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.
We received a cutting of another species of Epiphyllum, Epiphyllum Oxypetalum last year, June 2019. As a totally surprise, we observed couple of buds on Sep. 24, 2020. Yesterday, Sep. 29, 2020. We finally believed that one of buds was going to open. You could see that the bud changed orientation and size. So exciding!! Wow, it only took 15 months to have buds and 5 days to bloom although I stayed up three nights in a row so I would not miss the actual blooming. At 4:45 pm, Sep 20, 2020, we could see outer reddish tepals bend outward a little more. Green color of stems were getting less green and more toward the white side. We also noticed that the tip of the buds were getting a fussy look, see as follows:
So far, primary stems were up to 50″ long. Opps, the longest stem was just broke as it got too heavy with leaves. Oh well. Secondary stems were flat, approximately 23″ x 4″. The flower was slower to open and quicker to close maybe because of size and weight. We were able to captured the moment though along with color and movement. Stamens as male part are white / yellowish and soft, and female pistil with white stigma on top and white long tube. It is spectacular.
Oct. 25, one more Epiphyllum Oxypetalum started opening early at 8:31 pm and then last photo of the day was taken at 10:02 pm for the day as follows:
Wow, We had another opportunity to take time-lapse video of Epiphyllum Hookeri, night flower bloom. Two flower buds are so close to each other and ready to bloom the same night. I had no clue which flower bud was going to open first. As usual, the bud size was getting bigger and color was changing from green to white / pink quickly. We were so excited to watch and record it again, especially during this difficult time of pandemic.
This time, one flowers was opened 11:07 pm and the other opened after that. I missed the beginning of first blooming by just a minute but, second one was perfect.
Watching Epiphyllum Hookeri, night flower bloom / open was amazing. Taking time-lapse video is more fabulous than I can describe and also a challenge. We set the equipment up in the daylight as I did not want to miss the actual opening as I did last time. The flower opens around midnight and the next day it is gone, but the tea from the flower is healthy.
A time-lapse is compressed video frames on subjects, where the process is sped up. So when the flower was opening last night, around 10:40pm, it took approximately 28 minutes and this video was compressed into only 23 seconds long Time-lapse. Not too bad. I sat on my chair waiting and watching for the flower to open. Then flower bud was getting bigger and bigger until the narrow pointed white petals started to open, the outside of the petals opening first. Based on one friend, a plant ecologist, moisture content gets into flower bud and pushes petals open so now we understand the process. I was surprised on how quickly and suddenly each petal opened once it started. Amazing.
Here is another video of night flower blooming at night, this time opening started around 11:30pm, 8/26/2020
Hurricane Isaias downgraded to a tropical Storm on 8/1/2020, 5:00 pm NOAA briefing. So it was a quiet last night.
8/2/2020, 8:00 am, #42 Tropical Storm, 65 mph wind speeds, 35 miles from south of West Palm Beach,
8/1/2020 Hurricane Isaias Preparations
This is weird time or year. First, a hurricane normally does not come to Florida east coast in early August or end of July. Second, this is in the middle of Covid19 Pandemic. Well, we do what we have to do and prepare the worst and hope the best.
We did the same thing as Hurricane Dorian, September, 2019 to set generator, water dispenser, and a portable stove at the patio just in case we have to cook when power is down. We also took down US flag, took in all orchids, secure loose pots, secure orchids on trees, check and secure trees. We also took some photos to support potential damage of the properties. Fortunately this just turning out to be a dry run to get ready for the real hurricane that may be showing up in September.
We were prepared to deal with a possible situation on COVID-19 on our cruise vacation with Princess. Here is couple of thing we saw and did.
The first 2 days, it was very quiet. COVID-19 was not mentioned on any notification. We were doing our best to protect us.
As usual, we disinfected all doors, switches, TV remote and phone when we entered the stateroom. We also got our pharmacy in the stateroom.
We cancelled the shore excursion to avoid the bus situation and did not attend any big show and event. Exercise at the gym when people were going to islands was one way to maintain social distancing. Another way to keep distance from other passenger is to use stairway instead of elevator. We have to remind ourselves not to touch anything. So we used paper or glove on handrails. Sometimes we took a walk around outside deck 7 or read books at stateroom balcony to get fresh air and Vitamin D.
On day 3, Horizon Cafe buffet staff started to wear gloves, handed out silverware/plates to passengers, and put food on your plates. It was good so I didn’t have to use napkin on serving spoons after many passengers touched the spoons already. Thanks.
March 11, Day
6, WHO declared the COVID19 outbreak a pandemic.
March 13, Day 8, President Trump declared National Emergency
Around March 14, Day 9: We received a long message from Jan Swartz, President of Princess Cruise. I quoted one paragraph of the message as follows:
“In the interest of doing what’s right and upholding our core values, I regretfully am announcing a 60 day pause of our Princess global ship operations.”
I was touched by the her words, transparency and accountability. I was waiting for such decision. Thank you!
A neighbor wanted to shorten the height of a bar stool from 30″ to 24″ for use in a newly remodeled kitchen. In order to be able to cut each leg independently the bar stool had to be completely taken apart. Measurements and angles were taken followed by the cutting of each leg.
Now the challenge to put bar stools back together. Wood glue and clamps were used. This was followed up by adding 1″ Slipstick CB250 floor protectors to each shorten leg. Results were the 30″ bar stool was shortened to the requested 24″.
Here is an amazing satellite imagery of Hurricane Dorian from NOAA, Tuesday, 9/3/2019
As of 3:00pm, Tuesday, 9/3/2019, Hurricane Dorian weakened to Category 2 was 106 miles of west Port St. Lucie, FL with forward wind speed 5mph based on National Hurricane Center.
Mobile app My Hurricane Tracker or Hurricanes was easy to use.
By 5:00pm, the eye of Hurricane Dorian was almost paralleled to Sebastian, moving north with forward wind 6mph
The day was wet with hurricane Dorian outer band wind and rain on and off. We picked up some cabbage palm tree branches (complements of mother nature pruning system) when it was not raining. Although there were reported many power outages, we were not bothered. So. our staging area for cooking at the patio was clean and did not even get any rain. Well, we are just calling this a dry run sort of. We still have almost 2 months before end of the hurricane peak season which runs from Sept. through Oct.
The above includes a three burner propane stove. We brought in the wood stands to use as a table if required.