November 30, 2017

Today was almost a holiday in Florida since November 30 marks the last day of the hurricane season for 2017.  I am sure that no one was sad to see the season end.  This one caught Floridans, and that is something that has not happened in this state for a number of years.  In fact, the last hurricane to hit this city happened in 1921... almost 100 years ago.  We were lucky that Hurricane Irma downgraded to a Category 2 by the time it reached the area; however, that was strong enough for our tastes.  Had I been here, I am sure that I would have been terrified.

Yesterday Rick and I went to the Nursery and purchased two crotons for the back flower garden.  Yesterday I took the shrub nippers and cut off the top three feet of the gardenia tree in that garden.  The top had not filled in well, had probably been whipped too much by Irma, and just was not particularly appealing to view.  By cutting the top off, we now have a manageable tree that I want to fill in at the bottom.  I can keep this plant a bush rather than a tree with correct pruning.

Today before the sun got around to that garden, I cleaned out some of the debris (leaves, sticks, and pine needles) that were mixed with the stone.  I really need to take all of the stone out to do a thorough job, but I got off the surface mess for now, and that will have to suffice.  The neighbor cut down the pine tree, so I am thankful that no more messy needles will fall into the garden.

Two new crotons flank each side of the corner garden.

Two plants that I had put into the garden a few years ago did not thrive, so I took them out when we first arrived this fall.  I planted the two crotons in their place for a little color in the garden.  The type of croton I planted are fairly slow-growing, so I should be able to keep them pruned to a manageable size. I also had trimmed the Ti plant in back, so that is starting to grow well again also.

The result is a tidy garden for now that I will enjoy as I look out the back windows in the Florida room.

A Little Key West...

We vowed when we came down to Florida that our house would be decorated in a tropical style, and we have tried very hard to support local artists by buying only things that either come from art fairs or from consignment shops.

Yesterday we went downtown to the Farmer's Market because Rick wanted to buy some honey with which he can make some home-baked bread.  While we were down there (since we actually scored some FREE parking at Pioneer Park), we also took a stroll through the Art Fair that was setting up.

We found a glass artist that had some cute little copper fish on a stained-glass background.  We purchased one small panel of fish and brought them home, only to find that they were way too small for the intended wall above the toilet in the master bathroom.  We took the fish back and somehow were talked into ordering a much bigger piece for the wall.

On the second trip back to the Art Fair, Rick mentioned a fun watercolor that really caught his attention each time we walked past the booth.  (Truth be told, I really liked the same print.)  The print was framed, and the artist wanted $75 for it.  We found a similar print in his batch of prints for $35.  When he asked if I wanted to buy that print, I told him that I really wanted the print that was in the frame, but I did not want to buy the frame. (The frame was too wide and not well made.)  He said that he would "swap out" the print I wanted for the print I was holding, so we bought the colorful print of three houses that we wanted to put on our kitchen wall.

The fun, Key West bungalows add some color to our
large, blank kitchen wall.

Rick did some research and found that Michael's had frames for up to 70% off.  We went to Michael's and found the perfect white frame, normally $39.99, on sale for $12.00 + tax.  Such a deal!  We came home, framed the print, and it was hanging on the kitchen wall that night.

This morning we woke up and discussed the fact that neither of us thought that the copper and glass work that we ordered would be right for our master bathroom. I could not figure out yesterday why it bothered me, but last night I noticed that all of the fixtures in that room are brushed nickel, and I don't think that the copper would look right with it.

So this morning, before church, we went back to the Art Fair.  We purchased a second print of a bright pink house with a hammock and a flamingo from the same artist, and we tried to find the glass artist so we could cancel our order.  She was not there yet, and we had to get to church, so we left.

After church, we drove back to Michael's to buy another frame.  Of course, the 70% deal was off, and the same frame was now just 50% off.  We still got a good deal on the frame, so we took it.

When we returned home,  I e-mailed the glass artist, cancelling our order.  We are much happier with the two bright, new prints that we have.  They make me smile, and both prints and frames still cost us less money than the one copper piece would have in the end.

