Retirement

As Damsel indicated yesterday in her Lemon Blossoms post, we planned to prune back the lemon tree. Well, today was the day that I attacked the spurious growth of the little tree in our “orchard.”

There were multiple suckers growing out of the ground near the main trunk of the tree in addition to multiple sucker growth low on the trunk. Although there were lemon blossoms on some of the undergrowth, they all had to go in the interest of confining the tree growth upward rather than outward.

I would have trimmed the tree into a perfect round shape if I could, but I did not because of the upper branches that are viable and will produce fruit this fall. Therefore, the shape is a little lopsided and has some thin spots, but there are lots of lemon blossoms and buds. As a matter of fact, I have already found some tiny lemons now developing on some of the branches.

The image above starts out with the ‘before‘ photo and can be clicked to alternate between that and the ‘after‘ image, courtesy of Damsel. Flash™ animation and code by yours truly.

Today was a beautiful spring-like day with temperatures reaching as high as 80°. It seemed like a perfect day to get some chores done.

The first task was to spray nearly three gallons of Roundup™ on all the weeds sprouting just about everywhere on the landscape. I have a two gallon spray container wherein I mix the concentrated weed killer with water. The container is one of those that you pressurize with a built-in pump. I sprayed most of the areas where the weeds had started sprouting, refilling the spray tank once.

The photo that Damsel took is of me putting the finishing touches on transplanting a Beavertail Cactus (opuntia basilaris) that had been growing in a pot in the courtyard. The paddles were rescued from a beavertail up near the north property line last year. This set of paddles had flowers last spring while in the courtyard pot and we’re hoping to have more this March through June.

You can see the finished item in the inset to the photo above. Click on the image (courtesy Damsel) to enlarge.

I spent a couple of hours putting the new office chairs together today and they are quite nice. Our old office chairs were almost 13 years old and had seen better days, although the gas piston air cushions were still functional. The surfaces were worn and the padding was pretty flat (Damsel used a patio chair cushion on hers to soften it up).

The finished products above are (left) my new chair on a new roll around pad and Damsel’s new chair and pad. Click on the image to enlarge.

We use these chairs not only to work at the computers, but sit in them to watch movies on the DVD/TV in the office. We’re looking forward to this evening’s movie in the new chairs. I wonder if we wll be able to stay awake with all the comfort . . . 😉

When we moved to Arizona, we brought only a few items of furniture from the California house. Damsel had designs on furnishing the new house with all new items. That was true for the bedroom-turned-office as well. We bought two new desks and a short filing cabinet for computers and peripherals storage. However, we did not buy new office chairs; the old ones were brought for that purpose.

Now, the original office furniture for the old house had been there for a while. I checked our financial records and found that the office furniture – including the chairs – had been purchased in December of 2001. That’s just under thirteen years ago – time to get some new chairs. Damsel and I both went down to the (greater Phoenix Area) West Valley today and purchased two new chairs similar to the one shown in the graphic.

We also bought two chair pads that sit on the floor in front of the desks for the chairs to roll around on. We had been using area carpets for this, but the plastic pads seemed to be more durable and easier to clean and maintain.

This minor office upgrade is just the beginning. Damsel and I have decided to redecorate the great room and dining area with all new furnishings. The old tables, table lamps and sofas will be donated to charity (as will be the old office chairs) and replaced with new items in the near future.