Flowers, Flowers, Everywhere

Despite the heat, humidity and bugs, I went out and weeded all the flower beds. Here’s a typical batch of weeds growing up through the stones.

The plants just love the rain and heat – everything that flowers is flowering. Here’s my best shot. It’s a Firebush with a Zebra Butterfly coming in for a sip.

Polly brought down a Hibiscus from Connecticut and this is the second time it bloomed this year. In a mater of two days and the flower will be gone.

Here’s another Hibiscus that was planted by the previous owner and it’s the first time I’ve seen it bloom. Also notice that its leaves are variegated – Never seen that before on a Hibiscus, in fact, I didn't know it was a Hibiscus until it bloomed.

Two years ago, at a yard sale, we bought this little cactus that looked like Mickey Mouse – look at the size of it now. That yellow flowered bush beside it is a Thyallis.

We dug up these Mexican Bluebells out of the woods and planted them along one side of the pool – they have really taken to their new home.

This was planted by the previous owner – I think it’s some type of Jasmine or at least it smells like one.

We transplanted this Peace Lily from a sunny location to this more shaded one and it is showing its appreciation.

The Walking Iris is so named because after it blooms the seed pod still on the stem falls over and starts growing a new plant – thus it seems to be walking – they bloom throughout the year whenever they get enough water.

Here’s a bunch more flowers in bloom but I’m not sure of their names.

The Orchard of Eden

Last summer we had planted all kinds of fruit trees and to keep them healthy while we were away we put in a drip water feed for them. So on this quick trip down to Florida, I was checking on the drip system to make sure they were all dripping on schedule, pull all weeds that were encroaching on the trees and give them some fertilizer to keep them growing. 

Let start on something positive – the drip is certainly giving them enough water – look at the banana plants

They were only a two foot tall when I bought them at Walmart – in about 6 months they have grown to 8 feet tall – they are only supposed to grow about 12 feet before they fruit – I’m going to have plenty of bananas.

Here’s a view of most of the orchard after I’ve weeded and mowed. Weeding wouldn’t have been so bad if it wasn’t for the heat (high80’s low 90’s), the humidity (above 85 %), the thunderstorms (some everyday for the first 4 days) and those damn little bugs. Jumping in the pool helped with the heat and humidity – I’d go inside when is started to lightening but a light rain was better than the stifling heat and humidity so I'd stay out in the light showers – But nothing got rid of those little “no-see-um” bugs. There was always a ball of them flying around my head. The good thing is they didn’t bite like mosquitoes – they just wanted to fly into your ears, nose or eyes and get a drink or lay eggs. First you start swatting at them but quickly realize you can’t kill them and if you hand is dirty from pulling weeds it really makes a mess when you swat your head. So you just let them be – they sure tickle when they climb into your ear but at least they don’t bite. 

Only a couple of trees have fruit on them. There are some oranges.

And a lot of figs (Tony D. father would be envious).

But wait till next year – everything has grown – take a look at the pineapples – all started in the spring from the tops of pineapples we ate.

And here are the papayas – I’m growing them in pots since that reduces their height and makes it easier to move them inside if we get a bad freeze.

Ah, it’s a regular Orchard of Eden.

Green is the Color of My Pool

I decided this year to take a couple of trips down to Florida to keep the lawn in check, adjust the water in the pool and fertilize the orchard. This is the first of the trips – I fly Southwest and booked a nonstop flight out of Providence – only problem is it leaves at 6 AM – yawn.

