I also took some time to take these pictures. Every afternoon I have dozens-hundreds of Ibis come into my yard and dig their beaks into the ground for food. I decided to chase them and have my cuñada take a picture of them all flying off.
That night we threw our first party in our new home. We had Natalie's family over and had quite the party. Our neighbor to the north probably let off a couple hundred mortars that night. The night before Natalie and I were playing Pacific Rift and we heard a loud explosion outside. A couple seconds later we saw what looked like a red explosion in my pool. I went outside to check it out and my neighbor was outside with his daughter but then he went inside. I thought maybe he let off a firework since I have the nose of a bear and could smell the gunpowder, but why only one? So we were a little paranoid about what the explosion was the rest of the night. Well on New Year's Eve it became apparent that the previous night my neighbor was just doing a test run and what looked like a red explosion in my pool was actually the firework reflecting on the water. Everyone that has been to my house knows I'm a big fan of fireworks, but I used up all my mortars and other good stuff when Cassandra and her family came out. Well my neighbor made up for my lack of fireworks and put on a show for everyone. I played with my bottlerockets and other small stuff but my neighbor took the cake for the block. The funny thing is there was no wind at all that night so when we lit up fireworks the smoke cloud hovered in the backyard 3 feet above the ground. It was kinda spooky looking.
The weather was pretty normal for this time of the year so everyone was outside most of the night. I put out a couple of my tiki torches on the lawn to give it a Hawaiian look. Funny thing is when I bought them Natalie said those things are lame but when I set them up she decided that they are really cool. They are pretty cheap too and the fuel last a really long time. I was pretty occupied all night so I didn't get a whole lot of pictures of the party but Natalie's family got some and maybe one of these days I'll be able to get the pictures from them.
So awesome turkey, good weather, and lots of fireworks = really good party.
We were a little worried about being too loud that night in the new neighborhood. It's a really quiet neighborhood on an average day. Well we learned that holidays are an exception there. Our neighbors all throw some big parties. We had neighbors setting up hot dog stands on their driveways for block parties. In the big house behind us with the big windows they had a lot of people over with cruise music and someone on the microphone. We were all laughing at their choice of music and made jokes about being on a cruise. The back yards are all opened so it looks like a big block party outside with all the neighbors setting up and enjoying the South Florida New Year's weather.
I didn't get to bed until almost 5 New Year's morning. I woke up around 10 and it was nice and sunny. Not long after I went back to bed until 2 and when I got up it was raining hard and the wind had blown my bromeliads out of my gumbo limbo tree and knocked over my nice new lychee tree. I was able to fix the damage though. Shortly after waking up I got a call from my Aunt Suzi in Colorado. She called to let me know that she was looking at my blog about the house and her son Danny had just landed in Ft. Lauderdale and she didn't realize how close we are. So I called up my cousin and we were able to meet up with him and go to dinner at the beach in Ft Liquordale. I hadn't seen Danny since he got out of boot camp and was stationed at Camp Pendleton about four years ago so it was good to meet up with him. He's out here for a cruise and hopefully we'll get to meet up again when he gets back next week.
Saturday I decided I needed to get some yardwork done. That is after wasting half my day waiting for directv to come out and fix their effed up setup. Long story short, lazy guy didn't want to run cable and lied to my wife that he had to put the dvr in the bedroom instead of the living room or it would eff up the whole cable setup in the house even though they are unrelated. I wasn't having any of the BS lies so I called them up and told them to get their @$$ out there and do it right and they actually filed a complaint on the first guy without me requesting it. My wife felt bad when I told her that because she didn't believe the guy was lying until the second guy came out and confirmed what I already knew. That's 2 for me in one week. Yes, my sprinkler got fixed by the cable company after I called them up a fourth time and threatened action if it's not fixed immediately. Anyways the Directv finally got fixed in the afternoon and I hit up Home Depot again.
