The Villages and running an electrical raceway

Mary and I were awake by 5 am, so we did our language lessons on Babbel until we heard Mark and Cindy moving downstairs. We had Wheat Chex for breakfast with yogurt and banana. The morning was warm but a little foggy when we walked the dogs around the neighborhood. We wanted to take the longer walk early before the rain that was forecast for later in the day.

Electrical raceway

Mary and Cindy left for The Villages at 9 am. They planned to take Mark’s sister, Jodie, to the beauty shop then shopping at Costco and out to lunch together. Mark and I went to the Crystal River Home Depot to get supplies for adding a receptacle for the television in Cindy’s office. We ran metal surface conduit from an existing receptacle to a new outlet behind the wall mounted television. Since the television had built-in Roku, we didn’t need to get a USB receptacle. The project went well until we tried the television as we were finishing. A light came on in the rear of the television, but we were unable to get it to turn on. No matter what we did the television didn’t come on. Mark suggested that we check to see if the batteries in the remote were dead. When he popped up the battery cover, we were surprised to find that there were no batteries in the remote control. After swapping the batteries with the remote in our room, the television worked as it should. Mark texted Cindy to pick up AAA batteries from Costco.

After finishing the installation, we had cheese and Canadian bacon quesadillas with tortilla chips and salsa. I called our friend, Joann Potter, to confirm their visit to Homosassa on Monday and Tuesday. We took an afternoon break until Mary and Cindy returned. Mark watched ESPN and napped while I caught up on this trip journal and napped. The weather stayed warm, but there was a very light rain. We took the dogs for a short walk before the rain picked up.

Mark has been wanting to get into making sourdough. I brought a jar of starter from my sourdough to Florida with us. Mark some of the starter in a bowl with water, flour, salt and a little oil. The sourdough sat in a warm place to be kneaded and eventually baked tomorrow.

Mary and Cindy arrived back at the house around 5 pm with Cindy’s new haircut and items from Costco. We warmed up the Schmitt’s meatloaf, cooked some sweet potatoes and broccoli for an excellent meal.

Whittington’s friends, Kenny and Jodie, came over at 7 pm to play cards and visit. I went upstairs to do a few lessons on Babbel, read a little, then watched an episode of Landman on Paramount. After the card game was over, we turned in for the night. We were considering going to Homosassa’s mullet festival tomorrow which is always fun.

Starting garage repairs

Mary and I had our morning beverages and did our language lessons then went downstairs. We had some of the leftover biscuits from Sunday along with cold cereal for breakfast. While Mary and Cindy took the dogs on their morning walk, Mark and I went to Home Depot to get supplies to work in the garage. The structure of the garage is concrete block so there was no damage to the exterior walls from flooding. However, the interior partition had damage from the saltwater that filled the garage with several feet of water over the night of September 26 during Hurricane Helene.

We bought a 4X 8 sheet of 1/2 inch Durock cement board to repair the downstairs partition and 11 sheets of Sheetrock to start the process of finishing the upstairs of the garage. We got a small pail of premixed thinset mortar to use like drywall mud for the cement board and the special 1 5/8” screws for the cement board.

When we got back to the house, we placed the new sheet of Durock against the damaged wall and used it as a template to remove the existing material. Most of the cutting was done with a masonry disc in Mark’s Milwaukee cordless angle grinder. We scraped around the rest of the wall to remove flaking paint and prepare the wall for repair. We attached the cement board with the screws then placed adhesive mesh tape along the joints. The mortar filled and smoothed the joints in preparation for finishing. Mark will prime the wall, spray it with orange peel texture and finally paint it to match the other walls in the garage.

We went into the house for a lunch of a bowl of soup and ham sandwiches then returned to the garage to carry the 4X8 sheets of drywall up the stairs of the garage. We started on the ends of the room since full sheets were required to cover the walls. We tried using the Roto-Zip to cut the drywall around outlets and the windows, but the 25-year-old tool no longer had the power to speed through the cuts. We found that a drywall blade in Mark’s cordless Milwaukee oscillating saw did a much better job. By dinnertime we had one end of the room covered and had started on the wall along the stairwell.

Although the temperature got down to the low 40s this morning, it warmed up to the upper 70s by afternoon. While watching local news from Lexington and Huntington online we are seeing single digit temperatures at night as well as additional snow added to the initial 8-12 inches from the weekend. Continued cold temperatures and snow in the forecast promise no relief in sight. We feel for family in Georgetown, Cincinnati and Huntington but are happy that we are in Florida during this weather.