So I get into Tampa at 9:15 and to get to Wimauma (about 40 miles away) I plan to use the HART Bus System. A guy at the Masonic Campground had offered to pick me up but seeing I was by myself and had plenty of time, I wanted to try the bus system. I found the HART bus stop right at the main terminal. I had looked up on line what the bus connections should be and it was a Route 30 bus to get me from the airport to the MTC center, there I get a route 8 bus that takes me to Brandon Mall and from there I use a route 53 bus to the Wimauma Walmart – Nothing to it. These buses seem to run pretty close to their schedule but they sure go some winding routes through the back streets of Tampa and Ybor City – I don’t think I want to do this trip at night. The route 8 bus trip had 60 – yes 60 - stops. I guess at rush hour they might use them all but at 10 AM we only stopped at every third or so. So that is the bad part but the good part is it only cost $1.80 for my all day seniors HART pass. Great deal.  Maybe when we are down here full time next winter we’ll use it to tour Tampa area and Ybor City (old Cuban cigar making town).

So I make it to Wimauma Walmart by 12 noon and John from the campground comes and picks me up and drives me out to my house. John and his wife have been using the swimming pool and he tells everything was fine until last week when the pool turned green. 

The next door neighbor, Rusty, came over and said it needed more salt (3 bags he suggested) because the chlorine generator only read 1200 ppm where it should be up near 3300 ppm. It sounded logical so I went to Walmart and bought 5 bags just to be on the safe side – after dumping in 4 bags and seeing that the chlorine generator still read the salt at 1200 ppm – I guessed that this wasn’t working. A quick internet search told me that I should unhook the chlorine generator and look inside it to see if the electrical plates were clean or if they had any deposits on them.

I did and they were so heavily coated that you couldn’t see the plates nor any gap between them. I got out the high pressure sprayer and so thin tools to scrap and blast the deposits – it got the bulk off but I finally had to use a muriatic acid bath to completely finish the job. Put it all back together again, turned it on and went to bed – it was a long day. Next morning the salt read 4700 ppm – way higher than it was supposed to be but it wouldn’t hurt anything (according to the pool supply store). 

Now after two days of scrubbing and cleaning all traces of the green are gone – splash – I’m swimming everyday with the temperatures in the high 80’s and humidity up around 90 % - I needed the pool.

I wonder if he has a bathing suit on.

We're Back Up North

We made it back. Left on Friday, stopped and saw my stepbrother in South Carolina and daughter in New Jersey and still made it home by Sunday. 

The New England weather tried to cooperate and give us what we were used to n Florida – it was in the 80’s for the first couple of weeks but it just couldn’t keep it up – so it let us know we weren’t in Florida anymore – a good ¼” diameter hail storm broke the Florida illusion.

Even though the cottage in Voluntown was vacant most of the winter it still wanted some attention. First think was the shower – I had ripped out the old one before I left, ordered a new base (wrong size –had to send it back to CA for a bigger one) and the tile so everything was ready for me when I got home. It was the first time I had installed the small glass tiles and it was quite an ordeal –applying mastic, cutting the glass tiles and getting them installed before the mastic set up -  but from a couple of feet away it looks pretty good. Son-in-law Dan came over to help me with the grouting – it had a very limited pot life before it set up so two people were a must.

Polly came up and helped me do the new drain plumbing in the basement – she slopped the primer and glue on while I tried to assemble them before they cured – only one leak and a little more glue fixed that. The red stuff on the shower trap is my blood – one of the flooring screws got me when I went to hammer a pipe joint together with my hand –ouch.

Now this all took a week and a half and my shower was either at Polly’s or in the hot tub on the back porch. So as soon as the grouting was done, I  got two companies to come in and give me an estimate on the glass enclosure for the shower – It was a lot more than I expected (low bid was $2165) and a lot longer lead time than I expected – 4 weeks. So to save the neighbors from having to look at a bare old man going out to the hot tub every morning, we rigged an old shower curtain that Polly had and the shower is now operational.

 

We just peck away at the jobs and pretty soon they are all done – carpets have had their once a year shampoo, the outside of the cottage has been power washer and the decks sprayed for mold. It’s just like the beaver that decided he’d tackle this tree. It’ll take him a while but it’ll be tasty when he gets it down – (This is in my son’s back yard in North Stonington)

It's time to go home

So since October we've suffered though beautiful warm weather but now it's time to get our warm clothes out and head north. It's been a beautiful spring/winter down here with some new plants blooming every day. Even the weeds are in flower. This is called a Coral Bean and its seeds are so toxic that they are used for rat poison.

