Gary, I have a theory that the natives of South Florida weren't actually all from N. America. I think that the early Creek were actually members of the Arawak, Carib and Caquetios from S. America and the Caribbean who fled Spanish enslavement. There are archaeological records that show they were amazing sailors and would go great distances around S. America and the Caribbean islands, so I think, why not? Why couldn't they have figured out those tides that shoot you right up to the Florida Coast. And a lot of the Seminole and Creek words are derivatives of Arawak and Caquetio words. This theory was actually what made me expand my concentration beyond just Florida. I feel I need to study the Caribbean and all of the Americas in order to get the full scope of what was happening here. As to cannibals, well there are reports of the Maya and Aztecs who believed that blood spilled was needed to appease the gods in order to make the sun shine each day so that they could sustain themselves. They sacrificed many a POW. The Maya even had a ball game where the winner was sacrificed, because by winning, he was considered the best specimen they had. And the winner willingly honorably went to his death, for the perceived continuation of his people. So in some respects, the modern words do apply. But not always accurately. The Spanish seemed to start a lot of rumors IMO. If they dropped some missionaries off on a desolate shore with some natives, left for a few years, returned and no one was left - they concluded the natives must have ate them. No account for disease or the fact they dropped those folks off in a region they had no clue how to live or survive in. And then there's a whole other aspect - mosquitoes lol. They were also referred to as canibals. So yes, context and cross-referencing are always needed to try to figure out exactly what the authors meant. As for Columbus, he was an interesting guy. He refused to believe that he did not find India and killed crew members who tried to say otherwise. Now I have to be a bit lenient on him for this. He sold a big bag of goods to the Spanish Crown in order to fund his travels. If he was wrong, well off with the head may have been an easy sentence. Another interesting aspect was that he was a sailor at heart, not a "full" explorer. He rarely got off his boat. He'd stop at a new place, kick off some crew into the wild, name it for Spain and sail on to the next new place. He'd have crew go into the wild, grab some natives and drag them back to the boat, and torture them until he got something out of them. So yeah, he got directions all right, they had to give him something if they wanted to live. Oh well it's obvious there will never be a serious history of the western hemisphere told from the native perspective ?? We (historians, archaeologists, anthropologists, sociologists, ethnologists) are trying. But it comes back to what I said earlier - people are uncomfortable finding out the history they thought they knew was not exactly as they learned it. There are scholars dedicated to revisionism, but there are a whole line of others who fight it and say history should be left as it was. But history has almost always been written from the victor's perspective and the natives were rarely on the winning side. This sort of argument extends to our school systems right now - the folks in Texas don't want to hear an alternate history so, ethnic studies has been eliminated from their curriculum. I wonder how they'll teach about WWII and leave off the holocaust, or teach about early American history and leave off the @25 million natives that died or even slavery for that matter - all ethnic studies. So, I'll close by saying that I am trying to bring the voices of the forgotten to the surface :) Chrissy

I find that people have a tendency to go to extremes and to be rather anal about things, when it is absolutely not necessary. I found this to be true when I was raising guppies and swordtail fish when I was a kid. I found it true when I was raising finches later in my late 30s. Now, in my late 50s, I find it to be true in gardening. The fact is, nature pretty much has all this stuff figured out. Its been doing it for hundreds of thousands of years, without you or me being involved at all! This is my first year gardening ... totally a learning experience for me. I am reading a lot, watching tons of YouTube videos, and talking to folks that garden, and at the gardening centers. I'm finding out its much more important to pay attention to what you should not do, than what you should, and mostly that means, DO NOT GET IN THE WAY OF MOTHER NATURE. Just give her the tools (seed, good soil, water) ... and stand back and be amazed.

I remember you moving those babies. And you are so right about having too many hosta. Like potato chips, never too many! Hosta are notoriously reticent to stick their little heads up. Just when you give up, walk away. Pretend you don't care. Don't look. Just sigh loudly. When they think you're not paying attention, and it's too late in the spring, they'll pop out. Same as crape myrtles here. I've learned that just when I'm ready to hack one down, it'll put out leaves. Then, the ones I did hack down stick something up out of the ground. (Usually a crape myrtle middle finger.) Luckily, CMs bloom on new wood, whereas lilacs on old wood. That's something I had to learn about blooming trees and shrubs!

Well, the UV index has been remarkably high, this summer, throughout most of the USA and a good part of the world. At least, it was in July (it might be still, but I haven't checked). So, you're likely to have some extra nutrients in your tomatoes, this year, anyway (I'm not sure which nutrients, however). UV rays can cause plant stress, and this particular type of stress is said to increase certain nutrients and/or chemicals in the fruits. One example is capcaisin in hot peppers. Stressing chiles generally is supposed to increase the capsaicin, although I can't say I've noticed a big difference there myself, lately, except with late season cold stress on Tabasco peppers last year (mine were almost as hot as a Carolina Reaper to my tongue, and I'd say more painful in the mouth and much less painful in the stomach). That's interesting that you're trying to apply the same principle with tomatoes and brix. You might try dry farming, but I get the feeling you might be using containers (and dry farming isn't a good idea there, unless maybe you've never watered them since they sprouted, and they weren't transplants; direct-seeded plants that were only watered until they sprouted can resist drought a lot better than ones that have ever been watered afterward, in at least some cases, although you might not get a big harvest, still; it's kind of magical how they can survive without water and grow for so long, and kind of anticlimactic how they can ask for more water again two days later the moment you do water them; if you try it, use at least a 10-18 gallon container, and maybe don't use potting soil—or else don't use a container; don't attempt to transplant such a plant without transitioning to watering it first). Anyway, I think brix has more to do with sunlight, variety and microbes than plant stress, but feel free to report your results, as it's interesting (although I've harvested fruits from pest or nutrient stressed tomatoes a number of times, with similar results in flavor as ones that weren't obviously stressed like that). I think minerals and fertilizer can play a role, too, personally. Soil composition may influence which microbes can flourish. If you kill the microbes with nitrates or such, you probably won't get the same benefit. If they do study the effect of different soils on brix, IMO, they should do it without factors that can impact the results of the study, such as application of nitrate fertilizer and copper during the growing season, both of which can kill microbes (although copper might kill microbes you'd want to kill). I've heard that urea can kill soil microbes, too, but I'm not convinced about that one, just yet, as both it and ammonium fertilizers would seem to encourage microbes in their breakdown—but I could be wrong about urea. Anyway, I have a friend with a refractometer who is all into increasing soil life, and he says that increases the brix a lot. I don't know if it's true, but he's convinced, and he sounds convincing. As for why increased soil life increases brix if it does, I'm not sure. I do have an idea, however. It could be that the plants are aware of the increased microbes, and increase the sugar levels of the fruits as a defense mechanism against infection by them (sugar has antimicrobial properties in concentration). Or, it could be that microbes themselves encourage sugar formation, somehow. Maybe it's not enough sugar to kill some beneficial kinds that want it, and that don't rot the fruit.