What a table!

Hey, we got a new table the other day. I bet it will make a great table for the kids to eat at on Christmas as we adults eat at the big dining room table.

Here we are using it for a dinner party, we men cooked and served the meal to the girls as we always do - they are so spoiled - we men eat in the kitchen in between serving courses.

But after we men clean up and do the dishes we take over the table to play some poker - Hey look at the table has changed into an eight person poker table - like magic.

After I lost all my money to Gary we decide to play some bumper pool - My God, the table has changed again from a card table to a bumper pool table.

While we were playing pool the girls got into the liquor cabinet and started to get pretty rowdy. Good thing they didn't have to drive.

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If you didn't recognize the other couple, it was my cousin-in-laws, Sandra and Gary Fenstemaker, they live on the Gulf and have every type of fruit tree on their property. When they came over to visit they brought the excess fruit from their Star Fruit Tree. They are delicious but there was a lot of them - we gave some to our neighbors (first time we ever met them), went over to the Masonic Campground and everyone we met we gave them a plastic bag of them, Polly looked up a recipe and made 7 jars of delicious star fruit jam and finally we have them for breakfast, lunch and dinner, cut up on ice cream and for snacks.

I'm too smart for my own good

It started last year when I was staying in the Masonic Campground. Some of the campers put out satellite dishes and used them for the TV in their camper. When I talked to them they said they had satellite tv back home, took the satellite receiver from their home with them in the camper and just bought another satellite dish to use with their camper. This sounded good to me - just one satellite TV bill and I'd have TV reception in both houses.

So when I got back to Connecticut I cancelled my Comcast cable and had Dish TV installed. I signed up for the option to have two receivers (only costs another $5 to rent the second receiver) and I'd take the second receiver to Florida and leave it there. What Dish TV doesn't know wouldn't hurt them. When I get to Florida I'll unplug the receiver in Connecticut and visa versa when I come back to CT. As far as Dish is concerned they will only see signals being received from one location and they will be none the wiser that I've got two homes hooked up to them.

I went online and ordered another Satellite dish along with cabling and the tools needed to find the satellite and align the dish to it. When it came in, I practiced setting the new dish up in Connecticut, connecting it to the second receiver and a TV. After a day of struggling I got it all to work with a good picture - so I figure I'm all set to go to Florida.

We get down to Florida and before I attach the satellite dish to the house I attach it to an existing pole and do the same setup that I did with it back in CT. Try and try but I couldn't get any satellite to come in. After two days of trying, I give up and call a guy listed as an installer for satellite antennas. I tell him what I'd like to do and he says he could do it for me but why don't I just call up Dish and they will install it for free. So I called Dish TV up and said I had moved and need my antenna installed. They scheduled me for the next day - their tech shows up - spends almost the entire day attaching the antenna, running the wires into the attic, down through the walls into existing cable boxes, and of course in was a 90 degree day and the attic (which only has a crawl space) must have be over 100 degrees. But he did it and everything works. Now I'm still under the impression that Dish TV thinks that I've moved to Florida - the receiver I left in CT is off so how would they know different.

I get an email from Amy where she says she stayed overnight at the cottage and after they found the receiver was unplugged, plugged it back in and watched TV with her kids that night. Wait a minute - I was down in Florida watching TV the same night - and DISH TV didn't notice there were two houses receiving TV under the same billing - Well I guess I made a big deal about nothing - I didn't have to set up my Florida satellite on the QT - I didn't have to buy all that special hardware so I could set it up by myself and I guess I didn't have to disconnect one receiver when I was using the other out-of-state. I'm just to smart for my own good. By the way, how do you like my 50" TV - You can never buy a TV that is too big.

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A Little Job

In the backyard way up in a tall tree is an outside light with a photosensor on it which turns it on every night and keeps the boggymen away. The people we bought the house from said how reliable this light was - it has been up there for 10 years and it faithfully came on every night. So two days after we get down here it stops coming on at night. It's way up in a tree so to check it out I have to first buy a 24 ft extension ladder. It turns out that the light uses a high pressure sodium lamp so I take the bulb out and for $21 I buy another bulb.
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Wow, that was too easy, it's fixed since it came on that night. But three days later it's out again. So up the ladder I go again and I change the photosensor on it. That was only $8 so not bad - but it doesn't come on. There is a ballast in it but I'd have to take the light down and take it apart to get to it so I opt for the easy way and say maybe the bulb I bought wasn't good. To check that out I buy another bulb and try it in place of the first - didn't fix it - returned the bulb - found that Lowes sells the entire fixture for $36 - Took the old fixture down and replaced it with a new one and everything is finally working. Only five trips to Home Depot and Lowes and it's fixed. If I save the extra new bulb and photosensor for 10 years and I'll have all the parts to go through the repair again for free.

