Trees

We were 23 miles from dropping Peg at her cruise ship in Port Canaveral, when the truck’s “low fuel” indicator came on. We had 20 miles of gas left, on 528, in the middle of nowhere. Grant had forgotten to fill up when he went grocery shopping, and I didn’t think to check the gauge before we left.  Usually I cherish this last unbuilt area of Central Florida. Now, not so much.

Fortunately, with Google Map’s help, Peg found a set of gas stations just one exit south of the 528 and I95 intersection. We rolled into the BP with 3 miles to spare. Who needs cardio exercises when we can just scare our hearts into racing?

All good. We’d given ourselves plenty of time to have lunch at Grills before she left on her bluegrass cruise to the Bahamas. Grant and my trip back to Windermere was less eventful, and I certainly will be sure the truck is fueled up before we pick her up on Friday.

Saturday I volunteered at our ToW Tree Board’s annual tree giveaway, stationed where we actually load the trees in the cars. Always fun to put a 8’ tall oak in a 15 gallon pot into the back of a Prius. Fortunately, once again we had a set of cheerful teens, this year from Olympia High’s Key and Interact Clubs to do the lifting. I delegated everything to them, and just supervised. The trees are chosen with an 80% native; 20% not mixture. I support the bald and pond cypress, sand and live oaks, Simpson stopper, yaupon holly, saw palmetto, and Florida red maple. Not so much the brown turkey figs, mahogany and the sea grapes which people are using as a hedge! Definitely wished we didn’t have the purple tababuia, which provide absolutely nothing for our fauna and take a good tree’s space, but the public loves them. It just encourages more nonnative planting, but I can only whinge so much.

Thursday, I had watered all the trees, which involved dragging a really heavy hose around. It was especially difficult this year because the hose cart has gotten bent, and its handle caught at every turn. Perhaps someone stood on it as a ladder. It took Vickie and my pulling together just to unwind the hose. After watering the giveaway trees, we dragged the hose across the street to water the Arbor Day tree, a pond cypress, the Windermere Garden Club had planted the day before. Of course, the hose wasn’t long enough, so we got an additional one from the TB trailer. Done, we coiled up the several hundred feet of hose, hoisted it all into the back of my truck, and returned it to the trailer. Thank goodness Vickie is a mere 65 and still strong. I certainly couldn’t have lifted all that by myself.