Painting trim

When we went downstairs for breakfast Mark asked us if we had heard the commotion last night. It turns out that a pod of porpoises had come up the canal behind the house and were noisily feeding on a school of fish that they had chased into the dead-end canal. He and Cindy said that it was quite a spectacle.

We watched the WKYT news on Zeam and it sounds like much of the central part of the country will be hit with a major winter storm that will bring over a foot of snow, ice and extreme cold. The forecast is that this winter system will last for two or more weeks. We were happy to be in the Florida warmth of near 80 degree temperatures but we hoped that our family and friends wouldn’t be too inconvenienced.

After walking the dogs, Mark and I spent the morning touching up the paint on the panels, chair rail and baseboard in the kitchen, living room, dining area and hall. We caulked around the window trim and the top of the chair rail. Mary started painting the trim boards that had been replaced around the doors and windows. This is a really big job that would take at least two days. Mark put a second coat of paint on the bedroom walls that had been replaced before we arrived last week.

For lunch, we had ham sandwiches from the New Year’s leftovers and potato chips. We ate quickly then got back to work. The paint on the baseboards for the bedroom was dry so we cut and fit them in the first-floor bedroom. We started putting baseboards in the closet of that room but saw that we were one board short. We decided that we would have to go to Home Depot tomorrow for another 8 foot long baseboard.

We finished loading scraps of drywall, damaged trim and a television that was ruined in the flood into the truck bed. We drove to the county landfill but turned away when we saw the length of the line. We decided to attempt to get in early tomorrow morning.

I made dinner of cheesy grits and blackened sea trout with a garden salad. Everyone seemed to enjoy the meal. We took the dogs on a short evening walk on Standish and Battle Creek Roads. We did our evening language lessons then watched two episodes of Mr. Bates vs. The Post Office before turning in for the night. Mary and I had watched this show a few months ago but the true story was so good that we were happy to watch it again.