SUMMER'S OVER.  BACK TO WORK.

     I've been neglectful; it has been six weeks and two days since my last entry.  And yet, I am picking up where I left off: the shed.  Time to tackle the inside.

     But before we get to that, the month of August has had its annoying moments.  Like the Friday morning when sewage came up through the bathtub (and it didn't rain prior to this problem).  So the OTMBO called the Number One (so to speak) septic tank company in town, bright and early, and was told "we're busy today, can't get to you until Monday, and if you have an emergency, I don't know what you are going to do".  Silly me, I thought sewage flowing up the pipe WAS an emergency.  Solution?  Call the number two company (again, no pun intended), who was here by noon, and unglogged the septic tank outflow pipe from the house by 1:30.  And was more than happy to have the business.

     Tree frogs everywhere.  Kind of entertaining watching one of these things (smaller than a dime) trying to eat a moth.

     The fig tree that was so full of leaves and fruit in July lost all of the leaves in August. 

     According to the experts on the internet, this can be caused by two possibilities: too much water, or too little water.  I vote for too much, since it rained a lot in August.  By the first week of September, new buds were starting to appear.  So it isn't quite dead yet.  Time to prune it back.

     The butternut trees (previous identified as pecan trees) have webworms.  Several webs are about 40 feet up.  Just out of my jurisdiction.

     I had a basketball hoop on a pole next to the driveway.  A friend was buying the whole thing for $20, but the extraction is not complete.  The top eight feet of the pole screwed onto the bottom part (sticking up two feet above the ground).  Below ground, a huge slab of concrete, adjacent to the rest of the pole, with its own slab of concrete.  The rest will come out, as soon as we can arrange a tow truck or a heavy winch.

     Now, the shed.  It has been waiting.  When we first walked throuigh the property, there was a poster from the University of Florida football team, a promotional poster for the upcoming season.  And it was pretty old, with a photo of the coach.  In the darkness, it was hard to tell: was that Urban Meyer?  Even Steve Spurrier?

       Nope.  Ron Zook.  Gator fans can put up with whiny coaches, as long as they win.  And coaches that win against Tennessee, Florida, and Georgia aren't really winners iof they lose to Mississippi State, and lose games at home in the 4th quarter.  That poster will fit well in the trash.

     Here's the problem with the inside of the shed, that no Gators poster can fix.  The walls are panelling, and it was falling apart.  The bottom of many pieces became wet, and simply flaked apart into shreds.  The rest of the panelling seemed to be "in name only".  Once it began to come down, the panelling folded with the slighted pressure.  When I started with this, I thought that I might need a small dumpster.  But the walls really compacted down.  This trashcan held about 200 square feet of panelling (25 feet of wall, 8 feet tall). 

    For now, I'm replacing two of the walls. Once those are done, I can stage the contents of the shed to clear the other two walls (front and the side with the electrical panel).  No pictures of what the panelling looked like, it appears that even the camera on the phone considered them to be too ugly to keep in memory.  Behind the panelling was lots of fiberglass insulation.

     The insulation fit into six trash bags.  Sure beats a dumpster rental.

 

 

     Before replacing the insulation and the wall, I need to consider something to keep water from coming in.  The ouside walls are wood with vinyl siding, but it also appears that the wood does not go all the way to the slab.  Some water stains where water should not be.

 

 

     Hope to have this done by the end of the month.  By Ocdtober 31, it may be the storage barn/ workshop it was meant to be.



THE SHED, BEFORE and AFTER

     The shed has the potential to be a really big deal, for storage and as a workshop, once it gets fixed up.  And before I can work on the inside (tear out the panelling that passes for walls, remove old insulation, replace the insulation and use drywall for the new walls), the outside needed to be secured, including replacement of the soffit and repair of the suirrel-eaten fascia, and to make the outside waterproof.  So we had vinyl siding put up, too.

BEFORE:

 and AFTER:

     Next will be the inside, probably on the Labor Day weekend.

THE DOORWAY: BEFORE and AFTER

     One of the previous owners of the House converted the patio into a family room.  Did a pretty nice job: fireplace, roomy, and lots of electrical and cable outlets.  Just one strange thing: the patio doors were removed (found them in the shed), but the doorway where the doors were was left exactly as if the room was to be a patio again, complete with the sliding door frame and brick threshhold.  Today, that begins to change, as a contractor is to begin work to make it look like a normal doorway.  The before pictures:

     And the finished results:

     We've almost forgotten what it used to look like.  Great job!

THE MOVE

     Been a while since the last post.  I had to take the computer in to the shop to get maintenance and replace a hard drive, move data from one to the other, as well as move the possessions from the apartment to the house.  Thanks to some great friends (Scott and Simon, Harold and Susan), we have everything moved to the house in one morning.  As for the computer, that was $248.

     Now that the computer is back and we are moved in, I can't find a darn thing in the house or on the computer.  And the whole file on the house (document scans, photos, etc) didn't get on the new drive.

     But here is the next project: getting settled in.

