My Mom's "To Do" List ... or How My Parent's Tried To Kill Me

Even a gator likes flowers once in a while.

I'm sitting in the St. Augustine Barnes and Noble store, slurping an iced green tea and soaking up some free WIFI this morning.

Mostly, I'm recovering from the errand/job list my Mom gave me yesterday. It didn't start out so bad ... " Trim the hollies from the west end of the house, take out a trash elm tree that was growing where it wasn't wanted, run a store errand..."

I got started early on a hot morning (heat index 105) and made quick progress on the first holly, but the second holly was a bear with multiple thick trunks that were growing over the roof. I didn't think to bring my chainsaw, so I spent some time and energy cutting substantial diameter holly trunks with a hand pruning saw.

Every once in a while Mom would come out and find something else I could take care of while I was there. It seemed there were lots of unwanted trees popping up in her plantings.
So I would leave the holly to deal with various tree interlopers that she pointed out. One of these was pretty big, having gone unnoticed for a few years as it crept upwards through a huge azalea.

After each junk tree removal, I returned to the big holly. These are English Hollies and they are beautiful when ripe with red berries, but they are wickedly pointy. I have vivid memories of my bare kid feet being impaled repeatedly long ago and I swore I would never plant this tree when I had a place.

I have kept that vow, trust me.

The cutting of the branches wasn't really the biggest headache, it's what to do with the branches that makes a lot of extra work. At PFHQ, it's easy ... you trim the branches and haul them out into the woods to make a brush pile for critters. Over time, they breakdown and as they do, the wildlife enjoys the shelter.

That is not the case in suburbia of course. The limb pickup truck only comes on Monday and no limbs can be longer than 5 feet ... so right away there's extra cutting to do.

I did get the first load of stuff down to the curb just as the limb truck came by, so at least some of it left the premises, but yowza, by the time Mom and I knocked out all of the things on her growing list, I had produced a huge amount of cut debris.

Did I mention she thought the azaleas needed pruning too? Did I mention there are a blue million of them in their front yard?

They did feed me some Sonny's BBQ for lunch, so I guess they weren't really trying to kill me ... and they did share some bodacious Pecan Praline Cake with me too.

Somewhere around sunset, I had all the tools put away and the branches semi-neatly stacked for my big brother to haul away in his ginormous truck. The yard never looked bad, but now it's a little neater and the hollies are safely away from the house ... and I survived, so it all turned out pretty well in the end.

Around 8:00 pm I cleaned up and ran those store errands for Mom. Today we are going to install a fresh pond pump in her goldfish pond and reglue a rearview mirror in the van, so this day is a piece of cake.

So, THAT is why I didn't get a post up yesterday. I was a little busy and with no internet at Mom and Dads's place, I ran out of steam and crashed fairly early.

Not on the floor though ...


... not like these two back at PFHQ. As if Bear couldn't endear himself any more to me ... finding him sleeping, tucked into his boy ... well, that drip you hear is me melting.

And finally ...


It seems that the Travel Channel stumbled across Pure Florida and they sent me an email about a new series that will be featuring Florida tonight at 10 PM. I haven't seen "Bite Me With Dr. Mike" yet, but I'm going to catch tonight's episode.

It sounds great and any show about a guy grabbing bitey critters in Florida is my kind of show.