Lids and Lift-Off

On Tuesday and Wednesday of this past week, Rick and I spent long days on our hands and knees in the front garden of our church.  The garden is a raised bed, and it had been badly neglected.  A middle raise bed had once been a three-tiered brick affair, but the top tiers of the bricks had been removed, leaving only uneven, mounded-up dirt piles which surrounded a middle bush.  Two of the last tier of bricks were missing, and the surrounding garden was over-run with weeds to the point that the bushes in the garden were lost in the mess.

On Tuesday, I shoveled out four bucketsful of dirt from the middle area, replaced the missing bricks on the lower tier, and removed all of the weeds in the middle of the garden.  I also weeded about 1/4 of the lower garden.  While I was doing that, Rick was making great headway on the lower garden.  He weeded more than half of his side of the garden before the sun came around to the front of the church, making the day over for weeding.

On Wednesday we returned to the garden to finish the weeding.  When the main garden was finished, Rick tackled a smaller garden next to the driveway leading into church while I weeded a longer front garden and a side garden visible from the street.  The result is a much more presentable church property.  The gardens all badly need landscape fabric, weed-killer, and new mulch.  For now, though, they are what they are.

On Wednesday afternoon, we went to Lowe's and purchased a Ti plant to add to a back garden at church.  The added Ti balances the garden better so that people entering the church will have a nice view.  That's about all we can do for now.

Thursday was our first day of a two-day mini-vacation.  We drove to DeLand, Florida, which is in the middle of nowhere, north east of Orlando.  Traffic was horrific getting there, so we were both happy to arrive.  We went to tour one of Florida's best-kept secrets: the Stetson Mansion.

The Stetson Mansion of DeLand, Florida, was saved from the wrecking ball
in 2005. It was completely renovated in 18 months.

Although the roof was replaced, the Mansion retains its original
siding, soffits, millwork, and windows, many of which are stained glass.

The Stetson Mansion was built in 1886 by John B. Stetson, the creator of the Stetson cowboy hat.  Stetson built the largest, grandest home of the 19th century in Florida.  He had planned a 18,000 square foot home, but his third wife Elizabeth, who hated the bugs and the beasts of Florida, persuaded him to build a home only half that size.  He did, adding a school house so his two sons could be privately tutored in the winter, and approximately 300 acres of orange trees.  The joke turned out to be on Elizabeth, however, because even though the house was smaller, she was forced to come down for the winter with John B. for the next 20 years!

One side of the house shows the "stepped" windows which
add light to the main staircase of the house.  The windows are
stained-glass and may be the work of one of Stetson's friends:
Louis Comfort Tiffany.

Stetson also was a friend of Thomas A. Edison, so this house was the first in Florida to have electric lights installed as part of the plans. One can see the original fuse box for the house, including two fuses identified by tags written by Edison himself.  Stetson took care of the town also, making little DeLand the first city in Florida to have electric street lights!

This bronze statue of a little girl reading rests outside
the entrance to the restored school house which today
houses a small gift shop on the premises. 

The house was purchased in 2005 by Michael Solari and JT Thompson, two men who took the dilapidated home and transformed it into a showplace in only 18 months.  Inspired by HGTV, JT raised funds and got materials donated to the home by promising manufacturers that they would showcase their goods in home tours to the public for three months after the home was finished. After that, the home would revert to being their private residence.

A shady Zen Garden, a pool, a gazebo, a putting green, and
a small sitting area are all additions to the Mansion's landscape.

The tours turned out to be such a success that 13 years later, they are still being conducted three times a week.  The home IS a private residence, but tour guides takes "guests" into all of the rooms, allowing people to freely wander through the rooms and to sit on the furniture.  The tours are very interesting, and on our tour, JT even dropped in to say "hello" to his "guests." Since the home is still considered a private residence, no inside photographs were allowed due to insurance restrictions.

Michael is an architectural historian, so the home is magnificently restored to its 1880's glory.  The woodwork is exceptional, the parquet floors are some of the best in the world, and the house boasts over 10,000 panes of stained and antique glass in the original windows.

In addition to the house, JT also restored and added to the gardens and landscape.  The tour is truly worth the money to see and an afternoon of your time.

After the Stetson Mansion, we drove to Cocoa for the evening before venturing out early the next day to the Space Coast.  We arrived about a half-hour before opening at the Kennedy Space Center.  We have been there two or three times, but the exhibits keep changing, and one could spend two weeks there and still never see all there is to see.

Part of the Saturn V rocket looms overhead at the Space Center.
Note that even Snoopy looks on in wonder.

A space suit that Gene Cernan wore on Apollo 17
for the last mission to the moon.

We took the 40-minute bus tour which eventually took us to the Saturn V center.  We had lunch there, watched a movie, and looked at some of the exhibits.  Back at the main center, we spent a little time and money at the Gift Shop -- which was half outdoors since it is being remodeled -- before getting back on the road a little after noon.

The Center is extremely educational.  This map
of the moon shows where six of the Apollo
missions landed.

We were home by 3:30, missing the worst of the Tampa rush-hour traffic.  The Stetson Mansion was a delight to visit, and since we bought a 13-month pass, we will return again to the Kennedy Space Center.  I would love to take Owen there some day; I am sure he would be amazed.

Travel is always fun, but so was being able to climb into my own bed last night for a good night's sleep.