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Year End Deadline

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I am in a dither getting our house and yard in order before we go to Michigan and Ohio for a 10-day birding trip. The weather here is between spring and summer. The mid- day temperatures are getting to low-mid 90s with promises of  30% precipitation that doesn’t happen. Everything is dry and crispy. I’m running the front yard sprinklers everyday, using 2 programs on the timer so I can easily turn one off when the rains finally start. We are supposed to be on twice a week watering, however I have a few new plants who need help getting started, especially my fairy hibiscus (Hibiscus poeppigii) I planted under the oak and tiny gaillardias (Gaillardia grandiflora )  over in the bright sun. Were I to be home, I’d just throw a bucket of water on them each morning. We’ve started turning the AC during late afternoon and night. It’s still cool enough to open the house until about noon, but that’s about over. Until then, Gracie enjoys looking out the living room window, unfazed when the squirre
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A Month of Garden Club

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April seemed to be all garden club, all the time. I started with the zone leader’ walkthrough for Spring Fever on Friday, the 5th, then 2 whole days of that event. Whew. April 11th was the Windermere Garden Club’s monthly meeting, a field trip to Southern Hill Farm, a you-pick and wholesale blueberry farm. We were inspire to add blueberries to our garden. Friday, April 12th, I was the speaker at Bloom and Grow’s monthly luncheon, touting the value of becoming a citizen scientist, specifically, downloading the iNaturalist app and participating in the City Nature Challenge 2024: Orange County. I was pleased with my talk, the first one I’ve given in person in 5 years. I still attend EarlyBird Toastmasters, but we’ve been on Zoom since early 2020. Before that, we’d moved to Key Biscayne for a year, and I didn’t drive up to Fort Lauderdale often. On the 21st, we toured Jeanne’s almost-all native, completely grassless yard, a B&G social with the mandatory wine and lovely appetizers and d
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Quick Trip to DC

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Amazing how difficult it was to find empty time on all of our calendars to be able to schedule a visit to see Jamey and April. I decided short was better than none, so we flew up Sunday morning and returned Tuesday afternoon. As an experiment, I bought Main Cabin tickets rather than Comfort + for our 2 hour Delta flight. Yes, we do need those extra 3”.  The theme of the trip turned out to be Art and Exercise. Jamey and April met us at the airport. They live .3 miles from a Metro station. I had brought our refillable cards I’d stashed after our last visit, so we added money at the airport, rode 2 stops and walked to their Alexandria townhouse.Their 4-story townhouse. We left our suitcase*, then walked to lunch at a wine bar in Georgetown, then a walk through the colonial section, admiring all the wonderfully maintained old homes. It’s spring in Washington. The azaleas, clematis, and other flowers are at their peak. We rested back at the townhouse (stairs), then a short walk to dinner in
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Feeling Better + Blueberries

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I can blame some of it on the rotten colds we brought back from California. We were coughing and wheezing for a week, then bone-tired for another. So I’m sure a lot of our crabbiness was due to feeling lousy. Some. However, more than half was from my gradually loosing my ability to be patient, and Grant’s increasingly being annoying. Or perhaps he hasn’t changed, and I’ve just lost way more patience than I’d thought. Plus, I’m feeling so isolated and lonely, which is realistic, because I am isolated and lonely. After living in Central Florida almost 4 years, we are making no friends, barely any acquaintances, and I’m discouraged about that ever happening. This is an insulated community. Nice people, but people who have lived here all their lives. People whose children and grandchildren live here. They have their tribes. In any case, a knockdown drag-out fight after what one would consider a small snippy exchange, but what was probably a cover for all the pent up emotions we both have b
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Out, In, Near Misses, Ties

 A list of what I moved out of our house; stuff I let in; the things I considered, fondled, thought about, yet didn’t allow to join our household, at least so far; and items replaced. OUT: 01/5: Returned Trtl travel pillow to Amazon. Just didn’t quite fit, and why do I need something I’ll likely leave on an airplane like all the others I’ve bought? I sleep just fine without it. $51.11 back. 01/6: Christmas decorations. Although they are in cardboard boxes sitting on shelves in the garage for donation in October, I culled a whole big tote of decorations we haven’t used since we left Fort Lauderdale. 01/7: Red exercise bands left from PT that have sat, unused, on my nightstand for a year. To the trash. I’ll get new if ever needed. 01/23: Returned small messenger bag. Cute, however I couldn’t get my hand easily into the zippered opening. $89.90-$6 USPS return shipping. 01/28: Eight IKEA chairs out of our garage to Stephanie’s. New Year’s Eve tiara missing the “New”, found when we lived on
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Sunflowers

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The Windermere Garden Club organized a field trip to Southern Hill Farms in Clermont. For $10, we would get our choice of a sunflower or vase of nasturtiums, a farm tour, and a blueberry mimosa or soda. Sounded like an opportunity to get to know club members while visiting a you-pick blueberry farm, plus have a fun drink. I signed Grant and me up. We dropped Clara at school and headed west. Rain threatened, but was supposed to hold off until afternoon. I’d brought my rain jacket just in case. Lake County is rolling sand hills, I think scrub oak areas originally. Almost all of the citrus is gone, replaced by blueberry farms and, increasingly, housing. Barely a tree in sight. Which means the winds came screaming down the plains. Good thing I’d brought my jacket, since it was fairly cool. Dang, I left my jacket at home.  In addition to picking blueberries, visitors can pick vegetables, strawberries, and flowers. There is a huge pole barn with food trucks and seating for several hundred. P
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Eclipse

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I had saved 1 pair of eclipse viewing glasses from our trip to Seattle in 2017, and I knew where they were, so at 2:30 I walked out to see how the eclipse was progressing. We were in a 57% coverage area, and amazingly, our skies were clear.  For a few minutes a couple of months ago, I had considered flying to Texas to be in the path of totality, but we seem to be so busy that even a short trip was more than I could add to the calendar. Now I was glad I hadn’t bothered to arrange one. We’d seen the total eclipse 6 years ago, and while interesting, I wasn’t overwhelmed. I had been amazed how even the tree leaves’ shadows showed the moon moving across the sun.  This time, standing in our road with Grant and our neighbor, we watched the leaves make the eclipse shadows again. It was fun showing the 3 little girls who love across the street how they could look down to see the sun’s effect. I taught them to cross their fingers to make shadows too. The school aged ones had been given glasses,
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