Mark was making some of his excellent breakfast burritos when we went downstairs. We had finished our morning language lessons and had our beverages before going down.
We checked the weather at home and felt bad (a little) because temperatures were in the single digits and they snow and ice continue to pile up.
Mary and Cindy had a morning of shopping planned but would take the dogs on a walk before they left. They shopped for swimsuits at Lands End so Mary found three that were 70% off that she liked and put the order in to arrive after we returned home next week. Cindy was also expecting the cabinet installer to come for a final measurement before ordering the replacement kitchen cabinets. They hope to have a small dishwasher included in the cabinets and would like to keep their granite countertop.
Mark and I loaded the drywall scraps and old trim boards that had been flooded into the pickup. When we arrived at the Citrus County Landfill we were pleased that the line was short. We dumped the drywall and trim sections. When we weighed out we learned that we had over 200 pounds of material and the fee was less than $20 for the dump fee.
We stopped by Gulf to Lake Marine Sales so Mark could check on ordering a cover for his boat. From there we stopped at Lowe’s to see options for trim and moulding for the room over the garage. We found that the pine planks at Lowe’s were less expensive than the ones we bought from Home Depot. The boards were also in much better shape than the Home Depot stock. We bought some drywall corner bead, trim for the doors and windows and a tube of construction adhesive. Our last stop was at Crystal River Marine, the boat dealership where Mark had the hull of his boat painted with a coating to resist growth of marine organisms.
On the drive back to the house we saw Cindy and Mary driving out to go shopping. Mary had moved her car to the neighbor’s driveway so Mark could back the boat trailer onto the gravel pad. He was able to park the boat and trailer easily so we chocked the wheels and put the jack down to disconnect from the pickup. As we were doing that, FedEx arrived with a nightstand that Cindy had ordered from Wayfair. We carried it into the first floor bedroom so Mark could unpack and set it up. I moved Mary’s Camry back to the gravel pad where we had parked earlier but parked parallel to Standish Drive in front of the boat.
We put a skim coat on the concrete board that we installed on the garage partition and hoped to get it completed before we leave on Sunday. About the time that we were finishing, Mary called asking us if we wanted to meet them at The Freezer for shrimp. We didn’t hesitate to agree on lunch so we cleaned up and drove the short distance to the dockside restaurant. We had a pound of shrimp boiled for the four of us. Mark and I also had cups of their clam chowder. They were out of smoked mullet dip so the four of us shared a cup of salmon dip with crackers. Lunch was very good. We have always enjoyed our meal at The Freezer every time we have visited. We only wish the day were warm enough for us to eat outside on the dock where shrimp is brought to the restaurant by boat.
After returning to the house Mary and Cindy worked on genealogy. Both of them had some things on ancestry.com so they consolidated their research on familysearch.com, a free genealogy site supported by the LDS Church. Mark and I put a coat of primer on the inside wall in the garage where we patched the concrete wallboard.
I used some of the leftover exterior paint for the garage to touch up the wall near Mark’s sauna. Mark used the same paint to paint the mailbox post and an area where saltwater from the flood caused a short circuit in a power line going to the heat pump. A relay blew making a scorched spot on the wall that covered nicely with the paint.
Mark & I loaded the two kayaks and boating gear onto his pickup in anticipation of paddling on Crystal River or another nearby location in the next few days. We knew that the temperature would be cool in the mornings but would warm up into the mid 70s each afternoon. We have several things that need to be done but a trip to see manatees would be nice one afternoon.
Mark made chicken enchiladas for dinner but made them casserole style like Mary sometimes does. They were very good and we all enjoyed them. After dinner we went out to the garage to challenge Mary and Cindy with the MantisX Laser Academy shooting system. Both did well once they became comfortable with the pistols.
After waking early, we did our morning language lessons, and texted birthday wishes to Sarah. She said that she would video chat with us after the boys got home from school.
We had Great Grains cereal for breakfast and started back to work on the ceiling in the room over the garage. The paint was dry on the planks that Mary and Cindy had stained yesterday afternoon, so we carried the 8-foot boards up to the second floor. The boards went up fairly quickly, so we moved to the last section that were 9’ 3” wide so we had to use the 10’ boards. We slowed down to cut around an electrical box for a ceiling light. We cut an access hole to for the ventilation fan in the attic. We had to rip a thin board for the last row on the ceiling, but it went into place fairly easily.
