a nap. My ribs felt like they were being slashed by an invisible machete and I needed a trough of water to drink. Trampolines were much more intense than I’d remembered.

I sat for a moment and caught my breath while my daughter pelted me with dodge balls. After a minute, I found the will to live again and I went bounding across the dodge ball court after her.

I asked if she wanted to try the foam pit and she gave me the child’s equivalent of “Hell yeah, hold my beer.” We bounced over to the pit and I got ready to perform a majestic flip into the foam. I bounced higher and higher until I got up the nerve.

I gave one last super bounce and went successfully head over tail feathers into the pit.

I had two thoughts as I sank into the foam laughing and catching my breath watching my daughter do a cannonball in my direction. One, I was impressed with myself for being able to still do split jumps and back flips, And two, I really don’t have the pelvic floor anymore to do split jumps and back flips.

Still it was the most fun I’d had in a very long time. I wanted to remember it forever, so as we lay in the pit cracking up at my feeble attempts to climb out of the pit, I reached for my phone in my back pocket to take a picture. But I came up empty handed since I’d left my phone back in the shoe cubbies outside the arena.

In the age of instant camera access it’s easy to rely on a smartphone to capture all our best memories. But at the trampoline park I was a kid again. Cell phones were still a thing of science fiction when I was a child, so I clearly didn’t have one with me to capture those warm summer days on that borrowed trampoline. But the smell of baby oil still takes me back there, and the memories are vivid. Laying in that foam pit with my little girl I realized I could soak up all the moments I needed just by jumping in.

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ENVIRONMENT >> PESTS AND CRITTERS

BEST PESTS

The Good, The Bat & The Bugly How to Ensure You’ree Promoting Prom moting an h the Bests Bests and d the Pests Environment for Both W RIT TE N BY C A MERON COBB

B

efore whipping out a can of chemicals or swatting away every creature buzzing by, keep in mind that many of the typically assumed “pests” provide a wide variety of benefits. Aside from the sheer enjoyment of getting to view the beauty wildlife offers, there are many advantages to fostering an environment that promotes the foundation of nature instead of disrupting it.

One type of local helpful critter is the bat. Bats are very beneficial in the predatory aspect, as they prey on many nocturnal bothersome insects, such as moths, beetles and mosquitos, said Brian Pope, director for the Lubee Bat Conservancy (LBC).

Pope said a U.S. Geological Survey conducted in 2011 determined that bat-safe farmers in the U.S.

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saved between $3-53 billion a year by reducing the need for pesticides.

Pope said he is always actively working to break the negative, inaccurate stigmas associated with these flying mammals and teach people about how essential they really are.

One small bat can eat up to 1,000 insects in a night.

“They’re here for a reason,” he said. “Bats are a major part of the ecosystem.”

One way to help promote the presence and conservation of bats is to invest in a bat house. According to lubee.org, the LBC builds and installs three types: single, triple and four chamber.

The opossum is another benefi ciall animal benefici i l that’s h taken for granted. These critters are experts at tick removal, and according to a study by scientists at

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Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, New York, they’re able to kill over 95 percent of the blood-suckers that attempt to feed on them. The National Wildlife Federation’s website referenced the study, noting that researchers determined that one opossum has the potential to kill 4,000 ticks in a week. This is especially beneficial when considering the dangers of Lyme disease, so the presence of opossums in and around urban areas should be graciously appreciated.

A ccording to the Florida Museum of Natural History ’s website, most snakes in the state are harmless (only six venomous species out of 50 established species and 45 subspecies). Florida snakes are often wrongly classified as being aggressive, while contrarily, they’re likely more scared of you than you are of them and will normally flee as opposed to biting without reason. Snakes benefit society by eating a wide variety of pests. For example, kingsnakes feed on various rodents and even other snakes (including the venomous ones). The best way to practice snake conservation is also the easiest way — by not disturbing them. Instead just value their presence from a distance.

Bees are another beneficial participant in the ecosystem.

With over 300 species of native bees in Florida, these insects are vitally important to the basics of environmental care, said William Kern, an associate professor in the Department of Entomology & Nematology at the Ft. Lauderdale Research and Education Center at the University of Florida. Bees are necessary for the cycle of pollination and in keeping the system flowing smoothly.

Kern said one of the most impactful changes people can make to help the bee population is avoiding broad-spectrum pesticides and choosing those that have the narrowest effect for the intended target. Another way to assist these insects is the simple task of hospitality, such as putting out blocks of wood drilled with holes, which attracts the wood-nesting bees, Kern said.

Many other insects provide benefits just by their dining habits. Lacewings and their larvae eat aphids, which cause harm to many plants, and the Florida stink bug’s diet includes troublesome caterpillars.

Kern said spiders also get a bad rap, even though most of the eight-legged critters people encounter are not only harmless, but

“They’re here for a reason.

Bats are a major part of the ecosystem.”

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Locally owned & operated operat 20 years experience also highly beneficial. Being large predators of night-flying insects, orb-weavers prey on beetles and flies, and the huntsman spider even eats cockroaches.

Milkweed assassin bugs are important predators for some very damaging pests, such as the fall armyworm. The larvae of this creature cause defoliation, according to the UF Entomology and Nematology department’s website. They’ll also burrow into the budding points of plants (such as corn), which completely terminates the chance of further growth. Assassin bugs, by preying on harmful insects, aid in decreasing the amount of damage that could’ve stemmed from the situation.

Julien Beuzelin, an assistant professor in the department of Entomology and Nematology at UF, said that conducting research in UF greenhouses doesn’t come without the addition of pesky bugs from time to time. When faced with an aphid problem and the inability to utilize pesticides in that kind of setting, Beuzelin said sometimes they will order a substitute online — in this case, lady beetles. While not only being a natural way to diminish the presence of these harmful insects, the beetles are as environmentally sustainable and friendly as possible (not to mention the convenience of delivery!).

Mark Hostetler, a professor in the Wildlife Ecology and Conservation department at UF, said he agreed that one of the biggest problems with pesticides is that they normally are too broad and don’t just target the bad pests. He recommends combatting this issue by spot treating with pesticides, and if possible, only spray at night so that daytime working pollinators (bees) aren’t affected.

Other ways to help promote a healthy and natural environment is by growing native plants wherever possible, because many non-native species are invasive and jeopardize those that naturally thrive in this area, he said.

“The more diversity that we can encourage within urban areas while minimizing negative effects on surrounding areas, the better,” Hostetler said. “Because local decisions can not only have local impacts, but regional impacts, national impacts and global impacts.”

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BOOK REVIEW

TERRI SCHLICHENMEYER’S

Reading Corner TWO GOOD DOGS written by Susan Wilson C.2017, ST. MARTIN’S PRESS, $26.99 / $37.99 CANADA, 342 PAGES

TERRI SCHLICHENMEYER HAS BEEN READING SINCE SHE WAS 3 YEARS OLD AND SHE NEVER GOES ANYWHERE WITHOUT A BOOK. SHE LIVES WITH HER TWO DOGS AND 11,000 BOOKS. HER BOOK REVIEWS ARE PUBLISHED IN MORE THAN 200 NEWSPAPERS AND 50 MAGAZINES THROUGHOUT THE U.S. AND CANADA. bookwormsez@yahoo.com

ONE FOR THE MONEY, TWO FOR THE SHOW.

E

verybody knows that double is better in sales (Buy-One-Get-One!), socks, and help (two hands make light work). It takes two for marriage, a duet, a tennis team, and a tango. And in the new novel “Two Good Dogs”

by Susan Wilson, two tails are better than one.

Skye Mitchell knew what she was getting herself into.

The first time she saw the LakeView Hotel in the Berkshires, its peaceful surroundings charmed her, yet she couldn’t ignore the shabbiness of the rental cabins and the sheer difficulty in just getting there. Still, she purchased it, and though it cost more to run most weeks than it earned, owning the LakeView was a dream come true for Skye, if not for her daughter, Cody.

Cody, in fact, was part of the reason Skye bought the LakeView: after Skye’s ex-husband was killed in a drug deal, she needed to get Cody away.

The city wasn’t the place to raise a child, although 14-yearold Cody didn’t see things that way, and she’d become sullen and nasty.

Cody Mitchell hated her life.

Her new school was awful and she didn’t fit in. The only friend she’d made was a Goth who called herself Black Molly, which says pretty much everything, and rumors about them hurt. Cody wished she could turn back time, unsee something she saw, and talk to her mother about what was bothering her,

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but she couldn’t. It wasn’t dramatic to say that silence was a matter of life or death.

Escaping to the Berkshires did double-duty for Adam March.

While it was true that he had a client up in the town of North Adams, the LakeView was also a great place to hide from well-meaning eyes, sad-emoji faces and faux sympathy. Adam had enough of all that after his wife died, and he couldn’t get out of town fast enough. All he really needed was his dog, Chance, and room to heal…

Fans of author Susan Wilson’s “One Good Dog,” you read that right: Adam and Chance are back in “Two Good Dogs” but is this new novel twice as good?

Hm, I didn’t think so – not quite, for two reasons.

First, the “secret” that Cody carries is belabored: we learn pretty early what it is and why Cody is mum on it. Wilson does a great job on expressing Cody’s fear, but for as much foofaraw that goes with it, the Big Reveal is an abrupt let-down. It’s as if we’re promised a magnificent gift and we get a gumball prize instead.

Secondly, there are times when Chance is infinitely smarter than the people around him, especially in his verbiage.

The pup uses $15 words when common speech would’ve been much more apt. Dogs are smart, of course, but they’re not thesaurus-users and that started bugging me.

Having said all that, if you loved the first book, how could you possibly miss this one? You can’t, that’s how, so get ready: sights on “Two Good Dogs” and…. Go!

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We feel the best way to find and recognize local charities in our communities is by asking you!

The SunState Community Foundation is a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit organization that serves the communities in and around North Central Florida by promoting and facilitating philanthropy.

The Foundation was established to promote and provide charitable assistance that contributes towards the development, education and well-being of the communities, areas and residents of Alachua, Columbia, Dixie, Gilchrist, and Levy Counties in Florida. The foundation’s initial goal is to administer and fully fund the award winning Facebook Charity-of-the-Month program. SunState Federal Credit Union started the program in 2013, but has turned over administration of the program to the foundation, with SunState Federal Credit Union acting only as a sponsor. This has been done in the belief that this path will ensure the program remains a strong and expanding community resource long into the future.

The SunState Community Foundation, Inc., provides donors/members opportunities to participate in the furtherance of the foundation’s goals in multiple ways. First, and foremost, the donors/members are providing funds to support the foundation’s charitable initiatives. Donors/members can also nominate groups for the Charity of the Month program, and then vote for the group of their choice. Donors/members are encouraged to participate and vote in the Charity of the Month program. Ultimately, the voters choose where foundation donations go as part of the infrastructure of the program.

SunState Community Foundation, Inc.

SPONSORSHIP L EVEL S AVAIL ABL E $

1,000 CHARITY OF THE MONTH SPONSOR

$

•

Recognized on all 4 Entercom Communication stations, 30 times (120 total); KTK, SKY, WRUF and ESPN.

•

Recognized on the Charity of the Month Facebook Contest page, KTK’s Facebook page and Our Town’s Facebook page.

•

Mentioned in the Charity of the Month page in Our Town Magazine.

•

•

•

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500 RANDOM CHARITY SPONSOR Recognized on 2 of Entercom Communications stations, 30 times (60 total); WRUF and ESPN Recognized on the Charity of the Month Facebook Contest page, KTK’s Facebook page and Our Town’s Facebook page.

Mentioned in the Charity of the Month page in Our Town Magazine.

$

300 NOMINATOR SPONSOR

•

Recognized on the Charity of the Month Facebook Contest page, KTK’s Facebook page and Our Town’s Facebook page.

•

Mentioned in the Charity of the Month page in Our Town Magazine.

$

100 RANDOM VOTER SPONSOR

•

Recognized on the Charity of the Month Facebook Contest page.

•

Mentioned in the Charity of the Month page in Our Town Magazine

MOST RECENT WINNING ORGANIZATIONS TO NOMINATE A CHARITY OF YOUR CHOICE OR TO VOTE FOR YOUR FAVORITE NOMINEES, VISIT:

www.facebook.com/SunStateFCU and click on “Charity of the Month”

FEBRUARY WINNER – 2,362 VOTES

MARCH WINNER - 1,734 VOTES

Carson Springs Wildlife Conservation Foundation

Chi Omega Sorority – Make a Wish Foundation

They first fell in love with big cats on the plains of South Africa. Christine and Barry Janks would travel to Shingwedzi a few weeks out of the year to visit the cheetahs and other wild animals and work with a conservation nonprofit.

