Christmas Creations

Yesterday I took some time off from yard construction to bake some Christmas cookies.  I wanted to make cut-out cookies, but my dilemma was that I only have three cutters here in Florida:  a palm tree and two different versions of a pineapple.  This year is NOT the year to go shopping all over for non-necessities that may never be used again, so I decided to improvise and to think like a child. 

After a couple of hours, I had a pile of cookies waiting for decorating.  The time was too late to start that on Saturday, so I waited until this morning to tackle that task.

The cookies await their transformation.

I did not have many options with the palm tree other than to turn it into a Florida Christmas palm.  The magic of frosting and sprinkles has to go a long way this year to get into the Christmas spirit!

The plain palm tree is not very festive, until...

it becomes a Florida Christmas Palm.

The smaller pineapple reminded me of something entirely different, so I ran with that idea.  

The pineapple as it should be iced.

But with a little frosting and imagination,
it becomes a reindeer.

Lindsay says this is the male version.

The larger pineapple was more of a challenge.  I realized too late that I should have just used a glass to cut out circles that I could have decorated into wreathes or ornaments; instead, I made do with what I had before me.

The larger pineapple as it should be iced.

And, with LOTS of imagination, the ornament
with the hanger cap on top that it became.

The candy canes are just scraps of dough rolled and shaped before baking.  Nothing went to waste, and since I do not have to take these to any fancy parties, they will do quite well for this year.

So this Christmas we have a family of reindeer,

some assorted canes and ornaments,

and a forest of Florida Christmas Palms.

I will make pecan fingers tomorrow.  The good thing about those is that they still say "Christmas tradition" to me even if all I have to do is roll them in confectioner's sugar.  

Happy baking, everyone! 

South Fence Border - Part 2

 Our goal today was to cement in the rest of the south fence border and to get all of the work done before lunchtime.  We succeeded!

We started early in mild temperatures.  The most difficult part of the entire job was hauling the 16 60-pound bags of cement mix that we used today from the garage to the back yard.  Those bags let us both know that we are getting too old to do these crazy jobs.

The mixing and shoveling of the cement went smoothly.  Thankfully, the cement mixer did all of the heavy work.  While Rick put down the new cement, I spent my time scrubbing the part of the fence that we finished yesterday.  I should have scrubbed off the splattered cement from the fence yesterday, but by the time we finished and put things away, we both were too tired to do anything. Thus, today I scrubbed while Rick shoveled and smoothed the new cement.

So we went from this:

The fence before the cement border...

to this:

and afterward. Now it just needs to dry.

We will be happy that we can simply edge the back yard instead of having the lawn service weed-whack the fence to pieces.

We still have the entire back (east) side of the fence to complete, but that will have to wait a while. We will get it completed, but we cannot even think of starting it until our lawn care service cuts the lawn on Monday.  

South Side Fence Border - Part 1

Having finished the north side of the concrete border in front of the fence, we now moved on the to south side.  We were supposed to start this yesterday, but once again the weather was too cold.  (What did we expect?  After all, this is December, even if we are in Florida!)

With the stepping stones in place, we just needed
to fill in the area between the stones and the fence.

This morning still dawned too chilly, but by this afternoon the temperatures had warmed enough so that we could start the cement.  We decided to finish just the slab behind the sheds today, so that gave us less to pour tomorrow.

We left the stepping stones that have rested behind our shed for many years now, and we poured just up to the stones today.  That area is right under our live oak tree, and the area always gets filled with leaves.  Once this is all hard surface, we will be able to clean it with just the leaf blower.  I can't wait.

Success! That strip of cement will make
clean-up in that area much easier.

We already had all the forms set, so today was just a simple pour.  Rick figured that we would need four bags of cement to fill the area.  I told him I thought we would need six.  We did.

Now the lawn service will not have to weed-whack
in this corner of the yard.

While we were at it, we also put a very small strip of concrete next to the fence by our gate.  We added a paving stone in that area rather than doing all cement since we have our drain pipe buried in that location. If we ever have to dig up the drain pipe, we figured moving a stone would be much easier than chipping out 3 inches of concrete. 

The rest of the job awaits us tomorrow. 
We figure we will need 16 - 18 bags of
cement to fill the area.

The job only took us a couple of hours, but that was enough to put a strain on Rick's back and to let me know that I will feel helping him lift the concrete bags when I get up tomorrow. The weather is supposed to cooperate with us, so if we get an early start, we should be able to finish the job before lunch. 