We stopped for a lunch of turkey sandwiches with tortilla chips and queso dip, then went back to work.
We finished the ceiling by around 3 pm and were pleased with how it looked. Since we had some stained planks left, we ripped pieces to enclose the windows at each end. The boards required some fine tuning to fit around the windows, but we got them nailed into place. Then we cut a plywood cover for the ceiling access then covered it with stained planks to match with the ceiling. The room still needed to have the Sheetrock finished and trim to be put up around the doors and windows as well as between the drywall and the stained pine planks. We started cleaning up the space since it was covered with sawdust and tools were placed around the room where we were using them.
Mark could tape and finish the drywall when they return from Oregon in two weeks. They were going to Oregon to finalize the purchase of a new house where Robert and Sheena will rent from them. They also planned to celebrate the boys’ birthdays and visit some of their Oregon friends. Mark does a good job with drywall and should get the room looking good soon once they return from the trip.
Sarah and the boys video called for a video chat, and it was great seeing them. We look forward to having them down for a sleepover soon.
We decided on leftover red beans and rice with a garden salad for dinner. We did our evening language lessons then watched two episodes of Vienna Blood on PBS.
After waking around 5 am, we did our morning language lessons and had a cup of tea. Mark made sheet pancakes with pecans and blueberries for breakfast. I had soaked a pound of red beans in water with baking soda the night before. I rinsed the beans well and added them to five cups of beef broth. I brought the beans to a boil then set them to simmer until dinner.
Mary and Cindy took the dogs on a walk through the neighborhood before going to Seven Rivers Presbyterian Church at Lecanto, Florida. Mark and I went to the room over the garage the continue installing pine planks on the 27’ long front side of the garage. Since we had the starter strip of planks already in place where the pine meets the drywall sheets the process of nailing the 8- and 10-foot planks on the wall went quickly. We noticed that we had incorrectly mitered one of the 8 foot boards after we had nailed it down with 16 gauge finish nails in the nail gun. That is when we were convinced that the holding power of the nails was more than adequate. That board was difficult to remove. We worked quickly and efficiently getting the wall completed by lunch.
We came in for a lunch of turkey sandwiches and tortilla chips with queso dip, then back out to the garage to work on the ceiling. I added andouille to the beans for Cajun style beans and rice for dinner. As expected, the first board was the most difficult but important. We wanted to use all 10 foot boards to eliminate joints in the ceiling. We needed to cut the boards to the exact length with a miter on both ends to meet with the planks on the angled walls. We installed the boards perpendicular to the direction of the boards of the walls.
Once the first board was up, the other 10-foot boards went up fairly quickly in that section of the ceiling. Because the selection of 10-foot planks was much more limited than the 8 footers, some of the boards had a slight bend. One of us had to screw a short section of 2 X 4 into a joist and pry the planks into place while the other one nailed it to the joint. For all of the planks, we used a short section of waste board to coax the tongue and groove boards together without damaging the edges.
By the time we had installed planks on the 13-foot section of ceiling we were tired and knew that we would need more planks to finish the ceiling. We measured the length of the ceiling requiring 8-foot planks in inches then divided by five which is the width of the planks, to get the needed number of planks for the ceiling. We did likewise for the ceiling section furthest from the house that was 9 1/4 feet wide and would need 10-foot planks.
We took Mark’s pickup to Home Depot and picked out the best planks we could find. Like most of the employees at the Crystal River Home Depot, our cashier was very old. She had difficulty scanning the lumber and had to hand enter the UPC for the boards. We fortunately had only 8’ and 10’ tongue and groove pine planks. The bill showed up as nearly $2000! It turns out that she had entered a quantity of 200 boards at the 8-foot length rather than the 20 boards that we were purchasing. She was unable to find the price for the dozen 10’ boards so she rang them up as the less expensive 8-foot planks. We got things straightened out and brought the boards into the garage where Mary and Cindy stained them while Mark and I moved the boards that were already stained upstairs to be used on the ceiling.
We went in for dinner of red beans with andouille and white rice which we all enjoyed our meals. After doing our evening language lessons we watched Astrid and Vienna Blood on PBS then went up to bed. We watched the last episode of Astrid until new episodes are released next year.