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Fort DeSoto Beach

It's another bright and sunny day, temp is in the 80's, so we went to the beach. Ft DeSoto isn't the closest beach to us but it was rated the Best Beach in the US in 2005 so we drove 30 minutes or so to get to it. It's right at the mouth of Tampa Bay.

Even though it's in the mid-80's there is a nice breeze blowing and it was pleasant weather to work on our tans.

I like to walk along the shore line and look for flotsam and jetsam that washes up - look what I found - how can I get this home?

Ft DeSoto is a huge beach with miles and miles of white sand. There must be over three thousand spaces for cars to park but the day we were there, there was only a couple of hundred people - well maybe it's because it is fall and the nobody goes to the beach during the fall and winter except the Northerners.

Halloween Party

It's a week before Halloween and our Sundance property owner's association holds it's Halloween Party.

It starts at 4 PM at the Firehouse where they hold best costume contests for all the different age groups. It's still in the 80's so those costumes are hot.

Even the dogs get into the spirit.

After the judging they walk around and everybody gives them candy - then they load them onto trailers for a hay ride to the Little Manatee boat launch/picnic area.

This is the picnic pavilion before every gets there. Hamburgers, hot dogs, popcorn and cotton candy.

They have a blow up slide and bounce house. This was bouncing off the ground after the kids got into it.

They were very organized with all kind of games for the kids to play and win prizes.

A couple of witches hatching up a plan to scare the kids.

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Landscaping

It was the end of May when we last left and locked the gates at our house in Wimauma. Four months later we come back and unlock the gates and find that things had grown a little during the wet season in Florida. The grass (actually mostly weeds) in some places was 3 feet tall.

I set the riding lawn mower on it's highest cut height and slowest speed and in two days I made a lot of hay.

Polly brought her hibiscus from New London. It took the trip down pretty well and when planted in the nice warm Florida soil it immediately started to bloom - maybe it had some help from Polly's green thumb and constant watering.

Once she got started on gardening it was "dig this out", "move that over to here","plant this over there"but than she adds "please Honey" and my aching back disappears. The red tipped plants that she is replanting in the picture were originally planted next to the house but had multiplied so much that they had to be thinned and moved a little bit away from the house to discourage termites. But after digging them up and splitting them apart we ended up with over fifty plants. Some went back in from where we dug them out but another thirty holes had to be dug in another location to take the rest.

Oh my aching back - Honey - OK I'll keep digging.

Back for the Winter

We headed back to Florida on October 8 and since we had both cat's (Polly's and Mine) with us we decided to go the direct route and not stop at any relatives on the way. We loaded the truck up and put Kayla in her cage in the back of the truck cap and Molly in the back seat. Kayla doesn't like the cage and after she is forced into it she starts this mournful crying. Soon as the truck gets about 50 you can't her it but stopping to see how she is just starts her off again.

We started at 4:30 in the morning to make sure we got through New York City before any Saturday rush hour started. In 20 minutes we came to a complete stop -not even to the Saybrook Bridge - some trailer truck was on fire and they closed down 95 for a half hour. No delays in any of the big cities but out in the middle of nowhere, like between Washinton, DC and Richmond, Va, the traffic builds up and than goes to a crawl. No reason why just another half hour delay to add on.


So 14 hours later we are into South Carolina some 800 miles from home, it's getting dark and we motel it for the night. The next day was an easy 7 hours to Wimauma and we got here with plenty of daylight to unlock everything. When I rode with Pat and Lowell Brooks in their camper around Yellowstone a few years ago, they had a rule not to travel over 200 miles in a day. After doing this trip, I see the logic in taking a little longer. I was beat. Next time it's back to a three or four day transit or, better yet, take an airplane.

Although Kayla didn't want to go, she sure has adjusted well. She loves the sandy soil and takes a dust bath every day.
Then she disappears into the bush chasing lizzards for the rest of the day but she always turns up in the evening for her treat.