Irma -thou art a heartless bitch

We expected the worst Irma and all her wrath but luckily once again we were spared.  

Irma in all her fury "smiling" at us

What we ended up was basically a Cat 1.  Many other places were not so lucky and some small islands were totally obliterated so again -VERY LUCKY.  The native Americans in the Tampa Bay area though expected the best they said the whole area is protected by native spirits!  Cool 👻 Also a cold front had come down from Canada and lopped off the whole west side of the storm. Thank you Canada!

We had been without power over two days, just came back on late last night.  I was so happy I cried!  It seems petty to be SO miserable without electricity when so many had it so much worse. It's amazing how much we rely on and are crippled without electricity.  I wished we lived off the grid.  When Jim was building his dome in upstate New York he did, and would bathe in an icy creek. We are partly off it, house is extremely well insulated and has no heating system and our own well water.  Our worst electric bill in the summer with air cranking is $125. That is a joke to most people. We paid much more when we lived in a tiny mobile home. The other day when it was 87 outside the inside of the domes with no AC available were 80 with the sun beating on them, actually not that bad, that is the power of the domes. And obviously there was no risk of losing a roof, we don't have one.

With hundreds of trees we did get some branches down and our long driveway was unrecognizable as a driveway.  But that was all.  Tara and family were lucky to not lose power AT ALL.  They were definitely in the minority. My brother and sister also lost power but my parents safely tucked away in their retirement home fared the best of all.  We went over for a hurricane party Monday with Kevin's parents who were visiting from Northern Maine. They had just put a deposit on a house not far from us.  They had no damage either and the storm although scary didn't damper their spirits for a move here.  If this is the we will get we can muddle through.

broken branch

wind whipped trees

driveway

downed tree

Preparing for the "big one"

Florida is known for it's hurricanes.  In fact we are number 1 in lots of things and none of it is good!  So every year between June and November we are on hurricane watch.  News of a hurricane is nothing new.

But Hurricane Irma is not your average hurricane. They said this morning on the news that THREE Hurricane Andrews would fit "inside" it!  This is a Cat 5 monster storm. ☁  There is no where in the entire state of Florida that is safe! It will cover the whole state.  Even if you don't get the eye you will get a strong outer band.  We are all in for a hell of a ride!

Clearwater where we used to live had a mandatory evacuation and a friend of ours went to her other home in Interlachen to wait out the storm. It looks like the worst of it may escape her area so she may be lucky.  One funny story from that same mobile park in Clearwater where we used to live: one hurricane that was pegged to go right through Clearwater caused another mandatory evacuation. My Parents stayed in their mobile but their friend across the street evacuated to Orlando.  The storm then missed Clearwater completely and caused no damage whatsoever and the hotel he stayed in Orlando lost it's roof! So these scary weather patterns can be real unpredictable.

Our Dome is "supposed" to withstand a Cat 5 in fact it is supposed to withstand everything Mother Nature can throw at it.  We'll see. This will be the ultimate test.  We feel "pretty" safe but with hundreds of trees on the property there is nothing to prevent a huge air-born tree from landing on top of one of the domes. Nothing we can do about that and nothing we can do to prepare for it.  We took in all the little potential projectiles and piled the outdoor furniture in the garage which will also house the boat by tomorrow. Mind you I have had a tile guy here all week and the house is still tore up and cluttered due to the furniture from the main dome shoved everywhere out of the way!  And me being a neatest freak seeing messes for a week and sure to be an even bigger mess tomorrow and Monday this is not okay.  😡

tile-so far

We have taken down some dangerous limbs and a tree guy came out just yesterday to remove a tree that was hanging right over the pool. We were so happy he could squeeze us in! So if you don't get an update by Tuesday on how we made out we are either without power or our domes have flown off to see the wizard!

tree over pool screen

Tree guy

Cave People

Lots has happened lately...

First we welcome a new frog to our pond. This one is a gorgeous Leopard Frog!  He makes "Kermit  the first" look pretty ordinary.  Today he was noisily making frog sounds I guess to attract a mate. We hope he remains happy and healthy in our little pond and at least with the raccoon baffles in place every night he won't end up being "frogs legs" dinner.