After an oatmeal breakfast, Mark and I changed some of his Wyze cameras to updated models then we all took the dogs for a walk around Eldred, Bassett and Cedar Gate. When we returned, we primed the garage wall that we had repaired with concrete board last week. We plan to allow the primer to dry for a day or two then spray with orange peel spray.
We left for Tampa at 10:30 for our 12:30 tickets to the Florida Aquarium in Tampa. We were meeting Steve and Marcia at the aquarium to spend the day then go to a late lunch nearby. We had purchased our tickets online and had the email with our barcodes for admission. We parked in the lot that is used for the aquarium as well as cruise ships that leave from Tampa. We paid $25 for five hours of parking.
Steve and Marcia were already at the aquarium when we arrived, and we were happy to see them.
We walked around the many displays and especially enjoyed the large tanks with schools of large fish as well as marine invertebrates like algae and sea anemones. We also enjoyed the very colorful and unusually patterned fish as well as the very large fish like groupers and the Māori wrasse. Some of the larger tanks had several varieties of sharks and one tank had a large Ridley’s Sea Turtle. Smaller displays throughout the facility had snakes, lizards, turtles, alligators, birds, otters and other animals associated with water.
We had made it through the aquarium by 3 pm and we were all ready for lunch. We had planned to eat at Half Moon seafood restaurant which was only a couple of blocks from the aquarium. The restaurant had very good reviews online and offered seafood and a variety of other options. However, when we arrived we saw that they did not have an indoor dining room, only some shared tables outdoors. Since the day was cool and windy we opted to look elsewhere. Mary searched for someplace to eat nearby that had good reviews and a menu that would suit everyone. She suggested BurgerFi with an average rating of 4.3 out of 5 stars. We had never heard of this chain found only in the Southeastern US, but we were hungry and the restaurant didn’t appear to be crowded so it was our choice.
There was a table of six open in the small restaurant when we arrived. The counter employee at the BurgerFi greeted us when we arrived and was exceptionally pleasant making us feel welcome. We ordered burgers and chicken sandwiches. Everyone ordered onion rings that were highly recommended. My burger, the CEO, was a double patty of Wagyu beef with cheeses and sauces. My burger was excellent and everyone enjoyed the meal. We were glad that we arrived when we did since the restaurant filled up once we were seated.
Steve and Marcia had parked in the parking garage across the street from the aquarium, so we said our goodbyes and parted and drove back to Homosassa. We were not hungry for dinner, so we did or evening language lessons the watched Astrid and Vienna Blood on PBS.
We had our morning beverages and did our language lessons before going downstairs for a breakfast of scrambled eggs and maple bacon. We gathered binoculars, cameras and lunch snacks for a trip to Payne’s Prairie and perhaps the Kanapaha Botanical Gardens near Gainesville.
It was about a 90-minute drive north to the Ecopassage Observation Boardwalk at Paynes Prairie State Park. Mark’s Florida state park pass got us admission without cost. We drove by the visitor center for a bathroom stop then on to a boardwalk area over a large wetland area where we saw a huge variety of birds including bald eagles, ospreys, sharp shinned hawks, harriers, red shouldered hawks, snail kites, limpkins and many types of waterfowl and wading birds. Near a large flock of whistling ducks we saw two alligators, one of which was especially large. Since the day was cool, in the low 60s, we didn’t expect to see alligators out basking in the sun. As we walked, we were certain that we heard a SpaceX launch going up. Although we scanned the sky for the several minutes that we heard the roar, we never spotted the rocket. After we got back to Homosassa, Mary looked up recent launches and confirmed that we had heard a rocket launch. The boardwalk passed over an area that appeared to be frequently inundated with water. There were many snail snail shells of all size scattered along the top of the damp soil.
We had a snack lunch of Ritz crackers, stale peanut butter, corn nuts and chips as we drove to the Bolens Bluff area of Paines Prairie. We walked about a mile through a wooded area with a lot of damage from wild hogs. When the trail opened into the prairie we could see wild horses in the distance near an observation tower. These small horses are descended from horses brought to Florida by Spanish explorers in the 1500s. As we walked toward the tower, we saw a variety of birds including several sandhill cranes and several species of predatory birds.
