We went grocery shopping today. I bought Asian lilies for the vase on my desk and yellow roses for the vase on the sofa table in the great room. I took one of the roses and put it in a bud vase in the guest bathroom. I love the variegated edges on the petals. Click on the image to enlarge.
This is Beethoven (whom we call “Bay Bay”) atop the spa cover. He likes to jump up there to watch the desert critters in the wash next to our house. He sees quail, cottontails, squirrels and jackrabbits. He barks at them and acts like he wants to jump through the screen enclosure to run after them.
Jumping up on the roughly three foot high spa cover is no problem for him. He uses the steps to get up but I’m sure that he could jump on top without them. Our bed is about the same height and he has no problem jumping up there with us when we retire for the evening.
Earlier this week we used the spa and were out drying off when we let the little dogs come out on the patio. Bay Bay decided he would jump up to see what critters were out there and did a splashdown right in the middle of the spa. I quickly fetched him out and had him in a towel within a few seconds. Poor little guy.
I thought that he would be reluctant to jump on the spa cover after the water incident, but he was back at his usual lookout post later the same day. We will now wait until the cover is on before letting him out on the patio from now on. 😉
Here is a comparison of the appearance of our retirement home one year ago versus today. It is very gratifying to look back at where we were one year ago and compare it to Damsel’s dream retirement home of today. Click on each image to enlarge.
There is a mesquite tree between the RV entrance and the courtyard. I had the landscaping crew trim this tree a bit so I could have a place for wind chimes and mobiles. I got a sunburst mobile at Big Lots last week. I think it adds a little fall color to the yard. Click on the image to enlarge.
Now that Summer is over, we expect to see some changes to the shrubs. The flowering plum (barely visible at the lower right) and the red birds will lose their leaves. The Cleveland sage bushes will keep their leaves and (hopefully) will come into bloom with fragrant little purple flowers. I will be getting some more statuary, a chiminea and a decorative southwest style bench. Click on the image to enlarge.
These nice spider mums are in the vase on my desk this weekend. Click on the image to enlarge.
My biggest problem today is getting the water chemicals adjusted in the spa. I have the MPS (monopersulfate) and the alkalinity in range, but the PH balance is a little high. I went on-line to find out how to lower the PH. The answer is to add a mild acid to the spa such as white vinegar or a commercially-available granulated acidifier.
I took a photo of a couple of water test strips showing the before and after results when I added chlorine today. You can see that the second strip (closest to the container) matches colors for in-range condition for the top two pads only.
The plan is to see if our local discount store has a granulated acidifier in stock. If not, plan B will be to order some on-line.
We have had spas in the past in California, but we never worried very much about the chemical composition until now. We want this spa to outlast us, so we better take care of both it and us. 😉