Back to normal. We lost power when the storm hit Friday and it was restored late Monday afternoon. Along the way the refrigerator crapped out just to make things more challenging. We have two small standalone freezers so for four days I was shuffling frozen water jugs between the fridge and the freezers a couple times a day to keep from losing contents. First thing Monday morning I called the appliance repair place but the best they could do was schedule a service call for Tuesday afternoon. Monday night I decided to make one more run at fixing it myself and did!!! So on Tuesday morning when I checked, as if by magic there were ice cubes. Service call cancelled. We had already found a replacement that is on sale until the 15th so if it craters again, we’ll jump on it.

The game plan is to finish the cleanup today now that we have power restored. That means breaking out the chain saw and attacking those large branches that were just too big to tackle with pruning equipment and blowing away the small debris that still covers the driveway. I reckon this to be a full day’s work by the time I get it over to the burn pile.
In the garden, squash plants looking good, ditto cuc’s and pole beans; jury still out on tomatoes.

Went over to check on the house we’ve been remodeling/rebuilding and it weathered the storm without a hitch. He lost a few trees and had to cut his way into the driveway but no damage. The next job there is installing the plumbing but that will have to wait a few days while we all do storm cleanup.

About a year ago our power washer crashed. That was a good news/bad news kind of thing because it was a pain to use but Nancy was always on me to pressure wash this, that, or the other thing. I did halfheartedly look for a replacement and found one a while back that looked like a decent design and reasonable price – when on sale. I really needed a power washer a few weeks back and decided to borrow my neighbor’s unit. He has this monster, gas powered machine, and I could tell right away it was an overkill and also it wouldn’t start. As luck would have it, the one I had my eye on came on sale at Lowes so I reluctantly made the purchase. It’s an electric powered unit that provides 2000PSI pressure (as compared to George’s 3500 PSI unit). My old electric was 1650 psi and it did the job so I knew 2000 was adequate. It did the job just fine. What I like about this one compared to my old one is that the pressure hose is longer and much more flexible and the power cord is much longer. It’s also mounted on nicer wheels so the whole unit can be moved with less pain. I have the big screen porch and the concrete deck at the house to do but also the dock about 200’ away. It was always a struggle to move the old unit from one area to the other. Much, much easier with this one. The only issue I had was washing the sheds, a couple hundred feet up the driveway. I learned that this unit is much more sensitive to input water pressure/volume and needs a larger diameter hose and larger faucet facilities than I have up by the pump. I’ll fix that in the near future when the smoke clears from the storm damage.

Day 2 after the storm. I woke up about 7AM and there was just enough light to walk up to the generator. Fueled and restarted it in about 2 minutes and back to the house. There was a light on in the bedroom but it didn’t wake Nancy so she’ll get up this AM to lights and a freshly brewed pot of coffee. This is getting routine. A pleasant surprise last evening. Nancy decided to take a cold shower. I knew that wouldn’t play since our well water is a cold 72 but she came out and said it wasn’t bad at all and that I should take one. I knew this was a ruse to get me to freeze my butt off but I did need one and figured if she could tough it out, so could I. Turned out the water was actually quite warm – not hot but certainly comfortable. I got out probably in under 2 minutes but the water was still nice. We have a 40 gallon water tank at the well and then the hot water heater tank in the house so I figure that until the tank levels fall to a certain level, the well pump doesn’t turn on. The well tank sits outside in partial sun so I guess that water is in the 90’s; ditto the hot water heater in the house.

I revisited the shed where the large limb had landed on the roof and upon closer examination, it did punch a hole in the roof so when I pulled out the branch the metal roof was ripped and exposed to the elements. I tried to straighten it out as best I could and then made a duct tape patch followed by a square foot piece of tarp and another layer of duct tape. That should hold up just fine until I can devise something better.

Went down to the dock and was pleased to find it largely intact. The glider swing was in the water but I had tied it so it didn’t drift away. Ditto the ladder. Lots of broken branches but nothing requiring a chain saw so I was able to fairly well straighten in out in a couple of hours. The lake is at the highest level it’s been in a few years but still about a foot below deck level. Also the garden was not as tattered as it looked yesterday. I’ll know in a few days if it will fully recover but I’m hopeful.

Nancy’s getting more adventuresome with the electric and used her hair dryer and a stove burner to cook breakfast. We had been using the Holland exclusively so this adds a dimension.

No word yet on our beach place. Flagler was hit fairly hard and whole sections of A1A were washed away. From the news, it seems worse a few miles south of where we stay and we have our fingers crossed that it will be useable next month.

