More Planting

It was another day in the 70's so you have to work outside. First job was to divide up a Staghorn fern that Gary and Sandra brought over. It was a big guy maybe about 40 lbs. Gary said I could divide it into three so that's what my razor knife did. We got three big sections plus we found three little "pups" or young Staghorns with their own root system.

After cutting them up and shaping them to a tree trunk, I tied two of them onto trees. They will eventually wrap their leaves around the tree trunk and I'll be able to remove the strings.

I put the last big section in a basket. I've seen a lot of them grown this way. The straw packing will eventually disintegrate and it will just be the fern.

The three little pups were also tied to tree trunks.

Seeing the weather was so nice, we also planted all the various citrus trees that we had accumulated. There were two from Wayne (Hamlin Orange and a pink Pomello), a Lyhee nut tree from Sandra and Gary, two tangerines grown from seed by Cheryl, a Lemon grown from seed by Jean Seaman. I also found a local grower who sells to plantations so I bought 8 more citrus trees (a pink grapefruit, a red grapefruit, a mid-season orange (the Hamlin is an early season), a sweet pomello, a tangello, a Meyers lemon, a regular lemon and a lime). I put them along the lot border so in case that lot ever sells and someone builds, I'll have a citrus blind to allow us privacy. Everybody is going to get fruit when we come home (maybe next year).

Norfolk Pine

Our friends, Gary and Sandra, always bring something when they come over. The last time they brought two Norfolk Pines, a hugh Staghorn Fern, Jatropha Tree and a Lychee Nut tree. They get all these from seeds that drop from trees and germinate in their lot. Amazing how productive Florida can be. Well, they all have to be planted so we started with the Norfolk Pines. Now having recognized what a Norfolk Pine was, we realized that there was a bunch of them growing already over near the drainage canal. They were growing in three big bunches, with some over six feet tall and some just a foot or so. I assume the previous owners must have gotten them from someone and just stuck them in the group right next to each other, planning to replant them at some other time but now they had grown up with their roots all intertangled.

So before we planted the two that the Fenstemakers brought over, we dug up all the existing ones and replanted them (12 had enough roots left to be replanted).

Now one side of our property has a nice line of Norfolk Pines that will eventually group into the majestic and tall trees that the Norfolk Pines are.

Fire

I talked before about the new mantle I made for the fireplace. Here's a follow up story about burning down the house by using the fireplace. Polly has a fear of fire and whenever we have a fire in the fireplace she insists on closing the chain curtain in front of the fire. I of course say that's not necessary because nothing is going to catch fire and the wire curtain cuts down on the radiant heat from the fireplace. So when I leave the living room she closes the fireplace curtain and when she leaves, I open it up.

As added protection Polly bought this special fireplace rug to lay on the carpet in front of the fireplace. I think it was the first fire that we had with the rug in front and a big ember must have jumped out. Well the fireproof rug didn't catch fire put it did melt.

This wasn't satisfactory so I tore up the wall to wall rug in the living room and rolled it back. Glued some matching tiles to the bare cement floor, grouted them to match the fireplace.

After I added some tack strips, I relaid the rug back down and got a floor that wouldn't melt or burn.

Beauty isn't it. Now the argument is about the smokey fireplace. The house pretty air-tight and the fireplace doesn't have any air vents to pull in outside air. So a little whiff (I say whiff, Polly says house full) of smoke sometimes enters the house - that's fixed by opening a window next to the fireplace a little bit - that fixes that . No it doesn't, if you turn on the stove vent, it overpowers the fireplace draft and a little smoke comes back in. There has to be a solution but I don't know what it is yet.

Christmas

Well, the Christmas Holiday is over and everyone has gone home. The house is empty but I have my memories. Who came down for Christmas - My son Wayne, his wife Wendy and their kids, Samson and Addy were the first to arrive. Then came my daughter Amy and her husband Dan and their kids Kylie and Bowen. Last was my daughter Anna and her mate Heidi and 6 month old Skylar who everyone wanted to hold. If you count them up that's a total of 12 people counting me - Polly went home to CT to be with her family - smart move - the house was full.









Walt Disney World provided most of the entertainment - It was decked out for Christmas.

Wayne held the record for endurance - he left for the Magic Kingdom at 7 AM and didn't get back until midnight. Kylie, who went with him, had to get up and go to Animal Kingdom at 7 the next morning. I started out with him but chickened out and went home with Dan and Amy at 7 PM. This was my sign out picture in front of Cinderella's Castle










Great rides - check out the first car on this roller coaster.

Here's a close up. It was Kylie, Amy (eyes covered), Bowen and Anna - very brave people.

This is the new addition to the family Skylar (and Anna and me)













She attracted all the attention - that's Kylie, Bowen and a piece of Addy.









Besides Disney we went to Myakka State park which gave an airboat ride to get a good close up view of a lot of alligators.

They also had a canopy walk that gets you into the tree tops (that's Samson).





The best prank, the shark tooth find. The Fenstemakers (Gary and Sandra) were amateur archaeologists at one time and collected a lot of fossils - I told the kids how we were walking along the drainage canal next to our house one day and Gary found a shark's tooth. So everybody spent a lot of time walking the canal banks and looking for shark teeth to no avail. When Sandra and Gary came over for a visit, I asked them to bring some shark teeth with them. When they arrived, I secretly took the teeth from them and put them in the sand in the backyard. Later I told the kids that Gary and Sandra were going to show them the proper way to look for shark teeth. We all went out to the backyard and Sandra bent down, studied the sand some and picked up a black shark tooth - the kids went wild - everybody was down in the sand and found some of the shark teeth that I had salted the sand with - then they spread out - down on all four - crawling all over the place looking for more teeth. I finally fessed up and told them that the teeth were planted.

It still didn't stop us from looking. Here we are checking along the banks of a dried up lake - found some manatee ribs but no shark teeth.













Citrus is what Florida is famous for so we went out and picked some. The only ones that nobody liked were the Kumquats.









Everyone was impressed with the hundreds of Manatees at the local power plant, they loved the puppy hugging at the Guide Dog Society, they liked the prices at the Red Barn Flea Market, and the horses at the Lipizzan Stallion Show did some fancy stuff. I hope everyone comes back again and, if you weren't in this group, we are here from October to April, stop down and see us.

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.