“But it was too far to go,” Barry said. “We decided to take a rescue or two here. It turned into 50.”

The couple now runs Carson Springs Wildlife Conservation Foundation, which won $1,000 in SunState Federal Credit Union’s February Charity of the Month.

Their nonprofit is located in the northeast corner of Gainesville, a nearly 300-acre swath of land housing everything from Bengal tigers to lions to giraffes.

They used their experience working with wildlife in South Africa to get started. Barry Janks will win $300 for nominating them. The random charity is Epilepsy Foundation of Florida and they will receive $500, and the random voter, Kristen Young, will get $100.

The $1,000 winner of the March Charity of the Month is Make A Wish - Chi Omega. Chi Omega’s Sandblast, which benefits the Make-A-Wish Foundation, is an annual philanthropic volleyball tournament. The women of Chi Omega coach members of fraternities, sororities and independent teams, who then get to spend the day playing the sport. This encourages others to get involved and help raise money for the Make-A-Wish Foundation, which grants the wishes of children with life-threatening medical conditions.

Granting wishes of children during such difficult times provides joy, hope and strength to both the child and their family, which helps the child’s ability and willingness to comply during medical treatment, and that newfound hope may even improve the child’s physical health.

Ashley Malford will win $300 for nominating them. The random charity is Get Smart Robotics and they will receive $500. The random voter Kimberly Smith will get $100.

COMMUNITY PARTNERS >> CHARITY OF THE MONTH

CH A RIT Y OF THE MONTH WINNER S

A project of the SunState Community Foundation, Inc. Presented by SunState Federal Credit Union, Our Town Family of Magazines and Entercom Communications

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TASTE OF THE TOWN

SPECIAL RESTAURANT ADVERTISING SECTION. CALL

352-372-5468

FOR RATES AND INFORMATION.

Bangkok Square 6500 SW Archer Rd, Gainesville Lunch: Monday-Friday 11:00am-3:00pm • Saturday-Sunday 12:00pm-3:00pm Dinner: Sunday-Thursday 5:00pm-9:30pm • Friday-Saturday 5:00pm-10:00pm

352-375-4488 www.bangkoksquarefl.com Authentic Thai Cuisine — Thai cuisine, blending the best elements of the freshest foods. Thai herbs; garlic, basil, ginger, lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, galangal root, chili and more, prepared with the finest blending of fish sauce, shrimp paste, and coconut milk. All of our meals are made to order and prepared on site. We specialize in vegetarian, vegan and gluten free orders. All of our foods can be prepared to your satisfaction with mild, medium, hot, or Thai hot, balanced to the four tastes: sweet, sour, salty, and slightly bitter. Meals can be prepared for take out and we cater to any event. We also have gift cards available. Save 10% off your next dining experience when a gift card is purchased.

Divots Cafe and Banquet 3200 NW 98th St. ( Meadow Brook Golf Coarse ) Open to the Public - Mon.- Sun. 10am - 9pm

352-204-2384 Cafe & Banquet — Open to the Public. We are located in Meadowbrook Golf Course next to the Pro shop. We offer a wide variety for a fresh and quick choices for lunch or dinner. Swing in before or after your game! We have your choice of beverages or enjoy an ice cold beer chilled and ready to go along side one of our Specialty burgers or Buddy’s favorites such as a Buffalo chicken wrap, Divot dogs, and Wings. For a lighter side, we offer House Garden, Chicken Cobb and many more salad choices. Catering is available. We have a banquet area that can accommodate up to 120 guests. Call us and book the space for your next meeting. It’s also a great venue for a wedding reception, graduation party and much more.

Pizza in the Hood 14212 NW 154th Avenue, Alachua, FL 32615 Tuesday – Thursday 11:00 a.m. – 10:00 p.m.

Friday & Saturday 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 a.m.

386-518-5656 Italian — Pizza in the Hood is a new and unique restaurant and pub in the City of Alachua. We use the highest quality ingredients imported from around the country, and fresh produce sourced locally when in season. All meals are made fresh with original Italian recipes. In addition to 16 New York style specialty pizzas, there are a variety of appetizers, salads, hot subs, burgers, pasta dishes, vegetarian entrees, and dessert. Customers have praised the chicken wings, with over 20 varieties, as the best in town. Our pub has icy cold imported and domestic beers and beer on tap. There are daily happy hour specials from 5:00 – 7:30 p.m. We deliver all around northern Alachua County.

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Copper Monkey West 14209 W Newberry Road, Jonesville, FL 32669 Across from the Steeplechase Publix Sunday-Thursday 11:00am - 11:00pm Friday-Saturday 11:00am - 12:00am

352-363-6338 mycoppermonkey.com Restaurant & Pub — Now serving Breakfast on Saturdays & Sundays 8:30am - 10:45am. We are located in the heart of Jonesville, this All-American dining is convenient to all neighborhoods in Gainesville, Alachua, Newberry, High Springs and beyond. Our family-friendly dining features great food at a great price. Whether you come in for the “best burger in town” or try any one of our freshly made salads, pastas or sandwiches, you will not leave disappointed. Our USDA choice steaks, served with 2 sides, offer a great alternative for the perfect celebratory meal. We also feature a full-service bar with signature drinks and many options for your viewing pleasure.

Great food, great price, we’ll see you soon.

Backstreet Blues Chop House & Oyster Bar 6500 SW Archer Rd , Gainesville fl 32608 Monday Closed • Tuesday - Saturday 4:00pm – 10:00pm Dinner Sunday - 10:00am – 8:00pm

352-363-6792 backstreetblueschophouse.com Wood & Charcoal Grilled — At Backstreet Blues Chophouse we offer the finest dry aged Linz beef, fresh Gulf Seafood and Oysters delivered everyday. Come try our signature steak the “Tomahawk Ribeye” or our Oysters Rockefeller. We have a large selection of unique appetizers and wines from all over the world. Full bar with Specialty whiskeys and bourbons. We also offer a private dining room that seats up to 30 for private dinners or tastings. We have a large covered patio area as well. Its an experience you can have everyday! Half price oysters on Tuesdays at the bar. Tuesday and Wednesday we have live music.

Dave’s New York Deli 12921 SW 1st Road • Tioga Town Center Open 7 Days

352-333-0291 www.DavesNYDeli.com Authentic NY deli — The Reviews are in and here’s what customers are saying about Dave’s NY Deli Tioga Town Center! “Best Reuben, Best Pastrami, Best Philly, and Best Wings” Dave’s continues to be the place to go for authentic NY Deli food and Philly Cheesesteaks. Owner Dave Anders says “Nothing beats quality ingredients combined with a friendly staff. Dave serves New York size Pastrami and Corned Beef sandwiches, Cheesecake from New York, Nathan’s Hot Dogs, NY Kettle Boiled Bagels, Nova Salmon, Knish, Cannolies, Philly Cheesesteaks, Wings, Cubans, Subs, Kids Menu and more.” Come out and enjoy Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner at Dave’s NY Deli.

Now serving beer and wine.

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Flying Biscuit Café 4150 NW 16th Blvd., Gainesville, FL 32605 Located in the Fresh Market Center Monday-Friday 7:00am – 3:00pm • Saturday-Sunday 7:00am – 4:00pm

352-373-9500 www.flyingbiscuit.com Breakfast — The Flying Biscuit is out to reinvent breakfast in Gainesville! Maybe you’ve tried their soon-to-be-famous creamy, dreamy grits or their “moon dusted” breakfast potatoes, but did you know you can have them at anytime? With a unique open menu, all the items that appear are available throughout the day. With a variety of healthy and hearty dishes, The Flying Biscuit caters to a variety of tastes. With options ranging from the Smoked Salmon Scramble, the Bacon Cheddar Chicken Sandwich or the Tofu and Tater Salad, there’s something for everyone. Call us up to an hour before your expected arrival time to add your name to our call ahead seating list.

Pepperoni’s 19975 NW 244 Street, High Springs Mon -Thurs 11:00am — 9:00pm • Fri & Sat 11:00am — 10:00pm Sunday 12:00pm — 9:00pm

386-454-3858 Pizzeria — Since its establishment in 2000, Pepperoni’s Pizzeria has been serving up some of the best pizzas, calzones, entrees, wings, boneless wings and salads in town using Grande brand premium mozzarella and other top ingredients. We also have great lunch specials starting at only $4.99. All of our specialty pizzas are loaded with toppings.

Pepperoni’s is locally owned and operated and is proud to serve the High Springs Community and surrounding areas. We are located on U.S. Highway 441.

Brown’s Country Buffet 14423 NW US Hwy 441, Alachua, FL 32616 Monday-Friday 7:00am - 8:00pm Saturday 7:00am - 2:00pm Sunday 8:00am - 3:00pm

386-462-3000 brownscountrybuffet.net Casual — Country-style cooking at its finest, just like Grandma’s house! A buffet style restaurant, Brown’s Country Buffet is open seven days a week! Foods like fried chicken, grilled pork chops, real mashed potatoes, steamed cabbage, banana pudding and coconut pie, just to name a few, are served in a laid-back, relaxing environment. We offer AYCE fried shrimp on Friday nights from 4-8 along with whole catfish & ribs. In addition to their buffet, Brown’s also offers a full menu to choose from. Serving lunch and dinner daily and a breakfast buffet Friday-Sunday until 10:30am, you’re sure to leave satisfied, no matter when you go. So, when you’re in the mood for some good home cooking, Grandma’s style, visit Brown’s Country Buffet.

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Napolatanos 606 NW 75th Street Gainesville, FL Tuesday - Thursday & Sunday 4:00pm-10:00pm Friday 4:00pm-1:00am • Saturday 4:00pm-11:00pm

352-332-6671 www.napolatanos.com ITALIAN — Napolatanos is the longest original owner operated restaurant in Gainesville. Nappys, the name the locals have given Napolatanos has the most extensive menu.

Whether you choose pizza, calzones, salad, burgers, sandwiches, pasta, seafood, steak dinners or the best chicken wings in town, Nappy’s uses only the freshest ingredients.

Visit on Tuesday for half price appetizers. Burgers & Brew Night on Wednesday and live music inside. Thursday is Pub night with Better than England’s Fish & Chips $7. Outside dining with live music, on the patio, on Sunday evenings. GRAB & GO family dinners feeds 4-6 adults, starting at $25.95. Choose from Ziti, Lasagna, Chicken Alfredo, Chicken Marsala and more!

Mi Apá Latin Café Gainesville – 114 SW 34th Street (352-376-7020) Alachua – 15634 US Highway 441 (386-418-0838) Both locations open every day 7:00am - 10:00pm

MiApaLatinCafe.com Cuban — Everyone knows Mi Apá has an amazing lunch and dinner menu, but we also have Gainesville’s best cup of coffee and a delicious, authentic selection of Cuban breakfast items. Enjoy a Cuban egg sandwich, Arroz a la Cubana, a stuffed arepa, and much more at either of our two locations in Gainesville and Alachua. Mi Apá Latin Café serves traditional Cuban breakfast prepared using only the freshest, most authentic ingredients. Have a seat in our casual dining area and enjoy the morning newspaper or order carryout on your way to work. Our Gainesville location even has a convenient drive-thru window. The best Cuban food north of Miami is always just minutes away!

Gators Den Sports Grill 4200 NW 97th Blvd Gainesville, FL 32606 Sunday -Thursday 5:00pm — 10:00pm Friday & Saturday 5:00pm — 12 :00am

352-331-4875 Gatorsdensportsgrill.com Bar & Grill— Offering a full bar, fantastic food and flat screen televisions to watch the big game. The Gators Den Sports Grill is the best spot to unwind, meet up and grab a bite to eat. Gators Den Sports Grill has your front row seat to every game. Besides showing all of the televised University of Florida football games, we also feature NFL Ticket, NBA League Pass and MLB Extra Innings, so you can root on your favorite team. You may come for the game, but you’ll stay for the food! Featuring a large selection of American favorites. Why not try a Southern staple, like our award-winning Mac and Cheese, Fried Pickles, Down Home Meatloaf. Enjoy game-day classics like Buffalo Wings, All-American Burgers or one of our Knockout Premium Steaks, cooked to perfection.

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FOR RATES AND INFORMATION.

