On 3/6/2015 11:41 AM, Derald wrote:
George Shirley wrote:

You're a sick puppy Derald.
Well, hell: It certainly took you long enough to notice.

You can't eat cobbler without BlueBell
Homemade vanilla ice cream on top. BlueBell makes a very good "Southern
Blackberry Cobbler" ice cream too. My new favorite is "Chocolate Covered
Cherries." Outstanding ice cream.
Don't start. I wouldn't eat the Bluebell ice cream alone (too many
ingredients) and no dairy with fruit or berries, thank you. Truth is, I
don't eat much fruit because it just doesn't taste good (to me).

I don't think I've ever eaten a guava, since you're in Florida you
probably grow your own.
Not this far north, no. Don't know whether they're native but
guavas are naturalized from about the Tampa Bay Area, southward.
Unusually cold winters in the mid and late 1980's reduced their number
to the point that recovery took ±20 years. Ironically, much guava
habitat was destroyed in the process of remediating earlier
environmental disruption from open pit phosphate mining.

My favorite fruit is papaya, ate some for the
first time in Bangkok and fell in love with it. Bought one in the
supermarket yesterday and it is chilling before I devour it. Even the
dog likes papaya.
Had'em in the back yard years ago when still living in NBT, a
little further south of here. Never acquired a taste except for the
juice.
I'm that way by mango, tried them several times and they were always
astringent so gave up.

We have a lot of guava plants in our neighborhood,
pineapple guava. Most don't get a chance to ripen fruit. Neighbors
across the street have four of the plants in their front flower bed.
She's from Puerto Rica and didn't realize the plants were guava.
Guess she had never picked her own and didn't recognize the growing fruit.
Hah: spent her early years in PR indoors, I guess.
I suspect she came to New York City as a child. She and her husband are
nice people, she taught grade school in Harlem for many years and he was
a Customs officer at JFK for 32 years. Grow bananas in their backyard
and have a couple of 4X4 raised beds. Have a very friendly pit bull
named "Lilac" who loves everyone she meets. Moved here when they both
retired to get away from the "CITY" as they call it, and because they
have a kid nearby.

Living in Houston, TX area nowadays is weird for a native Texan. We have
290 homes in this subdivision and about fifteen different nationalities
living here. Our next door neighbors who moved home in January were
Russian, very nice folks. New neighbor is a retired American school
teacher who is married to a Chinese woman who works in China most of the
time. Folks from all over South and Central America, Africa, most
countries in Europe, and, of course, quite a few from Latin America.
Pretty quiet here but the inhabitants drive like idiots, running 40 or
50 MPH down the streets, running stop signs, etc. Scares me badly when
it's time for the school bus to come by. We sit a great grandson most
school mornings to ensure he gets on the bus as both parent work. So
we've become street patrol while all the kids are out. I can remember
when Houston was a much smaller city the last time we lived here back in
the mid-seventies. Now it's gone berserk. To many toll roads too. I want
to move back to East Texas but wife wants to stay close to all our get.
Heck, we raised them and set them up, let them live their lives without
us bothering them. G Besides, I want more gardens, chickens, rabbits, etc.