At the tower we counted 10 wild horses including one with a cattle egret on its back. We watched the horses grazing in the damp prairie grass and looked for birds and Mary spotted a bison herd in the distance. Using binoculars, we could see about 20 bison grazing.
As we walked back to the parking area, we chatted with several groups walking out to see the horses and bison. Mary read to us about the nearby Kanapaha Botanical Gardens. It sounds like the garden would be a good visit in warmer months, but we knew that most of the featured tropical plants wouldn’t be growing at this time of year. We drove through the parking lot then headed toward Homosassa.
Mark grilled some outstanding steaks from the beef that they bought from a neighbor in Idaho. The steaks were tender and flavorful. Mark grilled them to a perfect medium.
Mark and I installed the soundbar bracket and Sonos Beam soundbar on the living room television. The sound quality is quite good.
We watched an episode of Astrid season four and rewatched an episode of season one of Vienna Blood with Mark and Cindy.
The air was brisk but not cold when the four of us moved the stored items across the garage after a breakfast of breakfast and cold cereal. Mary and Cindy walked the dogs while Mark and I went to Home Depot. We got two sheets of drywall to finish that part of the project. The pine tongue and groove planks were about $2 per square foot but we had to sort through hundreds of boards to get 250 square feet that was usable lumber. We estimated that we would ultimately need 500 square feet to cover the upper walls and the ceiling, but this was as much was we could get in this load. Mark picked up a gallon of clear water-based polyurethane to coat the boards before we hang them. We stopped by Harbor Freight to get more saw horses for Mary and Cindy to coat the boards. It was lunchtime by the time we purchased and loaded the boards so we carried the Sheetrock upstairs and started unloading the boards. We tried to get a variety of lengths from 8, 10 an 12 foot boards although most of the boards were 10 feet long. We stacked them in the garage by length and took boards needing sanding outside.
Mary made wraps of black beans, Mexican rice, and cheese for lunch then we went out to the garage to get started. Mary and Cindy worked to brush and roll sealer on the boards and place them on the garage floor to dry. Mark and I finished hanging the Sheetrock and making a crawl space opening in a side wall to access items for long term storage.
Since the sealer dried quickly on the boards, we decided to start hanging some on the 13 foot wall at the back of the garage. We put a long starter board up first with the tongue up, making certain it was level. We put 2 inch finish nails in with the Harbor Freight pneumatic nailer. We continued upward mixing 8 and 10 foot boards with mitered joints where the boards meet in a row. We completed the row by 5 pm and decided to clean up and quit for the day.
The job is looking good, and we were happy that we decided to use the pine planks. We considered options for the ceiling from continuing the wood onto the ceiling to drywall to tin. We would have some time to weigh options before we would be ready to work on the ceiling.
We went in and Cindy made a stir fry of beef, broccoli and Yakisoba noodles. I had never heard of Yakisoba but the noodles seemed a lot like Chinese Lo Mein noodles. We did our evening language lessons before watching an episode of Astrid and Vienna Blood on streaming PBS. The weather news from Cincinnati, Georgetown and Huntington continued to sound snowy and cold. We were happy to be in Florida during the foul weather. We turned in at 10 pm.
We awoke early, had morning beverages and did our morning language lessons. Breakfast was waffles then we took the dogs on their morning walk. The temperature was in the 40s so a jacket felt good for the walk.
When we returned from the walk, we continued hanging Sheetrock in the room above the garage. We finished covering the wall along the stairwell then cut sheets to fit the bottom section of the side walls. Each section was about 5 1/2 feet long and only had two cutouts for electrical receptacles. Mark and I worked well together to cut and hang the sheets.
We broke for lunch and had leftover black beans with tortilla chips then continued cutting and hanging sheets of gypsum until had the longer wall covered up to the 5 1/2 angle. Then we put two sheets up on the end of the room nearest the house. We had only two sheets left and estimated that we would need an additional two sheets plus the scraps from the cuts on the short walls to complete the job. We would have to move all of the items stored in the room to the area where we had already hung drywall. We would also need to go to Home Depot in the morning to buy the drywall and some tongue and groove pine panels to cover the angled side walls and perhaps the ceiling.
The dogs had a short walk in the neighborhood around Eldred, Bassett and Cedar gate before our dinner of a large garden salad with grilled chicken breast. After showering and doing evening language lessons we watched another episode of Astrid and one of Vienna Blood on PBS.
