Signs of Spring -- At Last

A few days ago I saw some color in the hedge. Today there were lots of blooms on this one bush. Soon the whole front yard will be full of blooming azaleas. Many different kinds.

Patio Flowers in Florida -- November 2010

Click on the image to enlarge it, then click again to make it even bigger.
Now that the weather is milder the flowers and foliage are looking good in the backyard.

Potted Peppers

It's time to harvest the hot peppers. These are about two inches long and are very hot. They grow, and ripen, with the ends pointing up.

Spring is here

I took this photo today. The azaleas are starting to bloom in the front yard. These plants have bunches of very small blossoms -- each flower is about an inch across.


Click on image to enlarge

Backyard: The Pool At Sunset

Taken in Pensacola, Florida on November 13, 2009 at 6:10 PM CST.

Lightning Strikes Again

Early in the afternoon last Wednesday, the 27th, in the midst of a heavy thundershower we got hit. There was no delay between the flash and the boom. And it was very loud. Luckily the power stayed on in the house and the air conditioner still worked.

When the storm had passed we discovered the strike had fried all the outdoor electrical outlets including the ones that power the pool pumps and filters. Later we found that the bathroom power outlets were not working either.

In the backyard next to the pool a big chunk of concrete was missing from the pavement and little pieces were all over the place.

The electricians arrived on Friday for repairs and found the the lightning tried to get in the house through the main circuit breaker in the garage. It damaged only one circuit before the outdoor breaker kicked in.

The folks at our local pool supply store said the lightning probably destroyed the pumps and the motors. But as soon as the power came back on the pumps worked fine. And best of all the power surge didn't hit the new air conditioner compressor and fan.

It was our second lightning strike in five years. The previous one was in the afternoon of June 22, 2004 -- just two weeks after we moved here. That strike was much more serious with damage to the plumbing. The repairs required jack hammers tearing up some of the foundation of the house. Noisy, dusty and dirty repairs.

After getting the air conditioner replaced earlier this month and now electricians all over the place, we look forward to a long time without visits from salesmen, estimators or repairmen.

Keeping an eye on CERN...

Black Hole Machine? [Click here to find out.]

From CERN's press release a few days ago: "CERN reiterates safety of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) on eve of first beam."

Geneva, 5 September 2008. A report published today in the peer reviewed Journal of Physics G: Nuclear and Particle Physics1 provides comprehensive evidence that safety fears about the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) are unfounded. The LHC is CERN’s2 new flagship research facility. As the world’s highest energy particle accelerator, it is poised to provide new insights into the mysteries of our universe.

“The LHC will enable us to study in detail what nature is doing all around us,” said CERN Director General Robert Aymar. “The LHC is safe, and any suggestion that it might present a risk is pure fiction.” [read more]

However, not everyone agrees. Here's what Citizens Against the Large Hadron Collider has to say about the dangers.

You can check out CERN and how it came to be by clicking on the links below.
CERN Welcome Page
CERN Scientific Information Service
CERN Wiki

Three Named-Storms Now in the North Atlantic

Late afternoon on Friday it looks like Tropical Storm Hanna has missed us here in the Florida panhandle. It may cause a wet weekend along the Atlantic coast.

[This map is from WeatherUnderground.com. For a larger map click the image above. For more tropical storm information go to the Weather Underground site.]

Hurricane Ike may be headed right into the Gulf of Mexico. On its way to Pensacola? That's a possibility. We will find out by the middle of next week.

And it's too early to guess where Tropical Storm Josephine may end up.

Hurricane Gustav Lands

[Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Above, Weather.com's radar map of Hurricane Gustav. This was taken about 30 minutes after the eye of the storm's landfall at Cocodrie, Lousiana -- 70 miles southwest of New Orleans. And about 250 miles WSW of Pensacola, a good, safe distance.

Tropical Storm Fay Update

Tropical Storm Fay is heading toward Pensacola. This map from Weather.com shows the storm's path at 10:30 a.m. this morning.

As you can see from the previous post none of the computer projections was even close. Lucky for us it never made it to hurricane level.

Where is Tropical Storm Fay going?

North Atlantic TS Fay landed in Florida again. This morning it came ashore just south of Fort Myers. Yesterday it passed through Key West. From the computer models below you'll see that there are several very different outcomes possible. These seem to be more varied than usual especially for computer models after landfall.

Looks like it is not heading toward Pensacola.

The map is from Weather Underground's Tropical Weather pages.

I'll keep you posted.

