Back in Tallahassee

So, we're back.
For those of you who don't know, we housesit. Aside from the periodic homelessness, and whittling down our possessions so that they fit into a Scion, it's a sweet deal. No rent. We're in a really nice house now though, and we've got it for the year. Not moving at Christmas time is a big plus.
This house has a couple of nice ammenities, mostly outside. In the backyard there are some quality trees, or sapplings, rather. A lemon, which looks more like a bush, a lime, a jujuba, and a dying mulberry. Also, there's somewhat of a collection of herbs, which we have taken the first steps to bolster. English mint was planted this afternoon, which is hopefully the first step to getting Garner-quality mint tea. I suppose we'll need a ceramic pitcher. The people who sold it to me made it pretty clear that the stuff'll take over if you let it. That's the goal, garden store employee, that's the goal.
But the best part of the house is outside of the back gate. There's a kind of fiercely overgrown hillside, but once you bushwhack your way down that, you're on a trail connecting two of Tallahassee's best parks. Kelly and I took a particularly fine walk back there this morning. The trail starts along the back of the neighborhood, which makes for decent walking, but nothing too spectacular. Maybe a third of a mile outside of the gate, you cross a small bridge, and the trail moves away from the neighborhood. You cross some railroad tracks, and all of a sudden you're in the middle of wild Florida. 200 year old live oaks with muscadine vines the size of my arm climbing up them, stands of cypress trees in the water, parts of a lake completely covered in blooming water lilies. We saw catfish swimming the lake that were at least two feet long, blue herons, and all of his little cousins. We didn't actually see any alligators, but the conditions for them are ideal, and there were a few signs warning us of their presence.
Apparently conditions are also ideal for wild dill. We saw probably more dill than we could possibly consume in a lifetime. There were places where it grew stomach high, as thick as grass grows. The elderberries were slight, and never fruiting as heavily as some did near our old house. I'm up in the air over whether I'll try and harvest them or not. We came on some odd trees, with a very large green fruit hanging from them, which we later found to be tung nuts. Apparently these trees were grown in North Flordia at the turn of the last century to produce tung oil, a wood finish. A nearby road, Tung Hill, suggests that these are either remnants of a long distant plantation that used to be on this land, or escapees from one that was nearby. I hoped to find some jewelweed, as I want to try to cultivate some, but was unsucessful in this venture. Oh well. The good news is we've explored probably less than a tenth of what's back there.
Classes start on the 28th, and I wish I were somewhat more ready. So it goes. I'll get there. Regards to you all.