We cleaned up and drove to The Villages where we had dinner with Grant and Jodie. Jodie had a taco bar and baked quesadillas. We had a variety of desserts and chips to snack on as well. After dinner, most of the group played card games while I read. Grant and Jodie were leaving for a Caribbean cruise, and we enjoyed hearing about their travel plans.

After we got in from Jodie’s we covered a few plants outside in anticipation of possible temperatures here in Florida approaching the mid 30s.

Cindy's Birthday

After the usual dog walk in the neighborhood, Mark made French toast from a loaf of French bread. It was very good using a new recipe that he found that uses a batter with a little cinnamon flavor. We sang happy birthday to Cindy wishing her a happy 66th birthday.

Mark & I put a few things together for our Monday hog hunting trip, making sure that the rifles and pistols were ready as well as ammo, loading supplies and clothing that we might need.

We were to be at Mark’s sister’s house by 3 pm for a birthday dinner, but we left at 1:30 for the hour drive so we could make a few stops. We went to a Walmart on the way so Mark could get some 9 mm and .380 ammo to take Cindy to The Outpost Firing Range near Lecanto. Once in the store, we learned that Walmart doesn’t sell pistol ammunition in Florida. He will probably buy the ammo at the range. We also went to Aldi to stock up on travel snacks, cereal and a few other grocery items. Our last stop was at Chase Bank to get cash for the hog hunt. The outfitter offers a 5% cash discount, so we wanted to get money for most of the hunting fee.

We arrived at Grant and Jodie’s house in The Villages around 2:30 and visited with them and their neighbor, Carolyn while the meal was being completed. Jodie was worried that the turkey breast was over-cooked, but Cindy and Mary added some broth and moistened the meat nicely. We had the turkey, dressing, corn pudding, green beans and mashed potatoes followed by strawberry shortcake for dessert. Everything was very good.

After dinner, Mary, Cindy, Jodie and Carolyn played Sequence while Mark and I took a walk around The Villages. We didn’t realize what a huge area The Villages comprises. We only walked through a tiny section of the Buttonwood area. We saw as many people driving golf carts as cars. When we passed the golf course, we saw four alligators of varying size in the pond.

We drove back to Homosassa and packed with truck with rifles, ammo, coolers and other things that we would need for our hog hunt on Monday morning. Mary packed lunches and snacks for us since we had booked an all-day hunt and didn’t know when we would return. Once the truck was packed, we walked the dogs and watched some television before heading to bed.

The Villages

We woke early for our 7:30 departure to The Villages. Mark and I took the dogs on a short but brisk walk to the public boat launch on Morris Creek.

The drive to The Villages took a little more than an hour. We dropped Cindy off at her hair appointment a little before 9 am, where we met with Jodie. We drove back to the town square area at Sumter Landing on Lady Lake. We learned that The Villages has at least three commercial centers with gated residential “villages” clustered around each. There were many stores, restaurants and pubs in the town square as well as a golf cart dealership, gazebos for nightly concerts, a radio station and many walking paths. We walked along Lake Sumter and saw a lot of birds and watched the rowing teams in the lake.

Steve at a cigar shop in The Villages

We left The Villages around 10:45 to meet Cindy, Jodie and Grant for lunch. We all got sandwiches at Chicken Salad Chick and enjoyed the lunch and visit.

On the way back to Homosassa, we stopped at the Rainbow Springs State Park where we walked a couple of miles by the springs and small waterfalls. The area was a developed tourist trap in the 1960s with large gardens. By talking with the rangers, we found three good places to launch kayaks. One spot is in the spring where rentals are launched. Another spot is behind the Winn Dixie, and the third is near Swampy’s Restaurant in Dunnellon where the Rainbow River connects to the Withlacoochee River.

Rainbow Springs State Park

We drove the 30 miles back to Homosassa, stopping at Dollar Tree to get canned fish to use as bait for the fish trap. Then we drove through the Twistee Treat for ice cream cones.

Mary, Cindy and I walked the dogs while Mark fired up the grill. We had charcoal grilled pork loin with rice and broccoli for dinner then watched a few episodes of The Dectorists on Acorn before retiring.