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.
We slept well at the Titusville Hampton Inn. We watched the local news in Lexington and Huntington online and learned that both areas were being hit by winter storm Blair. Huntington and Lexington had 6-8 inches of snow, but Cincinnati was getting socked with a foot of snow on the ground.
We went down to breakfast at the Hampton Inn with scrambled eggs, sausage, waffles and fresh fruit salad. Mark and Cindy came down soon after we arrived in the breakfast area.
We checked out of the hotel and drove to the Black Point Wildlife Drive of Merritt Island Preserve. This 7-mile loop drive has a variety of habitats that attract birds, alligators, snakes and mammals of all types. We drove slowly along the gravel road stopping frequently to look at the birds in and around the shallow water. Mary and Cindy had a wildlife checklist that they used to list the many varieties of wading birds, waterfowl and predatory birds that we saw. We had a lot of debate over many of the wading birds since most were brown with long legs and slender pointed beaks. There were large groups of ducks and grebes feeding in the water along with ibis and egrets wading along the edges. Cindy was especially happy to see some rosette spoonbills flying over us.
We saw several bald eagles feeding on fish in the shallow water, but the ospreys were in abundance as you might expect in the coastal area. Seeing an osprey snag a fish from the water is always a sight to see.
When we stopped at trails leading to viewing blinds we met other visitors to the area. Since Black Point Wildlife Drive is well known for attracting a wide variety of birds, most of the people we met were birders and photographers. It was nice to compare our guesses of bird identification with people with much more knowledge and experience in bird species.
When we got to the Cruickshank Trail the temperature was over 80 degrees, so we decided to take a walk. As we enjoyed the warmth of the Florida sunshine, we thought about the weather forecast back home with nearly two weeks of heavy snow and temperatures dipping into the subzero range. We had been calling family to check on conditions and how everyone was doing.
The Cruikshank Trail is a five-mile-long walk with water on both sides of the elevated path. The only people we saw on the trail were two young men illegally fishing just off the path. Because they were releasing their catch, they didn’t see that they were doing anything wrong. We had gone about 2 miles out the trail when we came to a shelter with seats beside a gauging station to monitor water levels. While we sat in the shelter, we went online to check the status of a Space X launch that was scheduled for 12:20 this afternoon. Because of the wind, we saw that it had been rescheduled for 2 pm although we suspected that is wouldn’t be launched today at all.
We decided to walk back to the car and finish the loop drive then head back to Homosassa. Along with several other cars, we stopped to view a large group of egrets and other birds. After looking at the birds we started driving when we saw an egret fly onto the roof of the car in front of us and ride along for several hundred yards before flying away. We checked the SpaceX launch schedule again and saw that it was pushed back again so we didn’t wait around.
The drive back to Homosassa was uneventful except for some debate in the car over the best routes to take back. After several wrong turns and missed intersections, we made our way back. We stopped at a Twistee Treat for ice cream at a town along the route.
Back at the house we had chicken corn chowder with some leftover cornbread muffins for dinner then watched an episode of Astrid on PBS.
We had our morning beverages and did our language lessons before coming down to Mark’s breakfast of biscuits and sausage gravy. It was excellent. We walked the dogs then got on the road toward the Apollo Beach area of the Canaveral National Seashore. My lifetime National Park pass got us in at no charge. We drove to beach 2 where we had lunch of corn nuts, Ritz crackers and peanut butter. We watched some ruddy turnstones and gulls mooching scraps of our lunch. We didn’t notice that an older lady fell in the sand not far from us. We thought that she was trying to get a closeup photo of something in the sand. Walking along the beach was difficult in the soft sand. We looked at a few shells and took a few pictures. The afternoon was beautiful in the low 80s. We had to take pictures to send to friends back home since they were in the middle of a winter snowstorm with high temperatures in the 20s. We were happy to be in Florida this week.
There were several armadillos scampering along the road as well many more that had been hit and killed. Mark spotted a large tortoise near the road, so we backed up to get a better look and take some snapshots. We didn’t see any wild hogs but there was plenty of evidence that they are in the area. Large areas looked like they had been plowed from the groups of pigs rooting in the damp sandy soil.