Defending the Fence

 When we installed our fence around Gladys in 2014, we made the rookie mistake of not dropping the panels down where we needed to do so in order for the fence to hug the ground.  That caused us to add fence panel boards under parts of the fence to keep critters and neighbors' dogs from coming into our yard.  We thought we were done with fence problems once we had those panel boards in place.

Fast forward to today. Although the panel boards are still in place, some of them have been chewed to pieces by our yard people -- and the neighbors -- attacking them with weed-whackers. Others have just been cracked when a lawn mower, large rock, or other object sailed into them. We knew they needed to be replaced.

Additionally, our back yard is more weeds and dirt than it is lush grass, so each time that we received a hard rain, the dirt in front of the fence splashes up onto the white fence and makes a mess.  That situation added to our desire to "do something" about the fence.

We opted to follow Rick's brother Steve's lead and to put a border of cement all around the yard on the inside of the fence line.  A couple of days ago, Rick put in the forms and dug out the area for the cement along the north side fence line.  We were going to pour yesterday, but we awoke to 39 degree temperatures, so we decided to wait until today when the weatherman promised warmer temperatures. 

Rick has been buying materials for the last few days, so we got up early this morning to start the work. We both thought that the panel boards under the north side fence were salvageable, and using them was going to save us $60 by not having to replace them.  Wrong.  Once I washed the boards, I found all kinds of cracks and gaps that helped us quickly change our minds. Back to the store we went to get replacement boards for under the fence.

We spent the morning taking out the old panels and putting into place the new vinyl boards.  I am glad that we did so, even though they are expensive.  These new boards are stronger and cleaner, so they now should last  as long as the rest of the fence.  

We broke for an early lunch and then got back to our original task.  Actually mixing and pouring the cement only took us about an hour and a half.  We would mix three 60-lb. bags at once, and then as Rick shoveled it into place and started to smooth it into position, we would get another load going in our cement mixer.

Rick smooths the cement around one of the fence posts
on the north side fence.

Now it just has to dry.  When I took the pictures, the cement still was too wet for me to clean off the newly-installed bottom boards.  That may have to wait until tomorrow.  

As always, Gladys always throws challenges
our way. The land slopes down toward the patio,
so the cement had to slope also.

The north side was the shortest and easiest side to complete.  Although we do not have any bottom boards along the back (east) fence, we do have a large tree root that promises to cause problems.  The south side has several boards that need replacing, and that side is longer than the north side, so that, too, will take both time and effort... and a lot of cement!

The border is finished, but I still need to wash down the
cement that is splattered on the new boards under the fence.

Once the cement cures for 30 days, we will stain it green in the hopes that it will somewhat blend in with the rest of the back yard.  I just will be happy to not have to wash down the fence each time it rains.  Rick will be happy to check off one more task from Gladys' always-present "To Do" list.  

Gutter Guards

 With a large live oak and a neighbor's camphor tree adding shade to our back yard, we have a very livable environment; however, with those trees also comes falling leaves.

Each year when we return to Gladys, Rick has to climb a ladder to clean out the accumulated leaves in the gutters.  This year, after his heel surgery, the job of cleaning out the gutters was not a painless experience. To avoid such problems in the future, we decided to add screened gutter guards to the house.

Rick does a balancing act to screw the back
of the screen to the back of the gutter guard.

Rick positions the front of the guard
before attaching it to the gutter.

Once the gutter guards came, they had to be bent to fit our 6" gutter and then screwed into place.  While the bending was not a great problem, screwing the back side into the back of the gutters took a lot of twisting (since it was at a horrible angle) and a lot of strength.  

The screens should keep the debris
from clogging the downspouts and drains
on the gutter system.

In the end, although Rick was in pain due to his heel by the time we finished, we finished with gutters covered by screens. Hopefully, they will not clog in the future and nothing but water will enter the drain pipes during a storm.

This brush, when attached to a screw-on handle,
will allow us to brush debris off the gutters 
without having to climb any ladders.

As an added bonus, the company sent us a free brush to safely stand on the ground and brush off any accumulated leaves that might collect on the top of the screens. For now, we are waiting for a good, hard rain just to see if the system really works. If it does, we will order out more guards for the gutters at the front of the house also.  

