We woke up to thunder, lightning, and heavy rain yesterday morning, and it kept up all day long. By evening the thunder and lightning had moved offshore and out over the Atlantic, but the rain continued, although not nearly as heavy as it was. No complaints here, our yard and trees really needed it. During […]
While Terry had a couple of dental appointments this last week, I don’t believe I had been out of the house except to check the mail or check on our citrus trees all week. This allowed me a lot of writing time on my new book, but sometimes I reach the point where I just […]
We have been getting a lot of rain the last couple of days, and I’m not complaining about that at all because our lawn and citrus trees definitely needed it. Much of Florida has been in a drought for the last couple of years, so anytime Mother Nature decides to send some rain our way, […]
Yesterday started with my favorite breakfast, Terry’s absolutely delicious homemade overnight yeasted browned butter waffles. What a treat! I was never a fan of waffles until the first time she made these for me not long after we were married. Of course, before that, my exposure to waffles was Eggos, which is no comparison at […]
A while back, someone asked me if I ever planned to stop writing and retire, or if I thought I might run out of ideas for books someday and give it up. Not as long as my faculties hold up and I can keep at it. I will never live long enough to write all […]
With the recent cold snap we had here in Central Florida, Terry and I were worried about the citrus trees we planted last year. She went online and did some research, and the advice was to cover them with something to ground level to ward off the freezing temperatures. We did that, wrapping them in […]
It took a long time and a lot of digging and frustration, but I finally got the last of the root balls from our banana palms dug out, and no more shoots were coming up over the last month or so. Now it was time to plant something else where those nasty, shedding things were. […]
Half a year gone already? Where does the time go? I can remember as a kid when summers seemed to last thirteen months. I guess all those people who say that time goes faster as you get older know what they’re talking about. It being the end of June, we are already ten days into […]
Our daughter Tiffany has been visiting from Arizona, and today is her last full day here. She leaves tomorrow morning to go home to her family, and while I know that her husband and kids are really looking forward to seeing her, we’re going to miss having her around. Some of you may remember that […]
We had a break from the 90° weather of last week and have been taking advantage of it, trying to get some things tidied up around the outside of the house before our kids come to visit. We have a bug zapper porch light next to our front door, and while it kills a lot […]
We live in a friendly little subdivision called Terra Mar Village on the Intracoastal Waterway, halfway between Daytona Beach and Cape Canaveral. While it’s not a 55+ community like so many here in Florida, and there are some families with children, most of the neighbors we’ve met are in the 50+ age range. Besides two […]
I’ve mentioned a couple of times in the blog that rainfall totals for our area of Central Florida are way down this year. We have something like a 5 inch deficit where we are, midway between Daytona Beach and Cape Canaveral. So we have definitely been needing some rain, and we got some yesterday. In […]
Several blog readers have asked me how Terry and I are feeling after getting our shingles vaccinations on Wednesday afternoon. As I said, I had a big lump on my arm, and both of our arms hurt all night long. By yesterday evening, mine was tender but not sore anymore, though Terry was still experiencing […]
It would be nice if we lived in a world populated only by good people who love their neighbors and treat everybody by the Golden Rule. But the reality is that we live in a world where two-legged predators see the old, the weak, and everyone else as fair game. A couple of those types […]
Quite a few readers have asked how things are going with Terry’s AeroGarden, as well as the citrus trees and perennial peanuts we planted in our yard. Overall, things have been successful, though there have been a couple of setbacks. A week or so ago, we had a cold snap come through Central Florida, with […]
A series of severe thunderstorms came through Central Florida Saturday night, with tornado warnings in several counties, including ours. As usual, the brunt of it went north or south of us, leaving us with periods of heavy rain off and on, but that was about it. But it was still a tense night around here. […]
When Jake from Lindley’s Garden Center planted our citrus trees, told us that we might see some fruit as early as February, although that was no guarantee, and he added that it might be as much as eighteen months. But when I went out to check the mail yesterday, I noticed buds on our key […]
I had planned on watering our citrus trees and perennial peanut plants yesterday, but sometime early in the morning, we had a pretty good rain and woke up to big puddles in the street, so that saved me one chore. However, it gave us another one to deal with. My Bennington pontoon boat has three […]
As I said before, I have used a headset microphone to dictate my books for a long time, and a while back I decided I needed to upgrade so I purchased a Blue Yeti Nano standalone microphone. It took a couple of attempts to get it set up properly and it works, although it’s not […]
I got off to a good start yesterday working on my new John Lee Quarrels mystery and kept at it pretty steadily for most of the day. By the time I knocked off late in the afternoon, I had done 5,575 words, which is a pretty good day’s writing. Or dictating, in my case. I […]