WAR AGAINST NATURE: THE CHINESE TALLOWS

     As mentioned before, two of the trees in our yard are Chinese tallows.  AKA Triadica sebifera (L), aka Florida aspen, chicken tree, gray popcorn tree, and candleberry tree.  Chinese tallow is an ornamental tree with colorful autumn foliage that can survive full sunlight and shade, flooding, drought, and in some cases fire.  It was allegedly introduced by Benjamin Franklin into the United States, and cultivated in South Carolina in 1772, as an ornamental tree. The first documented evidence of intentional Chinese tallow introduction into the U.S. occurred in 1772 by Benjamin Franklin, who forwarded seeds from “Cochin China” (now South Vietnam) to Mr. Noble Wimberly Jones, a gentleman farmer and fellow horticultural enthusiast residing in Darien, Georgia. In a letter addressed to Jones dated October 7, 1772, Franklin writes, “… I send also a few seeds of the Chinese Tallow Tree, which will I believe grow & thrive with you. Tis a most useful plant.” (Bell, 1966). Franklin valued the Chinese tallow tree for its utility, anticipating that the aril-rich mantle would be extracted and fashioned into candles by enterprising Georgians. The first American botanical reference to Chinese tallow was documented by Michaux (1803), who stated that it had been “cultivated in Charleston and Savannah, but was then spreading spontaneously into the coastal forests.” In 1826, Stephen Elliot protested that the Chinese tallow tree “bears fruit in great abundance, but though they contain much oil, no use is yet made of them.” (Bell, 1966). In 1906, the US Department of Agriculture, not having learned its lesson, thought that it would be a swell idea to spread them over the South, starting in Louisiana and Texas, as the waxy seed coverings were supposed to be a great source of the chemicals needed to make soap and machine oils.

     Gee thanks, Ben.  Double for you, USDA. Because kudzu, love bugs, and fire ants aren’t enough non-native pests that we in the South have to deal with, we have the Chinese tallow, a 50 foot tall weed that will not die.  Since 1998, it has been illegal to sell or propagate this pest in the state of Florida.    Since 1993 it has been said that “Chinese tallow may one day rival melaleuca in ecological and economic impact and distribution in Florida. Indeed, the Nature Conservancy has designated Chinese tallow as one of the “ten worst alien plant invaders” in the United States (Flack and Furlow, 1996), and the Invasive Species Specialist Group (ISSG) of the World Conservation Union (IUCN) has assigned Chinese tallow the dubious distinction of being one of “100 of the world’s worst invasive alien species”.

     Why is it so bad?  It won’t die!  The state of Louisiana tried, and found that:

• As tree diameter increases, thickening of the bark protects the cambium layer from damage to

secondary growth. Above some minimum size, Chinese tallow appears resistant to top-kill

(i.e., death of the above-ground portion of the plant) by fire.

• For smaller trees or trees subjected to extremely hot fires, response to top-kill is vigorous

resprouting with the potential to produce up to 2 meters of regrowth within a single growing

season. Consequently, tallow recovers from fire very quickly.

• As a consequence of damage by fire or mechanical cutting, Chinese tallow responds by root

sprouting at some distance from the original plant, resulting in clonal spread for distances

typically greater than 5 meters.

• Only the hottest fires are expected to ignite Chinese tallow, and trees typically neither carry

nor transmit fire through the canopy, unlike many trees and shrubs.

• Chinese tallow stands are characterized by “low flammability” because it competitively

excludes pyrogenic species that drive fire. Grace (1998) states, “it is common to watch a

prescribed fire burn right up to the edge of a tallow stand and simply go out because of a lack

of fuel.” As a consequence, fire-regulated prairie communities invaded by tallow shift from

being fire-regulated to tallow-regulated.

     I think I have seen something like this: John Carpenter's "The Thing" (1982)*: (warning, NSFW, has a dirty word.  And some scary stuff, too).

     *Attention Deficit Disorder moment: the actor that played the role of Childs is Keith David.  He was the "Angry Black Man" persona that Samuel L Jackson later make famous for himself.  He has been everywhere (The Thing, Platoon, They Live, Roadhouse, Barbershop.  You have heard his lines before:
> "Aww, lookie here. Looks like somebody threw away a perfectly good white boy!" (Men At Work)
> "Is it the frank or the beans?" (There's Something About Mary)

67 TREES*

     The tree census was completed a few nights ago, when my frined Rick (who, for the purposes of this blog will be known as "Rick") came over with his tree identification book.  What we have is:

21 eastern red cedars
8 pines
13 dogwoods
6 hollies
2 magnolias
2 pindo palms
1 red maple
3 crepe myrtles
1 sweet gum
1 glossy privet
2 Chinese tallows
1 fig
2 pecans
1 black cherry
1 cherry laurel
1 tulip poplar
1 sago palm

     More on the Chinese tallows later.  If they are tallows, they will be removed (non-native species).

* One corner of the property is overgrown, and may have a few more trees behind some vines).

I COULD GIVE A FIG

     It would have been more, but the mosquitoes and deer flies at sunset were getting quite aggressive (still a lot of standing water around the area from the storms of last week).

LOOSE VARMINTS

     The neighbor's animal apparently wanders around the street.  At least it isn't a dog with bowel issues.

CAUSE OF DEATH: "PRIDE OF HOME OWNERSHIP"

     I mowed the lawn today.  The office was closed again, so I had the time to trim the grass down to a managable level.  And it darn near killed me. 

(before)

(after)

But the lawn looks good.  For a while. 

     Maybe the middle of the day in late June was not the best time to mow (88 degrees, and not a dry heat, either).  I did end up drinking over a gallon of water to stay hydrated (lest the title be proven real), but .86 acres is a lot of space to either push or be pulled by a 90 pound lawnmower.  The thing takes a bunch of gas (needed to refill twice to finish the lawn). 

     Trimming the hedges and pruning the azaleas will wait for another day.

THE ONLY ROOM TO BE PAINTED (so far)

     The Boy Scout patch room has been painted.  The previously promised before and after pictures.

     I've been able to get some things done in the last two days, only because the office where I work has been closed.  Tropical Storm Debby left the town of Live Oak under water, leaving my office an unaccessable island.  Jim Cantore was doing a live report from in front of my favorite Chinese restaurant in town, and water was five feet deep nearby.  Twenty mile drive to the office, but the last half mile required a boat.