On this trip I decided to by myself a pruner, but not a hand pruner, the attachment that goes on my Ryobi edger and it looks like a mini chainsaw on a long pole. So once I got back I decided that I am going to take out the overgrown bush on the south side of my house. I'm sick of having to walk into the neighbors yard to get to my backyard. The previous owner didn't take care of this bush so it was ten feet high, 4 feet deep, and close to ten feet long. The neighbor mentioned maybe I could cut it back like a hedge, I don't think he wanted to see it go, but at the end of the day it's my yard and I'll do what I want. Cutting back the bush wasn't a real solution because the branches are so thick and there would be no leaves. It's not the right kind of bush for a hedge, especially a hedge in such a small area. That bush would only be a good hedge if it had more room to grow out. Anyways I had the bush cut down in just over an hour and it got dark so I had to leave the mess to cleanup later. I got it down to the stubs, four of them, and I knew that the fun part was over and cleaning up the stubs was going to be hell. My arms were already sore from all the work with the pruner.
That night I happened to get my plants that Natalie ordered me for Christmas. I got 2Grand Duke Of Tuscany Jasmines, 1 Maid Of Orleans Jasmine, 1 White Butterfly Ginger (a plant we found on our honeymoon in the El Yunque Rainforest and we could smell the peachy/floral fragrance from far away), and a Jasminoides Gardenia "Mystery". I planted all of my flowers that night except my Gardenia, this was set to go where I just ripped out that bush.
Yesterday afternoon I had to clean up my mess. I bundled up the bush and took it to the curb and started the process of taking out the stub and root. This took a couple hours to accomplish. It's close to the FPL lines and I didn't want to kill myself if I hit one of those and I have no idea how deep they are. So I was digging in as close and I could then cutting the roots with my hatchet. Some of the roots I pulled out went a good 20 feet, all the way into the neighbors yard. I managed to get all the stubs and roots out and only broke one sprinkler pipe doing it. I don't have the pipe on hand because it's bigger than the rest of the sprinklers so I'll have to fix that later. I was able to get my Gardenia planted though so I should have a nice, fragrant, controlled hedge that actually looks good and full without expanding over my property line within a couple months.
So that's my weekend. A lot of fun and a lot of work. I'm really sore right now. This is why I decided I'll take care of my own yard. It cost me less, it looks and smells better, I don't have to worry about idiots destroying stuff, I can customize it to my liking, and I can get one hell of a workout. Going to the gym is no longer necessary. I've heard that gardening is good for people with back injuries. A lot of people doubt that since it's a lot of bending and lifting. Ever since my surgery though the only thing that bugs me is sitting around and being lazy. Apartment life was a killer! Living in this house, being active, and working in the yard has done wonders for my back.
And now it's back to work...
Like I said, it's miserably cold here this week. It actually feels like Southern California and I'm not liking it. We normally recover from a cold front in 2 days but have to suffer with it for over a week right now. I actually turned on my heat last night for the first time ever in the three years I have lived here. Hopefully this won't last long. It's good weather when I'm working hard in the yard, but crappy weather for anything else. I'm hoping it won't effect my new plants and the weather will shape up for the weekend.
6 comments:
The kids would have a blast out there. We're still trying to figure out if we can come, no Bahama cruise this year. We'll wait a few years for that. If we came in July though would you guys be up to doing anything with a new baby? I'm so mad that the kids are back in school in August!!
Not sure. How long do you normally keep a baby locked up? How old was Cody when we went to the Sierras? The problem here is taking the baby out in the heat. After a good t-storm would be fine but if it's blazing hot then we can't do anything.
You could always come later in July or early August. Or just save up until Christmas time.
I was thinking maybe Christmastime. You guys could come here for Christmas, then we could all fly back together for new years.
I dont know if we can make Christmas because we are trying to come for Thanksgiving. We'll see.
Yeah you should come Thanksgiving...it's Aunt Sharon's anniversary party so it'll be a family reunion! Plus then we can come for New Years and spread out our visits a little :)
That sounds good. New Years is more fun here anyways. Neighbors had something like 200 mortars.... Mortars = the big fireworks that go in the air and go boom.
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