12 Oakdale

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 th...

Dang, it’s hot. Yesterday, our thermometer sensor on the boathouse got to 99°. And not a cloud in the sky. I’ve restarted sprinkling every morning, but the plants don’t seem to notice. By 7:30-8:00, I’m out working in the yard and quit at 10:00. My clothes are soaked, not just sweated on. When I take off my shirt, it’s so wet, it seems like it just came out of the washing machine. Even my belt is wet.  I’ve given up on the vegetable garden. There are 2 eggplants left, and I don’t see any more forming. The okra gave up after producing a couple of pods. The one bright spot is my southern peas, which our resident marsh hare has been eating. A couple of days ago, Grant restrung the monofilament lines to create bunny-proof fencing. The peas are coming back, so perhaps it’s working. Or the rabbit doesn’t like that I’ve cleaned out the huge patch of Spanish needle (Bidens alba)  that was its cover right next to my garden. Question: why don’t marsh hares eat that? It’s a native, alway...

Our third year anniversary at our little house in Windermere. Not as far along as I’d hoped in my quest for no grass, but progress, progress. The vegetable beds are in good order, with my summer veggies all in and coconut coir mulch on top. I have ordered new living room furniture and 4 dining chairs, from Ethan Alan at an exorbitant price, so that part is done. Replacing the decking for the boat house had begun, with all the old wood taken off. The contractor claims this is a small job for him, so I’m going to squeeze him to finish in early June. I’m almost ready to paint in the living room and guest bathroom. I’ve kept up with my resolution to get caught up with my magazines by reading an article or two every morning. Currently, I have only the latest National Geographic and a 2022 Summer Audubon in my stack. A pat on my back for sure. I am considering substituting doing a lesson from one of the Cornell Bird Lab courses I’ve bought, when I don’t have any magazines to read,  It wo...

Peg and Bob really enjoyed bluegrass music, going to festivals and even paying for SiriusXM radio* so they could listen to it at their house and while driving. When the Withlacoochee Bluegrass Festival came up, I said I’d be her Plus 1. Peg warned me she went to all the acts all three days, but I assured her I was up for it. And we did.  Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, from noon to 9:00 PM, we were in our reserved spots (Row G, #11 & #12, BYO Chair) under the big pole barn, listening to amazing players and singers. Of course, I knew none of the bands, but Peg did. She also knew the songs, and one, “Tall Weeds and Rust”, is her current favorite. To my surprise, the tunes were originals, not just covers of the old Lester Flatts and Earl Scruggs songs. Peg said it is called “newgrass”. With a couple exceptions, the bands were fiddle, banjo, mandolin, upright bass and guitar. Two or three members sang, and most everyone could play all the instruments. I guess to artists at this lev...

 

It wasn’t a white Christmas like in most of the rest of the country, but it was dang cold. Three nights in the 30s this weekend. Something seemed odd when I brought in my orchids, then I realized there were no lizards jumping around inside like always happened in South Florida. I’m still not quite used to living here. Per tradition, we started the day with oyster stew. Annie and Grace each got a tablespoon of broth, which they lapped right up, or would that be right down? Afterwards, both took long baths, then withdrew to their respective sleeping areas. Neither are interested in going to their kitty litter boxes on the porch. Several times we pitched them out our bedroom door, and each time, they raced over to their cat door and come right back in. One time, Annie stopped for a peek into the little cave I made William by hanging a towel to cover the doorway of his shelter. She’s too big to get all the way in, so she hustled on. I am pleased that the heating pad in the roof of his area...

I got up at 6:00, later than normal, since I’d stayed up to midnight watching the Florida vs FSU football game, where the teams traded scores back and forth, until the last seconds when UF couldn’t make their  touchdown to tie the game into overtime. Final score: FSU 45, UF 38.  Following my routine, I went pee, then used my headlamp on red to check the scale. 163 lbs, meh. Walking back to bed in the dark, I stepped on something cold and wet. I had done this several months ago, when Gracie had encouraged a Cuban tree frog into the bedroom. *  Both times, it was right under my arch, so no damage other than to my heart. I turned on my lamp, again to red, and tried to locate the dang thing. Gracie helped by playing with the light like laser tag. Not finding it, I turned the light to white, and there it lay, not moving. Because it was a piece of chicken skin. I threw it in the toilet. When he got up, Grant admitted he’d given the cats a treat, but he swore he put it in their...