Piesanos Stone Fired Pizza (Archer Road) 5757 SW 75th St. — 352-371-8646 • (Millhopper Road) 5200 NW 43rd St. — 352-371-7437 (University) 1250 W University Ave. — 352-375-2337 • (Grand Oaks Plaza) 2575 SW 42nd St. Ocala — 352-351-6000

Mon-Thurs: 11am-10pm Fri-Sat: 11am-11pm Sun: 11am-10pm

www.piesanostogo.com Pizza, Pints & Pies — Piesanos is a locally owed and operated restaurant that is proud to use only the finest ingredients available, including Grande brand premium mozzarella. We are a full service dine in restaurant with an attached take out center and also offer catering. Our dough is made fresh daily and all of our pizzas are baked directly on the stone in our unique Granite Stone Fired Pizza Oven. We offer a great variety of Specialty pizzas, such as our Pizza Antico-(ultra thin crust- Fresh Mozzarella, mini cup & char pepperoni & fresh basil) Specialty Pastas, Calzones, Fresh soups and salads, classic italian entrees, and a great selection of craft beer. We also offer a gluten free menu. For full menu please visit PIESANOSTOGO.COM.

Adam’s Rib Co. 2109 NW 13th Street, Gainesville, Florida 32609 1515 SW 13th Street Gainesville, Florida 32608 Monday-Saturday 7:00am – 9:00pm Closed Sunday

352-373-8882 NW 352-727-4005 SW AdamsRibCo.com BBQ — Celebrating our 10 year Anniversary. Looking for the best BBQ in Gainesville?

Then look no further than Adam’s Rib Co. Adam’s is North Florida’s Premier Barbecue restaurant, serving North Florida’s finest bbq spare ribs, pulled pork, beef brisket, slow smoked chicken and turkey. Choose from over 20 sauces – from honey sweet to habanero hot – and everything in between. Don’t forget dessert, like our scrumptious banana pudding and famous peach cobbler. Serving breakfast, lunch and dinner, Adam’s can cater any event locally. Give Adam a call for your next tailgate party 352-514-8692!

Crane Ramen 16 SW 1st Ave. Gainesville Sun-Wed: 11:00 am - 4pm • 5pm - 10pm • Thu-Sat: 11am - 4pm • 5pm - 1am Sunday Brunch beginning at 11am

352-727-7422 www.craneramen.com Authentic Craft Ramen — Owners Fred Brown and Bill Bryson opened a restaurant serving sensuous, Japanese comfort food. Ramen creates a harmony of flavors, enjoyed layer by layer as they are mixed throughout your bowl. The richness of ingredients thoughtfully concocted delivers complete dining satisfaction. Crane Ramen is committed to a local/sustainable model of sourcing the best and healthiest ingredients.

Our meat, eggs and poultry are sourced locally whenever possible. All of our food is scratch-made! We have our soup stocks bubbling 24 hours a day! In addition to ramen we also have a seasonal variety of delicious otsumami. Crane Ramen also has also curated its own unique offering of beer, wine, sake and creative cocktails!

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Smoke Fried 23352 W US Hwy 27, Suite 50, High Springs, FL 32643 Monday -Thursday 11:00 AM – 8:00 PM • Friday - 11:00 AM – 9:00 PM Saturday 7:30 AM – 9:00 PM

386-454-7031 www.smokefried.com Casual — Offering traditional smokehouse flavors through a variety of BBQ favorites and dishes with a new spin, served in a casual setting with a large portion of friendly service. Getting home late, running from appointments to practice, just too exhausted to cook? We have the whole family covered with home style favorites or BBQ packs for dine in or carry out. In a hurry? Order online and zip by on your way from here to there. Half priced kid’s meals on Monday nights with the purchase of an adult meal.

Grab some friends and family and come try “The Lid,” our BBQ feast served on a garbage can lid for sharing. Now serving breakfast on Saturday morning.

Vegan 2Go 7625 W Newberry Rd Gainesville, FL. Mon thru Thursday 11am – 8 pm Fri and Sat. 11am-9pm • Sunday 12 pm – 7 pm

352-505-8894 Vegan2GoGainesville.com COOKING WITH LOVE — This vegetarian & vegan restaurant is based on the concept that people and animals can live in harmony through sustainable plant based solutions.

You can be sure that their ingredients are carefully selected from non-GMO, non-MSG, sea salt and organic products. The final result: something that’s delicious, tasty, healthy, and vegan! Their healthy barbeque skewers made from soy or the infamous vegan ginger onion chick’n, are sure to have you craving for more. If you want some bang for your buck, try one of the combos: your choice of noodles or rice with spring rolls, summer rolls, and either BBQ or vegan chicken. If you’re feeling a bit adventurous with your appetite, try making your own combo! Don’t forget the delicious, fragrant Thai Iced Tea!

Newberry’s Backyard BBQ 25405 West Newberry Road, Newberry Monday-Wednesday 11:00am – 9:00pm Thursday 11:00am – 9:00pm Friday and Saturday 11:00am – 11:00pm Sunday 10:30am – 3:00pm

352-472-7260 newberrybbq.com BBQ — The one and only Newberry’s Backyard BBQ is located in our historic building in beautiful downtown Newberry. Our pork, chicken, beef, and turkey is smoked to perfection daily. Our salads and sides are always fresh. If you are thirsty we have the best sweet tea in the South and a full bar as well. Make sure to bring your kids, we serve their meals on a frisbee that they take home. For your entertainment, we always have live music on Friday nights and Karaoke on Saturday evenings.

We now have an ALL YOU CAN EAT BUFFET Sunday - Friday 11am - 3pm

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TASTE OF THE TOWN

SPECIAL RESTAURANT ADVERTISING SECTION. CALL

352-372-5468

FOR RATES AND INFORMATION.

Tony & Al’s Restaurant & Bar 14960 Main Street, Alachua, Florida 32616 OPEN 7 DAYS Monday-Thursday 11:00am – 9:00pm Friday-Saturday 11:00am – 10:00pm Sunday 11:00am – 8:00pm

386-518-5552 Italian — Locally owned and operated, Tony & Al’s Deli provides the finest quality Italian entrees in a family friendly atmosphere. Whether it’s their delicious appetizers, pasta classics, specialty pizzas, salads, sandwiches, wraps, burgers or prime rib, Tony & Al use only their freshest ingredients. Their sauces, dressings and specialty desserts including cannolis and tiramisu are all handcrafted. They serve daily lunch and dinner specials. Tony and Al offer a full bar with happy hour from 5pm-7pm including $1.00 off all drafts, wine and well drinks.

The Flour Pot Cafe & Bakery 13005 SW 1st Rd, Suite 137 • Newberry, FL 32669 (Tioga Town Center) Monday - Saturday 7:00am – 4:00pm Closed Sunday

352-331-1771 www.TheFlourPotBakery.com Breakfast & Lunch — Artisan Breads & Savory Pastries – We offer European style breads freshly baked with no preservatives, unbleached flour & natural ingredients.

Breads with a great spring, texture and flavor. You can also select vegan and gluten free muffins, cookies and breads. If you have a sweet tooth you will find home made cookies including our sought after energy cookie. Our thoughtfully crafted celebration cakes and pies will be remembered by your guests. We have a variety of such breakfast and lunch choices as quiches, omelets, hot and cold sandwiches. There is something for everyone to love. We cater as well. The Flour Pot is under new ownership. Come and check our new look and style!

Pomodoro Café 9200 NW 39th Ave, Gainesville, FL 32606 Monday - Saturday 11am - 10pm Sunday 11am - 9pm

352-380-9886 pomodorocafe.com Italian — Step away from the hustle and bustle of Gainesville and enjoy a quiet, relaxing evening in the Italian countryside at Pomodoro Café. Just off I-75 via exit 390, Pomodoro’s is the perfect spot for a romantic evening or a simple night out with family.

We’ll pour you a glass of wine and prepare for you a delicious, authentic Italian meal, such as Chicken Parmigiana, Shrimp Fra Diavolo, and Gnocchi Madiera. Our pasta is imported from Italy and has been voted some of the best in Gainesville. As the sounds, aromas, and tastes of wholesome, authentic Italian swirl around you, you’ll believe you’re actually in Italy!

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Bev’s Burger Café 315 NE Santa Fe Blvd. • High Springs Monday - Saturday 7am-9pm

386-454-9434 Casual — If you’re looking for fresh, homemade food in High Springs, look no further than Bev’s Burger Cafe. Known for the best burgers in town and fast, friendly service you’re sure to leave satisfied. You may also want to try one of their BBQ dinner favorites such as sliced pork, smoked turkey, BBQ chicken, baby back ribs, and more. Stop on by with the kids on Monday nights for some magic & balloon animals with Magic Mike.

Every Tuesday pork sandwiches are $3.00 all day. Also, on Wednesday nights starting at 5pm sodas and their famous tea are only $1.00, and bottled beer only $1.50. Don’t forget Bev’s is open for breakfast, also, served from 7am to 10:45am. Come check out our newly renovated kitchen & dining room, and our new menu items including fried chicken!

World of Beer 140 SW 128th Street • Tioga Town Center, Jonesville 32669 3265 SW 34th Street • Gainesville, Florida 32608 Open at 11am Everyday

352-727-4714 (Tioga) 352-559-8775 (Gville) worldofbeer.com TAVERN FARE — At World of Beer, we have 40 craft beers on tap, over 500 in the cooler and now we have added a tasty tavern fare that’s crafted to go perfectly with any beer. Our menu offers a wide variety of choices including a giant pretzel with beer cheese dip, artisan sausage boards, flat breads, innovative sandwiches and burgers, soups, salads and so much more! Visit our web site for a full menu and event schedule.

Whether you’re a beer master or just beer curious, our insanely knowledgeable staff is here to guide you through every last pint, pour, and pairing. So c’mon. Let’s go. Because there’s no better place to go around the world, one sip at a time.

Sweet Pea’s Diner 825 South Main Street, High Springs, Florida 32655 Monday - Saturday 7:00am - 3:00pm • Sunday 8:00am - 3:00pm

386-288-0859 • 386-292-3248 Diner — Sweet Pea’s Diner is now under new management! We are open for breakfast and lunch offering a menu with great selections and good prices. We are here for your dining pleasure, serving home cooked southern style meals and All-American favorites.

A few of our lunchtime favorites are the Louisiana fried chicken, turkey BLT, wraps and burgers. Not to mention our fresh salad bar. We also offer a daily special each day including chicken and dumplins, turkey and dressing and meatloaf. We serve breakfast all day! Some of our popular breakfast items include omelets, biscuits and gravy, Nettles sausage and home fries. The children will love our kids menu. Indoor/outdoor seating and takeout available. Stop on by and let us do the cooking!

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COMMU NIT Y C A LENDA R

M AY/J U N E 2 0 1 7

Blue Star Museums

May 29 – September 4 Free admission at Florida Museum to all fee-based exhibits for active duty military personnel and their families. Free to any active duty U.S. military, and up to five family members.

RIVER OF DREAMS Through June 24

GAINESVILLE - The Matheson History Museum, 513 East University Ave. “River of Dreams: The St. Johns and Its Springs Exhibition” examines Floridians’ past, present and future relationship with the St. Johns River and its springs.

352-378-2280.

YOGA WITH JANKE Mondays 5:30pm – 6:30pm

GAINESVILLE - UF HealthStreet, 2401 Old Archer Rd. Yoga is proven to reduce stress, increase flexibility and mindfulness. Stop by for these free weekly classes and come earlier to learn about many resources HealthStreet can provide for you and your family’s health.

352-294-4880.

TAP DANCE WITH CHAYA Tuesdays

GAINESVILLE - YMCA, Studio 2, 5201 NW 34th Blvd. Designed to demonstrate that creativity 110 |

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can be fun for everyone and make our community stronger and healthier. Open to the public, all are welcome. 6:00pm beginner and 7:00pm intermediate. Class cards are 6/$74 or 10/$108.

352-358-5005.

BIRD WALK Wednesdays 8:30am

GAINESVILLE - Sweetwater Wetlands Park, 325 SW Williston Rd. Birding field. Trips will be led by volunteers from Alachua Audubon Society.

Walks are free, but park admission is $5 per car. www.alachuaaudubon.org.

WIND DOWN WEDNESDAY Wednesdays 7:00 PM - 11:00 PM

GAINESVILLE - 101 Downtown, 201 SW 2nd Ave. Enjoy live jazz and wine – Seasonal wines are available for half price to give patrons the ability to find their perfect wine. $20 all you can drink house wine. 352-283-8643.

HARMONY SHOW CHORUS Thursdays 7:00pm – 9:30pm

GAINESVILLE - Grace Presbyterian Church, 3146 NW 13th St. For all who are interested in learning and singing women’s Acapella barbershop harmony music. 352-318-1281.

ARTWALK GAINESVILLE Last Friday 7:00pm - 10:00pm

GAINESVILLE - Downtown. Artwalk is a free monthly self-guided tour that combines exciting visual art, live performance and events with many local galleries, eateries and businesses participating. www.artwalkgainesville.com.

LADY GAMERS Fridays 1:00pm

HIGH SPRINGS - New Century Woman’s Club, 40 NW 1st Ave. The Lady Gamers meet for fun, friendship and food. Everyone is invited. Meet old friends and make some new ones.

