Sun Damage Shadow Art Wordless Wed

I used to be a brown canvas, for privacy,

now I am art for all to see.

The Neighbors Fence-The End (almost)

 

The neighbor's fence is finished and has been since June 12th, I took photos and forgot to post them until a blog friend asked about the fence. We have put all repair ($$$$) on hold until we find out if the meds will help Bob. 

Our yard waste goes in the blue bin, the big stick is one of two Sea-grape sticks I saved for walking sticks, after hurricane Milton. 

That stick is perfect to hold on to while bending over picking up sticks, I can brace myself and pick up about 6 sticks at one bend over and not fall on my head.

The schefflera tree is the one just to the left of the blue bin. the entire stick of leaves drops, and the leaves come off. Bob has always just mulched the sticks and leaves and no need to pick them up. 

Once, my neighbor Willie saw me picking up sticks and said Whatcha doing over there, DieHard.

the new name he gave me after hurricane clean up

When the young men who installed the fence, built this barricade, with a gate they took down from the neighbors yard and they left a half section of our leaning rotten fence, because if it is moved, there is a hole just the right size for a big fat nosy dog to dive through.

Baby Girl, now an angel, was the most stubborn dog on the planet

Dan will remove the gate and our fence and patch the hole, next time he comes to work

our old fence, had wire all the way across to keep Angel Baby Girl from digging under the fence. She is angel now but was not when on this earth. I took the photos to show there is 2 feet between our fence line and the neighbors.

I filled the space between the strangler fig tree, with debris until Dan comes, I don't want Beau on the other side of it until the hole is fixed. the space you see is not an outlet, there is a chain-link fence there, our fence. Moving debris is how I met the granddaddy long legs that climbed my arm.

Sunset Sunday

the only good thing about our missing tree and our devastated yard, is each night I can step out the door and get beautiful sunsets and each morning I walk Beau and can get sunrise photos. Now if I can just keep praying that the man next door will put his privacy fence back up you will not see his house in the photos

Front yard same sunset thought the oak tree.

Moses-in-the-Cradle

 

Tradescantia spathacea AKA Moses-in-the-cradle, Oyster Plant

The Pothos I pulled from the back yard, wilted and was very unhappy in the bright sun. This pretty purple plant is all over the yard, here and there, and was growing under one of Bob's junk piles just a few feet from the stump.  It is cuddling with Mexican Heather now.

I yanked it up and threw the Pothos in the trash bin and stuck it here. It's beautiful and it grows here like a weed and is beautiful year-round. You can read the wonders and odd things about it HERE . this plant is poisonous, and is also used in Asia and Mexico as many different medicines. Read All About it at the link.. It really is interesting.

If I had the energy, I could gather up a lot of throw out planters, run around the yard yanking up about 6 different plants, and put them out by the curb and the tourists/winter residents would buy them.  When we moved here we bought many of our plants/trees from a neighbor 2 blocks over that did that. He turned his entire back yard into a Florida Plant nursery and did really well selling to people in the neighborhood. 

  

Joining Nature Friday today with Rosy and Sunny over at https://llbinourbackyard.blogspot.com/

Wed rain and sunshine

 

we awoke Saturday morning January 6th, to the above radar! I shop at 6 am. This was about to come on shore, I stayed home. It boomed and flashed and winds were almost a tropical storm and gave us 2 and 1.4 inches of badly needed rain. All in a little over 4 hours. I called out for Pizza to be delivered and after we ate we went in the back yard to THIS!

Pop over to see how it affected Beau...

Blue skies smilin' at me

Nothin' but blue skies do I see

Bluebirds singin' a song

Nothin' but blue skies from now on

by willie Nelson

Clouds In our Sky

 

 I took these photos because I was standing by the pool enthralled with the beauty of our Florida sky behind our tree. The very top of the tree is where the Night Blooming Cactus live.

When we bought the house 34 years ago, that tree to was not much taller than our roof line.

Much easier to see these blooms.

In this view to the right is part of our front yard oak and to the left top is our fish tail palm

in the photo below you can see on the left side that until last month there was a 2nd tree next to our pine tree. You may remember the neighbor cut it down. leaving the tall stump and tried to cut all the limbs over his property on our front yard oak tree. Behold 6 weeks after the Cutting, he had 17,000 dollars of solar panels put on top of his house.

Now we know why he was trimming trees. That missing tree is making our kitchen garage stifling in the afternoons. to be continued Monday

Backyard jungle 2023 Hibiscus

 

Drought remains with us and the heat/humidity is a horror for being outside, but the plants love it.

Afternoon Gulf sea breezes blow the flowers back and forth, mesmerizing me.

My photo iPhone photo

I took my photo above of 2 flowers in my backyard and my Bing Creative Image below, to a visit with PicMonkey

AI creation

And came up with these Three after about 30 minutes of edits 

Below, my creations combining my own photo with my AI creation

The Jungle is back, in our Backyard

 

The rains keep coming every few days and Florida is becoming a tropical jungle again. The ferns I transplanted from around the yard are now 4 feet high, the banana tree is about 10 feet, Elephant Ear about 9 ft.

The cassava that I broke into 12-inch sticks and planted by the ferns are now 5 feet tall. All of these plants love HEAT and HUMIDITY and boy do we have that!  I know most of you have extreme heat to deal with. This is our normal from a few years ago.

And the most exciting of all things in the back yard is the elephant Ear has Babies, 4 of them. With luck and rain and no hurricanes, the old and ugly wood fence should be hidden completely by end of summer. We lost all but one plant of the elephant ear to the 4-year drought. 

Mulch It!

 

Since the drought came to town about 5 years ago, the back yard has only a small amount of grass. 

There are 2 patches we cultivate and water because Beau needs grass to eat.

Our yard looks like it has been mulched, and it has.

But Bob doses it with the mower. When he cuts the front lawn, he cuts the back yard.

we are surrounded by 7 trees and they drop pine needles and leaves and it creates finely chopped mulch that hold down the sand. Florida doesn't have dirt, we have SAND

If you look closely you can see we do need to paint the house.

We agreed on a color. Platinum which is silver/white with gray cast to it.

The trim will be bright white, the shutters and door we are still on the fence bickering

The shutters are sanded and the paint is in the garage

Now I will lose sleep over seeing him standing on a ladder..

Kings Mantle Draft Dump

Photos from June 16, 2018.. the photos  have dawdled in drafts for months. Now they visit you via End of Year Draft Dump ..

It rained for 3 days, the last week of December 2018. Putting on my makeup, I realized the Weather Lady was talking and I had not been listening. I BLOCK the TV mentally because it talks constantly.

I yelled down the hall, What did she say????    the answer came back... "YEAH"

I walked down the hall and said.  "that was not a Yeah Or No question.
He says "well what was the question?" I told him, he said " Rain all day, colder tonight, high is 60's"

I said "well you knew the answer, so if you did not hear the question why did you say YEAH?

I still don't know the answer.