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.