PHOTOGRAPHY: ERIC ZAMORA

WINTER MARKET First Saturday 9:00am to 12:30pm

NEWBERRY - Munger Barn on Dudley Farm, 18730 W. Newberry Rd. Baked goods, eggs, handmade crafts, jams and jellies, naturally raised meats, pickles, winter vegetables and more. Subject to cancellation due to bad weather. 352-472-1142.

MUSIC IN THE PARK Third Sunday 2:00pm – 4:00pm

HIGH SPRINGS - 120 NW 2nd Ave. A free concert featuring artists from all over North Florida. Performances take place at locations in and around the James Paul Park area.

GIRL SCOUTS EXPLORE: COLLECTIONS Friday, May 5 6:00pm – 9:00pm

GAINESVILLE - Florida Museum, 3215 Hull Rd. Girl Scouts can participate in their next adventure at the museum and earn a special patch created for this event. Explore the collections and learn about the world around us. This evening program is for Brownie and Junior Girl Scouts. Pre-registration required. Visit the Scouts web page or call 352-273-2062.

Maintaining Your Citrus Thursday, May 11 5:30pm – 7:00pm GAINESVILLE - Extension Office, 2800 NE 39th Ave. Learn to maintain delicious oranges, tangerines, lemons and grapefruit trees in your backyard. Also covers variety selection, fertilization, freeze protection and pest control. Participants will create a management plan for their citrus.

Class is limited to 50. 352-955-2402.

CHAYAVEDA MINDFUL MOTION 300 Beginning May 5 Times Vary

GAINESVILLE - The Gainesville Retreat Center, 1551 SE 51 St. Unlock your potential with this 13-part, monthly immersion into yogic wellness. Open to all and advanced certification and CEU’s are available for yoga teachers, massage therapists and Ayurvedic Practitioners. One weekend per month. www.

ChayaVeda.com; 352-358-5005.

MOONLIGHT WALK Saturday, May 6 7:00pm – 11:00pm

GAINESVILLE - Kanapaha Botanical Gardens, 4700 SW 58th Dr. See the twinkle lights, lanterns and approximately 1,500 luminaries along a 1.25 mile walkway. Live entertainment, food and refreshments. The Alachua Astronomy Club will be out with telescopes to view the cosmos. No pets allowed during this event.

Please bring a flashlight. Cash only. Gardens will close from 5:00pm-7:00pm. 352-372-4981.

AUTHOR SERIES: ACE ATKINS

BRIGHTER TOMORROW BANQUET

Saturday, May 6 2:30pm

Thursday, May 11 6:00pm

GAINESVILLE - Headquarters Library, 401 E. University Ave. Ace Atkins is a journalist and author who earned a Pulitzer Prize nomination for an investigative series on a forgotten murder in the 1950s, which later was an inspiration for his novel “White Shadow.” Atkins graduated from Auburn University in 1994 where many Gator fans may remember him as he played on the football team. 352-334-3939.

GAINESVILLE - Best Western Gateway Grand, 4200 NW 97th Blvd. A GRU community outreach program. All proceeds will benefit the Brighter Tomorrow scholarship fund, which provides financial support to local, underrepresented prospective engineering students.

Contact GRU Community Relations: 352393-1203 or smithrk@gru.com.

VOICES RISING COMMUNITY CHORUS CONCERT

May 12 – May 28 Times Vary

Sunday, May 7 3:00pm & 7:00pm

GAINESVILLE - Gainesville Community Playhouse, 4039 NW 16th Blvd. A snowstorm, a remote guesthouse, and murder in true mystery fashion, audiences will delight in trying to solve this world-famous whodunit by Agatha Christie.

352-376-4949.

THE MOUSETRAP

GAINESVILLE - First United Methodist Church, 419 NE 1st St. “Music of the People: Folk Songs and Spirituals.” Suggested donation is $5 to $20. Half of all proceeds will benefit local projects of the Children’s Home Society. www.vrccgainesville.org.

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MOTHER’S DAY SPECIAL Sunday, May 14 9:00am – 5:00pm

GAINESVILLE - Kanapaha Botanical Gardens, 4700 SW 58th Dr. Free admission to mothers of all ages. 352-372-5892.

PANEL DISCUSSION Thursday, May 18 6:00pm

GAINESVILLE - Matheson History Museum, 513 E. University Ave. Outdoor adventure guide and historian Lars Andersen, and Bartram Trail creators Sam Carr and Dean Campbell will discuss John and William Bartram’s historic travels on the St. Johns River and how paddlers and hikers can recreate their journey on Bartram Trails in Putnam County, Alachua County and other areas the Bartrams visited and wrote about over 250 years ago. 352-378-2280.

NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM

Windsor Zucchini Festival Saturday, May 13 9:00am - 4:00pm WINDSOR - Downtown. There will be duke of zuke and zuqueenie pageant, arts and crafts vendor show, cook-a-zuke contest, plant a pot for mom, zion coin hunt, games, hay rides, fried zucchini, zucchini ice cream, zucchini carving, live band providing music, magic show, arts and crafts vendor show, food, raffle, plant sale, country store, obstacle course for kids and more.

Info: Cindy at 352-792-9690.

MAGNESIA SPRINGS: THEN AND NOW Saturday, May 13 2:00pm

GAINESVILLE - Matheson History Museum, 513 E. University Ave. Robert F. Moore, a fourth generation Hawthorne resident, will discuss his book, “Magnesia Springs In Alachua County: Then and Now.” Mr. Moore traces the history of this Alachua County swimming hole. A book signing will follow his talk. 352-378-2280.

FARM TO TABLE DINNER Saturday, May 13 5:30pm – 10:00pm

ALACHUA - Swallowtail Farm, 17603 NW 276th Lane. Featuring Teresa Callen, delight in a unique, four-course meal prepared with the flowers, herbs, proteins and vegetables grown and raised on the farm,. Dinners are a set menu and are best suited for flexible, adventurous eaters. Dinner tickets include all non-alcoholic

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beverages, alcoholic beverages, a farm tour, dinner and all gratuities. www.swallowtailcsa.com.

MOTHER & DAUGHTER EMPOWERMENT DINNER Saturday, May 13 6:00pm

GAINESVILLE - Showers Of Blessings Harvest Center, 2615 SE 15th St. An event to empower women and young ladies from all walks of life.

Through encouraging words, testimony, praise and support, all women are encouraged to never give up, and to chase after the impossible.

352-375-3589.

Thursday, May 18 7:00pm – 9:00pm

GAINESVILLE - Florida Museum, 3215 Hull Rd. Speed date a science subject; an evening with science and snacks. They provide the scientists and you provide the questions in this fast-paced evening event. $20 for museum members; non-members $25. Participants must be 18 years or older. The program fee includes admission to the permanent museum exhibits, coffee, ice tea, lemonade and cookies. Additional light bites and adult beverages available for purchase.

Contact Catherine Carey at ccarey@flmnh.ufl.edu or 352-273-2064.

BIT BRIGADE Thursday, May 18 9:00pm

GAINESVILLE - High Dive, 210 SW 2nd Ave. When Bit Brigade rolls into town, the gamer elite hang up the controller for the evening to go see a rock show. Composed of members of roadwarrior (both stateside and abroad) Math rock bands Cinemechanica and We Versus The Shark, Bit Brigade elevates game music to its proper place in the foreground of epic technical rock and plays the games like they don’t need the extra lives. Which, for the record, they don’t.

352-872-5929.

MOTHER’S DAY CONCERT Sunday, May 14 3:00pm

GAINESVILLE - Trinity United Methodist, 4000 NW 53rd Ave. Come out and experience a performance from the Gainesville Community Band. www.gnvband.org.

ARMED FORCES SALUTE Saturday, May 20 3:00pm

GAINESVILLE - First United Methodist Church, 419 NE 1st St. Under the direction of Gary Langford, the Gainesville Pops! celebrates

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Armed Forces Day and Memorial Day with the annual concert, “Armed Forces Salute... A Tribute to American Heroes!” The concert is free.

OPEN HOUSE/OPEN WINGS Saturday, May 20 11:00am – 3:00pm

GAINESVILLE - Lubee Bat Conservancy, 1309 NW 192nd Ave. Entrance fee is $5/person (children 4 & under FREE) and guests have a chance to listen to educational talks, check out native bat houses and talk to experts on installation and exclusion, and of course, view beautiful bats playing with numerous toys.

352-485-1250.

MAY DAY GLOW RUN Saturday, May 20 1:00pm - 10:00pm

JONESVILLE - Tioga Town Center, 105 SW 128th St. Join Newberry Christian Community School’s 4th annual May Day Glow Run! Run, jog, or walk through the beautiful Town of Tioga. Afternoon events start at 4:00pm and the race begins at 8:15pm. Glow necklaces will be provided.

Bring extra glow to compete in the best dressed contest. Glow Big or Go Home. Cost: $35.00.

352-331-4000.

ART & MINDFULNESS WORKSHOP May 20 & June 24 11:00am – 1:00pm

GAINESVILLE - The Sanity Gurus, 1730 NW 53rd Ave. Open your mind and your creativity in this monthly art and meditation workshop. Every class will be a different art/creativity project and will end with a mindful meditation practice based on that week’s project. Each class is $25. The May class will be group mindfulness meditation with a $10 supply fee, and the June class will be Mantra meditation with a $20 supply fee. www. sanitygurus.com.

PASSING STRANGE

BLUE STAR MUSEUMS May 29 thru September 4 10:00am – 5:00pm

GAINESVILLE - Florida Museum, 3215 Hull Rd. Free admission to all fee-based exhibits for active duty military personnel and their families from Memorial Day through Labor Day as part of the Blue Star Museums program. Free to any active duty U.S. military including members of the National Guard and Reserve, U.S. Public Health Service and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Commissioned Corps, and up to five family members. 352-846-2000.

FARM TO TABLE DINNER Saturday, June 3 5:30pm

ALACHUA - Swallowtail Farm, 17603 NW 276th Lane. Delight in a unique, savory four course meal prepared with the flowers, herbs, proteins and vegetables grown and raised on Swallowtail Farm. www.swallowtailcsa.com.

MEMORIAL DAY CEREMONY Monday, May 29

WOMEN’S GOLF DAY

11:00am

Tuesday, June 6

GAINESVILLE - Forest Meadows Cemetery, 3700 SE Hawthorne Rd. Come out and honor our fallen heroes. There will be a presentation of the colors, posting of the colors by the Milton Lewis Young Marines, multiple guest speakers, and more. Hosted by Forest Meadows Funeral home. 352-378-2528.

4:00pm

DEDICATION CEREMONY Monday, May 29 2:00pm

GAINESVILLE - Evergreen Cemetery, 401 SE 21st Ave. Dedication ceremony for Corporal Milton Lewis, first person from Gainesville to be killed in action during World War II. There will be a flag folding ceremony, laying of the wreath, and more.

GAINESVILLE - Haile Plantation Golf & Country Club, 9905 SW 44th Ave. This one-day, fourhour event celebrates girls and women playing golf and learning the skills that last a lifetime.

4:00pm – 6:00pm participants have the option of two hours of lessons – one hour on the driving range and one hour chipping and putting, or two hours of play - A 9-hole scramble or play their own ball as long as the 9 holes can be completed in two hours. 6:00pm – 8:00pm is for socializing, networking and distribution of information regarding lessons, league play, hear from speakers and ways to get involved in golf. 352-335-0055.

CHAYAVEDA TRANSFORMATIVE WELLNESS PROGRAM

ROOTLESS PLANTS

Thursdays, June 8 - July 13

June 1 – August 31

5:30pm-7:30pm.

Times Vary

GAINESVILLE - UF Health, Facilities Administration Building, 1281 Newell Dr. Program includes Ayurvedic health care and holistic living for health, rejuvenation and longevity, learning practical tools for self-care, health, peace and vitality, in a supportive group setting that encourages transformative learning. Free parking in front. $165. www.ChayaVeda.com or 352-358-5005.

GAINESVILLE - Florida Museum, 3215 Hull Rd. Learn about the rootless plants that grow in the trees of the Butterfly Rainforest from June 1 to Aug. 31. Daily butterfly releases are held at 2:00pm with additional weekend releases at 3:00pm and 4:00pm, weather permitting. UF students with a valid Gator 1 card receive free admission year-round. 352-846-2000.

Times Vary

REHEARSAL FOR MURDER

GAINESVILLE - Actors’ Warehouse, 608 N Main St. A young black musician travels on a picaresque journey to rebel against his mother and his upbringing in a church-going, middle-class, late 1970s South Central Los Angeles neighborhood in order to find “the real.” 352-376-8561.

