Nasty Nicole

 As predicted, yesterday we spent the day indoors as Hurricane/ Tropical Storm Nicole made her way across the state.  By the time she reached us, the winds had died down considerably to about 35 - 40 mph, and by the end of the day we received between 2 - 3 inches of rain.

Folks on the east coast of Florida did not get by quite as well as we.  Four people lost their lives to the storm, and parts of the coastal beaches were washed away, taking homes and properties with the waves.  The devastation is far worse than many expected.  I could not imagine leaving my beach house, some of which were perched up on high ground about 75 feet from the shoreline, to return to find that those homes are totally destroyed.  Parts of the coast have been declared uninhabitable, and there is talk that those folks may never be able to live on their land -- that is, what is left of it -- again.

The worst that we received was one blown off fence-post cap, which I was able to retrieve and Rick reinstated today, a leaking front door that needs a new seal underneath, and a back yard full of debris.  

Small branches and hundreds of leaves and sticks
litter the back yard after the storm.

Since we have trees on both ends of the yard,
the debris covered the entire area.

We started today with lingering rain, but by noon we were able to get outside to rake the branches, leaves, and sticks that littered the yard.  The debris came both from our live oak tree and the neighbor's camphor tree.

Piles of debris await bagging.

I really DID rake, too!  I am always taking
the pictures instead of being IN the pictures.

After a couple of hours of work, we once again have a clean yard and three very full bags of debris to haul to the curb for pick-up on Monday.

Three full bags will have to wait until Monday 
to be picked up by the city workers.

Nicole was the latest hurricane (November 10) to make landfall in Florida in the past 38 years.  I hope that we can bid goodbye to the storm season for good now and enjoy a peaceful winter.

Whirlwind Week One

 We returned to Gladys one week ago, and we both are exhausted.  Although we could blame age, the truth is that it has been a whirlwind week thus far.

Our flight down was what every traveler wishes to have: on time, good weather, smooth ride, and uneventful.  Our car ride home also was easy and uneventful, so we had no problems there.

The blessing of being gone for six months is that we come back to a clean refrigerator and a defrosted freezer.  The curse is that we have an EMPTY refrigerator and freezer, along with a bare pantry, so our fist task was grocery shopping.  Holy Smokes!  Groceries are VERY expensive here!  Milk is almost twice as expensive as in Wisconsin, eggs in one store topped $5.00 a dozen, and more and more we are finding that our favorite brands of food are being replaced by "store brand" merchandise only.  We search three different stores just to find certain brands that we wanted and trust.

Our first mechanical challenge was when we discovered, on the day we came down, that our car started fine but has no working air conditioning.  Florida currently has above average temperatures for this time of year, and the mechanics told us that the compressor is shot on our five-year-old Honda CRV.  Repairs will cost us over $2,000!  How is that for a "welcome home" greeting?

A beautiful day on Fred Howard Beach!

We made a quick visit to the beach and met a nice couple who asked us if we could take their picture.  They reciprocated by taking a picture of us.  Alas, since I broke my toe a couple of weeks ago, walking on the soft sand was not something that I could do for very long.  We were happy, though, to listen to the waves and see the beach for a bit.

Rick works on prying the damaged fence
panel from the posts.

Obviously, a branch fell on top of the fence.

The repaired top board makes the fence
uniform once again.

Our yard looks in good shape and suffered only slight damage from Hurricane Ian.  On our second day here, we noticed that the top of our fence had a big hole in it where a branch must have hit it.  We cannot complain too much considering our neighbor's roof is covered in tarps in two places.  We had one remaining top panel stored in the garage rafters, so after a bit of tug-of-war with the fence posts, Rick was able to remove the old board and replace it with the new one.  Once again, our fence is whole.

Even though our lawn service crew does a great job of keeping the yard trimmed and the grass cut, we always need to make further cuts.  We spent an entire morning just trimming the neighbor's overhanging branches back from the fence, trimming the back garden bushes from touching the fence, and trying to tame the overhanging branches of the Areca palm in the corner from overhanging our neighbor's yard.  To that end, I was trimming fronds off the palm.  I had just removed some lower fronds, and as I bent to cut back another frond close to the base, BAM!  I leaned into the remaining stem of a previously trimmed frond, smashing it into my upper lip.  Two small cuts and a fat lip later, I looked like a losing prize fight.  Areca palm = 1, Sherry = 0.

We did have one win this week, though.  Yesterday Rick and I went to the grocery store early.  Only one woman was at the counter, so since there were no long lines, I went to the main counter and spent the $6.00 in my wallet to buy three Powerball numbers.  The Jackpot was worth $2.04 billion, so why not?  Today when the numbers were published, we learned that we had three of the five winning numbers on one of our tickets, so we will win $7.00 -- a whole $1.00 profit on my investment! 

As I write this, Tropical Storm Nicole is brewing in the Atlantic Ocean.  She is expected to make landfall tomorrow as a Category 1 hurricane, but by the time she moves across the state to our area, she once again will be a tropical storm.  We are expecting about 2 inches of rain -- which we really could use -- and winds of 40 - 60 miles per hour.  As storms go, once again we will be lucky to avoid storm surges and any major damage. 

The gardenia flowers smell wonderful!

Our little gardenia tree in the back corner did welcome me back with a single, fragrant flower.  I would have white flowers rather than white snow drifts at any time throughout the coming winter.