Picking up fruit

I blogged about needing to learn about the systems and features at our new house...

One of the things we're working to understand is how to care for the plantings around our house.

There are three citrus trees, including this navel orange tree...

Unfortunately, it is dropping fruit (and leaves) -- we pick up 5-10 oranges per day! Most of them have holes in them and there are fruit flies feeding on them. We've heard that we need to pick them up because they attract roof rats.

There is also a grapefruit tree (seen to the right of the orange tree in the second picture) and a lemon (or lime?) tree in the front by the garage.

So much to learn! 

Lots of things to do

I haven't gotten pictures of everything Carl has been doing at our new house (he is a dynamo!), but here are a couple...

This is actually a picture he took -- of the garage door opener. We are trying to figure out all the components that this house has, get them programmed for our use. He was capturing the information about what the brand and model were of the garage door opener so we'll be able to reprogram the remote opener keypad for our own use.

The ceiling fan in the living room had very bright "cool" white lights. To change those to warm white lights, you'd think it would just require changing the bulbs, but, incredibly, it didn't have replaceable bulbs. So, Carl figured out that we had to replace the whole light kit. This picture was taken after he had put the new light kit up and he was putting the glass shades in place.

So many things to learn about!

Miss Kitty's doings

Miss Kitty is adapting well to her new housing situation -- even though it means that she has about 3 times the amount of space to have to supervise, and her food dish and litter pan are now about 5 times further away from each other!

It was time for her annual vet appointment, so we took her to the Banfield at the local PetSmart for a checkup. She continues to lose weight, and her bloodwork shows that her kidney disease is continuing to progress, but they were impressed with her agility and general wellbeing.

She likes looking out the window that is in front of our computer desks...

"Who? Me?"

She isn't very photogenic, but she sure is sweet!

 

Tuesday Coffee and Donuts

Each Tuesday, our new community, Sunland Springs Village (SSV), has an update hosted by the HOA office about the events coming up in the community. They have coffee and donuts available, and it is a good time to meet folks in the community.

Margaret, from the HOA office, shares about things coming up...

... information about many of the events are displayed in stands displayed on the tables, and we take pictures of the things we want to participate in so we remember to put them onto our calendar.

The community also puts out a small newspaper each month (Sunland Springs Village Voice) with a few articles about new things in the community or highlighting individuals and their contributions. It has listings of all the activities available. The activities are also listed on the community's website. No excuses for being uninformed!

The other half of the gFiber installation

The folks had come to lay the fiber from the "flower pot" to the house, but a technician from gFiber still needed to come to do the work inside the house.

The internet service previously was called "Google Fiber", and started in 2013 by Alphabet (parent holding company of Google) as an experimental project to bring fiber broadband internet service to households. It is now owned by investment company Stonepeak with Alphabet retaining a minority stake (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Fiber).

Connection outside our house -- the folks who dug the trench and ran the wiring had put this box on the outside wall. The fellow who came to do the inside installation drilled the hole through the brick wall into our front bedroom.

The connection inside the house

We appreciate having fast internet service -- we had brought our Verizon "home" device from Gracie over to the house temporarily, but it was not giving us great service in our new house. GFiber works very well and we're enjoying making use of it.

A Costco run

We have been busy going back and forth between our properties in Venture Out and our new home in Sunland Springs, loading up the CR-V each time with as much as we could get in. Carl estimated 1000 trips would be required (I was figuring a few less...).

We stopped at Costco to get a few things... but it was on the way back from Venture Out back to the new house, so the CR-V was already pretty full...

But! Pumpkin pie is already available!

We figured out how to get the items into the car -- who needs room for their feet?

Pumpkin pie the way Carl likes it - with enough whipped cream that you can't see the pie!

Lots of trips back and forth between VO and SSV -- but 1000 won't be required for moving. However, going back and forth to our properties still in VO, and Gracie in the storage lot, and seeing friends... well... eventually we might make 1000 trips back and forth!

More folks come to perform services

When we purchased the appliances from Spencer's TV and Appliances, they let us know that they have recently started a pest control service, Spencer's Best Pest Control. Since we had purchased from them, they offered us a free initial pest control service. We decided to take advantage of it...

Spencer's Best Pest Control guy spraying in the back yard

Treating back yard spaces

Spencer's truck out front

Still treating perimeter of the property in back yard -- he had already treated the perimeter of the house and inside the garage.

We had also arranged to have gFiber installed for our internet service. They had to run a line from the "flower pot" (at the corner of our neighbor's lot) to our house...

A man and a woman came to do the task... they first cleared the gravel off the area where they would be burying the fiber...

The man ran a jack hammer about every 6 inches to break up the hard soil, while the woman used a sharp-shooter spade to make the trench -- hard labor in this hard soil and under the hot sun (100F+ temperatures).

We're getting things in place so our new house will feel more like a home!