Our new print brings a bit of Key West
even into the master bathroom.

The art is fun, original, and funky. Gladys needed a little color in her life, and if something makes a person smile, then it is worth the time and effort to get it in the end.

Subtle Changes

Although our yard does not look much different to the casual observer, some small changes have taken place as we went about "cleaning up" our landscaping.

In the front, that just meant cleaning out weeds around the mailbox, pulling a few weeds from the main garden by the house, ripping out a patch of pretty-purpled-flowered-but-still-weeds vegetation from the center of the yard, and trimming the front bushes away from the sidewalk a bit. That whole venture filled less than a full contractor's garbage bag of yard waste.

The back yard was a bit more work.  My little corner garden is under our neighbors' camphor trees both to the north and to the east, so Rick blew out a huge bag full of leaves and sticks from that garden alone.  I am glad that we put down the heavier red river rock in our gardens because we can blow off the leaves and not scatter the rock.  From that garden I removed two nearly-dead bushes, and I trimmed back two tall Ti plants.  The great thing about Ti plants is that if you trim them back, they will send out new stems and grow.  I had cut down one last year, and it is about a foot tall already. You can just see the red leaves peeking out above the front plants in the picture below.

While the gardenia tree does well, I had to remove
the bushes in both front corners and cut down the
overgrown Ti plants in the back.

My back gardenia tree needed some trimming away from the fence, but it looks full and good this year, and it has been rewarding us with gardenia blossoms since we arrived.

I have little left of the center lemon-lime plants,
but they should grow back out with new shoots
and green-and-yellow foliage.

The garden in front of the Florida room windows needed some drastic measures.  I had planted lemon-lime plants, and they had all grown tall which meant that all of the foliage was at the top with just spindly stems underneath.  Since the lemon-lime are the same type of plant as the Ti plant, they too can be cut back and allowed to grow new stems.  Right now, they look a little sick, but I have hopes that they will reward me with new shoots in a couple of weeks. (If I remember to water them!)

The bougainvillea towers above my head as
it fills in the gaps on either side of the tree where
we had to stop the back yard fence.

The bougainvillea that I planted around the back tree a couple of years ago is doing well.  (It must have liked the hurricane!)  I had to cut back some of the taller  branches and cut off one branch that was invading my neighbor's yard, but the rest looks healthy and good.  I tied one branch back onto the trellis and was rewarded for my efforts by driving one of the many bougainvillea thorns into the flesh of my right thumb.  Wow! Those things really hurt.

I really should not complain since the thorns are one of the reasons I chose the bougainvillea.  A former neighbor had a nasty little dog that was always trying to come into our yard, so by putting up a trellis and planting the thorny plant, I have successfully stopped any creature larger than a snake from entering our yard through the gap in our back fence.  Right now we see green leaves, but I see small signs that the bougainvillea soon will have red brachts to make it festive for the holidays.

Work needs to be done to form a garden around the
arika palm in the back corner.  The palm itself
was protected from Hurricane Irma's winds and
did very well.

The arika  palm that we planted in the back corner of the yard survived the hurricane well also; however, once again I raked out an entire huge bag of leaves and debris from under it.  We want to add edger pavers around that palm and to put down landscape fabric with stone on top, but the edgers that we have elsewhere in the back yard are discontinued.  Sigh.  Why is it that if one finds stones... or shampoo... or a particular food... that one likes, the manufacturer just HAS to go about either changing ("improving") or discontinuing it?  Now we have to hunt for another type of edger that will complement the gardens we already have set in place in the back yard. The fun never ends.

We would like to add some weed and feed fertilizer to our front yard, but we are just getting into the dry season here, so we don't know if now is the right time to do so.  I also need to add some plants to the back corner garden under the gardenia tree, and we would like to add some vegetation on the south side of the house, too.  We'll do that both for color and to keep our landscape people from chipping all of the paint off the bottom of the house with their weed-wackers.