June 2 – 25

CHAYAVEDA AYURVEDIC YOGA IMMERSION AND CERTIFICATION PROGRAM

Times Vary

June 9 – 11, July 14 – 16, Aug. 11 – 13

HIGH SPRINGS - High Springs Playhouse, 130 NE 1st Ave. The playwright turns on the stage lights and prepares for the first reading of his new play.

As the cast and crew assemble, an undercurrent

Times Vary

May 26 - June 4

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of suspense is evident. Everyone connected with this show was involved with another play, and exactly a year ago on opening night in this theatre, the leading lady (the playwright’s fiancé) was murdered! 386-454-3525.

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GAINESVILLE - Aurora, 109 SE 4th Ave. Access the internal logic and theory that form a mindful, whole systems Ayurvedic Yoga Therapy

R A L U C A T C E P S2017-2018 SEASON » THE RING Saturday, April 7, 7 7:30PM Combining forces once again with Conductor Raymond Chobaz and the UF Symphony orchestra, DANB presents ‘The Ring’, a world premier created to a symphonic version of Wagner’s ‘Ring’ cycle.. Also on the program will be UF professor Welson Tremura and his fantastic classical guitar quartet. Unusual and innovative program for all!

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Wednesday, Feb. 14, Wed 7:30PM 7 A perfect Valentine’s night out for you and your loved ones! LOVE’ is at the heart of this show.

Ph P hot otos by Jo John hn hnst nst s on Pho hoto togr to togr grap a hyy ap

All performances at Curtis M. Phillips Cente Center er for the Performing Arts For For information: i fo in form rm mattio on: Dancealive.org Dan ance ceal ce aliv al ive. iv e.or e.or org g • dalive@bellsouth.net dali da livvve li ve@b @beel @b ells l outh ou uth.n h.n net e • 352-371-2986 352 52-3 -371 71-2 298 986 6 MAY/JUNE 2017

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approach. All are welcome. CEUs available for NCTMB, LMT, NAMA, and Yoga Alliance.

Tuition includes course manual: $695. Info and to register: www.ChayaVeda.com, info@chayaveda. com or 352-358-5005.

SUMMER HIGH SCHOOL ART CAMP June 12 – June 23 Times Vary

GAINESVILLE - Fine Arts Complex, 1370 Inner Rd. The UF School of Art + Art History invites students ages 13+ and high school students to share a collaborative and contemporary visual art experience across UF’s art spaces, from the Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art to the SA+AH’s own classroom studios. Young artists, designers, photographers, writers, inventors, programmers and engineer-minded creatives will explore, think and make works on a large scale for exhibition—together. Contact Patrick Grigsby at 352-273-3071 or saahsummer@arts.ufl.edu.

FATHER’S DAY SPECIAL Sunday, June 18, 2017 9:00am – 5:00pm

GAINESVILLE - Kanapaha Botanical Gardens, 4700 SW 58th Dr. Free admission to fathers of all ages. 352-372-5892.

CLOVERBUD ALL ABOUT ANIMALS CAMP June 19 – June 22 9:00am – 3:00pm

GAINESVILLE - Extension Office, 2800 NE 39th Ave. This is an opportunity for children ages 6-8 to learn about animal science and environmental education in a unique way. The camp is divided into four parts: Farm animals, Florida wildlife, marine animals, and pets. This day camp ends with a trip to the zoo. Snacks and all entry fees are provided. Participants must bring a bagged lunch and wear closed toed shoes. Cost is $80.

352-955-2402.

FILM SCREENING AND PANEL DISCUSSION GAINESVILLE - Matheson History Museum, 513 E University Ave. Matt Keene’s new documentary, “Lost Springs,” chronicles the Ocklawaha River’s hidden springs that return to life every three to five years when there is a drawdown at Rodman Reservoir, which — along with the George Kirkpatrick Dam — is part of the defunct Cross Florida Barge Canal. Filmmaker Matt Keene, springs artist Margaret Tolbert, boat captain

OUR TOWN MAGAZINE

Monday, July 3

9:00pm

GAINESVILLE - UF’s Flavet Field, Woodlawn Dr. The Gainesville Community Band performs an hour-long concert at twilight and continues playing throughout the spectacular fireworks display.

This event has been a favorite of the community for over a quarter of a century, attracting an audience of more than 20,000 people each year. www.gnvband.org.

and environmental activist Karen Chadwick, and St. Johns Riverkeeper Lisa Rinaman will share stories about the beautiful lost springs and the fight for their restoration. 352-378-2280.

CREATIVE B MOVIE SERIES

Friday, June 23 6:00pm

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Friday, July 7 6:00pm – 10:00pm

GAINESVILLE - Florida Museum, 3215 Hull Rd. Join a panel of scientists, artists and special effects experts and view and discuss “Things to Come” (1936). Friday nights in July the Museum and Creative B will host free movie screenings and explore the balance between science and art. In honor of the Museum’s 100th anniversary, this year’s films incorporate a time-travel element

and include a discussion with an expert panel.

352-846-2000.

LEGALLY BLONDE July 7 - 30 Times Vary

GAINESVILLE - Gainesville Community Playhouse, 4039 NW 16th Blvd. This actionpacked musical explodes on the stage with memorable songs and dynamic dances as following the transformation of Elle Woods as she tackles stereotypes, snobbery and scandal in pursuit of her dreams. 352-376-4949.

SEND CALENDAR SUBMISSIONS TO: 4 4 00 N W 3 6 T H A V E ., G A I N E S V I L L E , F L 32 606 or E V E N T S @ T O W E R P U B L I C A T I O N S . C O M

SPECIAL PROMOTIONAL SECTION

community event sponsored by

SUNSTATE FEDERAL CREDIT UNION with proceeds benefiting

Town Center Free Food From Tioga Thursday, May 11

40+ Local Restaurants

5:30 - 8:00pm

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Who’s Ready to Eat ?

There’s nothing quite like food to bring us all together, which is why we joined forces with the folks at Gift Certificates and More and are proud to present the semi-annual SunState Federal Credit Union Gainesville Food Fest.

If you joined Edward and Kevin at the event held in November then you’ll be pleasantly surprised at some of the additions and improvements we’ve made for the upcoming event. If this is your first time joining us, we look forward to providing you and your family with a fantastic night filled with great food and music.

Did I mention that it’s free? That’s right, there’s no charge to attend. Thanks to our amazing restaurant sponsors (many of which can be seen in the pages of Our Town Magazine and featured on the GCM app) and to our incredible local Business Sponsors, the Gainesville Food Fest doesn’t charge a cover.

However, we’d love a donation! Portions of the proceeds generated will benefit the Boys & Girls Club of Alachua County. And thanks to our Title Sponsor – SunState Federal Credit Union – any donation given the day of the event will be matched dollar for dollar, up to $3,000. What a great way to enjoy a fantastic evening and know that your donation will mean even more.

Edward, Kevin and I would like to personally invite you to join us on May 11th at the Tioga Town Center from 5:30-8:00pm. The next few pages are filled with more information about the event, our partnership with the Boys & Girls Club, and ways you can access our VIP area, sponsored by World of Beer. Nothing goes better with food than some great live music and a pint or two. Hope to see you there!

Cheers!

Kevin Awe, Gift Certificates & More

Edward Lavagnino, Gift Certificates & More

Charlie Delatorre, Tower Publications, Inc.

— TITLE SPONSOR —

What is Food Fest?

Gainesville has plenty of great places to eat and for about 3 hours on Thursday May 11th, Town of Tioga will become the epicenter of the Gainesville Food Scene.

This year’s Gainesville Food Fest will feature over 40 local restaurants serving their most delicious appetizers and samples of their most popular entrees.

Gainesville Food Fest features national restaurants such as Chili’s, Texas Roadhouse and Buffalo Wild Wings in addition to some the area’s best local eateries. Favorites such as Piesano’s, Saboré, Pomodoro and Gators Dockside will be serving plenty of options to festival attendees.

Admission and food is completely free for all Gift Certificates and More members and if you’re not a member, joining is easy. Simply download the free app today and sign up for free. Non-GCM members will be charged a $5 entry fee – with 100% of those donations going to the Boys & Girls Club of Alachua County.

“We love working with local organizations to help bring awareness to what we do at the Boys & Girls Club,” said Shane Johnson Executive Director of the Boys & Girls Club of Alachua County. “We are constantly looking for charitable donations to help fund the important programs we offer. Events like this help to promote our programs and work with community partners to help grow our fundraising efforts.”

This year’s event will bring together some of the area’s best restaurants, live music and access to a VIP area. Bring your friends, family and appetites on Thursday, May 11th from 5:30-800pm and enjoy this year’s Gainesville Food Fest.

— E V E N T H O S T PA RT N E R —

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Community Impact The Boys & Girls Club of Alachua County For over 60 years, The Boys & Girls Club of Alachua County has helped inspire hope and opportunity in those who need it most — at-risk children in our local community. We provide safe places to learn and play sports for over 2,000 children between the ages of 6 and 18 every year. At each of our three Units in Alachua County, core youth development programs are offered to meet the diverse needs and interests of our members. We also develop and organize a diverse offering of sports leagues.

Every day, 15 million kids leave school with no place to go, leaving them unsupervised, unguided Shane Johnson, Executive Director, Boys & and unsafe. That’s why when school is out, The Girls Club of Alachua County Boys & Girls Club of Alachua County is in. Every afternoon is a chance to change America’s future.

Our Mission is to enable all young people, especially those who need us most, to reach their full potential as productive, caring, responsible citizens.

Our core values are; Be Safe, Be Fun, Be A Team, Be Caring and Be Great. We practice safe behaviors. We embrace enthusiasm and positive attitudes. We advance our mission together as one team. We demonstrate genuine compassion and appreciation for each another. We pursue greatness by delivering quality experiences with passion, humility, service and character.

We accomplish our mission through something we call The Formula for Impact.

We start with young people who need us most. We add outcome driven club experiences. These added together produce our three priority outcomes.

Our three priority outcomes for our young people are: Academic Success, Good Character and Citizenship, and Healthy Lifestyles.

We are always looking for community partners, individuals and organizations, to come alongside The Boys & Girls Club of Alachua County to make a difference in the lives of the young people of our community.

Great Futures Start Here!

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Tioga Town Center Big City Feel, Small Town Charm As a mixed-use development in Gainesville’s most consistently growing area, Tioga Town Center takes pride in combining the best of a big city with the charm of a small community to bring the residents and guests of Gainesville and surrounding areas the ultimate in community and convenience.

Tioga Town Center fully embraces the invigorating mix of living, shopping, working and dining with numerous retail stores and restaurants, Class A office space, health & fitness center, education, and luxury residential apartments. All of this and more combine to make Tioga Town Center the modern, award-winning center it is.

Pedestrian-friendly streetscapes and pleasing architecture seamlessly flow with the needs of the contemporary consumer, such as ample parking and convenient access.

Dedicated to outstanding quality in design and construction, the center presently includes a 21-acre mixed-use town center, 80,000 sq ft of retail and office space, and The Flats, 40 units of fully leased luxury residential space. Tioga Town Center is also the gateway to the Town of Tioga, a 500-acre master-planned community, which is the fastest growing area in Alachua County.

In addition to the beautiful facilities and upbeat community, Tioga Town Center plays host to many exciting events. Movies on the Square and the Summer Concert Series invites families and guests of all ages to enjoy local, outdoors entertainment at the beautiful covered amphitheater and Tioga Market Monday features a weekly farmers market.

As part of the community that was awarded the prestigious residential award, “Best in American Living Smart Growth Community” by the National Association of Homebuilders, Tioga Town Center is quickly becoming the leading destination to live, work and play in Alachua County.

— EVENT SPONSOR —

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Free Gift Certificates?

There’s an app for that It was 2011 when it came in the mail, amongst the usual bills, letters and coupon inserts. A free $10 gift certificate to the Sports Authority, addressed to one Edward Lavagnino.

Fighting thoughts of “this is too good to be true,” Lavagnino made his way to the Sports Authority to, if anything, try and catch the sporting goods retailer in a lie. However, 20 minutes and one 100% free $9.99 Nike string bag later, he left with a huge smile and an innovative idea.

“After redeeming the gift certificate without having to pay anything, it was just like being handed free money,” remembers Lavagnino. “I loved the feeling - it was just like finding an old $10 bill in your pocket. I wondered if there was a service that offered even more free gift certificates to use.”

Lavagnino noticed that while there were plenty of “coupon” or “deals” services, there wasn’t anything quite like what he imagined. So, being the resourceful University of Florida graduate and career entrepreneur he is, Lavagnino started creating it himself.

Fa s t f o r w a r d s i x y e a r s, G i f t Certificates and More (GCM) boasts a local membership of well over 50,000 users — with new members joining each day — and specializes in featuring free gift certificates to over 110 restaurants.