Day of the storm. I got a decent night’s sleep and was pleasantly surprised to find that we still had power at 5AM. The wind was howling and the rain was coming down big time. I decided to get up and brew a pot of coffee while we still had power. The networks are broadcasting live info nonstop and have been since yesterday morning so we are in heavy overload of weather radar and sights of news reporters blowing away. Tom called last night about 10PM and he was fighting the water. He had drained the pool but it was rapidly filling up again. If the pool overflows onto the deck he’ll have trouble keeping it out of the house. Joey is closest to the action and should be in the worst of it about now. No doubt he’s lost power but I’m confident he can handle whatever happens.

Update – We did lose power as predicted about 7AM. I had the generator all set to go but had to brave walking up to the shed area in the wind and rain. I knew it was going to get much worse so no sense procrastinating. One pull and we were back in business. We ran it for about 10 hours then refueled it without ever turning it off so it’s really going to makes this all livable. (note, I learned today that I should have turned off the generator while refueling.) It was a tense day with howling wind that the weather guys said was 75mph where we are. It rained hard and horizontal so I don’t know if the rain gauge really works under those conditions but it recorded 5”, less than forecast. We had a few large branches break off, one exactly where I usually park the truck so we dodged a bullet on that. Had another substantial branch break off and land on the roof of one of the utility sheds but it didn’t appear to hurt the roof – another bullet dodged. We have lots of tall pine trees close to the house so we were constantly getting pounded by pine cones. That startles but the roof was up to it – really glad we decided on a metal roof. The worst thing happened about 5PM after the worst of the storm had passed – the tv antenna broke such that the antenna was more a wind vane than an antenna. Since the wind was coming from the west, the antenna swung to that direction and we basically lost TV. Nancy is not a happy camper but we have a couple of Netflix DVD’s and there’s nothing on broadcast TV but hurricane news so I’m ready for something different.

Day after the storm – Wow what a mess. You can’t even see the driveway with the fallen branches. It took about 3/4 of the day to get it all reasonably cleaned up. Then my neighbors (on both sides) and I fixed the antenna. It will take most of another day to dispose of all the debris – fire pit disposal system. I haven’t gone down to check out the dock yet. I’m operating in overload mode now so I’d rather wait until all else is done before visiting there. You might think that’s an ostrich approach but I think it will be ok just loaded up with debris and present another full day cleanup job. I don’t need that yet.
The generator has worked two straight days without a hiccup and it will probably be another two days before power is restored. We’re fairly far down the priority list. It seems to run 10-12 hours on a single tank which I think is about 4 gallons. I started out with about 20 gallons so you can do the math. We start it at 7AM and shut it down about 11PM. We can pretty much run anything in the house but the AC and the hot water heater including a burner on the stove, the toaster oven, the microwave – of course not all at the same time but with a little thought, it does the job just fine.
A quick look at the garden proved it had a rough time of it. Details in a couple of days.

Getting ready for the big storm and it’s looking real this time. According to the local media, we should be experiencing high winds and serious rain by tomorrow morning last about 10-12 hours. I think I have everything tied down or put away but with winds of 125 mph predicted, you never know. I cranked up the generator to make sure it would run and luckily it started on the first pull and ran just fine for about 15 minutes. So I filled it with gas and have it sitting in place up by the carport and sheds, all connected to the electrical outlet. I have 20 gallons of gas in waiting plus a full tank so that should get us through a 3 day power outage. Beyond that, I would think I could find gas after the storm within driving range. So for the past two days I’ve been converting water to gas and water to time. What?????? The biggest problem with losing power is losing the freezers and fridge. Also when we turn off the generator – we run it roughly 12 hours a day from about 9AM to 9PM – that shuts down the freezers and fridge. So the idea is to load up those appliances with frozen water bottles to keep them cold when the power is off. The frozen water buys us time and, in a sense, functions like the generator for the fridge and freezers. Other than that the house functions perfectly except with no A/C and no hot water. The Holland grill will function as the primary oven so we can operate for a long time without the stove.

The other concern is a tree coming down and blocking our egress path so I moved the truck over to my neighbor’s field where it’s in no danger of a tree fall. I brought the chain saw in the house in case we have to cut our way out – it wouldn’t be the first time. If a tree falls on the house………….oh well.

