Chill

 

Hello Folks ~ The merry month of May is moving right along. It is a beautiful day in sunny south FL, big blue sky and breezy. It was in the 60’s this morning when I got up. For FL that is great weather this late in the year.  We were already having days of hot, humid weather, then this blessing given after stormy weather yesterday.

The sky was black yesterday morning as I headed out to the appliance store to pick up my new a.c. unit.  The old one croaked Thurs. morning around 3:30 a.m. My dear brother-in-law couldn’t make it here until today.  It took us 2 1/2 hours to take out old and put in new.  He and my SIL just moved 30 minutes closer to me last weekend, they were an hour away. So, they are still unpacking, etc. Bless his heart for coming down here this morning.

Here he is cutting out a section of 2x6, that had to be cut down using the table saw, then screwed back down, in order to make space for the new unit. Larger than the last.

Old- LG

New – Friedrich – ‘Chill’ Series. Still need to trim it out, but at least the a.c. is in and working just fine.

I had spent most of the day Thursday Googling air-conditioners. We had had two Friedrich units in the past and they were GREAT. They have a reputation of being ‘the Cadillac of air-conditioners. Well made, and quiet. Looking at all of the air-conditioners out there, I wanted another Friedrich. They are more $ but worth it.

My little cottage is only 675 sq. ft. I got the one with 15,000 BTU’s and let me tell you it is fine and dandy for this place. The one I had before was only 12,000 BTU’s. I set the thermostat to 71, like I had had my old unit set at, and after BIL left, I laid down for a short nap, when I woke up I was COLD. I didn’t even have the ceiling fan on, like normal, had a sheet and light quilt bedspread covering me. I turned the temp up to 76 and still may have to go up a couple of degrees. This is truly amazing to me and so far I’m a happy camper.

As for my ‘part-time’ work, it is temporary. I’m not doing fancy embellishment on these costumes. I have hot glued feathers & pom-poms, sewed ribbon lacing down on a male dancer costume, and laced ribbon down the front of 16-19 sweet tutu’s. Little red ribbon roses were already glued down by the company that made these. These are also in blue and green.

I am very thankful for this work, and I am enjoying getting to know the director/owner of this studio as we work on these costumes together. The other day she was cutting tutu skirts to shorten them. YIKES! What a job! Layers of tulle to be pinned, marked, then cut. She had a method and it went well.

Now, critters from the gardens.

The first is a non-native lizard. They can get pretty big and they can move fast when they want to. He caught my eye when I was talking on the phone with my SIL. I told her to hang on a minute because I had to take a picture. I zoomed in on him/her.

This caterpillar freaked me out as I was deadheading my penta bush and then I saw it. YIKES. It is either a moth or a swallowtail butterfly. I need to find out from Jessica, my friend who works at Butterfly World.

This is a Ruddy Daggerwing sipping nectar from a buddleia bush. These yellow flowers smell like honey.

Skipper butterfly.

A few days ago when I first saw this glob below, it was much smaller, I thought it was some kind of lizard poop. But as time went on, this thing kept getting larger. There are two of these on my baby key lime tree. UGLY! But, I looked in my FL butterfly book, and they are Palamedes Swallowtail caterpillars. Jessica had given me a pupa of this butterfly to watch it ‘hatch’, and I when it did, I let it go into my gardens. Now I am rewarded with babies.

Here is our state butterfly. I have LOTS of these flitting about. ‘Zebra Longwings’. These flowering blooms are part of my ‘secret garden’ hedge. The purple flowers are golden dewdrop, and they smell like jelly beans to me. The red are pentas, a real butterfly magnet.

This is my sweet Miss Tork. She was laying on a pile of clean laundry that needed to be folded and put away. I love the coloring of her belly hair, and look at her sweet little front paws. She is such a sweetie pie.

Yesterday morning she was sleeping in this chair, minus the laundry, and I was sitting in my chair. There was some rain going on when all of a sudden a HUGE clap of thunder sounded like it hit the driveway, which made us both LEAP out of our chairs. It wasn’t funny at the time, but seeing it in my mind cracks me up. We were just minding our own business and were jolted into fear & flight mode.

Now for some flowers.

Frangipani blooms. I have three trees of this color growing in my main garden. They were given to me as cuttings from a friend over 25 years ago.

This is ‘Grand Duke’ jasmine. My favorite jasmine. I don’t even remember where I got this. The scent is absolutely heavenly.

Amaryllis blooming in a small garden bed.

These are a pot of amaryllis blooms, no dirt, I just had pulled them out of another pot and threw them here. They are tough.

Key Lime flowers and a baby key lime.

A Meyer Lemon, I have three lemons on my small tree.

Blooms in my ‘secret garden’ hedge.

‘Granada’

Remember my ‘Kathleen’ rose bush I thought had croaked, but it came back to life. Well, here are the first blooms from it.

This is ‘Miss Atwood’. I just lover her coloring. Well, actually, I love everything about her.

That’s it for now. I hope you all are enjoying your weekends.

Thanks for stopping by, taking the time to read and leaving your kind comments. You have helped me on my widow’s journey, more than words can say.

Happy Spring.

FlowerLady