There's Frost on the Tomato

Florida has just finished the coldest December in history. It had two cold snaps. The first one was sort of a warm up for the second one. It only got just below freezing. The tomato field down the block from us got hit just a little. They had crews out just before the frost picking anything that was close to being ripe. They even sprayed the plants with some chemical that was supposed to help them withstand the cold.

But one week later came the real freeze, it got down to 26 F and the tomatoes didn't like it at all. The guy at the field says the ones under the leaves are probably still good to pick especially if there are any green leaves left.

These fields are really big. This picture is one direction but the opposite direction goes just as far and then goes around a corner and goes on forever. Prices for tomatoes are going up.

The locals wrap all their temperature sensitive plants with cloth - we did also but missed a couple on the first freeze - they'll survive.

The good news is that the La Nina that brought the Arctic air down to us means that the rest of the winter is going to be much warmer than normal. Yea.

Fireplace

Every fireplace has to have a mantel - but ours in Florida didn't - so here is the story of how it got one.


Last spring my son cut down a Curly Maple tree and with a borrowed saw mill cut it up into 2" thick slabs. We built a solar kiln during last summer and after three months of drying the maple plank was finally ready for woodworking. We brought it over to my son-in-law's house and used his big planer to give it a smooth finish, then back to my garage for some finish sanding, cutting, drilling and finishing - and, walla, a fireplace mantel was born. Loaded it in the back of my pickup and carted it down to Florida. Installation consisted of mounting a 3/4" by 1" board onto the wall studs. This fit into a milled grove in the back of the Curly Maple mantel. A few screws in the bottom side of the mantel locked everything in place. Nothing to it - we got a mantel for the fireplace and just in time - we got down into the 30's last week.

Thanksgiving

We went back to Connecticut for Thanksgiving - Polly had it with her family and I had it with mine but down in New Jersey. We drove back to CT rather than flying in order to bring my Toyota Tundra back for a recall - Believe it or not they were going to replace the frame of the truck because it had severe rusting- and they did. It took them almost two weeks but I got it back one day before my planned return to Florida. The guy at the garage told me it cost Toyota $12K to do it and they have dozens more trucks to do.

We left at 4:30 AM on Saturday and drove (or flew according to Polly) down to my Cousin Russell in North Carolina. We got their 10 hours later just as the snow started. They have a bird feeder in front of their kitchen window and it was loaded with all types of birds - cardinals were a brilliant red - picture through the window doesn't get the colors but look at the number of birds in the bush waiting for food.

In the morning, his young calves came over to say goodbye to us.

It was beautiful drive with the snow stuck to the tree limbs and clear roads.

We made it to Wimauma by 8 PM that night. In the morning I went outside and found two more birthday gifts. The first was a new camper - only 14 ft long but it'll be perfect for short outings and according to the sticker it cost less than $9K.

Oh and look at this - a new car - for me?? It is a Yaris which is the updated version of the Toyota Echo that I drive back in Connecticut.

What a nice birthday surprise but I can't seem to find the keys to it.

No termites for us

When we had the home inspection done when we bought the place, the bug inspector said that there are two types of houses in Florida - ones that had termites and ones that are going to have termites - it is inevitable. He recommended that you shouldn't have any wood touching the ground next to the house. That referred to the mulch in all the garden beds around the house, some 2x6 treated lumber used as a border and a couple of palm trees that were touching the house. To fix all those things we ordered 3 yards of stream pebble rock to act as a replacement for the wood mulch, cement borders tiles and a lot of sweat.

These are Red Tipped Bomeliads. We thinned out the plants and had enough to line the driveway.

This is Polly's favorite - a little water and the roses came out almost instantly.

This is the bed leading up to the front door and was the toughest to do - a lot of the plants are spider plants but they just grow right in the ground instead of in pots as they do back in New England.

A lot of firewood

The people that we bought the Florida property from were very proud of how much of the natural landscape they left intact when they built and they did do a good job. Most of the three acre lot was undisturbed native vegetation - Live Oak, Sable Palm, Palmetto and stuff I have no idea what it is called. Well that was the last owners - we are planning to put in a pool - luckily it doesn't require any trees to be removed but I want to use solar to heat the water in the pool and that required the removal of seven trees in the backyard. I cut down the Saw Palmettos - they are called "Saw" Palmettos because of the saw like teeth on their stems - they hurt - ask my arms and legs. This is the backyard after I cut down the palmettos and small trees.

The guy that I hired (low bidder) does not own a lift bucket, he climbs, ties ropes to higher branches as he cuts off the lower limbs. Primitive he may be but he got all the trees down and none landed on the house.

Here he is trimming up the only tree we left stranding in the near backyard.

Al Gore would be proud of me again - cut down all the trees but I'm not burning a non-renewable fuel to heat the pool water - damn the tree huggers.

Weird Fruit

We went to the Red Barn Flea Market which is a great place to buy fruits and vegetables. A lot of the vendors have cut up samples of their produce for you to sample. We tried a slice of Pomelo and it was delicious, kind of like a sweet grapefruit.

The picture shows it compared to a normal sized tomato - it was 7-8 inches in diameter. But when you cut into it you find it has a very thick rind. The actual edible fruit size is about the size of a grapefruit.

Going to the opposite extreme is the Limon. This comes from a Limon tree in Gary and Sandra's fruit orchard (their home lot). This one is smaller than a regular lemon (that's the same tomato used in above pic) but what a powerhouse of taste - it just full of juice.

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Still Fixing things up

Way back in last summer, my son Wayne cut some boards out of a red oak tree and a curly maple tree. I wanted to build some bunk beds for Florida out of the wood but we first had to dry it so we built a solar kiln at his place and a month later the wood was dry enough to work with. So in September I cut up the wood and built a bunk bed out of the red oak. I had a talented woodworking team to help me. Polly had worked at Yankee Remodelers for years so this just came naturally to her.

I took this bed and another one I had built for the Beachpond cottage in Voluntown down to Florida with parts tied on top of and in the back of my pickup truck and here are the two bunk beds all assembled down in the kids room in Florida. (I'll use the curly maple wood to build a replacement for the one I took from Voluntown.)

Another project gets done - We have this long bare wall in our bedroom and couldn't decide what to do with it. We saw these wallpaper like murals in a paint store and decided that that might be a nice treatment. So I order a 8 ft high by 12 ft long mural of a tropical sunset - appropriate for a bedroom, right. You put some guide lines on the wall, apply paste to the back of the panel and glue them up.

It came out OK but not great - there goes our plans to use one on the wall in the dining room.

Weather Report- another cold day in Florida - it's only going to be in the mid- 70's again.