Mudfest in Okeechobee

Mudfest in Okeechobee - Photo Courtesy of the Palm Beach Post

A Weekend Off the Ranch

We left our chores behind us this past weekend, and we travelled to the Southeastern portion of the State to visit friends.

About 100 miles out from our destination, we cut ‘cross country through Okeechobee, a small county in South Central, Florida on Saturday. 

Boy, what a crowd of people were visiting that county!    

Traffic was bumper-to-bumper on one of the few east/west highways traversing Florida.  We were out in the Florida backcountry, yet traffic here was wild!

Maybe it wold be best to stop for breakfast and see if we discover what all the fuss was about, we decided.  Choosing a small, friendly-looking diner on the main drag, we walked in, found a table, and began chatting with the locals. 

It was a Mudfest weekend in Okeechobee.

From what we gathered from the restaurant locals, Mudfests are public events put on by private individuals.  One of the Okeechobee ranchers at the eastern edge of the county gathers up the necessary permits and then sponsors the weekend event.  His location so far east in the county, makes his ranch especially accessible to people coming from the cities on Florida’s East Coast, so he gets a large turnout.

Organizers charge $40 for every person entering their land.  The fee allows participants to come in and spend the weekend camping, and driving vehicles through huge man-made mud pits and all over the trails on their land.  The event attracts more than 40,000 people (in a county of only 35,000 residents).   Man, what a haul these guys make!

Let me jump ahead and describe what we see when we drive further down Florida State Road 70 a little later.

Folks are out driving ATV’s and pick-up trucks really fast in pastureland congested with traffic.  They’re jumping berms and diving in water holes.   

We notice plenty of tow-trucks standing by ready to haul out stuck-in-the-mud vehicles and  those with “tore up” (translate: burned-up) transmissions. 

It’s loud!  Men, women and children are all out “yahoo-ing” and playing the mud.   

No one seemed to be wearing much clothing, either.  The scene was straight out of a country music video—key the song "Redneck Woman by Gretchen Wilson!  

You gotta give to them, these folks at Mudfest were definitely having a lot of fun.  (You can see what they said about their weekend on FACEBOOK.)

Back at the restaurant, a local sheriff told us that things can get out of hand out in the mud pits.  People get hurt with sprains, broken bones and the like, and the county insists organizers keep several sets of EMTs on hand to both patch up the wounded and transport the worst cases to the local hospital.  We noticed their vehicles parked near the entrance as we drove by.

Well, with our meal complete, we paid the bill and said goodbye to the talkative small town crowd at the diner.  We really enjoyed our break in Okeechobee. 

As a final thought, the local sheriff offered that we might consider by-passing Highway 70 on our return trip home.   We should expect the frolicking Mudfesters to be packing up and hitting the road in mass later that afternoon.  Perhaps we might choose another route. 

We took the sheriff up on that suggestion!  

- Sanne Collins

   From the Ranch in Florida

What’s Been Keeping Me Busy Lately

Love Those Wide Open Spaces is a blog designed to follow my daily life as a freelance writer and rancher.  It’s a life full of constant change and a wide scope of interests.

Freelance writing, by its definition, requires the ability to write on a variety of subjects, to juggle many assignments during the times of plenty, and to fill the void when checks are slow.   That said, I’m always writing.

Much of my work is done for others such as corporations, websites, or articles penned under another’s name.  I’ve sold the rights to these works, so they can’t be shared. 

However, many of my projects are available under my own name and can be read right here on the web.    

 You can click on either the site or the story below to see them.

Check out what’s been keeping me busy lately!

