Trimming the palm tree

Neither of us slept well last night, although we really don’t know why. At 4 am, I thought Mary was reading since I saw the light on her phone come on and heard a beep like she had sent a text. It turns out that the light and beep were alerts from the home security cameras signaling a possible person, but it was just the thick fog that covered the area. However, we were wide awake by then, so we used Zeam to watch the WKYT news from Lexington then did our morning language lessons while we had our morning hot beverages.

Once downstairs, we had Great Grains and Wheat Chex cold cereals and chatted with Mark and Cindy. We took the dogs on a longer walk through the neighborhood. There was a lot of standing water from last night’s heavy rain. Mark went across the street to meet the new neighbor and his wife who are from Washington state and will be using the house here in Homosassa as a vacation home until they retire.

We needed to clean the gutter on the front of the house since it overflowed during the rain last night. We also needed to trim the palm tree at the front of the house before the house is lifted. We suspect that much of the problem with clogged gutters comes from shed material from that palm tree. Since the palm fronds were very tough, we needed a chainsaw to remove them. Mark’s cordless Milwaukee chainsaw had finally quit working after years of hard use, so we ran into the nearby Ace Hardware to replace it.

Palm tree with "hurricane trim"

Back at the house, Mark and I took turns climbing the ladder up the tree and removing limbs. Here in Florida, that is called a “hurricane trim” since most of the fronds are removed reducing wind resistance and preventing as much damage during high velocity winds. It took a little over an hour to remove all but the top fronds so that the palm tree shouldn’t be in the way of the house lift which everyone hopes will be very soon. The cut material for the tree is piled beside the garage. Because of the President’s Day holiday, the landfill isn’t open today, so we plan on loading it into the pickup truck and hauling it to the transfer station later this week.

Mark and I used the Milwaukee leaf blower to remove as much of the sawdust from each other as possible then came in for a lunch of deli turkey on sourdough with Ruffles potato chips and apples. After lunch, we watched the US women’s curling team lose badly to the last place Italian team in the 2026 Winter Olympics. We were disappointed that the team didn’t play well at all. Mary and Cindy made plans for our visit to the western Everglades area including Bonita Springs and Sarasota. There are several places in that area that we enjoy visiting.

In the afternoon we watched some of the Winter Olympics then enjoyed some tenderloin steaks that Mark grilled with roasted new potatoes and green beans. Everything was very good. After dinner we took the dogs on a short walk in the neighborhood, then Kenny and Jodie from across the street came over to play cards.

We turned in early because we knew we would want to leave early for our trip to the Everglades on the Gulf Coast.