12 Oakdale

The first day of our seventh year at 12 Oakdale Street. I hope this will be similar to the previous ones, with no surprises. At our age, surprises are rarely good. I will keep on shedding stuff, being optimistic about how much I will accomplish. I also continue shedding weight, since some crept back, definitely no surprise. Baking and eating sourdough bread has consequences. Will this year be when I get rid of all the grass paths? Sure, why not? Could happen. The freeze gave me an opportunity to rethink some of the plantings I’ve done. I will continue adding to my hedgerows on the north and especially south property lines. Since the lychee died back, I’m moving more bananas along the canal. Eventually that 2-story house will be built across from us. Grant is slowing down, although he is still doing his 2 mile, somewhat daily walks. I use a lot of my energy being patient (that’s definitely ironic). Sometimes I’m successful, often I’m not. A growth edge it would behoove me to work on. Bi...

We were supposed to be meeting Mary and family in Raleigh this week. Ryan would take his anesthesiology board exam, we would celebrate Mary’s birthday, we would visit Trish. Three birds; 1 stone. Until our dear leader started his war. Ryan was tapped, as they say, February 24th to fly out with other Navy medical personal to set up a field hospital god knows where. Back in a month, or 7, or whenever. To add excitement, before he left, they called us: Mary is due mid-October. That explains the extra level of emotion. I have spent much of the last month on video calls with Mary and pouring over the war news. If there will be no boots on the ground, why, and where, are we setting up field hospitals? Plus I’ve wasted my time emailing my senators. I am so far behind on what I am supposed to be doing. Bottom line, I opted to stay home this week, sending Grant on a solo trip to see his sister. Just his getting on the plane was worrisome, because our TSA agents are not being paid because our in...

I knew eventually it would happen: my work pants finally wore so thin that a split across the thigh area appeared. Bought many years ago at Bass Pro Shops, these were my least favored pair because the zipper didn’t stay up and the pocket arrangement was meh. My favorite ones went on the 2019 Moroccan trip, lost when my suitcase disappeared between Madrid and Rabat.  But good enough pants for working in the yard. Into the trash, and another pair demoted (promoted?) to daily use in the garden, sprayed with bug spray when the mosquitoes get too annoying, washed periodically. I am keeping up with fertilizing by using the weakly, weekly, actually mostly biweekly, method, starting with the powdered mix, except for the strawberries. Those get 1/2 teaspoon tucked into their pockets on the plant stand. So far, only the white ones are producing. Flowers on the red ones give me hope. The papayas are flourishing, and the Roma tomatoes are growing well, with little flowers appearing last week. ...

I’d blame it on the weather which is at the crispy-dry, hotter than blazes, right before the rains start stage, but that’s just part of why I’m so tired, the past week, it has been in the low 90’s by midday. No matter how much water I drink, I’m dehydrated after working in the yard. I’ll get adjusted, but not quite yet.  I did harvest my potatoes, which consisted of lifting up the boxes whose bottoms fell off and running my hands through the dirt. Not a great haul, but they are absolutely delicious. I’ll grow them again next but not in boxes which were difficult to keep watered. Maybe in the ground. Another reason I'm tired is all the house chores falling to me. Even if I’m not actually working on them, they have taken up residence in my brain. The dang toilet seat still isn’t attached. The house is dirty, so I guess I’ll have to find and hire cleaners. I need to get estimates to have the non-blooming magnolia taken down, plus other tree trimming. We got a letter from the IRS sayin...

I have been enjoying eating from my garden. Tomato’s: heritage Cherokee and Floridana, Big Boys and Romas. They had small brown worms at first, but eventually either I picked them off, or they matured into butterflies/moths. It stopped being a problem. Every day I have been cutting up a tomato and eating it with salt, pepper, and a little olive oil as a mid morning snack. Three huge papayas have ripened on the 2 Red Queen trees over by the white fence. (Note Chapstick for scale in photo.) Absolutely delicious. The trees were expensive. So I’m going to try to grow more from seeds.  The leeks are doing okay, but need more light. Onions should have been thinned; we are eating them as spring onions. Carrots also needed thinning. We are eating them as minis.  The strawberries are meh. One blueberry plant is dying, another lost most of its berries in a hard rain, the 3rd is now producing enough for me to have a handful on my cereal each morning. Yesterday I saw a mal...

I was a zone leader again this year for Spring Fever, Bloom and Grow Garden Society’s huge fund raiser. My cohorts and I arrive at 5:45 AM, so vendors can begin offloading and setting up from 6:00-7:00. Last year, we were freezing. This year it was 76° to start and got hotter. My SF t-shirt and high-viz vest were more than enough. Technically opening at 9:00, by 8:00 a lot of the vendors were ready to sell, and customers were there to buy. I cruised all the booths along Plant Street, talking to the several native plant sellers, a vendor with carnivorous plants, and the artist from whom I’d bought a piece last year. I liked the ceramic orchid pots at one booth. Nothing for me today, although the $85 cat sculpture did call to me. Perhaps I’ll grab something when I come back Sunday when I oversee my zone’s closing. Other people were filling their carts, wagons, and pet strollers with plants, mostly the pretty flowering ones. The last 17 days, since Grant’s fall, have stressed me...