Not worried about any lake flooding. Even a foot of rain wouldn’t bring the lake even up to deck level. The concern with too much water is that it loosens the soil around the trees so they can topple over under the wind stress. I guess a tree could fall on the dock………….oh well.
The garden will probably suffer. The cuc’s and pole beans are climbing up the trellis which exposes them to the highest winds and driving rain so I’m guessing they will be fairly well shredded. The zucchini plants are growing really well and with great big leaves to act like sails, will no doubt be a major target. When you plant a fall garden you know you’re heading for storm season and the potential of an early frost so it’s a crap shoot most years.

We’re feeling good about the house under construction; it’s unquestionably stronger now than it was before we started. I’m sure the original house wouldn’t have withstood this storm.

Done with college football early in the season! After my gators died from Tennessee poison, I’ve lost interest. Good for the garden, bad for the fish.
We took a short trip to South Carolina to visit our niece and her extended family including our three favorite great great nieces. Nancy is usually working on some quilting piece for the family and our backlog had built up to where a hand delivery was justified. We drove straight thru on Friday then left Sunday afternoon to return via Savannah and on into Jacksonville Monday morning to hit the local Costco. We dropped about $650 there and actually wouldn’t have had room in the car for another dollar’s worth of stuff. We took a different way coming from Spartanburg to Savannah to avoid Interstate 26. That’s the most stressful interstate to drive in my experience. It’s very hilly, the traffic moves at exceptionally high speed and it has to be more than 50% populated with giant trucks. I guess that’s due to the proximity to the ports of Charleston and Savannah, major east coast freight harbors. Google maps said a way to avoid the interstate would be exactly the same mileage but add an hour of travel time. Considering that one could easily sit for an hour dead stopped on 26 in a traffic snarl, we decided to take the back roads. Glad we did. Lots to see with no stress driving and since we were stopping half way, no time constraints.
Our social life took a big uptick this past couple of weeks. Our postmaster is into little theatre and he told us he was starring in a production of the Man from La Mancha. We hadn’t seen that in 100 years and thought it might be fun to support him at a Sunday matinee and then top it off with a trip to a local watering hole known for a large variety of specialty beers. The show turned out much more entertaining than I had expected and our postal guy, Ray, was really quite good. Ditto the pub. Nancy has a new favorite beer, Florida Cracker, from a brewery called Cigar City, no doubt in Tampa.
Nancy had dinner out mid week in recognition of her charity quilt work for a local service organization. Since she can’t drive I took her and killed a couple of hours trying out the Florida Cracker for myself. That’s the first time I’ve sat in a bar by myself in at least 15 years. I noticed that the protocol for anyone sitting down at the bar is to immediately pop you smart phone out on the bar and then pick it up and peck on the keyboard every 10 or so minutes. I don’t have one so I was clearly out of my element. I think there might be a market for a dummy phone which looked like a smart one but could be programmed to ping or make a different sound every 10 minutes. Should be able to sell one of those for $20.

Getting ready for a hurricane. Cranked up the generator to be sure it would still run and tied down everything on the dock. Seems like there should be more but not sure what. Right now it looks like it will pass offshore about a 100 miles east of us so we should experience winds under 60mph and maybe get a couple of inches of rain. If it happens to change course in a bad way, we’ll just hop in the car and go as far away as practical. Not going to ride out a direct hit.

Couldn’t resist any longer, waiting for the stem to turn brown. I found another info source that said the test was when the bottom of the melon, the side that lays on the ground, is yellow. That was more important or indicative than the brown stem. So I picked the biggest one and cut it in half – half for us, half for George and Barbara. The melon weighed at least 20 pounds so that was plenty for all of us. We gave it a little taste test and it passed with flying colors. Barbara confessed that she had bought a seeded variety very early in the season and had pitched the carcass etc in the compost pile. I’m fairly sure we only bought seedless watermelon this year so her seeds were probably the parents. I estimate there are at least 10 more that will be ready to harvest this month. No telling how many small ones are hiding in the lush foliage but the vine is still producing loads of blossoms and keeping quite a few bees busy so maybe we’ll have watermelon for Halloween and Thanksgiving instead of pumpkins.

Also, I have another runaway renegade crop in the making. Last year I planted some New Zealand Spinach/aka Tetragonia. I’d tried to grow this plant several times because it promised to survive high temps and provide a source of greens all summer long but with zero success. For whatever reasons, last season it took off and grew prodigiously before eventually dying off with the onset of summer. At the height of it’s growth, I was providing several large bags of greens a week to Nancy’s bridge friends and using it in my green smoothies. Well, I guess it self seeded at the end and has started sprouting a new crop. I’ll get on it much sooner as far as bringing it to table but I can already see by the number of plants sprouting and the size of those that popped up last month, that it has the potential of totally taking over a large portion of the garden. I’m seeing a trend that says crops that pop up on their own without my TLC, do better than those I nurse along from purchased seeds. I guess that makes sense when you think how well weeds do as compared to fancy grass.