Flowers for Gladys

Every woman needs some flowers now and then, and Gladys, although a house instead of a woman, needed some new ones also.

As we were outside trimming the other vegetation back to normal the last few days, I noticed that the hibiscus next to the backyard shed was looking poorly.  The branches were spindly, no new growth was visible, and the leaves left on the branches were all starting to yellow and fall off.  A closer inspection showed that the aphids were back.  The leaves and branches were covered with them, or with a white fungus that looked like small white bugs.  At any rate, it was time to let it go.  

I chopped down the branches and threw them into the brush pick-up bag. Then we dug out all the stones, separated them from the dirt and other debris, washed the stones, and put them out to dry.  Rick pulled out the rest of the plant by the roots, and we added that to the bag, too.  I took out the landscape fabric and threw that into the trash. Finally, we took a shovel and turned over all of the soil in the garden. Then it was time to shop.

We came to the conclusion that most of the plants that we have previously bought at the expensive nursery have died while the plants that we have purchased at Lowes or Home Depot are doing just fine, so we went to Lowes.

At Lowes, we were confronted with the choice of two different types of hibiscus -- the bush or the tree -- and four different colors.  We knew that we wanted the bush style, and we quickly learned that our choices were further limited by the condition of the plants.  The deep orange/red plant that I originally had in that spot was almost non-existent.  The one or two that they had left looked really beat up.  The peach colored one was not bright enough, the yellow one would not give me enough color contrast with the shed, so that left the pink one. Pink would not have been my first choice, but it has some interesting coloration and does add the splash of color that that part of the yard needs.

This Pink Lady hibiscus has a deep pink center
which changes to light pink and then darker pink
as the eye moves toward the outside of the petal.

New landscape fabric, cleaned stones, and
turned over soil gives this hibiscus a fresh start.

While we were shopping for plants, we looked at possibilities to replace the totally dead Ixoras in the front garden.  Our landscape people said that the summer drought was just too much for them, but truthfully, they did not look to great when we left in March, so I was not surprised that they were dead.

I thought of pentas, but I was not too sure if they would provide enough color to the area.  One group of plants that looked really good and colorful at Lowes drew both of us to their display.  And guess what?  They were two different types of Ixoras!  Rather than choosing the Maui Ixora variety that had died on us, we chose the Taiwan Red Ixora instead.  This variety has a deeper color than the Maui, and both the leaves and the petals on the flowers are pointed rather than rounded.  We will have to see how they survive. 

As the new Ixoras grow, we hope they will added a
needed splash of color along the back of this garden.

Taiwan Red Ixoras have small, pointed leaves
and pointed petals on their flowers.

While we were planting the new Ixoras in the front, a huge claw truck from the city came up and scooped up all of our lawn debris and cuttings and hauled them away.  Hooray!  Our yard is starting to look trimmed and better, and Gladys seems brighter with her gifts of new flowers.

Time to Trim - Day 1

 Rick maintains that if all the people left Florida, the area would return to a jungle within 12 months.  We have been gone from Gladys for nine months, and by looking at the state of our vegetation, I would have to agree with him.  A few more months away, and we would have a good start on our own little jungle.

We had already spent a little time on Wednesday taking care of the front gardens.  I had a bag of debris just from trimming the trees in the front, from pulling a few weeds, and from getting things in order there. Today, since the weather started in the sunny 70s, we decided to tackle the back yard.

The first branches to come down belonged
to the neighbor's invasive Brazilian Pepper Tree.

Moving further back in the yard, Rick
worked on removing branches that would
impact our electrical lines.

Each year Rick has to take our long-handled trimmers and cut back the neighbor's trees that grow over the fence into our electrical lines.  This year was no exception.  This summer must have been a great growing season for trees despite the alternating drought and hurricane rains because those trees needed a LOT of trimming. We gathered at least five bundles of branches that I carried out to the curb for pick-up on Monday.

After much hard, overhead work, Rick
cleared the south fence line of branches.

This picture shows the corner garden
before I cut down the purple Ti plant.
Note the difference in the Ti plants
in the picture above this one.

I had cut the gardenia tree in the corner garden down to about three feet before we went home in March, and as the picture shows, it has grown above the fence.  I only had a little time today to work on that garden since Rick needed my help with trimming the oak tree on the opposite side of the lawn.  I was able to cut down the two tallest Ti plant stems so that it no longer towers over the fence or grows into the gardenia tree.  I will have to finish trimming that garden tomorrow.