I am fairly worn, and it’s only been 3 days of minion duty. In addition to my usual household duties, I’ve cooked, loaded and offloaded dishwasher, changed the sheets, done the laundry, cleaned the kitty litter, and put the garbage out. First time in years. I’ve also helped Grant with compression socks (my sitting on floor to do so), changed his clothes, climbed over the couch to set up heating pad, etc. No complaints, glad to be able to do all this. Just more than I’m used to. He can hobble with the walker from bedroom to living room to office. Fortunately, March Madness has started, with UF ranked #1. Much, much basketball to keep him occupied. On the upside, since I’m not going anywhere, I have worked hard in the yard. I moved the 2 small pines,  perhaps long leaf ( Pinus palustris ?), that volunteered to grow exactly under the power lines in our central front bed. After reading about how to dig them up and hoping they hadn’t developed a long taproot, I dug around their trunks a...

 I am attempting to grow potatoes in boxes, an idea from YouTube. Cost: $2.20 of white seed potatoes from Winter Garden Feed.  January 29th  I’d cut several potatoes in half, so I will have enough pieces to place them 6” apart in my 5 boxes. Then I let them dry to get a hard edge which might avoid any fungus or other disease.  January 31st:  I put several inches of leaves (Japanese blueberry tree, Elaeocarpus decipiens  ) in the bottom of each box, then 4-5” of my homemade compost. I watered that, added my potatoes, and covered them with more compost. Watered again.

CC came Monday this week to finish digging out the torpedo grass that has taken over part of my front flower bed. I had culverted a big area of swamp twinflower (Dyschoriste humistrata), but while we were away, the grass covered and killed it. Nothing to be done but start over. While she dug, I cut back salvias to encourage new growth. We began hearing the beep, beep, beep of heavy equipment backing up. The house across the canal was being torn down. Diane, the previous owner, sold when she couldn’t get a variance to put in a pool closer to the canal than current regulations allow. Assuming the new house will be the usual 2-story, I wonder if the new owner will figure how to fit in a pool. Much speculation among the neighbors.  Wednesday, we sat over at the Orange County courthouse all day while Stephanie spent more time and money getting divorced. I wasn’t allowed in the courtroom because I was a potential witness about how we had bought her house and who paid what. I was never ca...

I finally had the courage to trim our 3 blackberry bushes. After reading and watching YouTube, I hope I’ve cut back the spent flora canes and left new primo canes to bloom and bear fruit next year. Unless I did it wrong, and we have to wait a whole year. Or if I’ve waited too late in the year. Florida’s growing schedule is so different from the rest of the country. In any case, they are trimmed and tied to their supports. I used the Trellised Production Using Primocane Suppression, TPUPS, system which keeps only 2 primocanes. The volunteer blackberry bushes that sprang up , from roots we didn’t dig out are also tied up. I trimmed off lower leaves (one YouTuber talked a lot about a disease that starts on lower leaves), assuming that all of them were primo canes. They and the bananas will have to work out who owns the area. I used the Florida system for the Roma tomatoes, stringing jute twine back and forth between 3 7’ stakes. The middle plant doesn’t look particularly good. If it doesn...

It has begun to cool in the evenings. Each morning, I open the bedroom and dining room doors, then put up the living room window so Gracie can enjoy looking out. When I hear the AC turn on, I close up the house. Today, the AC never started up. It was 70° outside when we went to bed. It’s Fall. Tuesday, CC and I weeded around the tomato ring. Wednesday, I planted 3 Big Boys, 1 heritage Purple Cherokee, and 1 Florinada around it. At least that’s what I think I planted. All of my labels were faded. I’d started the seeds in pots before we went to New Zealand, and I had anticipated coming home to lush plants. Didn’t happen. After 3 weeks of solid rain, I’d had Steph turn off the mist system. The next 3 weeks were bone dry. I came home to almost bare sticks. Crossing my fingers and planting the little tomatoes deep, I hope we will have some fruit this year. I cobbled together an anti-bunny fence of screen held up with bamboo stakes around the ring. I don’t know if bunnies eat tomatoes, but s...

