First, I want to say thanks to those who left comments for Tiger Cub - he was thrilled!

I'm still slowly working away at trimming our woods.  One of our chainsaws tore up a couple of nights ago and the Big Kahuna is having to take a bit of a break from helping me because he's broken out in a slight rash on his arms and legs.  A good deal of our wooded area is comprised of Brazlian pepper trees and the Big Kahuna is one of the unfortunate people that develops a rash with too much contact.  We thought he had stayed clear of them enough when using the chainsaw the other night, but apparently not.  I'm doing what I can - goodness knows there's plenty to cut and we'll probably still be working on this endeavor months from now - but in a lot of places I really need big stuff cut with the chainsaw. 

This is an example of what the overgrown 'jungle' looks like...

And here is a small area that we have mostly cleared...

It may not look like much of a difference, but trust me - it is!  Almost all the wooded area you see in the 'after' photo above is on an adjoining property (a few things are ours and still need to meet the chainsaw).  In this particular area, we cut over to our property line which is just about 6 feet past our outer fence (we also have barbed wire fencing that runs down the property line in the woods).  In some areas of this particular line of fencing our property line falls just over a foot beyond our outer fence and it works its way up to about 30 feet in some spots.  (No, I don't know why the original owners laid all this out in such an odd way.)  We won't cut all the way over to the property line on all of it.  It'll be a pick and choose process as we go along, largely based on trying to maintain the privacy the wooded area offers us (I have caught neighbors on both sides standing and spying on us a couple of times over the almost 4 years we've lived here).

I was also overjoyed yesterday to find a blossom on our valencia orange tree!  It hasn't had any blooms in about 3 1/2 years.  We have assumed it was badly damaged by the 2 hurricanes in 2004 since the tree was badly flooded both times (I'm sure the salt water from the lagoon and ocean did not help matters).  The flooding killed our myers lemon tree, but this orange tree has been attempting to cling to life ever since.  It has a good bit of new foliage and now this lovely new blossom.  It may still never fully recover, but at least it is showing signs of vibrance again.

And here is the latest photo of our garden (from yesterday)...

We moved the containers over the weekend to mow and I have been too lazy to move them back to right in front of the garden patch.  Everything in the garden seems to be coming along okay.  I am concerned that we don't have enough bees and other insects around to pollinate things right now so I tried to hand pollinate some yellow squash and cucumber this morning.  That's a first for me so we'll see what happens.  (Side note: we do have an insanely crazy bumblebee that hangs out on the side of our house from about 9am until sometime in the late afternoon each day.  It has claimed the territory and is not afraid to chase and dive bomb us.  I always forget it's there and have had way too many close encounters this week when going out to toss things in the compost tumbler throughout the day.)   Our container tomatoes aren't doing well.  Most of the flowers died without producing any fruits and others that did have small fruits growing died as well.  I've been trying to research what the problem could be, but all I've found thusfar is this usually happens when the temps stay between 90* and 100*.  We've been in the 80's, which is typical, so I am really stumped.  I've never done tomatoes in containers before so maybe that factors in.  I do have some going in the garden patch as well so maybe they will fare well for us as they did 3 years ago.  If not, it's not a huge loss, but a disappointment nonetheless.  None of us enjoy raw tomatoes, but I did have high hopes for juice and sauce (and the Big Kahuna likes the occasional fried green tomato).

I have been trying to convince the Big Kahuna that we need a second garden patch by this fall.  He doesn't agree.  He is leary to sink money into getting one ready with the start of hurricane season rapidly approaching June 1 (it goes through Nov. 30).  I think he also doesn't want to go to the effort (or the expense) since we don't want this to be our forever home.  He still thinks things will turn around in a few years and we'll be able to relocate to our acreage in Georgia.  I am tired of waiting for 'someday'.  Maybe I can convince him yet.  I am even more fired up about it after watching this...

Mama Cat