Carmelo has lived up to his part of the deal: thanks to some much-needed topsoil and the planting of winter rye I now have a beautiful green carpet in the front, on the side, and in the back. Once he comes by to mow it’s going to look really nice.

Today was my turn, and there was lots to do: hit the garden center for petunias (this year I’m going with a red / purple / white mix) and potting soil, hit Hi’s Silk Flowers for various phony-flowers (they’re for the planters on the front and back patios that get too much heat and never enough sun), add potting soil to the front and back planters, plant the petunias, re-pot the two succulents out front that have been waiting years for the opportunity (they were so root-bound I needed to take a pair of scissors to them!), and replace the washed out silk flowers both front and back with new stock.

I also stopped by Lowe’s for a replacement propane tank and four 50-lb bags of play sand that will be used in the sandbox after the tiki bar and tiki god are recoated with preservative two weeks from now.

Next week the palm trees are being fed, and I’m thinking about a major modification to the front where currently I have a dying date palm (Carmelo removed it from another client of his and we thought it would be worth a shot to see if it would take in my yard but it hasn’t) and a huge cactus that was once fun to see grow but now is huge and not that attractive (not only does it get covered in mealy bugs to the point where I have to take the hose to it every month, but you better not get anywhere close to it because if you do you’ll be covered with hundreds of little spines that in order to get off you the only thing you can do is wrap your skin in masking tape and yank it off!). I’m thinking of taking the plunge on a very large Mediterranean Fan Palm down at the local nursery that would really make the property stand out. Something to at least think about.

It’s dark now but the back patio is happily awash in pineapple lights. The ceiling fan above turns slowly, but enough to occasionally stir the tiki torches I’ve lit around the tiki bar from time to time. I’m thinking of adding a small Christmas tree to the patio when the season comes, and Dad told me I need to check out Big Lots, which I will in the next week or two. I can hear ducks by the lagoon a couple of blocks to the east (it’s the by-product of the water treatment plant), and a while ago a Blue Heron passed overhead in the gathering dusk. In Arizona, who woulda thunk it. I have Rhode Island’s classical music station WCRI on the speakers, and it’s kinda weird to match up the music and the weather with the tropical back patio theme. As usual on a Sunday night, one of the neighbors is doing steaks on the grill (hard to tell which neighbor it is, after all, from my patio chair I can see the roofs of seven houses) but it sure smells good.

It’s hard to believe that back home the day got dark really early and those trees that didn’t lose their leaves in the Sandy “superstorm” will most certainly do in the coming nor’easter coming on Tuesday/Wednesday. Here it will be in the low ’90s (heat wave!) and I have to start thinking about how I’m going to fix my “Kreepy Krawler” pool vacuum that has a broken wing hanging off it. For those not in the know, anything – and I do mean anything related to pools and pool maintenance is very expensive to fix. I’ll come up with a wire and chewing gum solution somehow.

Hard to believe the year has gone by so fast. Tuesday is Election Day, and less than a month from now a new Church Year will start with the first Sunday of Advent.

That’s all for now.