The gardens and yard will be our main focus this year now that the interior of the house is complete.  This transformation will not take place all in one year, both because Rick's hand is still healing and because landscaping can be very expensive.  As I figure out what I want to put back there and what we can afford, we will start to make Gladys beautiful again.

Sparkling Clean

We spent this morning completing our cleaning project by pressure washing the south and the west sides of the house.  Then Rick and I went back and washed all of the windows.  I wish the windows in my Wisconsin house were this clean! The house does look much better, so the result was well worth the effort. While he was finishing the cleaning, I hosed down the screens so our views are clear again.

Rick uses the pressure washer to clean off Hurricane Irma
debris from the house.

The job took us most of the morning; however, as I mentioned before, mornings are our time to work.  We also wanted to get out early to wash the south side of the house before the sun got too intense on that side of the house.

We have a mystery, though.  We have noticed that the gutters on the south side of the house have mold growing on them on the outside. Now I could understand that if this were to happen to the elements on the north side of the house, but we cannot understand why mold would grow on the sunny south side.  If anyone has an explanation, I would love to hear it!

With the house all washed, we now have the opportunity to spray for bugs tomorrow.  We always forget how many creepy-crawly creatures inhabit the south until we have not had the chance to spray the perimeter of the house to keep them at bay.

After Rick finished the house, we moved on to the fence.  I was in the garage when he walked in carrying the damaged fence board that I noticed yesterday.  OK.  Apparently the board came out of the frame much more easily than we had anticipated.  We dug out a replacement board that we had stored in the rafters of the garage, and within 15 minutes we had the entire fence section back together.  Success!  We were very fortunate that our only storm damage cost us nothing and took us less than a half hour to repair.  I guess constructing the fence "the Anderson way" paid off in the end, as did our earlier efforts to reconstruct this house as hurricane resistant as possible.

The Schwan's man came today for the first time.  He was very happy we were back in town as we had ordered a literal freezer-full of food.  We now have enough meals to last us for months!  (And Owen, the Silvermint bar I had tonight was delicious.)

My last task of today was repotting my plant in the pot on the front porch.  The pot originally held two plants, but one died, so I had to repot and center the remaining plant.  It survived the hurricane nestled in the corner of the porch, thanks to my neighbor's efforts to tuck it away out of the wind. So I guess now I am obligated to keep it alive for the winter.

Perhaps tomorrow we can visit the nursery to see if we can find some plants to put in on the south side of the house.  The inside is complete; now we need to buy Gladys some flowers to make her pretty again.

Home Again

The great thing about owning two homes that we have remodeled to our tastes is that no matter which direction we travel, we eventually are home again.

Our trip down to Gladys this year in the new car was blissfully uneventful.  We flew to Gladys in October to pick up the old Honda and drove it home for our trade in on the new car.  Why purchase new?  Well, when we bought the last Honda CRV, we did so in a hurry because Lindsay needed our old Toyota. The Honda did not have many of the features that we wanted, but it was acceptable at the time.  The following year (2015) Honda came out with a Touring model that had all of the features we really desired.  As I age, pulling down the hatchback in the back is becoming more difficult.  I never totally will regain the strength I once had.  The Touring model has a power left gate in back. It also has a great navigation system for my lousy sense of direction, and it is loaded with a gazillion new safety features.  For a mid-priced SUV, the 2017 Honda CRV- Touring is rated one of the most safe and most reliable models on the market.

Rick wanted an all-wheel-drive vehicle (in case we want to bring it back to Wisconsin someday), so we purchased the new car in Green Bay.  I won't go into the hassle that we encountered trying to get it licensed in Florida; let's just say that too many hours from too many people were spent trying to get everything legally in place. Thank God for a wonderful woman at the Florida DMV named Ashley! At this point, the car is ours, it is licensed, and we are safely in Florida.