“It really is helpful — keeps money in my pocket!” says Randy Persad, a financial advisor at Northwestern Mutual. “I have a lunch meeting or an appointment nearly everyday, and I almost always decide where we meet and eat based off the restaurant certificates featured on GCM.” The vast selection of popular

restaurants doesn’t hurt either. From national chains like Texas Roadhouse, Moe’s and Red Lobster to popular Gainesville favorites like Piesanos, Las Margaritas and the Flying Biscuit, GCM provides free gift certificates to them all.

“I love to go out to eat, but as a teacher, my budget is a little tight at times,” explains 3rd-grade teacher, Bec Stark. “The certificates on GCM not only help me choose where to go eat, but give me the savings to be able to do so as well.

I probably save over $20 a month, easy!”

Downloading and signing up could not be easier. Gift Certificates and More is available for free on both the App Store for iPhone and Google Play Store for Android.

“Since launching, our members in Gainesville have saved just over $2,000,000 in roughly $3 increments,” says Lavagnino.

“It’s amazing to see how everything adds up with so many people currently using GCM. It’s a great feeling knowing we are helping the community save money.”

So, if you enjoy eating out and saving money (and who doesn’t?), do yourself a favor and download the Gift Certificates and More app today!

— E V E N T H O S T PA RT N E R —

Free Food From 40+ Local Restaurants!!

When? Thursday, May 11th 5:30 pm - 8:00 pm Where? Tioga Town Center 105 SW 128th Street, Jonesville

Wanna be a VIP? ENJOY COMPLIMENTARY BEER, DESSERTS + PREMIUM FOOD OPTIONS & EXCLUSIVE AREA IN FRONT OF THE STAGE TO WATCH THE LIVE MUSIC. sponsored by:

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foodfestvip.eventbrite.com — EVENT SPONSORS —

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BAND B BA ND REVIEW

BRIAN “KRASH” KRUGER’S

Gate Crashing ON DECK FOR REVIEW: SHAWN MANLEY

BRIAN KRUGER IS A WRITER, MUSICIAN AND A GRADUATE OF THE UF COLLEGE OF LAW. HE HAS PLAYED IN SOME 17 OR SO LOCAL BANDS, PLAYING MOST EVERY GAINESVILLE VENUE FRIENDLY TO ORIGINAL MUSIC (AND SOME NOT SO FRIENDLY). bkrashpad@yahoo.com

DATE: SATURDAY, MARCH 16, 2017 VENUE: LOOSEY’S MARKET SQUARE

G

reetings, live music aficionados! This installment finds us at Loosey’s Bar & Table, Market Square. This is a second branch of the popular downtown Gainesville bar and venue, but located on the western fringes of town, in the extreme northwest corner of Haile Plantation (the only part of Haile that is more north and west is the Haile tennis courts across the street). Market Square is the small shopping center where the Haile Publix is located. Loosey’s is at the northern end of the main building, in which that anchor tenant is located. The parking entrances and traffic flow are oriented somewhat to “steer” traffic towards the much more visible Publix, so it is possible to miss if you’re not paying attention.

But of course you wouldn’t want to miss it, any more than you would the original location. Both places, typically abbreviated to “Loosey’s Downtown” and “Loosey’s Haile,” feature a good beer selection, food, wooden floors and old-timey bars, some outdoor seating and live music. Given that we were experiencing the last bit of a winter’s end cold snap, outdoors was not a viable option on this particular Thursday night.

Perhaps the biggest difference in the two Loosey’s is the available space, the downtown version being considerably larger than Haile. As a result, Loosey’s Downtown is able to have a dedicated, raised stage and P.A. for full band performances (I have played there a few times), but Loosey’s Haile does not.

Thus Loosey’s Haile is pretty much limited to numerically smaller musical acts of solo performers, duos and maybe the occasional trio. But any band with drums beyond a compact cocktail kit would be too large to fit into the Haile Plantation location, which does not feature a dedicated stage. Instead, acts must simply clear some floor space.

On this chilly evening, there were unsurprisingly no patrons at any of the outdoor tables on our arrival at a little past 8 p.m.

Inside, without the outside tables being available, the “bar side” of the establishment was particularly packed, to the extent that the only open seating was a 2-seat table literally within a few feet of the performer, Shawn Manley.

Here’s where my usual disclaimer about myself and the subject comes in. Shawn has been in town for quite a while and in fact qualifies as a genuine local, having graduated from Buchholz High School. He has run a number of open mic nights over the years in Gainesville, and has performed at many venues in both Alachua and Marion counties. So I have run into him quite a few times over the years, going all the way back to the Backstage Lounge (subsequently The Doris) where he hosted an open mic and where my main band frequently gigged (although not as part of those open mics), and including us even demo’ing some new live material at his subsequent open mic night at the Library.

Shawn also had a weekly radio show on GROW Radio. Now a podcast-only internet resource, for quite a while GROW Radio broadcast live from the downtown former offices of Satellite Magazine (disclaimer to the disclaimer: I also used to write for Satellite), and at one point I was interviewed on “4-D Meltdown.” Upshot: we kinda know each other.

At any rate, at this solo gig, Shawn’s main instrument was his left-handed acoustic-electric guitar, a Taylor I think (I’m no expert when it comes to acoustics), but can’t conclusively confirm that, as he had a clip-on tuner on the headstock partially obscuring the brand name logo. Shawn played a broad variety of well-known rock songs from the ‘60s on. First we heard the Kinks’ “Victoria,” followed by Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs’ “Little Red Riding Hood” and Bowie’s “Changes.” He then fired up a looper to do Sam Cooke’s “Twistin’ The Night Away.” In this case, Shawn started by using the soundboard of the guitar as a drum and then putting more tracks over that.

Shawn has been in town for quite a while and in fact qualifies as a genuine local, having graduated from Buchholz High School.

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The set continued with the Doors’ “Love Me Two Times,” Sheryl Crow’s “If It Makes You Happy” with singing along from the crowd. The looper reappeared for Fastball’s “The Way,” followed by an original “about love” with a harmonica intro and riff, the Who’s “Behind Blue Eyes” and the 1927 Brecht-Weil classic “Moon Over Alabama” (renamed “Alabama Song” by the Doors). Another original about

“wasted youth” featured some Kansasstyle fingerpicking, followed by Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire,’ with the horn riff played on harmonica, and a melodica for the Flaming Lips’ weirdo opus “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots.”

The set ended up with Led Zep’s ”Thank You” from their second album.

Good times.

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ENVIRONMENT >> SAWFISH RESEARCH

SAVING SAWS

To See a Sawfish Bringing Awareness to an Endangered Species S TORY BY ERICK A WINTER ROW D

I

t has a flat snout rimmed with dozens of teeth — teeth used to stun and kill prey. Some of the species can reach up to 25 feet in length. It is the largest single fish that anyone is going to see in the shallow waters of Florida. It is the sawfish, and it is endangered.

Sawfish are sort of the next-door relatives of sharks; a type of ray, said George Burgess, the director of the Florida Program for Shark Research at UF’s Florida Museum and Curator of the International Sawfish Encounter Database. He said sharks and rays as a group are called the elasmobranch.

Elasmobranchs are fish that have cartilage skeletons (no bones) in their body, which include sharks, skates and rays.

Burgess said that most people concentrate

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discussions on sharks, in part because they are blessed with teeth and sometimes those teeth find humans. There seems to be a certain aura around sharks that is popular from a cultural and historic standpoint.

“But the rays don’t get quite as much attention,” Burgess said. “Mainly because they’re not going to bite too many people and they’re also not overly fished for, in terms of being a food fish.”

The sawfish are basically animals that have a shark-like body with a flattened head. Their elongated snout, with teeth at each side, is called the rostrum (hence the name sawfish, given because they have a saw-like appearance). Burgess said that this group is a special concern for a couple of reasons.

First of all, except for manta rays, it reaches the largest size of any of the rays. Secondly, people are PHOTOGRAPHY: ERICKA WINTERROWD

George Burgess also serves as the Curator of the International Sawfish Encounter Database.

Here he holds the rostrum (“saw�) of a modern smalltooth sawfish, Pristis pectinata. Photo taken in the Florida Program for Shark Research lab at the Florida Museum of Natural History.

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George Burgess (right) helps tag a smalltooth sawfish.

Various kinds of tags are used to monitor sawfish movements from both a short-term or long-term perspective. Acoustic tags, for instance, are used to monitor localized movements. Underwater listening stations record when the animal swims by.

interested because they are near-shore tenants. They like very shallow waters and frequently go into estuaries and rivers.

Therefore, these animals come into contact with humans quite frequently and the usual result is death to the sawfish, Burgess said.

“If they’re caught in nets, fishermen don’t like them because they make big holes in their nets with that saw-like rostrum,” he said. “Fishermen that catch them are likely to want to bring them in to show off the big fish they caught.”

Burgess said for recreational fishers, it would likely be the biggest fish they have ever caught on hook and line.

“So the result of all of this, as well as habitat modification and the loss that has occurred anywhere humans meet the water, which is along coastlines and rivers, have resulted in the decline of these species around the world,” he said.

There are five species of sawfish in the world, with two species being found here in Florida and in the Atlantic Ocean.

As is the case everywhere else in the world, these species are now endangered.

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listed on the Endangered Species Act as endangered,” Burgess said. “The first two marine fishes in U.S. waters to be so designated. So they are in deep trouble.”

Burgess explained that the other three species, which are found primarily in the Pacific, are also equally impacted, so as a group, all five are listed as endangered on a global basis.

“What makes this [situation] just so sad, of course, is that these are the direct results of human activities,” he said.

Burgess said that the animals were very common at one time. The smalltooth sawfish’s distribution in the U.S. was from New York all the way to Brownsville, Texas (at the Texas/ Mexico border in U.S. waters) and then from there all the way down to Brazil. So the smalltooth sawfish went from that large distribution to now essentially being confined to the southern half of Florida —shrinking from the whole U.S. East Coast down to just the tip of Florida.

“The largetooth sawfish was last seen in U.S. waters in the early 1960s and hasn’t been seen since, so for all practical purposes it’s extinct in U.S. waters,” Burgess said. “So in that case, when it was listed [on the Endangered Species Act], it’s

PHOTOGRAPHY: FLORIDA PROGRAM FOR SHARK RESEARCH, FLORIDA MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY, UF

Florida waters,” Burgess said. “Which is the area where the remnants of their population lie.”

With that said, sawfish are still caught by recreational anglers with some regularity in South Florida.

And although they are a protected species, the act of catching the animal on hook and line is stressing. Burgess said that animals are occasionally killed and brought to docks.

“Sometimes people take the rostrum off, the saw of it, if you will,” he said. “They’ll cut it off of the live animal and send the animal back into the sea without its saw, which is obviously very cruel and harmful because they use that saw to stun their prey.”

“So, despite the fact that they are endangered and completely protected, they are still in a situation where we need to continue to get the word out to the public so that mistakes like that aren’t made,” Burgess said. “And if anybody violates them that they’d be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”

The sawfish’s reproduction and nursery areas are at the

“The largetooth sawfish was last seen in U.S. waters in the early 1960s and hasn’t been seen since.”

Smile : )

like you mean it.

ENVIRONMENT >> SAWFISH REASEARCH

kind of like closing the barn door after the horses have already gotten out.”

However, no one in either the scientific world or in the private sector noticed that the species was disappearing over the years, simply because they were always a relatively rare species.

“As is the case in the ecological world — the larger you are, the less there are of you,” Burgess said. Scientists thought that they were just rare but gradually, under their noses, they were disappearing. “So by the time we discovered that, wow, these things aren’t where they used to be, the pattern had been set.”

In the 1990s, Florida listed the sawfish as a protected no-take species. Later on in 2001, the Federal government listed the smalltooth sawfish as an Endangered Species. The largetooth was added after that.

“And that meant, from those points on, the sawfish were a protected species and they could not be killed or harmed in

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GET INVOLVED IN THE RECOVERY OF THE U.S. SMALLTOOTH SAWFISH POPULATION: With populations in decline, all information about this species is invaluable. The public can greatly help conservation efforts by reporting any sawfish encounter and spreading the word that encounters should be reported to the Florida Program for Shark Research. Use the Sawfish Encounter Reporting Informational Sheet found at www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/sawfish/ised/.

Distribute flyers. Download a flyer from the International Sawfish Encounter Database and post it anywhere you think it can be read by people visiting potential sawfish habitats. Appropriate places may include bait shops, dive shops, marinas, and bars and restaurants in coastal areas.

The more people that know about the importance of reporting sawfish encounters, the better for the smalltooth sawfish. Public awareness must increase to obtain the most timely and accurate information, which will contribute to ongoing sawfish conservation efforts.