Low-hanging branches were a hazard
to our lawn service crew.

Once again, Rick uses the long-handled saw
to trim branches away from the yard
and the roof of the house.

The oak tree had branches hanging so low that I am sure the woman who mows our lawn had to duck to get under them.  Rick almost killed himself trying to cut through one large branch by hand, but eventually that, too, fell.  That debris added another three bundles to branches that went to the curb.

The Areca palm needed a haircut!

Once that was finished, I moved on to the Areca palm in the other corner garden.  Each year I trim out dead branches and trim back the fronds so they do not touch the fence or go over the fence.  This year I had an entire bundle of branches to remove.  It badly needed a good trimming!

The after-trimming picture shows
how much I cut off.  It will continue to grow tall.

My final challenge was a heartbreaking one.  I have loved watching my red hibiscus plant grow and bloom, but a couple of years ago, it became infested with aphids.  Barbie, my neighbor, waters my flowers in the summer, and she treated it for aphids with limited success.  When I returned in the fall, I did the same.  This year, the leaves are turning yellow, and the whole plant was just woody and spindly.  

The hibiscus was tall but spindly, 
and the leaves were all dying.

Although it did have a couple blossoms on it, a closer examination showed me that each branch was just crawling with aphids.  I am done fighting them.  I don't know if they are more prevalent in that area because of the tree or of the shade, but I cut the hibiscus down to the ground.  On Monday, I will dig out the roots and try something new in its place. Or maybe I will just let that area blank for a year to make sure that the aphids have moved onward.

The area next to the shed looks bare
without the hibiscus bush.

Eight bundles of debris later, the yard
in back is once again habitable.  I have
yet to haul out the four black bags of
cuttings.  
The garbage men are going to love me!

The high and most difficult trimming is complete, so we both are happy about that.  I will start fresh in the morning to see if I can finish what needs to be done so we can sit on the lanai and enjoy our beautiful back yard.

From Frost to Frying

 After much debate over whether we were going to risk traveling in this COVID-19 infested world, we decided to make the trip to our winter home in Florida. Early in the summer, we figured that air travel was too dangerous, and that this might be the year we "skipped" going south.  However, as the summer progressed, the cases of Covid drastically increased in Wisconsin just as they started to decrease in Florida.  We finally reached the point where we thought that traveling south to Florida was safer than staying in Wisconsin.

I certainly am glad that we are here since I am not a fan of cold weather.  The last walk we took, on a sunny day in Wisconsin, was in weather that never reached above freezing.  Wisconsin has had three snowstorms this past month, and we generally never get snow until about two weeks after Halloween.  If that was any indication of what is to come, then I am doubly glad we are here.

Our flight down was smooth and uneventful.  The plane was more packed than we would have liked it to be, but everyone was required to wear masks, and Rick and I did not have to share our row of three seats with anyone.  

A break in the clouds mimics the landscape 
of the Fox River as it enters Green Bay.

High winds sweep the top of the towering cloud
to the south.

Owen had asked what the clouds looked like from above, so I took pictures of them as we travelled to Florida.  I really have not paid much attention to the clouds as I generally sit in the middle seat of the row, but this time I was in the window seat, so I got some great shots of the cloud formations.

Distant cloud banks form beautiful images.

This cloud looked like a nuclear bomb exploded.

We arrived at about 4:30 Eastern Time to 90 degree weather and were met by our chauffeur in our hired transportation who quickly got us home.  We had time to run to the grocery store for a few essentials, and then we came back to open up the house.  Thankfully, the car worked great when Rick started it, and everything else switched on with little trouble.  We both were exhausted when we went to bed.

We awoke at 7:14 this morning (6:14 Central Time).  I was surprised that we were up at that hour, especially since neither of us slept all that well.  The sad thing is that three days from now, we switch to Daylight Savings Time, so if we could just stay on our Central Time schedule for a couple more days, we would not have to make any adjustment as we move the clocks back an hour this Saturday.  Ah, well...

Today we spent the morning shopping to restock the house.  We really want to quarantine for 14 days after our air trip, but a person has to eat, so we had to go out.  In the last two days, we have spent $400 on food staples, supplies, and food for planned meals.  We should be set for quite a while now, needing only fresh produce and dairy products in the coming weeks.