We left Wisconsin on Friday at 4:00 a.m. and drove as far as Tennessee the first day.  A violent line of thunderstorms was making its way eastward through the Plains, so we wanted to try to beat the majority of the bad weather.  Saturday morning at 4:00 o'clock found us driving in pitch dark with dense fog through Nashville and the mountains of Tennessee.  Not my favorite way to travel!  We had fog all the way from Nashville to Atlanta, Georgia.  Then the sun finally came out and the day cleared.  We never really saw any of the rain that was still chasing us eastward. Rick wanted to save money by not stopping at our hotel in northern Florida, so from somewhere he found the energy to drive all the way to Gladys.

When we arrived at Gladys on Saturday, she was so excited to see us that she peed herself!  Sigh.  Yes, we discovered on the "first flush" of the season that the toilet in the main bathroom was leaking. Off to Home Depot we went to get a new wax ring.  Just what Rick wanted to do with his injured hand: pull up a toilet!  However, between the two of us, we were able to get the toilet out and to reseat it onto a new wax ring.  Rick was concerned that when we put it back down, he did not feel it "squish" down on the ring; however, it securely bolted down and has not leaked since that repair.

We did discover that cock roaches like to live in the drainage sewer system, so as soon as we get the whole house power-washed, the bug spray is coming out!

Hurricane Irma did not do hardly any damage to our house.  We know that is mostly because we have spent the last six years adding hurricane resistant doors, windows, garage doors, and roofing materials. We noticed that the westerly wind (which was reported at 100 mph) tried to force its way through the front doors, but they held.  Rick was able to reseat the doors in the frame, and we found no indication of water infiltration.  A quick walk-around showed no other damage to our house.

The back of the house now is clean, and the windows once again
let in the Florida sunshine.  Our bottle brush tree survives (although
not well) and the bushes next to the house need some attention.

The house is filthy due to all of the debris that was flying through the air, so today Rick power-washed the back and north side of the house, including the soffits.  Then we cleaned the windows and screens, and he took the leaves out of the gutters. The rain gutters actually changed color as he washed them!

I discovered a small hole in one of the fence
panels on the north side of our property.  We'll
try to replace that panel if we can get it out.

Only when I was washing the screens (which I had propped against our fence) did I notice our first indication of storm damage.  What I thought was a small leaf plastered onto the fence turned out to be a hole that obviously was made by a flying projectile -- either a stick or a stone.  The hole is less than the size of a quarter, but it is something that we will have to address.  We'll have to see if we can bend the fence posts enough to get the broken panel out and then slip a new panel into the same place.  Thankfully, Rick said that he found a panel stored in the garage, so that task awaits us another day.

We'll try to finish washing the south and west (front) sides of the house tomorrow.  The task goes fairly quickly with house wash and the power washer.  We have lots of windows in the front, but they all can be reached from the ground or from a small ladder, so by tomorrow we should have the house, soffits, windows, and screens completed.  This job is taking a toll on Rick's left hand -- on which he had surgery this summer for ruptured ligaments-- and on his left arm.  Perhaps I can get him to let me use the power washer for a while tomorrow...

Washing the fence will wait for another day.  We are back into our old routine of working in the cooler temperatures of the morning, and then realizing (or feeling) our age and resting in the afternoon.

A little bit at a time.  We are so thankful that Gladys came through the hurricane intact and that the small tasks which face us are totally within our realm of possibilities to complete.

Fall Fatigue

Ask anyone who lives in the upper Midwest, and they will tell you that this has been a very strange fall season.  We had temperatures in the 90's in September, balmy 70's last week, and a sudden cold snap -- but more seasonable temperatures -- this week.

Even Mother Nature is confused.  The trees did not turn the vivid golds and reds that we usually see in the fall.  Instead, we see more muted oranges, rusts, and browns this year.  The trees also are not dropping their leaves at the usual rates.  While our cottonwood tree, thankfully, has shed most of its foliage, most of the maple trees in the neighborhood are still fully in bloom.  They should be bare by now.  Our new little maple in front has not lost a leaf yet, and our Japanese lilac also retains all of its still-green foliage. Strangely, the first major blizzard of the year hit the Dakotas, Minnesota, and Upper Michigan yesterday.  Stephanie, in Rochester, MN, said they received their earliest snowfall on record, getting 2" of wet snow.

