The Screen Door Installation

It's 70 degrees in Desoto, TX today. The birds are singing, the geckos are starting to emerge and a brave bug or two can be seen. I decided to hang a screen door on the back of the house so that we could enjoy the breeze without the bugs. It probably took me at least twice as long as the installers would have taken, but I saved $135.00 by doing it myself.

Spring is In the Air

I had a busy week and took advantage of the spring-like temperature (60-70) to begin some outside work. First I installed a security light. Access to the light from the attic was not possible so I removed an eave vent and drilled into the attic from outside, then snaked wiring into an accessible area of the atic.


I also decided to clean up my flower beds. I replaced 11 dead or dying bushes around the house and then cleaned out the mulch and debris in the flower beds. I then weeded the beds, leveled them and placed new yard fabric and mulch. Here is one side after completion. I think that the red mulch really makes the color of the bushes pop.




Around the air conditioning coils I placed white gravel. This gives me a place to leave the water hoses. This is also an area that I do not want anything to grow in since I need to maintain access to the A/C hoses and wiring.

This shot of the front shows how the mulch's color brings out the greenery.

Last year I installed a french drain to keep water from accumulating in front of my patio. I found this solar powered lighthouse, which I mounted to a concrete slab and placed over the lava rock at the head of the drain. The flower bed here was full of 'stuff'. I cleared out everything but the Hibiscus plants and trimmed them back since they were about four feet high. The small tree was transplanted from the front. I used a total of 47 bags of red mulch or 94 cubic yards of the stuff.

Finally, a sure sign of spring. This tiny Gecko was watching me work and when I stopped to watch it, it came closer to me, unafraid. So, I picked him up and took him inside to show my wife, who wasn't as enthusiastic about the whole thing as I was.

2007 - First Christmas at Home!

Hanging Christmas decorations in a tee shirt and shorts is definitely a treat for someone from Illinois. The grass is still green and the sky is a perfect blue!

Poinsettias say Christmas everywhere. So we started out with quite a few plants but we gave them away to visitors over the holidays. Here is a survivor in the foyer.

Wow, this was a blast! When we moved I threw away our artificial tree thinking, "Why carry a tree 1000 miles when its old and will need to be replaced anyway." I did not know that I also threw away about half of our decorations, so we did a little scurrying to buy both a tree and some ornaments. Even a few days after Thanksgiving, many of the stores were out of the trees that we liked. We had not noticed Christmas sneaking up as it was just too warm. Here is our tree in a corner of the Great Room. My wife and I enjoyed Christmas and we had my mother, my brother and his wife over almost around the clock beginning on Christmas Eve.