We drove along the beach areas and stopped at several places to enjoy the view. We did not stop at any of the clothing optional beaches in the park. Near the end of that end of the park we visited the historic Eldora State House in a community that was formed in the 1800s. The volunteer on duty told us that her husband was a Marshall graduate from the 1960s. We explored the well-preserved house and watched an informative video on the community around the house before we returned to the car.
We drove to the Hampton Inn in Titusville where we checked in and cleaned up in our rooms. The Hampton Inn was very nice and appeared to be fairly new of at least recently remodeled. Our room had two double beds. We met Mark and Cindy at 6 pm to drive the short distance to Dixie Crossroads for dinner. We were pleased not to have to wait for a table and were seated immediately. Our waitress as very nice and efficient I picked up on what I thought was a Pittsburgh accent based on her use of “yinze”. When she came to the table to bring drink refills, Cindy asked where she grew up. She said that she was born in Baltimore but grew up in Pittsburgh.
Cindy had a dinner of crab cakes, Mark had a rack of ribs with fries, Mary had grilled mahi mahi and I had the special which was a flounder filet stuffed with lobster dressing with cheesy grits and a cup of Cajun soup. We all enjoyed our meals. We were surprised that our bills were within one cent of each other at $41.70 and $41.71 for each couple.
We went back to the hotel and went to sleep quickly.
Breakfast was scrambled eggs and some of the leftover grits from last night’s dinner. We did our morning language lessons, and Mary and Cindy walked the dogs. We needed a few things from the grocery store and an eight-foot section of baseboard for the back of the first floor bedroom closet. We took Mary’s Camry forgetting that we had to get the baseboard. After making our Home Depot purchases, we were pleasantly surprised that the 8 foot section of baseboard fit in Mary’s car with room to spare when we folded the rear seats down. We stopped at Publix then came back to the house.
Mark and I took the recycling to the area near the county dump then on to the dump where they weighed the truck before and after we unloaded the materials and charged Mark $20 for the dump fee. After we returned, we loaded a bead frame, headboard and footboard that Mark and Cindy no longer needed and drove to the nearby thrift store. The elderly staff there said that they only take donations on Monday through Friday from 10 until 5 when someone would be there to receive the items. We left the bed outside the back of the store. Once back at the house, we cut the baseboard and notched it to accommodate the installed closet organizer and nailed it in place. We put the knobs on the bifold closet doors and installed the doors back on the closet. We caulked the top of the baseboard in the bedroom and touched up the paint as needed. Mary continued painting the interior trim throughout the house. We had to keep the dogs confined to the back porch yesterday and today because they would quickly smear the freshly painted surfaces.
We stopped for a lunch of ham sandwiches and chips then started cleaning out the garage. We had one stall of the garage set up as a painting station. Mary used sawhorses to paint the doors, trim and baseboards then would place them on cardboard on the floor to dry Now that the painting was nearly complete, we cleaned up the area and put the painting supplies away.
Mark made some delicious chili with cornbread muffins and a garden salad for dinner. After dinner we watched the remaining episodes of Mr. Bates vs. the Post Office then started packing for our trip to Canaveral National Seashore. We did our evening language lessons and went to bed.
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.
We were up early as usual despite turning in early. I went downstairs to make our morning beverages then we both did our language lessons. Mark fixed pancakes for breakfast that were very good. We walked the dogs around the neighborhood on Standish, Eldred, Bassett and Cedar Gate streets then Mark and I went back to Home Depot. We picked up another 64 feet of baseboard for the first-floor bedroom and a three-way light bulb for the living room. We also bought knobs for the bifold doors for the utility area and the closet in the first-floor bedroom. The knobs that came with the doors were unattractive wooden knobs, so we found some brushed nickel knobs that looked much better.
We unloaded the baseboard in the garage then Mary got started painting the pre primed baseboards as well as the bifold doors for the bedroom closet on the first floor. Mark and I put the wainscoting panels on the area behind the spiral staircase and along the kitchen wall to the refrigerator. There were two small panels in the hall that were 8 to 12 inches that we saved for last to use some of the scraps of paneling. We cut and installed the chair rail behind the stairs and in the kitchen and put corner trim on the outside corners.
We stopped for lunch to have some of the leftovers from the New Year’s dinner. The ham, scalloped potatoes and squash casserole were as good leftover as they were yesterday.
