Categories
Environment

The Sounds of Anna Maria Island

After living here for ten years, I’ve come to recognize certain sounds that are common on Anna Maria Island, but might not be easily recognized by a visitor.

For those who live in canal-front homes, the sound of a boatlift in operation becomes familiar. Yet it is a haunting and penetrating sound at times, suggesting the wail of a supernatural creature. Although the boatlift sound is the product of a purely mechanical movement, it has come to be one more of the many voices that are raised during everyday life along a canal.

Great Blue Heron

Another canal voice is that of the startled night heron. Often these reclusive birds fish at the base of a canal seawall, where they are not noticed by anyone on the property above. But if you happen to walk close to the where the night heron stands, below, it is likely to suddenly squawk a very loud and distressing call, as it quickly flies away, startling you more than you startled it.

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Categories
Community

Decorate Your Table With Tropical Yard Cuttings

In many parts of the country, there are traditional ways to bring seasonal cuttings from the yard to the table, for a festive and local décor. There is no reason to be limited to just flowers. Long after the flowers die, there still are colorful and textural cuttings that can create a far more interesting look than flowers purchased at the store. Autumn leaves, for example, make a great centerpiece in colder climates, as do pine boughs and pine cones.

On Anna Maria Island, we have even more options, year round. We were reminded of this at Christmas dinner, by the way our hostess had added great beauty to the table and other parts of the house with greenery, berries and flowers entirely grown in the yard. Many of the plants she used were familiar, but not things most people would think of for house decoration. Most striking were the gold berries of the variegated schefflera, which formed the centerpiece for our table, along with areca palm leaves laid directly on the table cloth for a beautiful tropical look that still said “Christmas.”

Table decor
Blooming firecracker plant cuttings in a glass vase of water also added an enchanting and delicate red and green focal point in the living room. Tiny Christmas lights strung on a potted palm were just as appealing as they would have been on a more traditional tree.

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Categories
Real Estate

Island Christmas Tree Alternatives

After many years of experimenting with Christmas tree options, I’m glad to be in a place where almost anything goes. This year I kept it very simple.

Perhaps more than anywhere else in the nation, Floridians seem to find more variations on the Christmas tree than those who live in snow country. Since so many of the traditional Christmas symbols are not part of the Florida experience anyway, we may as well improvise and have fun with it all.

Before moving to Florida from Colorado, we found natural Christmas trees were affordable and a pleasure to bring home. Usually, we bought a permit for a few dollars from the Forest Service, bundled up, and snow-shoed or cross-country skied through deep snow looking for trees that did not have a bright future, for example those growing directly under power lines. This was probably as close as it gets to the classic Christmas tree tradition. It was wonderful, and beautiful, but sometimes it was very cold and it usually took a lot of time.

Christmas tree So we tried buying a live tree one year, which theoretically could be planted outside after Christmas, but that did not work well. I think it’s too much to expect the same tree to survive both indoors by the fire and then outdoors in a blizzard. Our timing in moving it was probably to blame.

We had more success with a large indoor Norfolk pine, which grew in the sunspace that heated our mountain solar home. It had started in a local restaurant as a tiny Christmas table decoration, and had a crook in its trunk, making it a real Charlie Brown tree. But after years in our solarium, it had straightened and made an acceptable Christmas tree.

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Categories
Tourism

Celebrating Christmas Island Style

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Anna Maria Island is a wonderful place to be during the Christmas holidays. The weather can be wonderful, and festivities abound, but it’s not crowded. That’s partly because some people who love the island still feel obligated by, or attracted to, winter in the North. So, although many winter residents start returning to the island before Christmas, others don’t … and some go back north briefly during Christmas, leaving the island to the rest of us who stay.

In December the island may have some of those exquisite days that everyone longs for. I often think of them as what would be “perfect summer days” in other parts of the country. Finally, the mornings are cool and the middle of the day can be comfortable in short sleeves. Of course, we do get cold spells from time to time. We remember one year wearing our down ski parkas to watch a holiday boat parade. But this year, we wore T-shirts for that same event. We were on a boat, and in the dark, out in Tampa Bay. There was no need for a sweater.

Christmas boat Most islanders will say there was no Christmas boat parade on the island this year. But we had our own impromptu parade, when several friends decorated their boats with lights and invited us to take a slow cruise around Bimini Bay and out into the Gulf, to the Anna Maria Island City Pier. Along the way, we heard adults and children call out “Merry Christmas” to us. We even saw cameras flashing, which, of course, is not the best way to photograph tiny holiday lights in the distance.

The water was perfectly glassy and there was no breeze. Even with motors running, there was something peaceful and mesmerizing about the whole experience of gliding through water with tiny lights above, and their reflections shimmering all around us in the water.

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Sometimes the festivities people create spontaneously for themselves are much more enjoyable than more organized, institutional events. That was certainly the case with this private boat parade.

But the newspapers are full of additional holiday ideas for anyone who is not feeling very creative or spontaneous. Last weekend, Winterfest attracted many art lovers and holiday shoppers to an extremely well-organized arts and crafts fair, all for the benefit of the Anna Maria Island Art League. Next weekend, the Anna Maria Island Orchestra and Chorus will perform their holiday concert. There are many more special events listed for the holidays and into next year.

Wherever you spend your winter holiday season … whether you’ll be sweeping sand or shoveling snow … we at Anna Maria Island Post wish you the very best, and a happy 2010.

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Categories
Health

A Favorite Island Fruit

When we bought our home on Anna Maria Island ten years ago, we did not know what was in store for us. There were a few unpleasant surprises, such as termites, but most of the surprises were good ones. For example, the delicious flavor of the bananas that were growing along our property line.

I’ve written before about these bananas. We continue to enjoy the delicious fruit they produce. Although we usually get fruit in summer, for some reason we have lots of fruit forming on the trees as Christmas approaches. What a wonderful surprise gift to us during the holidays.

Our bananas are extremely tasty, perhaps because they contain three kinds of sugar: sucrose, fructose and glucose. But this is healthy food, too … an excellent source of vitamins and minerals and fiber.

The first sign that fruit is on the way is the large, deep red banana flower that grows out on a stalk from the plant. Behind the flower, a bunch of bananas eventually forms. One bunch is made up of a series of “hands,” which is the usual unit in which we find store-bought bananas. The bananas that grow in our yard are much smaller than store-bought, and there are more of them in a hand. The skin is thinner, so the fruit is actually bigger than one might expect, based on commercial bananas with their thick skin.

Eating home grown banana But the most wonderful difference between our bananas and store-bought is the amazing flavor. It was described by my elderly father as tasting like banana with additional fruit flavors, such as strawberry. It is, indeed, a complex flavor and very sweet if one waits long enough before eating them. In researching different kinds of bananas, it’s not clear which kind we have, but I think it’s likely that it’s the Manzano banana. This is described as having strawberry and apple as part of the flavor. Furthermore, the Manzano is ripe when the skin turns black. Although we do not usually wait that long, we have noticed that it’s necessary to wait a long time before these bananas taste their best. The Manzano is described as being short and stubby. But there is another small variety often called “baby” or “nino,” and this also could be what we have in our yard.

Timing of when to harvest the bananas is slightly tricky, because people are not the only creatures who love these tropical delicacies. The longer the bananas stay on the stalk, the plumper they become. But the more likely they are to be sampled by the general animal public. Fortunately, even when they are picked very early, very green and small, they still usually ripen to have a good flavor. We have found that once the bananas turn deep yellow, it’s good to wait an additional few days before peeling and eating them.

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