Rural Florida Living   
Fort Mose in St. Augustine, Florida - The First Free African Settlement in the US 
The Real Florida Run Series      

Florida Outdoors: What You Can See in February
Hillsborough River State Park - Where History and Natural Beauty Converge  

City to Country - A Rural Florida Adventure     
We Learn What to Look for When Buying Hay  

A Field Full of Babies

Love Those Wide Open Spaces 
Trading Treasures - Pepper Jam
Super Bowl Party 

Winter Weather 
The Project's Over 

Florida: Just For Fun!
Things to Do in Florida This Weekend - Friday, February 8th thru Sunday, February 10th 

Things to Do This Weekend in Florida - Feb 1 thru Feb 3 

@SanneCollins 2013

Trading Treasures

Years ago, I once offered to supply the eggs for a breakfast meeting my employer was sponsoring.   

You would have thought I’d killed the family dog.

“Absolutely not,” the locals scolded, “your yard eggs are too precious for that!”

This was during my first foray into rural Florida culture, and the exchange taught me a lesson that stayed with me ever since.    

Here in the country, you sell your eggs to help support your family, or you share your backyard treasure with a valued friend.

Our egg harvest is bountiful right now, as I mentioned earlier this week, and we have plenty of eggs to share.

You never know how gifts from the home will be loved until you share with casual friends.  This week our extra eggs went with Davis to be shared with a co-worker, Jeff, that he’s known for years but rarely runs into. 

Our timing was great.  Jeff and family had a houseful of seasonal visitors in town this week and fresh farm eggs were a novelty.  We love to get feedback from newbies.

But here’s the best part.  Jeff is a gardener, and he has a hobby we didn’t know about.  He raises quite a pepper garden.   You know, he grows green and sweet reds, habernero, and jalapeno peppers.  He has them all and keeps looking for more.

Today we’re sharing in HIS harvest.  This week he passed along two jars of his famous hot pepper jam to share with Davis and me.  We love hot foods so he selected a hot jalapeno pepper jam that has a gorgeous red and green color to it, and red savina pepper jam made from those hottest of habanero peppers.  Boy, are we grateful.

Jeff’s hot pepper jam tastes both hot and sweet, a wonderful combination.  And it’s just soooo addicting!   

His pepper jams are amazingly delicious on bread or toast, but they’re also good as a snack.  My favorites are to spread pepper jam with either cream or goat cheese on a cracker, or on a bagel with lox. 

Really…it makes my mouth water to simply write about it!

So here we are on Saturday morning and you can see the status of our jars.  They’ll never make it to Week 2. 

Good stuff, Jeff.  You make some good stuff.

- Sanne Collins

   From the Ranch in Florida

How to Make Pepper Jam

After downing a jar of this jam, I decided it may be time to make it ourselves and off I went in search of recipes.  I thought I would share one I might be trying.  

Hot Jalapeño Pepper Jam

Makes about 6 half-pints

4 cups of seeded and finely diced peppers

    (about 10 jalapeños, 2 green peppers and 2 red peppers)

1 cup apple cider vinegar

1.75 ounce package of powdered pectin such as Sure-Jell

5 cups granulated sugar

Fill a water bath canner about half full, add the empty canning jars and bring to a boil.

Lower heat and leave jars in the hot water.

Fill a saucepan with water and bring to a boil. Lower heat and add the lids; keep hot.  Prepare a boiling water canner and sterilize the jars, lids, and bands.

Meanwhile, in a large stainless steel pot, combine the diced peppers and vinegar. 

Gradually stir in the pectin, and bring the mixture to a rolling boil. 

Add all of the sugar at once and return to a boil.  Once at a boil again continue to cook for 1 minute.

Remove from heat and skim off any foam.

Ladle into the hot jars, leaving 1/4-inch headspace and wipe jar rims with a wet paper towel.

Fit with lids and screw on the bands firmly. Place the jars in the canner on a rack and add more boiling water to at least 1 inch above the jars.  Bring to a boil, cover, and boil for 10 minutes--if using 1 pint jars, boil for 15 minutes.

What’s Been Keeping Me Busy Lately

Love Those Wide Open Spaces is a blog designed to follow my daily life as a freelance writer and rancher.  It’s a life full of constant change and a wide scope of interests.