It was cloudy and rainy here most of Wednesday. Our red shouldered hawk was stoic. Hurricane Milton came ashore 8:30 at Siesta Key as a category 3 with winds of 120 mph, then crossed the state below Orlando, exiting into the Atlantic early Thursday morning with winds down to 85 mph. Still a hurricane, but the tornadoes on its front edge seem to have particularly deadly. For us, it meant we got winds from the southeast that pushed rain under our garage door. We mopped and put down towels for a while. I realized we could run them through the washer’s spin cycle to get them ready to sop up more water. Much easier than trying to wring by hand. After doing it for a couple hours, and the water not getting more than about 3’ into the garage, I’d had enough. We made sure everything was up on shelves and called it a night. I read until about 1:30 AM; Grant played his computer game until 2:30. I prefer hurricanes that come during the day like Irma, so I can watch what is happening. I tried using...

The house is infested with miniature flamingos, peeking out hither and yon. I am still finding them: in the freezer, among my potted plants, on the workbench. It makes me so happy when I see one. Thank you, flamingo fairies, who I assume are Clara and Stephanie. Our flights from Sydney to Orlando via Las Angela’s were easy, and the app I followed to avoid jet lag seems to have worked. But I am tired, tired, tired. No matter. I had signed up for the Nation Garden Clubs’ Garden School 1, so I was up at 5:00 AM Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday to be ready for class via Zoom at 8:00.  Lectures on basic botany, planting with annuals and perennials, and soil composition; a workshop on propagation; and what not to do in your garden (20 rules). All taught by professors or professionals. Starting on time, and ending with a test each day at noon. I passed.  I did fall asleep during the Tuesday session, but only brief nodding off. We had to keep our videos on the whole time so they knew we...

3 1/4” was the final tally on the rain yesterday. Tuesday, we got 1 1/4”. The yard and frogs are happy. Of the later, I saw a little thumbnail sized one this morning when I went outside to check the rain gauge. Yesterday, when I did my daily early morning inspection walk around the pool, Grace was watching what I would call a garden toad jump in the same place against the pool screen, over and over and over. It was still fruitlessly hopping there when I came back with a plastic box to capture it for its ride to the outside and freedom. Gracie wandered off. I have been working like crazy to get the yard as ready as I can for the 6 weeks we will neglect it while we are in New Zealand. I’m having CC come every Tuesday to help me. I’m trying to figure out what I can have her do while I’m gone. She loves to deadhead salvias. I want torpedo grass dug out. A management problem. Grant has been assigned to Roundup the edge of all the beds every Friday. That is making it easier for us to spend t...

Tuesday, we took the red eye back from San Diego, however because we flew Delta, it wasn’t a direct flight. We stopped in Atlanta at 4:45 AM, waited 2 hours, then flew home. Not only was my normal 6 hours of airplane sleep interrupted, but ironies of ironies, I’d paid for first class seats, and I couldn’t get comfortable. Too wide to learn against the window. At least I had the blanket to cuddle up in. I’m rethinking if the extra dollars are worth it.  We arrived at our doorstep at 10:00, exactly when I was supposed to call Steph’s attorney to answer questions about what I was going to say about our buying the house with her. I dialed the number as soon as I turned the ignition off, only to be told he would call me back after he finished his current call. I had figured that would happen, but didn’t want to take a chance. After wasting more of her money chatting with him for about a half and hour, he mentioned the trial, scheduled for Wednesday, our wedding anniversary, might be can...

 We bought 2 bananas (. ) and two Red Lady papayas which have “perfect” flowers so we don’t need a male and a female tree in order to have fruit. Since one of the loquat trees, known here in central Florida as Chinese plums, was tipping over more and more, I had Grant cut it down to make way for the papayas. Of course, the sprinkler just barely kisses the easternmost one, so I’ll have Cooper adjust the sprinkler head the next time he comes. In the meantime, we are watering it every day with the hose. Please let the rains start soon. The banana was planted over near the boathouse to replace the one I’d gotten from Spaulding which never grew. This is another place the sprinkler is iffy since I’ve grown tall rosinweed in its path. Another plant we are watering with a hose until Cooper comes to raise the sprinkler head. We planted the last banana just at the edge on the southwest corner, next to the canal. That one, at least, doesn’t need to be watered with a hose, but what the heck, w...

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...

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...

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 hundre...

With Gracie’s help, I’ve finished the wool neck scarf I started a while ago. I’d ordered the kit from Mountain Meadow Wool Mill in Johnson County, Wyoming, a place we visited when we took Clara to Yellowstone. They buy wool from the local ranchers, trying to keep that industry alive. They also buy wool from university herds, then weave blankets in school colors. The alums love it.  I checked, but University of Florida’s sheep are grown for meat, so no blankets from them. Not surprisingly, University of Miami and Georgia Tech don’t teach agricultural so no sheep. Besides, I have no use for this warm scarf I’ve knitted, much less a heavy wool blanket. Now I’ve started a baby blanket in a washable wool for Molly and Spaulding’s baby, due late November. They are coming in mid-September for a baby shower, so I have an earlier deadline. The pattern isn’t as complicated as the scarf, however there are a lot more stitches. Only 1 more stage of the Tour de France to knit through, but the To...