5th Anniversary

This year we had a lot of work planned, so I took an extra day off work to make it a full four day weekend. Friday I ran some errands and started my second stained glass project. That night we met Dustin and Katie for a drink at a new local pub, then Indian food for dinner before making it over for a few rounds of shuffleboard. The courts were absolutely the most packed I have ever seen them and it never fails to amaze us how many people our age are there enjoying shuffle and their beverage of choice fresh from their cooler. :)

Saturday morning was our anniversary so we had a nice breakfast of waffles at home before heading to the market for veggies. We rounded our the trip with the best gelato and iced tea before having tacos for lunch. After that we headed to Weedon Island Preserve to check out one of the county parks near our house. We'd heard great things about it and wanted to see what it was all about. It was hands down one of the better marine education visitor centers we've seen in a very long time (if ever) and there were nice walking and paddling trails. We're looking forward to enjoying such a great park practically in our back yard. After dinner we cleaned up and Wade took me to a surprise dinner in Tampa at Ciro's Speakeasy and Supper Club. We had hand made cocktails and fantastic food in a 1920's style-speakeasy and everything was fantastic. We can't wait to go again with more people - perhaps next time dressed for the themed-occasion like the group in front of us. :) I am dying for an excuse to find a 1920's vintage dress to match our house afterall... :)

Sunday reinforcements arrived to begin the yard extravaganza. It was a good thing Mom and Larry came to help because clearly we were in over our heads. The garden section of the fence was revealed to be in a lot worse shape than we thought (once the evil invaisive plants were yanked) so we decided to rebuild it and move it a bit to gain more room in the part of the yard I am affectionately calling the PFZ (poop-free-zone), also known as The Garden (below).

It's the part of the yard we'll be growing food in and relaxing in and the last thing I want to do is step in dog poop there. No thank you. It's also the part of the yard we're going to save as our project space to learn and experiment with native plants for butterflies, rather than let our landscape guy plan it for us. So the men-folk spent the day rebuilding the fence while Mom and I attacked the bougainvillea. This was no small undertaking as this bougainvillea is large, in charge, old, and mean. It was also in desperate need of trimming. We finally succeeded, but not until after it looked like Mom and I lost a fight with a ferral cat and were bleeding and scratched. That tree is not on my happy list. We also enlisted the help of Dustin and Katie for a few minutes to finally move the picnic table into the Garden (hooray!!). It was dumped on the far side of the house the day we moved in last fall and it hasn't moved since. It finally made the Garden feel like a place to hang out once we actually had a place to sit and I'm so excited! The guys finished constructing the fence around the table (it's too wide for the gate so it was key to move it before the final sections went up) and called it a day. We went to get Mexican food for dinner then came home to crash on the couch and watch a movie.

Monday morning Wade went into work for a half day while Mom, Larry, and I had breakfast then ran a few errands. Wade came home for lunch and by then the dew had dried enough that the guys started painting the fence while Mom and I started cleaning up the garden - getting the old pots and plants out, digging out the crap behind the garage, and ripping off the strangler vines from our Ponytail Palm. (Judging by his size, we think he might be pretty old - he's taller than the garage!) We finally made space for the orchids, the bird feeder, birdbath, and my staghorn which made for a little little grouping in the Garden. Mom was the champ doing a lot of the hard labor or uprooting bad plants and digging out the piles of debris. We even made a stack of firewood from the freshly trimmed cherry laurel logs - looking forward to using that next winter! Once the heavy lifting was done I moved over to help the guys finish painting the fence while mom repotted my herbs and some house plants. We celebrated a hard days work by eating chocolate cake on the picnic table and trying to recall all the birds we'd seen in the yard over the weekend: cardinal, mockingbird, osprey, black-crowned night heron, robin, blue jay, red-bellied woodpecker, brown thrasher, red-shouldered hawk... We finally cleaned up and headed to dinner at the Old Northeast Tavern then swung by our favorite gelato place before Mom and Larry headed home. It was a fun and extremely productive weekend and it definitely won't be the last as we're gearing up to finally get plants into the ground very soon. :)

Thanks for the help everyone!

Yard-apalooza

This year for our anniversary we decided that what we really wanted was a yard we could enjoy (rather than taking a trip). So, President's Day weekend was designated yard-a-palooza for us.

To prepare for the weekend's activities our native landscape guy brought a crew out to hack back the neglect in our yard - the previous owner left us massive amounts of old, invasive, poorly-trimmed bushes, trees, and vines in our yard. Wade and I had already taken a whack at a lot of it over the past few months, but our efforts paled in comparison to what was achieved this week. They ripped out truckloads of evil invasive exotic plants, gave some boundaries to our bountiful cherry laurels, and finally showed the massive yucca who was boss. As a result, our yard looks even bigger and we have some more sunny areas to plant fruit trees! We also can start filling back in with native plants that will require less water and bring in birds and butterflies. More sunny space also means more ground for us to use to

grown things we can eat too - oranges, lemons, limes, carambola (star fruit), avocados, veggies, and herbs. We even have a small banana tree in the yard and a pineapple in a pot. :) Unfortunately, we had to say goodbye to our rotting grapefruit tree to make this possible (below).

We're still working through how we can lay out raised veggie beds in the garden and install gutters and cisterns to maximize our ability to water plants without tapping an already limited resource in Florida.

The plan is that our yard can support us and the wildlife, and that it will be a place to relax with friends and family. I think we're well on our way!