Freelance writing, by its definition, requires the ability to write on a variety of subjects, to juggle many assignments during the times of plenty, and to fill the void when checks are slow.   That said, I’m always writing.

Much of my work is done for others such as corporations, websites, or articles penned under another’s name.  I’ve sold the rights to these works, so they can’t be shared. 

However, many of my projects are available under my own name and can be read right here on the web.    

 You can click on either the site or the story below to see them.

Check out what’s been keeping me busy lately!

Rural Florida Living   
Fort Mose in St. Augustine, Florida - The First Free African Settlement in the US 
The Real Florida Run Series      

Florida Outdoors: What You Can See in February
Hillsborough River State Park - Where History and Natural Beauty Converge  

City to Country - A Rural Florida Adventure     
We Learn What to Look for When Buying Hay  

A Field Full of Babies

Love Those Wide Open Spaces 
Super Bowl Party 

Winter Weather 
The Project's Over 

Florida: Just For Fun!
Things to Do in Florida This Weekend - Friday, February 8th thru Sunday, February 10th 

Things to Do This Weekend in Florida - Feb 1 thru Feb 3 

@SanneCollins 2013

The County Conducts Spring Cleaning

Animal den along road is now out in the open

Like most of Florida, our roads are lined with drainage gullies to help in times of rain.

But not living directly in the swamp, our ditches are filled with wildflowers, not water, nearly all year ‘round.

The county maintains the road and its ditches and clearances and they do a good job. 

The right-of-ways are kept mown, drainage pipes replaced when needed, and maintenance crews come in to clean and repair every 3 months or so.

Yesterday, the county began their annual Spring Cleaning Season by sending a drainage ditch cleaner to our road.  I didn’t think much about it as I casually watched him cutting from the window beside my desk. 

It’s always good to know the infrastructure is being well maintained and we’ll be set to handle run-off during the hurricane season.

But later that afternoon as I went for the mail, I got a good look….or perhaps I should say a bad look...at the work that was done.  

Our county mow-master performed his job so well, paid so much attention to detail, was so thorough, that there was no living greenery left along the road anymore except a few cabbage palms shading the ditch from inside the pastures and safely behind the fences. 

There were no bushes anywhere.  There were no vines climbing up over the fence posts. There were no wildflowers left to bloom.  There was no habitat left for wildlife.  He clean-cut the place.  And boy, this man was on a mission!

I know everything will grow back in the months ahead.  I know that elsewhere in Florida this guy would be a super-star.  (Golf course managers would salivate at his work!) 

But here, out in the country, nature denuded makes my head hurt. 

- Sanne Collins

   From the Ranch in Florida

 

What’s Been Keeping Me Busy Lately

Love Those Wide Open Spaces is a blog designed to follow my daily life as a freelance writer and rancher.  It’s a life full of constant change and a wide scope of interests.

Freelance writing, by its definition, requires the ability to write on a variety of subjects, to juggle many assignments during the times of plenty, and to fill the void when checks are slow.   That said, I’m always writing.

Much of my work is done for others such as corporations, websites, or articles penned under another’s name.  I’ve sold the rights to these works, so they can’t be shared. 

However, many of my projects are available under my own name and can be read right here on the web.    

 You can click on either the site or the story below to see them.

Check out what’s been keeping me busy lately!

Rural Florida Living   
Fort Mose in St. Augustine, Florida - The First Free African Settlement in the US 
The Real Florida Run Series      

Florida Outdoors: What You Can See in February
Hillsborough River State Park - Where History and Natural Beauty Converge  

City to Country - A Rural Florida Adventure     
We Learn What to Look for When Buying Hay  

A Field Full of Babies

Love Those Wide Open Spaces 
Super Bowl Party 

Winter Weather 
The Project's Over 

Florida: Just For Fun!
Things to Do in Florida This Weekend - Friday, February 8th thru Sunday, February 10th 

Things to Do This Weekend in Florida - Feb 1 thru Feb 3