One thing I plan to do this fall is fight the bugs from the get go using a sprayed on soap solution. Everything I read says that should work and doesn’t count as chemical warfare. I’m using Dawn as the super agent. Nancy uses that on dishes so it must be good. I’ve tried this half heartedly in the past, usually after the bugs have found the crop and started feasting. This season I’m going to get ahead of it and start spraying weekly as soon as the seeds germinate and before any signs of critters. My major focus will be on the squash, beans, and cucumbers which seem to be high on the list of desirable meals for the bugs.

Hermine was truly a non-event for us. Over the three day period when it was in our “vicinity” we had 3” cumulative in the rain gauge. For us that’s not even a good thunderstorm total. We were concerned that our labor day party would be a washout but it came off without a hitch. I think the total head count was 20.

I have about 18 seedlings, a combination of green peppers and tomatoes, nearly ready for the garden but I’m going to hold off as long as possible. It’s just too hot and dry to try to do the transplant – always a chancy operation. That plus the fact that there is a hurricane like storm heading in this general direction. It’s too far away to accurately predict but if I put the seedlings in, that will be a storm magnet for sure. I hope to plant half a dozen tomatoes plus pole beans and summer squash right after Labor Day. That is if I can find room in the watermelon patch.
Pulled out the sweet potatoes – disappointing crop. Got a few edible tubers but considering the rigorous growth of the vine, I had expected a much larger crop. I did get about half a load of material for the compost pile so it wasn’t a total loss. I think we’re a few days from the first watermelon harvest. The stems connecting the melon to the vine are starting to turn brown which I believe is the signal. The field of melons is loaded with honey bees and I keep spotting more tiny melons so this season could go on for quite a long while. Right now the total of large melons that I can see is 10. I was hoping to highlight the party with a home grown melon or two but they’re not quite ready.

Big week on the construction project – installed all the door frames, completed all the external foam sheeting, and installed the concrete siding on three sides so the exterior is essentially complete. The last side is mostly sliding glass doors so not much work to finish those when the time is right. I was afraid the hurricane would slow us down but that turned out to be a large yawn. We had several nice overcast days which made for a cool working environment. The foam sheeting is aluminum clad so when it’s sunny, the heat is magnified such that you can really only work on the shady side – a moving target. Next job is building the inside stairwell. Before that, the only way to get upstairs is via the outside stairs.

Joe 1, kidney stone/jagged boulder 0. No rematches please.

Hunkering down for the first tropical storm in a while although with every update, it looks more and more like a clean miss. We need the rain but not the wind. It’ll take a few hours to move and tie up all the loose stuff on the dock and porch, so not all that bad, except for the fact that we have a large family party planned for the weekend and I have to untie it all instead of just leaving it for the rest of the season. As luck would have it, Chris is in Hawaii bracing for a couple of Pacific hurricanes about the same time as ours. His looks much worse but he won’t have to tie up a dock or anything. Just hunker down.

My truck problems continue although the real bad ones have been resolved – the bad gas tank has been disconnected so my dual tank truck is now a single tank truck. I get about 200 miles on a tank and put on average about 200 miles a month, almost all short trips, so that’s manageable. The cruise control and the speedometer are problematic though. Turns out there’s a speed control sensor that loops to the speedometer mechanism and the cruise control. That sensor doesn’t work consistently. So, for example, the speedometer flops wildly from zero to whatever and the cruise control won’t always engage and when it does, it sometimes drops out. Driving on the country roads, mostly taking Nancy 20 miles to play bridge in Crescent City, these problems are more nuisance than critical and if I get a chance to have it fixed I will. One interesting part of the problem is that in the morning, everything is fine – speedometer and cruise control both work like new. But, in the afternoon, not at all. So I’m convinced it has to do with the ambient temperature – works fine under 85 degrees, not so fine above that. With Nancy not able to drive it’s tricky getting cars fixed but, for sure the ambient temperature will drop out of the 90’s in a couple of weeks and if my theory is correct, I should be home free until next June.

On a positive note, the cardio doc said I could stop the blood thinner. It’s been about 16 months since the stents were installed and he said there was little evidence, if any, that continuing the blood thinner was beneficial. I still take a baby aspirin daily just for that purpose. I really hated taking the thinner because the slightest cut or scratch bled like crazy and it’s impossible to work in the jungle without cuts and scratches.

