Sunny and Cold

Now that the roofers and eavestroughers have finished their work on miserably damp and cold days, the sun is shining brightly. It's supposed to shine for almost a week now but I don't care, I'm leaving for Florida warmth and sunshine anyway.

I've already made arrangements for someone to powerwash the trailer and patio and also to clean inside before I get there. My husband used to do the powerwashing and he would have severely frowned on me hiring someone to clean but now I make my own decisions. There's no way I can go up a ladder (step 2 scares me) so I have to hire someone to do that. Hiring a cleaner makes perfect sense to me because I get to the trailer too late in the day to clean it properly before bedtime. If I stayed another night in a motel in order to have a whole day to clean it myself, the motel cost would almost cover hiring someone to do it for me. Pure logic.

Trailers that have sat unused in the Florida summer heat and humidity need to be cleaned quickly. Mine will have mold on the window sills under the windows so they especially need a thorough cleaning immediately. I have a bug man who sprays every 2 months during the summer (every month during the winter) but critters will still find their way in so all shelving needs to be scrubbed before groceries can be stored or dishes and cutlery unwrapped. Trailer windows will still allow dust inside even when they're closed because the frames aren't too solid. I cover all the furniture with sheets in the spring and take fresh bedding down with me in the fall.

By having someone clean the trailer before I get there, it leaves me free to start in weeding and transplanting and it doesn't take too long before the place looks lived in again. The weeds are all in sand and easy to pull out but they do get enormous. I have the noisiest lawn mower in existence but, since the lawn only needs cutting about once a month during the winter, there's not much sense in buying a new one.

When I return to my northern home, there is no urgency to have it all cleaned in one day because brick houses are more substantially built than tin can trailers. With luck, it will look almost the same as I left it, just dustier.

I keep in contact with a lot of my Florida friends by e-mail and Facebook over the summer and know a lot of them have already arrived back at the park. Sadly, a few have passed away this past summer but that's to be expected in a senior park. It doesn't make it any easier to take, though.

Anyway, today is a gorgeous fall day here in Canada so I'm going out to finish off the backyard work for the winter. I've decided to let a lot of the annuals die off in the garden rather than pull them out because they will fertilize the soil. I've already emptied the deck rail pots of soil so that I can refill them with fresh soil in the spring. The last big job is to put the large patio table on it's side on the deck and lash it to the railing. It used to bother me to close up the yard for the winter but now I can restart a garden as soon as I get to Florida.

There's also the realization that the time is running out when I'll have a house and garden to winterize. In a few years I'll be living in an apartment and not have to do much work at all before I leave for Florida. Will I be happier? We'll see.