And we have been moving forward on our Dome improvements.  This week we have painters giving us estimates on painting the 4 domes,  our tile guy is coming this week to put stone tiles on our common area floor which is all prepped and ready and we also have a tree surgeon coming to take down one of our trees that is leaning precariously over our pool!  We already had a huge tree pull right out of the ground in the back yard. It looks sort of cool though like a natural tree bridge.

Tree Bridge

Floor cleared of cheap laminate

We are so hoping the painters don't give us "sticker shock".  It was a little difficult to take the dome measurements, you have to use math formulas. It came out to a painting surface of just under 6 thousand square feet! Yeah, that sounds pricy but I am keeping my fingers crossed. They both pulled up to our home and said "this is the coolest thing I've ever seen"!  We get that-a lot.  One even said that a Dome is his wife's dream home. Hum, since there is a chance it may be for sale in a year or too we need to keep his number!!

Kilzed floor

I spent the entire day the other day Kilzing our floor, I thought I was gonna Kilz myself! It was such hard work I had to keep taking breaks and I have killer blisters on my hands. That night I went to sleep on so many pain killers I'm shocked I woke up again. But Jim was out fishing all day with Kevin so it was the perfect time to do it.  Kilz is a great product to seal anything and keep out mold.  It was so hard thought pushing that roller over 625 square feet. I had forgotten why I hate using a paint roller, I remember now!  Hard to spread it out and in the end you end up with more paint on you than the surface!  Once the floor is done we plan on having someone paint cave drawings on the walls. Between the cave drawings the dome and the rock floor it will really look like a cave, enough to ease the frustrated archaeologist in me.

,So this will be a very busy week, keep your fingers crossed for us!

Wimpy eclipse, weird flower and baby owl

 Dad's saga

I left off with my last blog talking about my dad.  We did not get good news at the doctor.  And yet the doctor told him he had about two to three years to live, or rather someone in his condition has been able to live two to three years.  Was that person 91, I doubt it. A healthy 91 year old can't expect to live another three years never mind one riddled with cancer.  I think it was unreasonable optimistic when someone should really be told the hard facts so they can get their life in order. But the young doctor really liked him and maybe found it difficult to give him bad news. Let's face it everyone loves World War II veterans, they're so old and cute.  He came to the realization that what the doctor said wasn't very true, at least not in his case.  And is dealing with it as best as he can, he even gave his car away the other day much to the relief of all of us.  But enough about that...

The eclipse

I have been using Jim's camera to take pictures and thought I would share.  Some are of the eclipse the other day, which I thought was pretty wimpy. I couldn't even tell what I was getting through the lens so I just snapped away and hoped for the best.

New Pictures

We have this weird plant growing in our yard. It's called a "Pipe vine" and the flower is supposed to look like a man's old fashioned pipe.  Yeah no.  From a distance it really looked bizarre and not at all like a man's pipe. In fact it looked like a , yeah never mind what it looked like but certainly not a pipe.  We planted that vine long ago and never had a flower.  Maybe it's a every other year thing I don't know, but it was a unique surprise.

The other day I was walking up to the mailbox and heard a commotion in the woods.  The birds were all upset over some predator. The last time this happened a few blogs ago it was a huge snake.  I picked up rock ammo to hurl at it when I saw that it was a baby owl!  He was looking at me with those big eyes that almost seemed confused at all the trouble he was causing.  The birds were on their own this time there was no way I was chasing him off!

Owl version of where's Waldo

The last picture is of our pond with the solar water fountain causing a shower for the new goldfish. Now that Jim has his raccoon baffle installed every night we can actually buy goldfish and know they won't become dinner.

Messing with the little Sasquatches

Jim finally figured out how to stump the raccoons.  He build a three part screen cover for the big pond, which has the exotic plants and the fish.   The bad news is he has to install it every night. He really doesn't NEED to take it off every morning it can stay put but it does spoil the peaceful ambiance of the pond. So far it is working. The raccoons will have to settle for the two smaller ponds, no midnight raids and swimming contests for them, the new baffles have proved baffling.