Guava jelly anyone? About 10 years ago the neighbors planted a couple of guava trees and now we’re living in a virtual orchard. The fruit get’s eaten by birds and animals and the seeds excreted randomly throughout the jungle. They are really fast growing and turn into substantial trees in just a few years. If they didn’t have these really hard, tiny seeds I’d be putting them in the ninja blender but……. Barbara made guava jelly a few years but has given up on it – too much work she says. I would guess the hard part is straining out the seeds.

We’ve really turned the corner on the house project with the near completion of the exterior work. When we started the house was a fully functioning, if not shabby, house – it looked like a house that needed some work and functioned like a house. It needed total internal remodeling but nothing unmanageable. As the internal walls started coming down it became obvious that the total structure was rotted and we marveled that it could still be standing at all. The main support timbers, 8” x 8” pilings, all 18 of them, were so rotted you could push a screw driver or dull knife right through them and most of the 2” x 4” and 2” x 6” internal studs on the ground floor were so badly eaten by termites that you could literally crush them with your bare hands. It all had to replaced. So the more you worked, the larger the job became and the more it went from being a real house to a wobbly skeleton. For a couple of months, no matter how hard you worked, the visual was still an open skeleton, not a house. It was really hard work pouring concrete and reinstalling the main support timbers – months of work – but when that was done, it was still a skeleton and only someone who had seen it before would see forward progress. Last weekend we finished the exterior work on one side with siding and it once again looked like a house – a brand new house. Everyone’s spirits were lifted – smiley faces and congratulations all around. This week the doors will be installed, completing the visual and the work will move inside. It needs complete wiring and plumbing before the interior walls are raised so visual progress will be slow for the next month or so. Not sure what the exact schedule is but if it were mine, the AC would be the highest priority so we could do the inside work in comfort. That may not be technically possible but……….. The other really good thing to having the exterior finished is that we’re just starting the serious hurricane season and I have no doubts at all that the place is structurally sound and can ride out anything – well maybe not a tree falling on it – but anything but that.

In the battle of the vines, the watermelon is clearly winning over the sweet potatoes. Between the two, they now cover roughly 50% of the total garden area – maybe 600SF. The vines are so thick that it’s hard to get an accurate melon count but I can actually see three, pretty good size ones not too far from where the original plant started. My understanding is that the melons are ready when the attaching stem turns brown. Interestingly, all six of the ones I see are within a few feet of each other rather than spread around as you’d expect. We’re planning a lake event for Labor Day and perhaps we’ll have fresh picked watermelon to complement the barbecue. Another thing of note is that the grasshoppers really go after the sweet potato leaves but leave the watermelon unscathed. I dug around a little with my bare hands under the easiest to get at potato plant and felt a couple of smallish tubers so there is underground action.

We hooked up with Tom and Tina last Saturday night for dinner in Deland. Deland has long been nicknamed “deadland” due to the lack of anything resembling a night life but that’s been changing with frequent announcements of grand openings for craft beer, trendy, one off restaurants, cheese and wine social spots, dessert shops and the like. I was blown away by the number of people on the sidewalks and had to leave one brewery because there simply wasn’t any room. Anyway, it was a fun, surprising evening.

It’s a big deal in August, in Florida, to lose the A/C. That’s where we found ourselves the other night. Luckily Garrett, George’s grandson and the owner of the house we’re building, is an A/C guy. So all the hours I’ve spent working on his house paid off. He had it up and running a few hours after he found out we were down. I had speculated that it was the thermostat and he was able to confirm my diagnosis in just a few minutes and just happened to have a couple of older, working thermostats including an exact replacement for our defective one. While he was testing he verified that all the pressures and levels for the unit itself were right on the mark. The unit is about 15 years old so it wouldn’t have been a giant surprise if it was failing but he said it all looks just fine.

While writing about Garrett’s house, we started the external siding and have about half of the west side done. The siding is 12’ x 7” x 1/2” thick planks made of concrete – a Hardiboard substitute I think it’s going to be a real challenge to keep it all in alignment over the approximately 20’ from ground to roof but so far, so good. By the end of this week, we’ll have the west side completed. It’s not a physically demanding job but requires care in handling the 12’ flexible planks.

One thing that makes that job easier is the mobile scaffolding rig on George’s truck. He modified it to add a working platform which provides an easier way to cut wood while on the scaffolding plus better access to medium heights.

The mystery vine is absolutely confirmed as watermelon. Without really digging down into the vines, I count 5 melons, each in the range of 2 pounds. I would have to guess these will be table ready in September if the critters don’t beat us to them. The vines keep growing and adding blossoms so no telling how this will all turn out.