We watched our first new released movie on Netflix – Greyhound with Tom Hanks.   How’s that for being current.  

So Florida just sent a record in new corona happenings.  We didn’t notice anything here in Pierson so we went to Ormond to get a little closer to the action.  Even ate out at our go-to seafood place and had an order of conch fritters.  

I think I mentioned that we had two dead pine trees on the property line to the north.   They were both struck by lightning several years ago.  They were in a location and of a size that they wouldn’t hit the house if they fell so I never worried much about them.   Good magnet for wood peckers.    Last week one of them fell over – the smaller of the two, about 60-80’ tall.   Tom convinced me that I should have the other one professionally removed.   Not that it would hit the house but that it would be a mess to clean up and inconvenient if it fell on the driveway.   So I called a tree guy who had done some work for us last year and who does all of Barbara’s work.   They had it down in about 10 minutes.   One guy threw a line with a weight attached up towards that top of the tree then used that line to pull up a heavy duty rope.   They could have attached the rope to the truck and just pull it over but did a chain saw cut about 6’ above ground level and kept pressure on the rope to steer the fall.   It was between a small oak and a fir tree and they dropped it exactly between the two so no damage at all.    They chopped it up into smaller chunks that we tossed into the jungle.   From start to finish less than an hour and they charged me $200 which I thought was reasonable.  

Went to the eye doc – routine annual checkup but I was concerned about my cataracts.   At the last checkup he said I would probably need surgery sooner rather than later but surprisingly this time he said things were really about the same as last year.   I got a prescription for glasses but he said I could drive without them.   So that takes a load off my mind. 

And the sore back reported last time is history.   I had screwed it up bad enough that I thought my heavy duty weeding days were gone but I’m back in tip top weed pulling form with no aches and pains at all.   Thanks Bigeloil.

I took on a job cleaning up the weeds, ground cover, and fern on the front porch.  Seemed like something quite doable working a few hours in the morning for a couple of days.  After almost a week I’m about 3/4 complete and totally worn to a frazzle.   Eating Tylenol and lathering on the Bigeloil, a muscle oil for horses.     I would estimate the area at maybe 150 SF, so not all that much.   I pretty much bent my pick on it for the first couple of days and then remembered a garden knife I had bought several years ago and never used.  It was a heavy duty steel knife with a serrated edge and it cut through the roots of the ground cover better than anything I had tried.  That moved the job from impossible to doable albeit requiring some back breaking labor.   I should have it finished by the end of the week if my back holds out.  (It didn’t so I’m taking a day off to let it recover).  The reason I even tried it was that we’re in a pattern of heavy duty afternoon rain storms which loosens the ground and the roots.   Assuming I do get the job done, I think I can keep it under control with a modicum of effort and the mower.

Nothing else going on.   Boring.   Our go-to place in Deland, the Half Wall, is shut down since someone employed there turned up with the virus.   The only thing that’s keeping us from going batty is the iPad Tom got us.   We’re got years of catching up on out of network shows and even watched Hamilton the other night.  Nancy wanted to see it but I had no desire at all.   I was totally surprised by how much I liked it and we’ll probably watch it again in the not too distant future.