What We've Doing This Week

Of course, I'm still plopping down dozens of patio blocks:

Making sure the two sides are going to line up.

Still a big pile of patio blocks left....

One section all squared off and blocks positioned for the next phase.

A bit of cheating: Rather than try to cut curves, I just used some concrete.

The blocks in the foreground will take me to the corner of the neighbors place. Eventually, the entire space between the trailers will be block, but that will have to wait for the next load.

We moved all the patio blocks from where I had tossed them out of the car so that a) they would be closer to where I will be using them and b) so we could do a bit of cleaning:

The black gunk is mold, a Florida specialty. It had gotten so thick, we were slipping on it.

Cleaned up the path to the front door.

Close-up of the contrast between clean and Yuk!!

The break room. Nice thing about living on a dead-end street is being able to use the street as part of the yard.

And that is pretty much all we did this week. Other than the usual lawn care, which was extra-fun this week because a lot of the grass hadn't gotten mowed last week because of the siding guys and all their stuff in the way. Two weeks of growth in Florida in August means waist-deep grass. It took three and four passes to get everything back into shape, plus a lot of trimming. But it got done, so I can forget about it for a couple days.

Oh; almost forgot: Debbie had a visitor on the window right over her desk while she was working.

Six-inch grasshopper enjoying the shade.

We don't see them often, but Florida has a couple types of giant grasshopper. This one looks like a regular grasshopper, only hugerer. There is another one that I've only seen twice; once when we lived in Sanford, and once here last summer. They're entire body is bright, shiny gold. The first time I saw one, I thought it was some kid's toy dropped on the sidewalk until I tried to kick it out of the way and it flew off. Talk about needing to change your Huggies. We also have giant cicadas that are doing their best to deafen us. And yesterday, I saw and even gianter hornet flying with a giant cicada that I assume it was going to stuff into a hole to feed it's young 'uns.

Fun fact about the giant cicadas around here: Apparently, my saw cutting through concrete sounds enough like their call that I usually have at least one either wack into me or fly into the saw blade when I'm cutting patio blocks.  Not sure if they're trying to run me off or mate with me.

The plans next week are more of the same. Today, we're off to a barbecue at the Moose Lodge and will likely hang out there most of the day. Tomorrow is supposed to be a work day at the Lodge, but I might beg off. I would love to get more patio block on the ground instead of in piles, and get the rest of the Yuk!! off all the old patio blocks.