Lantana is another native (it's the yellow flower) and the Fire Bush blooms several times a year..

We've got a Hibiscus that was left here  in bloom.

And one that Polly brought down for Connecticut - I think it likes it here.

We planted these last year called a Summersweet.

And my daughter Ina sent us this Jasmine - got to get real close to catch the aroma.

So everything is blooming and wishing us farewell when I go to the outside faucet to water them and it says to me " I have a leak and I'm leaking right through the wall of the copper pipe". So should I just ignore it and say it's not leaking too much or will it get worse while I'm away and pump the well dry. It looked like the leak was caused by the grounding strap attached to the pipe right at the leaks and caused some electrolytic corrosion which made the leaks. I'll patch it now and fix it right when I get back it the fall.

Home Depot sells repair kits for leaking pipes and I wouldn't have to replace the pipe just patch it. I first used a shaped metal kit with a rubber layer inside that bolts over the pipe - it worked but there were two leaks in the pipe so I had to go back to Home Depot and buy another. When I installed that one, I must have tightened up too much and it caused another leak to spring out. So that didn't work, I'll try the epoxy penetrated fiber glass kit from Home Depot, just dip it in water and wrap it around the pipe and let it cure. Simple enough - it didn't work either as little drips of water came out at several spots - guess I'll have to fix it right. That's the leaking section of copper pipe that started it all.

So I dug out till I reached the plastic pipe that ran over to the well. I replaced all the copper - the line that ran over to the front garden water sprayers, the one that goes to the water conditioner and the one that goes to the outside faucet.

And wallah it's all replaced and I don't have to worry about it when I'm back in Connecticut.

Here is one of the local animals saying goodbye to Polly. Yeah it's an Armadillo saying goodbye.

The Big Project is Done

The big project was putting in the fruit orchard along with its drip irrigation system and it's all done. We have every type of fruit that ripens between the months of October and April - we have lemons (regular and Meyers), limes, regular oranges, blood red oranges, pineapple oranges, tangelos, pummelos, tangerines, pink grapefruit, red grapefruit, avocados, kumquat, persimmons, pomegranates, guavas, figs, bananas, mango, papayas, pineapples, pecan trees and macadamia nut trees. Some are in blossom now like this pineapple orange tree.

Some have finished blooming like this Hamlin Orange and have started to grow little oranges..

And here are the remains of the blossoms from the Arkin Papershell Macadamia nut tree, if each blossom is going to be a nut, we're going to have plenty of macadamia nuts

Clearing the land and planting them all took its tole on my back muscles - I'll never straighten up again. But then came putting in the irrigation system. This machine bounced me all over the place.

The chain drive dug a ditch and the little auger pushed the dirt away but when it hit a root watch out.

I bought two 500 foot rolls of tubing but ran out and had to get another 200 feet to finish

The main line runs down the center trench

And tees break off side branches. The joints are all compression - takes a little effort to get them together but it's faster than cement joints

Special knife is used to cut the hoses

And when it comes time to put a dripper into the hose another special tool punches a hole in the side of the tube

Here's a dripper installed

I used four drippers for each tree in a circle around the tree. Each dripper drips 1 gallon per hour - I initially plan to run them for 1/2 hour three times per week. As the trees grow I'll increase the time and number of drips.

To end a line you just have to bend over the hose - put a kink in it.

I have four separate loops that are controlled by this program controller

Which turns on and off these four valves.

Two valves run separate loops out to the orchard, so they don't have to come on at the same time and lessens the load on my well and allow for expansion. The third is for plants that aren't in the ground but need water till we come back next fall. These are pineapple plants just starting to grow. But other plants like the mango, papayas and potted plants around the house increase this to almost 20 separate drips..

The last zone is for a small section of lawn that will allow us to walk to the car without having to walk in dirt. It has nine of these little spray heads in it.