We had hoped since we are returning late to Florida that we would be able to get all of the fall clean-up finished and not have to pay someone to do a "final raking" of the yard before winter.  Since the birch trees in the back are just starting to drop their yellow leaves, we may have to pay yet this year.

In an attempt to get as much to the curb as possible, Rick and I worked all morning doing what we could to clean up the yard.  He used the leaf blower while I handled a rake.  Once we got all of the leaves to the front curb for pick-up next week, I took the lawn mower with a bagger and cut the whole lawn one last time.  I was surprised how long the grass still was in the front.  The backyard cutting was good just to pick up the remnants of the leaves that we were not able to capture on our raking spree.

Our raking and mowing efforts clearly define the boundaries of our yard.
Note, however, the leaves ready to blow back onto our property from the
neighbors' yards.

The result is a beautifully raked and mowed yard that, sadly, will not stay clean for long since our new neighbors to the north do not seem to understand the use of a lawn mower or a rake.  If the wind blows in the wrong direction, their mess will be in our yard.  Perhaps it is time to build that fence after all...

As we worked this morning, however, I became aware of two things.  First, I am getting older, so each year the yard seems to be larger than last year.  I can still handle it, but keeping it neat takes more effort than doing so has done in the past.

But that is OK, because the other thing I became aware of was how blessed we are to have a home and a yard in which to work.  So many people this year, due to hurricanes or fires, have no homes left.  Their yards are either mud pits as a result of flooding or are charred wastelands as the wildfires that consumed their homes also ravaged the yards.  At least I have green grass that needs cutting and standing trees that have golden leaves falling to the ground.  So I will not complain of the weather or of the work.  Instead, I will count my blessings and be thankful for everything I have.

Why?

I just don't understand.  We awoke this morning to learn that a lone gunman last night had killed 58 people and wounded over 500 by opening fire with semi-automatic weapons on a concert crowd in Los Vegas.   Then he turned the gun on himself and fired.

Mass casualties. The worst massacre in US history.  Not terrorist related. Just terrible, senseless death and destruction. But why?  To what end did killing and wounding all of those innocent strangers have?  Did he promote a cause? Was he angry at someone?  Why take out frustration and anger on those who had nothing to do with the causes and reasons for such hatred and anger? His actions destroyed lives and families, yet changed nothing.

The gunman was 64 years old with no history of mental illness.  The concert-goers were country western music fans, mostly between the ages of 10 and 35.  The worlds of the gunman and the concert-goes probably never crossed, yet we know that with his arsenal and his choice of hotel rooms from which he acted that he had planned this horrific crime in detail.

His family is stunned.  His brother says that he never has seen his brother even draw a weapon, and certainly not shoot one on a regular basis.  Yet the gunman was well-armed with several semi-automatic rifles and mountains of ammunition.  How has our country become so lax that we allow someone to accumulate such a store of weapons regardless of his mental or emotional state? Why is there no limit on what a person can buy within a certain period of time?  Why are there no checks on who can own weapons in this country? And why is there no registry on who does and does not own such weapons.

When our Constitution was written, it gave people the right to bear arms.  At the time, in the late 18th century, bearing arms had a very practical reason: to feed one's family.  With no handy-dandy corner grocery store with a well-stocked meat counter, going to out kill a deer, pheasant, turkey, buffalo, or bear was a way to survive.  Yet those hunters of yesteryear would never have dreamed of using a semi-automatic weapon to bag their prey; doing so would have destroyed the very meat they were trying to harvest.  People had the right to bear arms to feed themselves and to defend themselves against wild animals that may have freely roamed near their homesteads.

And I believe that people still should have the right to own a weapon with which they can hunt game, be that birds, bear, deer, or other animals they would choose to put on the dinner table.  I understand the reasoning behind keeping herd size in check, and I find nothing wrong with the sportsman who wants to hunt.

