I've already asked Denny to transplant some bushes that the builders of the house had planted in odd places. Next year we'll think about a tiny vegetable garden. I will have to learn what flowers are happy here in Zone 9 before I start investing in a lot of plants, but they have classes for that down here too and I'll be arranging to attend one soon. Down here there's pretty much a class for everything, actually. The important one will be the care and feeding of citrus fruit trees and palm trees; that's not something we ever had up in Ohio and we're clueless in how to keep these trees alive and producing.
When we did our walk through with the previous owners of the house, I pointed out an empty nest in the lime tree, which the owners hadn't noticed. Four weeks later the fledgling mockingbirds left the next. I was amazed at how quickly the entire process of egg laying to hatching to feeding to pushing the little ones out of the nest occurred. What I haven't been able to do yet is attract any hummingbirds, which is extremely disappointing because both Denny and I enjoy the antics of these fiercely territorial little birds.
As you can see, Patches is settling in. Wherever she can. We have found her on the floorboard of the driver's seat, in the trunk if the convertible top is up and the windows are down or perched on the roof of the car. What she hasn't done is ride in the car, which won't happen again until we find a veterinarian for her check up and shots. I don't think she misses traveling very much although she still seems to be searching for The Beast on our nightly walks.
Our friends who introduced us to The Villages have purchased a weed wacker and we've purchased a hedge trimmer--I foresee some trading in our future as storage space is at a premium here. One of the not-so-good things in the covenants is that you are not supposed to place any storage units or sheds anywhere on your property, so any and all gardening supplies and tools have to be able to fit into the one and a half car garage with the car, the golf cart, tools and "stuff". Perhaps a good project for Denny will be building some creative shelving for the "stuff" and tools we simply cannot live without for the maintenance of the house and yard. Building things is something that Denny has missed during our years of RVing. Certainly we've learned how to put the maximum amount of stuff in the minimum amount of space over the past few years.
And one of these days we'll actually have the time to figure out the golf system here and check out some of the various clubs that are available to broaden our horizons a bit. Maybe next week...