I am so dang tired of hurting. My shoulders, my hands, my butt. Enough already. I know this too shall pass, patience is a virtue, blah, blah, blah. On the other hand, I am making progress against the weeds. I’ve finished with the front plot to the north of the driveway, only getting bitten by fire ants once, when I foolishly stepped in just to cut out another maypop vine. Only took about 3 seconds, but long enough for ants to attack. I was wearing flip flops. By the time I’d flung them off, 5 ants managed to bite me in a line up the top of my foot. One little bugger got me between my toes. Obviously, no, I will never learn. The weeds did get a break when I took Friday morning off so Grant and I could attend a Canine Companion doggie graduation where friends and eight other people got their new service dog. The dogs had had 6 months of intense training at a beautiful campus just 20 minutes north of us in Calcona. Our friends spent 2 weeks there being trained to know how to use all that ...

Figuring we would be exhausted after packing the car for our drive north, we cleverly decided to do that a couple of days before, so we had a day to rest up. Pretty dang clever of us. The next day, having hung our final laundry on the line, Grant got a call. I could hear a son on the other end of the conversation explaining he’d come down with Covid. I knew it wasn’t Patten because he’d tested positive last week after attending a Miami Heat basketball game. Spent all week at home, symptom free. Sounded like Spaulding. I thought at least he and Molly were able to go on their hike at the Grand Canyon last weekend. Starting at 5:30 AM on the North Rim, they hiked with four friends down in and across, coming up out the South Rim by 8:30 that evening. He said it was so hot that they laid for an hour in the Colorado River at the bottom to cool off.  Nope, it was Jamey, with whom we planned to spend the weekend with on our way north. He’d started feeling lousy Sunday evening but fortunate...

I went out to get the paper this morning, and when I turned to go back to the house, Gracie was standing on the front porch. I scooped her up and tossed her inside. Wait, Gracie was inside. This is another cat, obviously from the same litter. A little bigger, perhaps because he’s a male, but just as friendly as Gracie. Is someone throwing  them out one at a time? Annie is disgusted. We are absolutely not keeping 2 new cats. The no-kill shelters aren’t taking new cats, so I guess he’s going to the Orange County Animal Shelter. Why won’t people take care of their pets? In the meantime, all three cats are roaming the house having trouble getting settled. First it was the lawn guys with their mowers and leaf blowers. Now it’s Terry replacing the 5, yes, 5 panels of screens that blew in during a windstorm a couple of weeks ago. He also reattached a piece of frame that had come unscrewed which he hopes will keep the whole huge screen house from being so wobbly. Dang, I hope so. I shudder...

As soon as the pounding started, Annie went to ground under the guest bed and hasn’t been seen since. Gracie (yes, the new kitten now has a name) roamed around, finally going to sleep under one of the rattan swivel chairs I retrieved when my stepmom Marcella died. They were Mom’s, and Betsy would like to have them. Since it’s extremely unlikely anyone is going to ship them to her in New Zealand, they are my living room chairs.  Our roofer had warned us all the scrapping and hammering would be loud, but I didn’t understand it would be relentless until the workers finished. I escaped to a Tree Board meeting, where we voted to buy the services of a company who will use LiDAR (3-D laser scanning) to inventory every tree in the Town of Windermere. I had suggested we do this, but previous inventories had been on foot and extremely expensive. Tonya, head of town maintenance, found a European company that wants to get a toehold in the US market and would give us such a deal. Well done! We ...

  I’ve always said I can’t afford a free cat, or even a free dog, for that matter. But what were we to do when we got home from camping, and a young cat began entwining itself around our legs as we tried to offload our truck? Purring, friendly, and almost tripping us, it scooted in the house every time we opened the door. Annie was not impressed. Plus, the temperature was predicted to drop to freezing that night. I took its picture and posted a “found” notice on NextDoor. We decided to let it sleep in the garage, with the door just barely open so it could leave and find its way home. Just in case it were hungry, I gave it a scoop of cat food and a bowl of water. The next morning, my NextDoor notice had several “likes” (?), but no one was missing a cat. This is not a feral kitty. It loves people and expects to be petted and picked up. Annie is still not impressed, even when the kitten hisses at her. We decided to buy flea medicine for both cats and move the wool cat bed which Annie ...