Birthday Plants and a New Pot

My parents in Maine sent me a Lowe's gift card for my birthday. Thank you very much. I used it to buy some hibiscus plants for the backyard. Red, orange and yellow. Here are some photos I took today.

I replanted them in some large square planters and they are doing very well. Click on the blossoms to see a larger image.

I also used the gift card to buy a large decorative pot for the corn plant I mentioned in a recent post. It had outgrown its original pot and was getting top heavy. Often when it was windy it would topple over. The new pot is much heavier and won't blow over so easily. Also the corn plant has to come in the house for the winter so it's good to have a nice looking pot for it to live in.

Dracaena Fragrans (Corn Plant)

My how you've grown!

Maria and Bill gave us a corn plant in June 2007. The photo on the left was taken then. It seemed pretty big when we got it -- about 4 feet tall. The other day I noticed it had really grown a lot in a year. I didn't realize how much until I found this photo from 2007.

Below is a photo from June 2008. Whatever we are feeding it seems to work.

Fall has arrived

The weather here has finally cooled down. And with last week's rain (and that tornado!), things are looking very green in NW Florida. The storm brought us over 14.5 inches of rain in less than 24 hours.

The heat of August and September had been rough on the trees, lawns and plants. The combination of hot sun and dry weather had bleached the colors out of all the leaves and flowers. But now they are coming back very nicely.

For the past few days the high temperature has been around 76 degrees (24C), Instead of the typical summer temperatures around 96 degrees (36C). It's now perfect for lounging around and reading a book. Sad to say the pool is 63 (17C) degrees now and way too chilly for a dip.

Here are some photos of the backyard I took today. You'll see we have several new pieces of wall art for the garden fence.

Astronomy Pictures from NASA

Click here to view NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day. There's also an archive of the photos from previous days.

March 2007 -- Spring is here

After a very dry month of March, it rained Saturday night and part of Sunday so things are greener than when I took these photos last week.

The redwood deck is freshly cleaned (with the new toy, a power washer) and treated with Australian Timber Oil. The color is a little bit darker than it was and the wood grain shows very nicely.

The pool is inviting but still too cold for a swim. And after all that rain it is full of leaves and pollen from the oak trees.

Sad to say the pink and white azaleas have gone by and if we are lucky they will re-bloom in the fall.

Springtime in the backyard

Spring has arrived and it's time for cleaning and planting. And pruning and getting ready for summer.

And it's also time to go to Lowe's, buy that pressure washer, prep the deck and apply a coat of Australian Timber Oil to seal it from the weather. And make it beautiful.

A Hint of Spring At Last

After weeks of unusually cool weather for Northwest Florida, and last week with a hard frost every night, yesterday was finally warm again.

It was time to do some springtime backyard chores. Time to clear the patio of things that got stored there for the winter, scrub the lawn furniture and just sit on the deck and listen to the birds. And watch the cats watching the squirrels.

The jasmine is in bloom (I took the photo this morning). The azaleas should start flowering in a couple of weeks.

Weather Report

This may be what they mean when they say, "Put it where the sun don't shine."

Image from Weather.com

The Joy of Pool

Last Monday I was doing some pool cleaning and working on the filters -- getting ready for winter. Although the pool has been too cold to swim in since the middle of September, it is pretty to look at when it's clean and sparkling. At one point I mishandled some chlorine pellets and I got my lungs full of the choking gas. I had to sit down for a few minutes. And until the next morning I had a tightness in my chest and the constant taste and smell of chlorine. Yuck. I will learn to be more careful.

While I was cleaning the pool the water level was high. Tuesday I noticed the level was down about an inch. Wednesday it was down four inches. Thursday it was down by four feet and obviously we had a leak. A bad one.

The pool people sent their man over to check it out and he said we needed a new vinyl liner. The pool and the liner are over ten years old. And a liner lasts about ten years, so our time had come. It will be fixed in a couple of weeks (for several thousand dollars). But we were expecting this to happen -- in a year or two maybe. Oh well.

Last night was very cold and there was a possibility of a freeze. So we had to bring the Polaris pool-cleaning robot in so it wouldn't freeze and crack open. It had to be in a warm place, so like a pet seal we put it in the bath tub for the night.

The Polaris attaches to the pool pump by a long hose and it slowly rolls along the bottom and sides of the pool vacuuming up sand and leaves. Its movements are quite life-like and fun to watch. Especially if it's a warm sunny afternoon and you have had a few drinks.

My lungs have recovered, the Polaris had a warm night and soon the new, deep blue liner will be installed and we will have 22,500 fresh gallons of clear, clean water in the pool. That's a lot of water, and for those of you in the rest of the world it's about 85,000 liters.