WILD FLORIDA AS TOLD BY THE PIONEER "COW HUNTERS AND HUNTRESSES" WHO LIVED IT Two hundred years ago, pioneer "cow hunters and huntresses" in search of a better place to grow their families and raise cattle forged their way into the heart of wild Florida. They survived by wit and fortitude and drove down stakes in the unforgiving land. Traveling in covered wagons, alongside their cattle, they carved rutted trails through pine forests, trudged through swamps, black clouds of mosquitoes, survived pestilence, and disease to settle on Florida's rich prairie grassland. These rugged men and women cultivated the land, grew crops, put up clapboard houses, and rounded-up "scrub cattle" left by early Spanish explorers to breed and improve their herd. These pioneer families passed down their heritage of hard work and persistence. As Norman Proveaux, pioneer Myakka rancher puts it, "true 'cow hunters' are bred not made." Indiantown "cow huntress" Iris Wall, quips, she is a "Florida cracker with a little extra salt!" These are the true adventures of wild Florida told by the pioneer "cow hunters and huntresses" who lived it and gave birth to the Florida cattle industry. CONTACT: Nancy Dale, Ph.D. (863) 214-8351 or www.nancydalephd.com or [email protected]

Explore the wonders of Wild Florida with this hand-illustrated coloring book. Featuring over fifty of Florida's most iconic species across seven habitats, each page will stoke your curiosity and ignite your creative spirit. Coil-bound version.

From Sassafras to Dandelions to Wild Onions and Garlic, readers will enjoy the flavors of the Sunshine State in an all new way with this helpful book. Florida is filled with an abundance of native plants with roots, stems, leaves, flowers, fruit, and seeds that can provide tasty and nutritious food for people. Salads, teas, soups, and even breads can be made from flora that grows wild and can be foraged throughout the year. This guide offers identification tips, recipes, and other useful information for foragers interested in venturing out to sample the bounty of the land. Clear pen-and-ink illustrations aid in identification of leaf, fruit, and root shapes—key to harvesting the delicious and interesting plants that can be found throughout the state.

A Land Remembered has become Florida's favorite novel. Now this Student Edition in two volumes makes this rich, rugged story of the American pioneer spirit more accessible to young readers. Patrick Smith tells of three generations of the MacIveys, a Florida family battling the hardships of the frontier. The story opens in 1858, when Tobias and Emma MacIvey arrive in the Florida wilderness with their son, Zech, to start a new life, and ends in 1968 with Solomon MacIvey, who realizes that his wealth has not been worth the cost to the land. Between is a sweeping story rich in Florida history with a cast of memorable characters who battle wild animals, rustlers, Confederate deserters, mosquitoes, starvation, hurricanes, and freezes to carve a kingdom out of the Florida swamp. In this volume, meet young Zech MacIvey, who learns to ride like the wind through the Florida scrub on Ishmael, his marshtackie horse, his dogs, Nip and Tuck, at this side. His parents, Tobias and Emma, scratch a living from the land, gathering wild cows from the swamp and herding them across the state to market. Zech learns the ways of the land from the Seminoles, with whom his life becomes entwined as he grows into manhood. Next in series > > See all of the books in this series

A fun- and fact-filled investigation into why the Sunshine State is the weirdest but also the most influential state in the Union.

Jump into the wacky, wild world of Florida For more than 30 years, investigative journalist and New York Times bestselling author Craig Pittman has chronicled the wildest stories Florida has to offer. Featuring a selection of columns that have appeared in the Tampa Bay Times and other outlets throughout Pittman’s career, this book highlights just how strange and wonderful Florida can be. With a folksy style, an eye for the absurd, and a passion for the history and environment of his home state, Pittman describes some of Florida’s oddest wildlife as well as its quirkiest people. The State You’re In includes a love story involving the most tattooed woman in the world, a deep dive into the state’s professional mermaid industry, and an investigation of a battle between residents of a nudist resort and the U.S. Postal Service. Pittman introduces readers to a who’s who of Florida crime fiction, a what’s what of exotic animals, and an array of beloved places he’s seen change rapidly in his lifetime. Many of these stories are funny, some are serious, and several offer rare insights into the heart of the Sunshine State. For Pittman, Florida is both inspiring and dangerous—an “evolutionary test” for those who live in it. Together these pieces paint a complex picture of a fascinating state longing for an identity beyond palm trees and punchlines.

"Grand reading. Rothchild's scenario deliciously underscores the bizarre quality of Florida."--Publishers Weekly "A story of rapacity and gall told with bemused admiration for the waves of visionaries and scamps who have left their mark on the Sunshine State . . . a tale of the wild, wild South in which motives, loyalties, and identities are lost in a tangle of crime and counterinsurgency."--Time A wandering Floridian who made his way home in the early 1970s, John Rothchild writes about the state with the savvy of a native and the perspective of an outsider. His personal and historical travelogue reads alternately like a litany of 20th-century ills and a Monty Python rendering of the Great American Dream. In Florida, both versions are true. Settled through the chicanery of a few enterprising brokers and real estate wizards, Rothchild's Florida is a civilization built from scratch, out of the most unusual ingredients. While much of the state seems younger than many of its inhabitants, he observes, it hosts all the modern demographic, economic, and social problems. Still, those ills don't dispel the magic of its sunshine, beaches, and exotic fauna or undermine its status as a great American myth. Told within the framework of Rothchild's travels from Miami to the Everglades, around the state and back again, Up for Grabs is part history, part travelogue, part journalism, part autobiography--a humorous and appreciative tour of a society fabricated from a state of mind and erected on land that was "ninety percent underwater ninety percent of the time." John Rothchild , a former editor of Washington Monthly, columnist for Time and Fortune, and contributor to Esquire, Rolling Stone, Harper's Magazine, and the New York Times Magazine, is author or coauthor of nine books, including A Fool and His Money and Voice of the River, the autobiography of Marjory Stoneman Douglas. He lives in Miami Beach, Florida.