More Pool Stuff

The next day the Gunite was hard as a rock. Bob the Builder's guys backfilled the dirt they had dug out all around the pool and vibrated it to make it solid.

No sooner than they finished compacting they started to dig it out again to lay in pipes.

 
Sure was a lot of pipes.

They did an overnight pressure test and then filled it all back in again.

Sure looks impressive.

Dug out the dirt again. This time to make a space for the outside wall and room for the forms.

They were expecting rain so they covered everything that might wash away with plastic - it didn't.

The county inspector has to come and check everything next but it's moving along.

We'll be swimming soon

A little over a year ago I gave Elite Pools a deposit on an in-ground pool. Bob Smith (owner of Elite Pools - we call him Bob the Builder) said it wouldn't take more than 3 weeks to complete it so we'd have it before Christmas. When he went to get the permit, the problems started. First we had to move the location of the pool in relation to the house but after a couple of tries, that problem was resolved. Most of our lot is in a flood way - that's different from being in a flood plane. Most of Florida is in a flood plane but a flood way designation is much tougher. It was established by FEMA about 8 years ago. The flood way is the area where the 100 year flood will drain off the land and out to sea. If you build something in the flood way, they don't want that structure to raise the flood water level and thus back up the water and make it deeper. The structure can't raise the flood water level by more than 1/8".

In my case there are drainage ditches on two of my borders. To find out how much I'd raise the flood water level, I had to have a topographical survey done on my lot and a civil engineer (whom I hired) had to run a series of computer programs to get the answer. This was the first time the civil engineer I hired did something like this and he had some problems running the computer programs. When he finally got an answer the county building inspector told him he had to submit it to FEMA to get approval. He finally found someone in FEMA to send it to. They took a month to respond and told him they don't handle small stuff like someone's swimming pool, they only review big commercial stuff, and he should submit it to the Hillsborough County office for approval. He then took it back to the county office which took another month to review it and finally at the end of September they approved it and this October they gave Bob the Builder a permit to build the pool. By the calculations  the pool would raise the flood water level by 0.001".

So on Monday of this week, they brought equipment in and dug the hole for the pool. It was early in the morning, you can still see the outside light on in the background

Hole is dug and they start hanging the cement backer (yellowish looking paper) unto which the Gunite will be sprayed. In front of that they tie in the reinforcing rod for the pool walls.

Here's the completed pool wall with seats shaped and drain lines in place.

Then they start spraying the Gunite.

It is coming from a truck which holds a dry cement mix. Water is added in the mixer just behind the truck and pumped via a hose to the pool.

As the guy sprays it on another starts leveling it out. There is a wire stretched along the top of the frames so the guy leveling the gunite also gets it in a straight line.

They sprayed and leveled until they got the whole thing done. The tarp on the left hand side is to protect the house from overspray.

They didn't start until 2 PM so when it got dark I switched on all my outside lights - they didn't finish until 8 that night. It was too dark to take a picture so this one is from the next morning.

You can see a slight imperfection near the bottom of the pool on the right hand side. It's called a slump and occurs if too much water was mixed in. They'll fix it when everything is dried up hard. I will have another progress report in a few days.

A Sunny Jungle

Not to dwell on how much everything in Florida can grow over one summer but look at this beautiful Live Oak Shrub.

Oh, I guess it isn't a shrub, it's just the new sprouts that grew out of the Live Oak Tree that I cut down last winter (It was too near to the planned swimming pool). Yea, all that grew up over one summer.

And before all the snow melts up North, we just wanted to let you know the water in Florida is just fine.

But I should check the tide schedule before I decide to go for a swim.

It's a jungle out there!

Florida had a great growing season this year. It rained a lot and when it wasn't raining it was warm and sunny. We left in April so the weeds had a good 6 months to grow and did they grow.


You could hardly see the front of the house - some are 6 feet high.















The side yard wasn't much better.













We pulled a lot of weeds.




Now to top all this off, when I clicked the garage door opener, nothing happened. Luckily I also had a front door key with me and I got into the house that way. The problem was no electric power. So I went to the fuse box but nothing was tripped. Looked at the electric meter outside and it was blank. Called the power company and they sent a guy out. The fuse at the house transformer was blown, the guy said it was probably a lighting strike and quickly changed it and restored power. Small world - the guy was from Waterford, CT. Polly's son was 2 years behind him in Waterford High School.

Winter in Florida

Wow - we just made it - We left on Friday and got down here on Saturday just in time to watch in state of Connecticut get clobbered by a snow storm. It was 83 when we got down here - I had to put the air conditioning on - OK, I guess I rubbed it in enough.