The information gained from tagging these animals, as well as reports of sawfish encounters are vital for the recovery of the U.S. smalltooth sawfish population.

mouths of rivers. The young will swim up the river and spend the early parts of their lives among mangroves in brackish water.

As they continue to grow in their second year of life, they move downstream and into estuaries. And as they get bigger yet, they begin to move out into the full marine environment. Like the bull shark, the sawfish can live in both fresh water and salt water.

These animals achieve adulthood when they are about 10 feet in length. At that point they become more mobile and historically would make summer “road trips” on the east coast of Florida, ending up in New York during summertime. They would then return in the winter.

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big adults, as they get older and larger, begin to move up the coastline, especially in the east coast of the U.S. “This would demonstrate that their population is getting closer to where they once were,” he said.

The recovery time that scientists, including Burgess and others on the recovery team have calculated to get the species back to where it once was is 100 years.

“So this is not going to be an easy recovery or a quick recovery,” he said. “We’re about 20 years into the process now, so it’s very unlikely that an old fart like me is ever gonna see that recovery in my lifetime, but hopefully my children or grandchildren will.”

PHOTOGRAPHY: FLORIDA PROGRAM FOR SHARK RESEARCH, FLORIDA MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY, UF

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COLUMN

KENDRA SILER-MARSIGLIO’S

Healthy Edge KIDS NEED SLEEP

KENDRA SILER-MARSIGLIO, PH.D, HCC IS A NEUROSCIENTIST, MEDICAL WRITER, COLUMNIST AND PRESIDENT OF COMMUNITYHEALTH IT AT NASA/KENNEDYËSPACE CENTER. kendra.sm@gmail.com

WANT YOUR KIDS TO HAVE THE BEST CHANCE TO BE HEALTHY, HAPPY, PRODUCTIVE ADULTS? GET THEM TO SLEEP ON TIME. ACCORDING TO THE NATIONAL SLEEP FOUNDATION, ONE IN THREE CHILDREN UNDER 11 AND OVER HALF OF TEENS GET LESS SLEEP AT NIGHT THANËRECOMMENDED.

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ave a one-year-old? He or she needs 11-14 hours of sleep per day. School-aged children need 9-11 hours. Your teens need between 8-10 hours.

WHY DO KIDS NEED SLEEP? As kids develop, their brains are soaking up language, cognitive, social and motor skills like a sponge. Before a good night’s sleep, what they experience can’t be fully retained as long-term memories. For children and adults, researchers call this process “memory consolidation.” Sleep helps kids learn and gives them the opportunity to make connections between their learned information and new experiences. (It makes me wonder: how much information did we lose as kids because we crammed overnight for tests?)

Sleep also cleans our brains. You know how our lymphatic systems drain daily metabolic waste from our bodies’ cells?

Our brains and spinal cords have their own waste drainage

The glymphatic system allows waste from our brains to travel to our livers for elimination. system called the glymphatic system. Not a joke! The glymphatic system allows waste from our brains to travel to our livers for elimination. It works twice as fast when we’re sleeping. One of the latest studies from the University of Rochester Medical Center research team shows that mice’s glymphatic system’s waste clearance works best when they sleep on one side or the other, instead of on their backs. Since research findings in mice can often be replicated in humans, you may want to consider encouraging your children to sleep on their sides.

Lastly, our bodies need extended periods of sleep for rejuvenation, muscle growth, injury repair and certain hormone synthesis and use. You don’t want your kids missing out on those needed benefits!

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WHAT TIME SHOULD “BEDTIME” BE? The National Sleep Foundation supports the recommendations that children of all ages should fall asleep independently, go to bed before 9:00 pm, have an established bedtime routine, include reading as part of their bedtime routine, refrain from caffeine, and sleep in bedrooms without televisions.

Have a kid that’s up super early and wired? It may mean that your kid needs to fall asleep EARLIER. Sleep-deprived children release hormones including cortisol, adrenaline and noradrenaline. These hormones are notorious for keeping children (and adults) up at bedtime and make it harder for them go back to sleep early in the morning.

Earlier bedtimes also protect teens’ mental health. The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health shows that adolescents with parental set bedtimes of midnight or later were 24 percent more likely to suffer from depression and 20 percent more likely to imagine suicide than adolescents with parental set bedtimes of 10:00 pm or earlier.

Have a teen who can’t sleep because of computer screens?

He or she may benefit from eyeglass lenses that block blue-light.

According to Zeiss, a leading precision optics company, some people find that blue light exposure can make them more restless at night.

Lastly, kids going to college need to develop good sleeping habits. As kids get older, fatigue can lead to poor grades. A recent study of 3,000 New England high schoolers showed that students with A’s and B’s get 17-33 minutes more sleep on school nights and go to bed 10-50 minutes earlier than students with C’s and below. On weekends, students with C’s or below went to bed an average of 2.3 hours later than on school nights. A/B students went to bed 1.8 hours later on the weekends. The study findings carried over for college students.

For more tips about healthy sleep and the importance of healthy sleep, check out sleepfoundation.org. Want to learn more about the glymphatic system? Visit www.sciencemag. org/news/2013/10/sleep-ultimate-brainwasher.

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AGRICULTURE >> MEEKO FARMS

GREEN THUMBS

Ladybugs are great for any garden or farm, because they eat pesky aphids.

TWO FRIENDS TAKE ON ORGANIC, SMALL-SCALE BIOINTENSIVE FARMING

Meeko Farms S T O R Y A N D P H O T O G R A P H Y B Y B Y B I A N C A FAVA T A

How can one acre of land produce over 1,000 pounds of produce per month?

Friends-turned-business-partners, Trenton “Chico” Brown (39) and Mike Alligood (37), have figured it out. The two have built their new business, Meeko Farms, from the ground up.

Meeko Farms, located in Micanopy, began in November of 2016.

Their farming philosophy is to use small-scale biointensive technology in order to yield the most produce in the smallest amount of land possible. It’s a passion both of them decided to pursue, after much deliberation.

Brown and Alligood met while playing in local bands together and have been friends for about five or six years. Brown noticed Alligood had a garden in his backyard; Alligood noticed Brown had an aquaponics garden. For a year, the two tossed around 134 |

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the idea of starting a farm.

Brown discovered two men named Curtis Stone and J.M. Fortier. Stone and Fortier are Canadian farmers who have successfully implemented biointensive gardening, which is the small-scale farming of organic produce.

John Jeavon’s book, “How to Grow More Vegetables Than You Ever Thought Possible on Less Land Than You Can Imagine,” was another stepping stone for the two. After learning about these processes, Brown and Alligood came to the decision that substantial agriculture could be more than just a hobby.

“Access to land is one of the biggest barriers,” Brown said.

Originally, they thought about farming in an urban environment, using multiple backyards, but when they received the opportunity to farm out in Micanopy, the pair couldn’t pass up the offer.

If they were going to do this, it would require full-time commitment. So, Brown left his job at the University of Florida PHOTOGRAPHY: BIANCA FAVATA

Information Technology Department and Alligood stopped pursuing his botany degree.

Now, Alligood gets to “hang out with [Brown] and play in the dirt.”

But it hasn’t been easy.

Every day, there’s a new surprise. Like last week, hundreds of caterpillars invaded the farm and ate many of the plants, and then a cold snap froze many of the vegetables.

After uprooting destroyed crops and reseeding the land, a mesh net now covers certain rows of veggies from caterpillar attacks.

The most substantial issue they’ve had thus far has been the refrigerator, which hasn’t been working properly. Once the cooling system is ready to go, they will be able to start selling to farmers markets and restaurants.

Farming comes with plenty of trial-and-error. These issues could be viewed as setbacks, but they see it in a positive light.

Brown and Alligood find small-farming techniques to be much more efficient than monoculture agriculture — or big-scale farming. It’s more efficient to space rows for people to walk through instead of wide tractor tires. The beds at Meeko Farms are 30 inches wide — easy to walk between, straddle or reach across the beds to weed and seed.

Ideally, Meeko Farms wants to grow as much produce on the smallest amount of farmland as possible.

“On less than an acre of land, we can produce over 1,300 pounds of produce monthly using our small plot intensive techniques,” they said.

Brown said the key is to build up the soil to its ideal state. Once the soil is where it’s supposed to be, and as long as it’s maintained, it can intensively grow veggies.

“As long as the plants have enough nutrients, even if it seems crowded, they will grow,” Brown said.

Meeko Farms uses a technique called succession planting, so there is continual growth and harvesting to maximize yield.

The types of veggies grown are based on several aspects. One aspect is the number of days to maturity, or DTM. They plant vegetables with a short DTM, because the faster the plants grow the faster they can be harvested. For example, they won’t grow

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AGRICULTURE >> MEEKO FARMS

Friends-turned-business-partners, Mike Alligood (left) and Chico Brown are the owners of Meeko Farms in Micanopy.

PHOTO COURTESY OF MEEKO FARMS

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Planting in the shade, where the dirt remains cool, can extend the seasonality of certain plants. Certain plants, especially the mixed leafy greens, create a canopy over the soil. This significantly lessens growth of weeds.

potatoes or corn because they take a long time to grow. Right now there are a variety of herbs and vegetables, including cilantro, dill, zucchini, squash, cucumbers and peppers.

Meeko Farms grows specialty veggies that are uncommon in Gainesville, including Asian greens Tatsoi and Mizuna.

Brown and Alligood have implemented some of their own unique processes thus far. The farm is 100 percent organic; they don’t even use organic pesticides. In order to eradicate most of

“As long as the plants have enough nutrients, they will grow.” the harmful insects, they are planting a flower garden that will attract the right kind of insects, such as ladybugs, hoverflies and lacewings that act as a natural pest control.

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of seeds in one row. When they sprout, there is a varying mix, thus eliminating an extra step of sorting the greens during processing.

Meeko Farms’ processing station is easy and effective. The produce is washed in a white, repurposed bathtub under moving water. To dry, the plants are placed in a modified washing machine, which only uses the spin cycle to shake off excess water.

Then they are laid out to dry before being put in the refrigerator.

Brown and Alligood have found that their veggies can last two weeks in a fridge without wilting.

Even with the recent setbacks, Brown and Alligood are excited to see Meeko Farms grow day-by-day. To them, the farm is almost like a member of the family.

When Alligood was attending school, he “couldn’t wait to get home and garden.” But after the debut of Meeko Farms, he said, “[There’s] not a day that I wake up and say ‘Gosh, I don’t want to work today.’” That’s an accomplishment in itself.

PHOTOGRAPHY: BIANCA FAVATA

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ENVI EN VIRO VI RONM RO NMEN NM ENTT >> FLOR EN FLLOR O ID DA NA NATI TION TI O AL PARRKS ON

NATIONAL TREASURES

National Parks of South Florida The Real Home of “The Swamp” S T O R Y A N D P H O T O G R A P H Y B Y H AY L I Z U C C O L A

F

ollowing the Florida coastline to the southern tip of the state is what I imagine slowly sticking your face over a pot of boiling water would feel like. The humidity even in February is thick and wraps around your skin until it’s almost suffocating. Despite the unpleasant temperature, South Florida offers three national parks that are filled with colorful flowers, chirping birds and tropical marshes, while providing a safe haven for threatened and endangered species. SLAP! That’s it; if one more blood-sucking mosquito bites my sizzling skin they will be on the extinct species list. OK, where was I? Oh yeah, three beautiful South Florida parks: the Everglades, Big Cypress and Biscayne, which are the true home of the gators and the swamp, and are just itching to be explored.

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The Everglades National Park In its prime, the Everglades spanned across over 7 million acres of wetland. Designated as a national park in 1934, the park borders would cover 1.5 million acres of this South Florida landmark. According to the National Park Service website, the Everglades park holds the titles for largest continuous stand of sawgrass prairie in North America, the largest mangrove ecosystem in the western hemisphere and the largest designated wilderness in the United States. It’s also the only subtropical preserve in North America. Besides being admired for its massive size, the greatest asset the Everglades provides is that it is home to 13 endangered and 10 threatened species of animals including the Florida panther, the West-Indian manatee, the American alligator and several types of turtles including the Atlantic ridley, the leatherback and the hawksbill turtle.

According to the National Park Service, only two of 23 species of crocodilians are native to the United States and South Florida is the only place where both of these species — the American alligator and the American crocodile — can coexist.

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ENVIRONMENT >> FLORIDA NATIONAL PARKS

Everglades City, as you may have guessed, is the gateway to the Everglades erglades National Park.

Birds like the heron, egrets, storks and nd other wading birds are a large part of Big Cypress and the Everglades. According cording to the NPS, the Everglades Forever Act was established hed in 1994 to help protect these birds and their habitat. bitat.