However, I see no sense in allowing anyone the right to own -- and to use -- semi-automatic weapons outside the realm of the military.  No-one needs a semi-automatic rifle at home.  No one needs a weapon that, through instructions readily available on the Internet, can be turned into a fully automatic weapon.  Law enforcement agencies decry the law that allows these weapons in the hands of the general public, and I see no reason why anyone would need one.  If you want to shoot targets, do so with a weapon that fires single shots and actually shows what skill you have. If you want to hunt, do so with a single-shot rifle specially suited with ammunition for the type of animal you seek. Semi-automatic weapons have no business in the sports field since their only purpose is that of mass destruction.

Had the gunman not had semi-automatic fire power, hundreds of people would not have been injured, and I would venture to guess that the death toll would be much less.  Allowing people these weapons makes no sense to me.  Nor does shooting randomly into a crowd of innocent strangers.  Their deaths serve no purpose and, sadly, probably will not cause any changes.

Perhaps the only good that could possibly come out of this tragedy is if enough people actually become enraged enough to contact their Legislators and to demand that the laws be changed to protect the innocent.  We need stronger gun laws that allow the sports hunter the right to bear arms while keeping weapons of mass killing off the streets and out of the hands of those who are not mentally or emotionally able to know right from wrong.

Yet I fear that nothing will be done.  We have the power to change what is wrong, yet no one will do so.  And that, I do not understand.

Good News on a Day of Mourning

Today is September 11, a day of perpetual mourning in America for all of the innocent lives we lost to senseless terrorist attacks 16 years ago.  It is a day of remembrance, and ceremonies across America commemorated those civilians lost and those brave first responders who gave their lives trying to help.

Yet today also was a day of good news for us.  We learned, first of all, that our nephew and his wife were safe, having lost just a few shingles from the roof of their house.  We learned that our church members and pastor and his family also were safe.  Apparently our aging church withstood the winds and the rains and came out intact.  Some of that is due to the fact that the storm, at the last minute, drifted east, sparing our area from the worst of the rains and the winds.  Some of that is due to the architecture of the church being low and having the buildings protect one another from the way they are configured.  And part of that is because people prayed for deliverance, and they were granted that grace.

We learned that our sister-in-law's sister, who fled Naples and drove north, was safe. The fate of her home is still unknown, but we know that she was out of harm's way when the winds and the water invaded her city.

We learned, thankfully, that the time and money we spent putting in hurricane resistant windows, doors, garage doors, and roofing materials paid us back in full.  We reportedly have no damage to our house, and even the vinyl fence (complete with its concreted-in posts) remains standing.  We are so relieved to hear that our home and property are intact.

Sadly, we also learned that our neighbor who has been watching our home for us did not fair as well.  She had a huge back porch with jalousy windows that worried her.  Thankfully, she took shelter with a neighbor to the north, only to return today to find that her porch was totally gone.  She said that she could not even find the pieces of it in the neighborhood.  When the porch blew off, it also took part of her roof on the house, so she had to scramble today to try to get tarps on the roof and across the back to protect the interior of her house.  We have not heard from her again, but I have thought of her often today and pray that she was about to secure her property.  If we had been there, we gladly would have helped her tarp the house to keep it safe.

Yesterday, Florida took the worst weather beating of the last 96 years, and recovery in some parts of it will take months.  Power is still out in over half the state; crews may need days if not weeks to get it all functional again.  No power is all right with us as long as the house stays enclosed.  With no one going in or out, the air conditioned, dry interior air will stay somewhat cool and dry, so we are not worried.  When power is restored, the air conditioner should start again with no trouble.

Now the healing begins.  Yes, we probably will get a $600 bill from our insurance company to help with the claims from people who have lost everything.  Somehow, that seems a small price to pay.  Our preparation was worth the time and expense to keep our property safe.  We are fortunate that we do not have to travel down to Florida to take care of downed trees or missing roofs. We are grateful that we did not lose any family members or friends.  We will stay here, out of the way for now, to let Rick's hand and our adopted state both begin the healing process.