As I said we left on Friday so to get through NYC, we got up at 3 AM and were on the road by 3:30. Zipped right through NYC at 6:30 in the morning but if we stayed on route 95 we would be going through Baltimore and Philadelphia at their rush hour. To avoid this and to see something new, we went around the big cities by taking the shore route and the Cheaspeake Bay Bridge and Tunnel. It cuts through the countryside of Delaware and Maryland and then connects into Virgina by a 21 mile bridge with two tunnels as it crosses the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay.





 This is the bridge part.










 And here is the tunnel.





It added about an hour to the trip but I'm sure I would have lost more than that in rush hour traffic of Baltimore and Philly.


We overnighted in South Carolina and were home in Wimauma by 2 PM on Saturday.

Good Bye Flowers

Well tomorrow we head North, leaving the late spring of Florida for the early spring of Connecticut. It's been in the 80's for the last 4 weeks in Florida and then last week we got about 8 inches of rain. The plants have just jumped out of the ground and everything is in bloom. So as a farewell to Florida here are all the new flowers that have shown up. This is a White Iris which the previous owners had planted all over the place - it's a beautiful flower.

I got three Amaryllis's for Polly which we planted a month before Christmas (inside) and all three of them had beautiful blooms. After Christmas we planted them outside and what do you know - they are blooming again.

We had two hanging baskets left by the previous owners which didn't do anything until a week ago. With the nice flower we have identified them as Portulaca.

We have an arbor behind the house with something growing on it that wasn't very pretty. I talked about ripping it off and putting in some purple Wisteria - but that was before the sun, fertilizer and the rain. The arbor is now full of a multicolor type of Honeysuckle - it's going to stay.

We bought a small Prickly Pear Cactus at a yard sale for $2 and planted it on the south side of the house. Two weeks ago the Cactus started to bud and look how much it grew in those two weeks. All the brighter green is new growth - this is what the Mexicans cut off and eat - I went to a small Mexican restaurant (named Ana's) with the Curry's and had a stew with cut up cactus in it - tasted great.

These are ones that have been in bloom for a month now. They just keep on budding out new flowers. The red one is Fire Bush and the yellow is Lantana.
































Even the Mums are blooming!

On the south side of the house are Roses.

In the shady beds are Purple Hearts.

So that covers the flowers but wait we still got fruit to cover yet. First Paul Curry and I went into the jungle next to us and picked at least a bushel of wild oranges - they are the sweetest.

The Loquat Tree has ripened enough (a couple that were very ripe we ate - delicious) and will complete their ripening on the way home.

Now the new citrus trees we planted have all bloomed and are starting to form little fruits. This is the Meyer Lemon - I have snipped off about half of them since there were so many they would break the branches if they all developed.

On the other end of size is the Pomello and you can see it's size already.

 Well that's it. Now we can head North and see all this happen again with Spring in Connectiucut.

A Short Kayak Trip

Sandra and Gary came over for a kayak trip. It was a beautiful day with temperature in the low 80's (Ho hum, what's new). We first checked out the upper part of the Little Manatee River but the water levels were a bit low since it hadn't rained in three weeks so we choose the lower part between Route 301 and the Sundance Marina. This was going to be a shorter trip which we guessed would take 2 hours. Below is the Google Earth shot of the river with our path as the red line.

So we started with high spirits getting into the river under the Rte 301 bridge.

The first part of the river was nice and shady with a light current pulling the kayaks along.

After an hour of rowing (figuring we were half way) we pull into the bank and had our lunch.

Back into our kayaks and we rowed for another hour. The river now was getting wider and the current wasn't pulling us along as much so we had to row a little more.

But it still was a scenic row with a lot of turtles watching our progress.

I guess they were out of the water to warm up in the sun but some of them climb up the logs to a good height - closer to the sun.

We paddle on for another hour. By now Polly is stating to panic and figures we are lost. Anyone she sees along the river she asks where we are and how far it is to the Sundance Marina. We finally stop at the 26th street landing (a favorite swimming spot for the locals) and do a potty break. Be careful if you walk behind that palm tree.

Gary and I leave the girls there and take off on our own to find the Sundance Marina, get the truck we left there and drive back to pick up the girls. Twenty minutes later we are at the Marina but Gary had left the keys for his truck back in the waterproof package with the girls. But it wasn't that far so we rowed back and told the girls it was only another 20 minutes and then they could rest. We all took off rowing again. I had my power stroke going and could have rowed for hours.

Polly had her swearing stroke going and wouldn't say a sentence without a curse in it.

So after 4 hours of rowing (almost 4.5 for the guys) we pull into the Sundance Marina. The Google Earth Map says we have only covered 6.2 miles (a little more than the 3 miles I had guessed at the beginning). Polly says she will never go kayaking with me again without a guide (I left out the swear words she used to punctuate the sentence with).