A turtle decided to walk along our property after some rain, unfortunately the poor thing did not get all the mud off. It may want to wait for a heavier rain. We believe the species is an Eastern Chicken Turtle based on Florida Turtles :: Florida Museum of Natural History (ufl.edu)
Use the standard 2×4 framing lumber to make a wood frame. To make the job easier, the slab was poured in two sections. Also, a slight slant to the frame was done so the water would drain away from the house during our famous rainy season. The start was to put some gravel on the bottom to not only level the landscape but also to use less mortar. The total job took 15 50 # bags as each bag made approximately 1/3 rd cubic ft. The slab size is 6′ x 3′ x 3.5″. Emptying a 50# bag into a mixing tub, adding water, and mixing with a mortar hoe is all it took.
Smoothing out the top was a matter of using a mortar trowel.
Prior to pouring the mortar, two anchors were placed to allow the generator to be chained down and locked which prevents theft. Generators if not locked down in place seem to grow legs and walk in Florida during our wonder annual hurricane season.
After removing the wood framing, a belt sander was used to smooth out the edges. Using a belt sander prior to the mortar being completely cured makes the job easier.
Now the slab is ready. A week to cure should provide more than sufficient strength to hold generator and whatever else can be placed on the slab.
It has been raining almost every day for weeks. A long unusual raining season. So far the orchids at our yard were blooming one after another. Here are some photos and time lapse of our favorite Cattleya, queen of the orchids.
We used a camera, canon EOS Rebel T7i to take Time Lapse video of the orchid. Just had opportunity to practice. With built-in Time Lapse and flexible sitting in camera, we did not need to watch the process. Just click a button and go away. We used 45 second interval, 300 shots, recording time approximately 3:44 hrs to yield 5 sec Time Lapse. The challenge was the size of 109 MB .mov file produced. So we had to convert the mov file to mp4 file. The end result is 8 MB mp4 file to upload to the server.
Lc. Spring Drumb ‘Volcano Queen’: Large and extremely fragrant petal and sepals are deep pink with contrasting lip as purple and yellow. First time ever at our yard, there were four flowers from two different pseudobulbs, as two flowers had light pink petal and sepals and other two flowers had deep pink color.
RLC Liu’s Joyance: Large orange flower with contrasting red ruffled lip. Flower is proximately 5″ across. So far this is the largest Cattleya flower size.
Lc. Tropical Pointer ‘Cheetah’. Sepals and petals are ivory and spotted in rose – deep pink. The spathe lip is deep rose-lavender. One of my cousin had imagination of lip, column, and stigma together as a young lady portrait with white hat, yellow shirt and red skirt. Interesting.
Cattleya Aclandiae, Tripp Johnson: Waxy, light-brown background heavily overlaid in deep chocolate brown spots and blotches. The lip is deep-pink. Anther Cap is light pink. Also there were some deep chocolate brown spots and blotches on some of the leaves.
C. lueddemanniona, darkxsib: Rose – purple color lip with yellow at the base, irregular purple line to the base.
As a current member of the Port St. Lucie Orchid Society and an online orchid group organized by a Plant Ecologist, I learned different ways to grow orchids. It’s getting much better and easier at this point and I might add that a close friend of mine living in West Palm Beach who earned her PHD in Biology/Plant Ecology is always available for consultation on issues I do not completely understand or have experience with.