Plumbing, blooms, a surprise

 

Good evening Folks ~ It is Monday evening and I’m feeling ready to get horizontal to read before sleep.

Today was beautiful here in s.e. FL.  I took some pics of blooms this morning. The air is filled with bird song, scents of callisia fragrans, it was cool and I was thankful for another new day.

The giant fish is swimming in among some snake plants, moses-in-the-bullrushes, and callisia fragrans, which are the lacy little white blooms on skinny stalks.

Clerodendrum shooting star

Mom-of-millions with reed orchids and blue sage in the background.

‘Cocktail’ roses.

This is a huge aloe by the back shed, probably a couple of feet tall by three feet across.

Early morning fog on Saturday.  My brother-in-law was driving down from an hour away in this. Out on the road it was really thick, I couldn’t even see the intersection a few blocks away.

Well, we are hoping and praying that we are done with plumbing work under the house.  This time we cut two holes in the flooring to fix the leak, change pipe and we worked from 8:45-6:45, pooped at the end.  We had to go to HD for supplies, not much, and we had a lunch break. 

Cutting holes in the floor got to me and I had a good little cry, then pulled myself together so that we could get on with the work. Crying released tension.  Todd told me he is amazed at the work dear Mark did under the house as an older man by himself.  It was a LOT of work, new center beam and shoring all the cross beams up on blocks, but well worth it and hearing Todd say that really blessed my heart. I was Mark’s helper above ground, but Mark was the one crawling around on his stomach doing all the hard work.

This hole is under the kitchen sink, stove to the right of my nice pvc pipe cutter.

Todd on his stomach replacing old copper, with pvc. This second leak was bigger than the first one. It was probably there but we just didn’t notice it because of where it was, under the refrigerator flooring.  I sure could hear the water though, so kept the water turned off to the house except for short periods of time to wash dishes and take a shower.  Doing without water at the turn of a faucet or flush of a toilet, sure makes you appreciate that convenience.

Todd had to knock out some old concrete chunks that were blocking the way to do the pipe work. This hole is under where the fridge sits, in it’s own little cubbyhole.  Cutting this hole is what made me cry for some reason.  I just missed Mark so much and we were cutting up the flooring he had done for the scullery. SIGH. The silver covered pipe you see is the hot water pipe. We just have a couple of sections of older, but looking good, copper pipe now, everything else is pvc.

I forgot to take pictures of the finished work.  We were tired and moving right along to get the flooring back in place, etc. after waiting a couple of hours for the pvc cement to set up good. All looked fine, flooring back down, fridge moved back into place and I would handle the rest later, vacuuming, mopping, etc.

I had put the two chunks of concrete he had given me from under the house, in the mop bucket. This morning I took them out because I was going to mop and lo and behold there was a ‘prize’ just for me that I didn’t even see when we brought them up.

This heart is lopsided, has a fault line and a gash, which is how my heart feels these days missing my love.  Mark and I always looked for hearts and this is a special one for me this Valentine’s week.  I hosed it down and brought it indoors and now it has a special place of honor.

Well, that’s it from Plum Cottage for now. 

Happy Valentine’s Day to all.

FlowerLady