In other news we peeled the whole floor up in the common area. It was actually fun.  We have someone from the carpet mart coming in a few days to help us decide what to put down.  We still haven't decided. Or rather Jim hasn't, I really don't care. I want it done.  It is in the gawky stage now and I hate seeing it like this.  I would agree to almost anything for a floor at this point, just get r done! The room really looks cavernous in it's naked state, especially with our limited furniture.  Maybe we should put in a small bowling alley.  Later today I have to take dad to his doctor appointment, we are not expecting good news.  More on that tomorrow...

Pimp My Dome

We are FINALLY finishing up a few projects!

I couldn't stand looking at our boring white steel door any longer. It was too boring to live.  So I painted a wood grain and steampunked it with gears and geometric symbols.  Even made a plaque for it.  It may not suit everyone but at least no one can say it's boring.

Next came the pantry.  We were all set to hire someone when Jim decided he would like to try the carpentry himself.  It took weeks of trying to figure out just what to do and how to do it. We wanted new shelves, new doors and a space big enough for a mini fridge.  And here is the finished results:

Jim wanted a cathedral type arch, the inserts are painted steel garden fencing! We had a whole roll of it, why not?   Much of it was used leftovers, paint, wood, mesh, etc.  I don't think the whole project cost $400 and that includes the cost of the new fridge.

The next BIG project will be the floor, we are still considering a granite type painted cement.  As we have been peeling up the cheap wood flooring that is there now we have noticed that the cement underneath is in beautiful condition!  No cracks, nothing, real smooth.  We were thinking of something like this which is painted and shellacked cement.

And Jim installed a light switch for my outside Tiki Man.  If you think he looks scary now you should see him at night with his eyes and mouth glowing a bright yellow!  Not only does he look cool as heck but he seems to be scaring the hell out of the raccoons!  When he is lit they either stay away completely or make a real quick visit. Maybe they don't want to anger the Tiki God!  

Comings and goings

The new toy

I finally broke down and did it, I got a new phone.  My old Samsung was still a great phone but had a few things that it wouldn't do.  One annoying thing was everyone would text me and send emojis and all I got was an empty rectangle where the emoji should be. Kinda frustrating, are they happy, sad. confused? I don't know!  So this phone has that feature and a million other things most of which I will probably never learn. And it is much larger than my old Samsung, it hardly fits in my hand. I can picture dropping it -a lot- so I got a military grade cover for it and it should give me years of good service until this too becomes a dinosaur.

The Fur people

The kids adopted two dogs recently and I will have new fur people to babysit.  I just met them the other day and was nervous at first, you never know with dogs.  I walked up to their porch and there they both were, not barking, and their tails wagging so hard I thought they would take off like helicopters!  So nice to be accepted into their pack.  They know who the treat lady is!

The girls with the new adoptees

Peek a boo, it's Rocky the flying squirrel

The dome doings

Work is continuing on the pantry and the floor, and the outside. And it is slow going as we have to patch outside and can only do that when it's dry and it has been raining like cats and dogs lately!    If that wasn't enough to keep us busy, every day thanks to the rain, we have had to drain inches out of the pool, add tons of bleach to it as the rain brings algae and every morning Jim has to fix the pond after the nightly raids by the raccoons.  If it weren't for the other critters like the hummingbirds and the flying squirrels we would both lose it!  There are a calming presence in a crazy world.  Our little flying squirrels have moved back into the barn. Jim had put an old bird house in there as it kept falling and they have taken it over. So adorable!  When we do move they will be missed.
Meanwhile check out this dome!!

https://www.dramafever.com/news/this-fantasy-dome-home-cost-only-9000-and-took-6-weeks-to-build/


On a sad note

My 91 year old dad is having a biopsy in a week, they suspect cancer and he expects it. His dad died of prostate cancer and senior onset leukemia.  My parents told the owners and managers at Salishan retirement home and they cried.  They will be moving from the third floor to the first floor so they don't have to contend with the elevator and it will be easier for rescue personnel, etc.  My sister and I are the ONLY people we know our ages that still have BOTH parents.  And we knew that time would be coming to an end eventually . Like dad says no one leaves this world alive.  But he's a  tough old bird and will give this a fight I'm sure.