Airboat Tours are offered along the Tamiami Canal, which flows from the Everglades National Park to Miami.

While the Everglades does oes its best to protect both endanangered and threatened species, ies, the park itself is in danger of disappearing. The biggest threat at to the Everglades isn’t the abundance dance of crocodiles lurking in the swampy wampy waters or human activity surrounding rounding the park’s borders, but it is actually the threat of the rising sea level caused by climate change. According to the NPS article “What’s Happening to Cape Sable,” Cape Sable, which is located at the southwestern tip of Florida, is a city that has seen an accelerated increase in the rise of sea level.

According to the article, “In recent years, the interior freshwater marsh has disappeared almost entirely, and nearby lakes have filled almost completely with marine sediments.”

While climate change is an increasing concern for national parks across the nation, the Everglades isn’t disappearing anytime soon, and being one of the largest national park services in the U.S., there is plenty to explore.

Walking across the boardwalks at various visitor centers make you feel as though you’re instantly engulfed by nature.

Trees surround you and birds sing to one another while tourists quietly eavesdrop. Nearby, alligators swim and often hide in the marshy lakes while other creatures keep a safe distance. The 140 |

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Everglades is also home to the American crocodile, making South cr Florida the only o place where both the American Americ alligator and the crocodile can coexist.

American cro Besides being an ideal place for bird all-around nature lovwatchers and al ers, the Everglades is also an ideal place seekers. The Tamiami Canal, for adventure seekers which flows east to west from the Everglades to Miami, is inundated with airboat tours for people to see the sights while embracing their inner Horatio Caine from the opening credits of “CSI: Miami.”

Rather than risk coming face to face with a gator, I think I’ll just stick to bird watching from the safety of these nice little boardwalks, thank you very much.

While the Everglades is by far the largest national park Florida has to offer, two other parks are must-see attractions.

Big Cypress National Preserve Big Cypress National Preserve runs along the Everglades but spans only about 729,000 acres of freshwater swamp. According to the National Park Service, Big Cypress National Preserve was created in 1974 in order to protect “the water quality, natural resources, and ecological integrity of the Big Cypress Swamp.”

After hiking along the trails, Big Cypress is more like a

large forest rather than a swamp. Of course, there are some marshy spots hiding under thick layers of sawgrass, and lakes filled with alligators and crocodiles certainly exist throughout the preserve, but a vast majority of the park has large cypress trees that the endangered and rarely seen Florida panther hides behind. Meanwhile, flowers bloom in the sunshine while butterflies and birds such as warblers, cranes and egrets fill the sky and the sound waves.

Big Cypress thrives on water from rainfall.

According to the National Park Trip Planning Guide, Big Cypress receives “55 inches of rainfall each year, flooding the cypress strands and prairies with a shallow sheet of life-giving water.” The benefits of rainfall don’t stop there. According to the guide, this rainwater then “flows through the Preserve into the Ten Islands area along the Gulf of Mexico,” which gives nutrients to sharks, crabs and snook.

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It wasn’t until after I arrived that I realized that the entire park, except a parking lot and a visitor center, consists entirely of water.

Although there are canoe rentals onsite, this National park offers some islands that can only be reached by boat. So I spent my time exploring the pathways by the Dante Fascell Visitor Center. Walking along the shoreline and taking in the beautiful seascape with the view of the Miami skyline in the background, my dog, Dozer, and I stepped into the cold water and watched as the pelicans basked in the sun.

If you’re planning a trip to Biscayne, keep in mind that the park calendar lists when guided boat tours are available; you don’t have to restrict yourself to the shoreline but instead truly get a glimpse of what Biscayne has to offer.

So for your next vacation, skip the long lines at theme parks and instead explore South Florida’s National Parks to see why these unique destinations have been preserved and protected for future visitors.

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COLUMN

ALBERT ISAAC’S

Different Note FISHING DAYS

ALBERT ISAAC IS AN AWARD-WINNING WRITER AND EDITOR AND THE AUTHOR OF SCIENCE FICTION NOVELS AND PERSONAL COLUMNS. HE LIVES IN HIGH SPRINGS WITH HIS FAMILY AND A BUNCH OF CRITTERS. editor@towerpublications.com

THEY SAY THAT A BAD DAY OF FISHING IS BETTER THAN A GOOD DAY AT WORK.

W

ell, I don’t want to be a Negative Ned but I can think of a few fishing expeditions that were way worse than a good day at work.

Although, not many. I’ll get to that in a moment. For now I’d like to concentrate on the good stuff.

Growing up in Miami as I did, surrounded by water, provided ample opportunity for fishing. And Dad, a Miami Native, loved to fish. So did the rest of us. Mom, not so much, but she was usually along for the adventure.

I clearly remember fishing in the Florida Keys. We’d load up the car and drive down, spend the day fishing and come back with our bounty. Barracuda were particularly fun to catch because they put up an exciting fight (and yes, we ate them).

Dad also had a boat — well, several — over the course of my childhood. Now that was a special treat, heading out for a day of fishing with the family, or sometimes just Dad and me. Looking back, I realize now that I never knew how lucky we were. A lot of kids never get such an opportunity.

When I was older, my brother and buddies and I would ride our bikes down to the seawall and cast our lines. One of our friends had that new fancy Popeil Pocket Fisherman, a tiny, folding ‘rod’ and reel that could fit in a pocket, sort of. It was ridiculous. But I do remember him catching a small fish with it (I think it broke).

So, back to fishing in the boat with the family. I have mostly only fond memories of those trips, and some comical events involving Dad. We were out on the bay one trip and catching a lot of fish. Unfortunately, the only fish we caught were those nasty, slimy, saltwater catfish. They are worthless — I’m not even sure other fish would eat them, because Dad, frustrated as all get-out, cut one up and used it for bait. And caught another catfish.

I have no fondness for this monster of the sea. I had caught some on a previous fishing expedition, and since they are so slippery I had wrapped it with a newspaper to get a grip. I didn’t know that the beast has a sharp spine on its dorsal fin. I grabbed it, and the barb pierced the newspaper and harpooned my palm, sinking deep into my flesh, and burning like a molten dagger.

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The slime that coats that saw-like spine, as it turns out, is highly toxic. Take my word for it; you don’t want to get ‘finned’ by one of these devils.

At that point I would have rather been at work, delivering newspapers on my bike.

Dad had a first aid kit and he doctored my wound and bandaged me up. We pretty much called it a day at that point. But I survived to fish again. (I have since learned — like just now — that urinating on the wound helps ease the pain.)

Anyway, back to the multitude of catfish catching: Dad was getting more and more agitated. These things were so slippery you could hardly get the hook out of their mouths. Finally, in his fury, Dad jabbed his good fishing knife into the slippery fiend and worked the hook out. Then he threw the fish back into the water, knife and all. Oh, that made his mood even brighter.

I can’t remember if that was the same trip that he cast his new anchor, forgetting to fasten the line. While Mom got a big laugh out of that one, Dad was not particularly pleased. Despite this error, I suspect he was still happier to be out fishing on the bay than toiling away at work.

I learned a lot from him about fishing and boating. Such as how to tie your hooks and sinkers to your line, how to bait your hook, and how to clean a fish (soap and water). (KIDDING!) I also learned the importance of securing your anchor before tossing it overboard and to avoid jabbing your good knife into a fish and tossing it over. I even learned patience. Yep. Me, patient.

I know it may be hard to believe, but I can be a very patient fisherman. Sometimes you just gotta leave that line in the water.

And just sit there. And sit there, and wait for the nibble. And be all Zen-like.

Dad and I took my buddy on a fishing trip once. My friend was not patient. And he complained. A lot. And he kept reeling in his line. Cast it out, reel it in. I sat patiently. I caught fish. I brought back a lot of big grouper while he went to shore empty-handed. So, patience is a virtue. It calls to mind a drawing I saw as a kid of a skeleton fishing, with cobwebs, and the words “Persistent Cuss.”

You have to be persistent. Patient. Not only is it more relaxing, it’s more likely that you’ll catch something. At least that’s what I tell myself.

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VOLUNTEERING >> CREEK & WATERWAY CLEANUP

LITTERBUGS

CURRENT PROBLEMS FOCUSES ON CREEK AND WATERWAY CLEANUP

Clean Creek Revival STORY A N D PHOTOGR A PH Y BY STEPH A NIE R ICH A R DS

The tools were simple for the 36 volunteers who came out on the sunny, Saturday morning, and involved only buckets, trash bags, grabbers and gloves.

Their task, on the other hand, was not as easy as they picked up what seemed to be a continuous stream of trash from area creeks as part of the Third Annual Clean Creek Revival, organized by Current Problems, Inc. Bill VanSickle of Gainesville led a crew of volunteers to the Downtown Connector Trail near Boulware Springs, which was a similar spot that he took a group to last year. An initial inspection of the area seemed relatively clean, but a closer look uncovered hidden and visible debris and trash. In one hour, a crew of five volunteers compiled 14 fully loaded bags of litter, including carpet, backpacks, shoes, plastic bags, and soda and beer bottles.

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Ironically, VanSickle uncovered a terrarium of sorts that had grown inside a littered bottle.

“I’ve been doing river cleanup for a long time and it is still dear to my heart. Trash attracts trash, and if someone sees a pile they add to it. If not, they tend to think about [whether they want to be the first to dump it],” said VanSickle, who is a GIS Analyst III at St. John’s River Water Management District in Palatka. “This old rail trail is a nice area for walking, bicycling and recreation, and it is a greenspace in town. It is not fun finding trash, but it is fun to work with others toward a common goal to get rid of it.”

Established in 1993, Current Problems, Inc. is a non-profit that began when a small group of friends began working together

“This relative lack of natural filtration makes it imperative to keep our waterways and shorelines clean.” newer program, Plant a Pond, emphasizes to clean up the trash and contaminants in and along the banks of North Florida’s Santa Fe improved water quality, wildlife habitat and biodiversity through engaging neighborRiver. The organization has since broadened its focus to eradicate litter in rivers, ponds, hoods, schools and businesses to adopt and plant stormwater ponds. lakes and urban creeks throughout North Central Florida.

Current Problems, Inc. addresses creek cleanup year-round and the Clean Creek Revival is a larger, one-day event it organizes. Volunteers at this year’s event picked up debris at eight creek sites for a total of 2,700 pounds of trash, according to the organization’s executive director Fritzi Olson. The City of Gainesville provided a roll-off dumpster to hall the trash away and First Magnitude Brewery fed volunteers.

The organization’s website highlights the importance of keeping waterways clear of debris.

“Even if you don’t live near water, Florida’s karst topography has only a thin veneer of soil over a porous, Swiss-cheese layer of limestone separating us from drinking water,” states the website. “This relative lack of Volunteer Bill VanSickle, a GIS analyst III at St. John River Water Management District in Palatka, has a unique find near a creek by natural filtration makes the Downtown Trail Connector. A terrarium of sorts had formed in it imperative to keep our a littered bottle. waterways and shorelines In addition to members and sponsors, the clean.” organization receives resources through govTo achieve its goals, Current Problems has three distinct programs. Adopt a River ernment grants and donations from individuals interested in keeping waterways healthy. Olson works to eradicate visible contaminants, said they are always looking for more volunsuch as human trash and invasive species from area waterways. To address invisible teers who want to assist in the ongoing efforts of keeping area creeks clean. contaminants, Restore a Shore focuses on preserving and revegetating shorelines. A For more info, visit currentproblems.org.

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Kangaroo

Gator Spirits & Fine Wines

14451 Newberry Road, Jonesville Turn at CVS in Jonesville and come straight to us.

352-332-3308

5701 SW 75th St. Gainesville

I-7 5 ER WAD TORO

The Liquor Wine &oppe

CVS

CR 241

146

For the Mom who deserves her own time out.

ne Gator FiSpirits Wine &

A RC H

AD

E R RO

Conveniently located in the Tower Square shopping area.

352-335-3994

LIKE BOTH LOCATIONS ON FACEBOOK FOR UPDATES ON WINE TASTINGS AND OTHER EVENTS!

Confidential Cash Loans Firearm Sales Coating Services

15634 NW Hwy 441 in Alachua 386-518-6065

147

148

CLEAN, SAFE COST-EFFECTIVE

Call GRU Natural Gas at 352-393-1400 or visit gru.com/naturalgas for details.

You may be eligible to receive a

$44 CREDIT

on your ďŹ rst month’s bill when you mention Our Town!*

Take advantage of up to

$1,600 in Natural Gas appliance rebates!

* Some restrictions apply. Offer limited to eligible single-family homeowners who replace their LP gas, oil or electric appliances with natural gas models. New GRU natural gas customers only.