This afternoon I tackled scrubbing down the front of the house and trimming the front bushes.  The bushes under the bedroom windows all died in the drought this summer, so out they came.  Once the weather cools a little -- we endured 90 degrees again today -- I will have to find some new bushes to plant.

Although the lanai was filthy, a broom,
shop vacuum, bucket of soapy water, 
a long-handled brush, a hose, and lots
of elbow grease turned it back into a habitable place.
(Thanks, Rick.)

While I worked on the front, Rick cleaned out the gutter and then scrubbed down the lanai.  Those jobs took him about three hours, so we both were finished before dinner.  We still have lots of trimming to do with the backyard landscape, but we will wait until this weekend to tackle that job when temperatures are supposed to be cooler.   Our garbage pick-up is on Monday, so weekend trimming means that we do not have to hang on to the bags of debris for too long.

We are glad to be home in Florida.  Hopefully, the weather will cool into more seasonable 70s and 80s so we can continue to walk each day.  We have plenty to keep us busy for a while, and maybe we even will find some time to relax eventually.

Finished Fence!

 Yesterday we actually took time to finish the fence by hanging the gate that Rick made a few days ago.  The fence is complete.  We wanted to finish so that we could get the fence inspected and close out the permit before winter and before we return to Florida.

This small gate on the north side of the house
completes the enclosure of the back yard.

Rick called the Permit Office this morning.  They will send an inspector out tomorrow.  We do not have to be home, and we do not have to present him or her with any paperwork to be signed at the end of the inspection.  We were told that if he or she approves the fence, we simply will not hear from the Permit Office again.  Wow!  Is that ever different from the process used in our town in Florida where one HAS to have the paperwork hanging outside for the Inspector to review and sign if you have done EVERYTHING absolutely right.  If not, the job gets tagged until all of the incomplete or unacceptable parts of the project are corrected.  

We don't think we will have any problems with this Wisconsin fence. We are well within the boundaries of our property, everything is plumb and true, the fence is neither too high nor too low, and the permit will stay properly displayed in the front window.

So what does my hard-working husband do when he finished hanging the gate?  He "watched" TV to relax.  I think it worked!!!

Now I know why Rick did not "fast forward"
through the commercials.

Gate Two

 We have reached that point in the summer where we have started to look at what projects need to be completed before we return to Florida for the winter.  First on our list was the second gate on our fence because that will complete the construction, and we then can get the fence inspected by the city.  If we do not get it inspected this year, we will have to take out another expensive permit next year to get the project approved.  That expense we can do without.

Rick dug the second of the two holes we needed for the posts yesterday.  While the Packers were winning their first football game of the season against the Minnesota Vikings (43 - 34), Rick took that opportunity to go to Home Depot to get the last few bags of concrete that we needed.  He said the store was almost empty when he went there, so he was in and out without getting near anyone else.  The same held true for Menards when he went inside to pick up some boards to slip inside the posts.  The boards are necessary so we have someplace to screw the gate hardware into when we get to that point.

The yard is set up and ready for us to mix the concrete for the
posts for Gate Two on the north side of the house.

While Rick put the boards together this morning and got them into the posts, I set up the back yard for our task at hand.  This whole thing would have been much easier if we could have used the existing end post on the fence; however, we discovered earlier when Rick originally tried to dig the hole next to the house  opposite that post that we had an eight-foot ground rod for the entire electrical system for the house in the way. Plan B called for us to dig TWO holes, to bring the gate a little closer to the back yard, and to find underground areas that would accept both posts and cement with nothing in the way.

Adding this north gate will completely enclose the back yard.

Since we had been through this routine over 50 times before (counting the posts we put in for the fence in Florida and for the fence here in Wisconsin), we did not have any problems today getting both posts into the ground and secured with cement.

Rick checks the level to make sure that both posts
are the same height. (Note the clothing: we started with
temperatures only in the low 60s this morning.)

Of course, getting the posts to match the height of the existing fence, and then making sure that the two posts we put in today also matched each other in height took a little time.  Thank God for four-foot levels!

In the end, we now have two posts ready to support Gate Two.  The posts will have to sit for about a week while the concrete dries.  That will give us time to assemble the gate.  

The two posts are plumb and parallel. Now they
just have to dry in place before we hang the gate.

Once Gate Two is hung, we can call the inspector to get the city's approval of our Wisconsin fence. That will take one huge project off our "to do" list for this summer.