We brought the bifold doors for the laundry area inside. Mary had painted them yesterday, so they were plenty dry and looked good. After some effort, we were able to get the doors aligned. We masked off an area on the kitchen wall where the drywall had been replaced. Mark sprayed an orange peel texture on the repaired area then painted to match the wall once the texture spray had dried.
Mark and I loaded drywall scraps and other waste into his pickup so we could take it to the county landfill tomorrow. We also had a box of recycling that we would take to the drop center near the landfill.
Dinner was some very good butternut squash soup with a Caesar salad and chocolate cupcakes for dessert. The cupcakes were the ones made with Sarah’s recipe and were left from Wednesday’s meal. After dinner, we watched another episode of the Canal Boat Diaries then turned in after our evening language lessons.
Since we hadn’t stayed up late on New Year’s Eve, we awoke at our usual time and did our language lessons while having a morning beverage.
Breakfast was Great Grains cereal and one of the grapefruit that we brought from home. It seems odd to bring citrus fruit into Citrus County Florida but the Texas grapefruit that we get from Sam’s Club are so much better and less expensive than Florida grapefruit, even here in Florida.
Mary had completed painting the replacement interior doors yesterday, so she started painting the bifold closet doors from Mark and Cindy’s first floor bedroom. Mark and I finished all of the wainscoting panels and chair railing. We put touch up paint on places where we damaged the finish cutting or installing the boards. Everything looked really good only needing to be caulked to close gaps between the moulding and the walls.
Around noon we had a snack then started cleaning up and picking up. We had a lot of tools and construction supplies scattered about and needing put away. By 1:30 the place was looking pretty good. Jodie and Grant came around 2 pm and after a visit, we had ham, rolls, scalloped potatoes, squash casserole and asparagus. I enjoyed talking with Grant about his genealogy research and their visit to the LDS archives in Salt Lake City.
After dinner, Mark put a football game on the television and most of the group played cards. I took Jade on a walk around the neighborhood, but she heard the whistle for a man training his dog and was spooked. She pulled hard to go home as soon as she could get there. I didn’t realize that she had heard the whistle accompanied by shots from a blank pistol. As a result, she trembles every time she hears the whistle and races for home. After we got back, Jade ran and hid in the first floor bedroom closet and I went upstairs and worked on this journal. Grant and Jodie left around 6 so we relaxed and watched an episode of The Canal Boat Diaries on Acorn TV.
Mary and I got up early to do our last language lesson of 2024 then watched a little WSAZ local news from Huntington on Zeam. We went downstairs for a breakfast of Great Grains cereal and a banana then took the dogs for a walk around Standish and Battle Creek then across Mason Creek Road to Eldrid Lane then Bassett Drive and Cedar Gate Lane then back to the house.
Mary continued painting panels and trim moulding as well as interior doors in the garage. Mark and I used Cindy’s pattern to cut the panel on the right side of the fireplace and under the wall mounted television to meet the wood plank wall on the front of the house. The pattern fit perfectly and looks great. When we tried the same process on the left side of the fireplace we were unable to get the panel to fit. When we were finally able to get the panel to accurately match the stones of the fireplace, the panel wouldn’t align with the adjacent panel. After dealing with the issue for most of the morning, we realized that the panel was incorrectly manufactured and wasn’t a rectangle but more of a slight parallelogram. We were frustrated that we had wasted much of the day on the defective panel but when we used the pattern on a panel that we verified to be square the wainscoting went up quickly. We put the chair rail up making sure that we had a good fit.
We stopped for a lunch of cheese sandwiches then continued to install panels down the hall toward the back of the house. By the time we finished we only had the panels behind the spiral staircase and along the kitchen wall to do.
Mark’s sister, Jodie, and her husband, Grant, had planned on coming down for New Year’s Eve. However, Jodie was still recovering from the flu and thought that she should wait another day before getting around people.
We picked up a couple of Papa John’s pizzas for dinner then Cindy made chocolate cupcakes from a recipe that Sarah gave her. We had some without icing after dinner and found them to be moist and flavorful.
We watched the Christmas special of Chelsea Detective on Acorn TV and turned in before 10 pm. We decided that there was no need to stay up until midnight. We went to sleep after doing our evening language lessons.
