Gardening and other Stuff in January

We've been kept busy this month between working on our flower beds and helping our neighbor Barbara after her fall last month.

We've dug out the front flower bed in front of the dining room and lowered it about 3". When the house was built, the flower bed was sloped towards the house and whenever it rained real heavy water would puddle up against the house. When we would have some really heavy rain, we would end up having a small pond there. 

I did all of the digging (my back is better than Mike's - go figure!) and Mike emptied the wheelbarrow and we had about 20 loads of dirt that I dug out of there. Now all we have to do is to decide what we want to plant in the space.

The first thing we planted was a Tibouchina Tree, or Princess Flower. We tried centering the tree between the front entrance and the side wall. Then we tried centering the tree on the dining room window (which is centered on the inside wall, not on the outside wall of the house). 

We eventually settled on centering the tree in front of the window - which looks good when looking at it either from inside the house or from outside.

We had a really heavy rain (2") earlier this month and a large flock of cattle birds were

Gardening and Helping our Neighbor

December has been a busy month for us.

We did some work on one of our flower beds and dug out all of the old plants except for a few Dracaena marginata plants that were already in there and we had a few growing in different places in the yard and we moved them to the flower bed with the others.

We bought 3 Drift Roses at Lowe's and planted them in the flower bed and added red mulch. We had to dig out some of the dirt to allow for the mulch and I did the digging and Mike emptied the wheelbarrow.

I have a "Janet Craig" Dracaena on the back patio and it is blooming!

 

Barbara (she's 82), our neighbor across the street, called us on Dec. 7 and told us she had fallen in her garage and that she had managed to get back in the house. Mike and I rushed

Florida Pioneer Descendants Certificate Ceremony

Fletcher drove up from Ft. Lauderdale on Saturday Nov. 7 to stay for a few days. On Sunday we drove over to Kissimmee to visit with my brother Cyril who hasn't been feeling well lately. While we were there, Fletcher used his own stethoscope and blood pressure cuff to check Cyril's blood pressure

and compared his results against the ones Elaine got with their blood pressure machine and to see what prescriptions Cyril was taking.

On Tuesday Nov. 10 Mike, Fletcher and I drove down to the Vero Beach Library to attend the Indian River Genealogical Society's monthly meeting. Pam Cooper (Past President of the FL State Genealogical Society & Supervisor for the Library's Archives & Genealogical Department) and Pat Giordano (FSGS Pioneer Descendants Committee Chairman) presented Mike and Fletcher their FL Pioneer Descendants certificates & pins and I received my FL Pioneer Researcher certificate & pin for researching Mike's 3rd great-grandparents Silas & Avis Fletcher who settled on Indian Key in the 1820's. I also accepted a Descendant certificate for Mike's brother Chris who died earlier this year.

After the genealogy meeting Mike, Fletcher and I drove down to Mrs. Mac's and met

New Flower Bed Planted & October Stuff

We spent most of October just working around the house. We did make a day trip over to Kissimmee on the 4th to visit with my brother and family.

Then we got ambitious and bought about 20 croton and 12 Ti plants at Home Depot on the 24th for the flower bed in front of our garage.

The flower bed isn't very wide but it is about 20 feet long and needed to be dug out in order to plant the crotons and Ti plants. Mike started out doing the digging, but it hurt his back so much that I took over. Well, it turns out that even with my lower back problems I am now the official "digger" and Mike became the wheelbarrow handler and dumper. It took us a few days to dig out the flower bed completely and then a couple of days to put in the plants and the mulch.

I waited until today to post because I wanted to take photos of our work on the flower bed  and didn't get them taken until today.

In the time between our visit to Kissimmee and putting in the new flower bed -

Update on our water situation

In my last post on Sept. 21 we had just gotten home from a 9-day trip and found out we had no water at the house and were hooked up to our neighbor's house so we would have water.

It turns out that the pump for our well water died while we were gone and will need to be replaced (that was the new pump Mike had put in not too long after we moved in to the house). We called the Indian River County Water and found out what we needed to do to have county water hooked up. There was already a meter box installed, we just needed the water meter hooked up to the county line and then to our house.

We went to the county office and paid the $1145.00 impact fee and a $50.00 deposit to have the meter installed. Then we went to Maxwell & Sons Plumbing here in Sebastian and paid $530.00 to have them run water lines from the house to the water meter. So by Friday Sept. 25 we had county water hooked up. Thank goodness we have a great neighbor next-door, since we were hooked up to his water for about 3 days.

Last Thursday was my birthday and Mike and I went to Ruby Tuesday for dinner. Mike had the Asiago NY Strip and I had the Mushroom NY Strip and we both had a loaded baked potato and a glass of merlot.

This week I ordered the Florida Pioneer Descendants certificates and lapel pins for Mike, Fletcher and Chris (Mike's brother) and a certificate for myself for doing the research. There will be a presentation ceremony later this year at an Indian River Genealogical Society meeting in Vero Beach.

Big SURPRISE when we got back home

We got up this morning and loaded the few things we had brought in with us back into the car and thanked Mike and Gayle for their hospitality in letting us spend the night on our way back home. Mike offered to fix us breakfast before we left, but we said no - which was really hard to turn down because he makes a TERRIFIC breakfast! We said we would get something on down the road since we have over 500 miles to drive today.

We left their house about 8:30 and headed south on US-231 to US-84 in Dothan and stopped at the Burger King on the Circle and W. Main for breakfast. After breakfast we stopped at the Raceway on the south Circle for gas ($1.899 a gal) before heading south on US-231 to I-10 East. We took I-10 east to I-295 in Jacksonville and then I-95 south to the Sebastian, FL exit.

We stopped for gas a little after 6:00 at the Sunoco just after exiting I-95 and paid $1.959 a gallon. Then we stopped at Little Caesar's for a pepperoni pizza and a Crazy Combo (breadsticks and sauce) to have for dinner. We arrived home at 6:30 after driving 504 miles today - one of our longest days driving on this trip.

Well - you know how good it feels to get back home after a trip? That's how good we felt until we found out

Meridian, MS to Ozark, AL

This morning Mike took Tinker out for a walk and got a luggage cart on his way back to our room. He put Tinker on it and took a photo of Tinker riding on the cart.

 

We checked out of the La Quinta in Meridian, MS at 8:30 and went to the