any of several shrubs or vines of the genus Bougainvillea, native to South America, having small flowers with showy, variously colored bracts, and often cultivated in warm regions.
Funny they fail to mention the murderous thorns on every inch of every branch. Long sleeves or not, gloves, boots - doesn't matter: I've had one of the spines stab me through the sole of my sneaker. Anyone who knows anything about landscaping has told me to yank the thing out by the roots - with a truck and a chain. Unfortunately, I want to keep it.
First of all I think it's been there long enough that it has a right to stay. I also have a poetic vision: A few carefully selected stalks lovingly strapped to the porch supporting post, allowed to grow up over the roof, and over the years becoming thick with age. A beautiful parasol of vibrant pink blossoms, and a rain shower of magenta when they are through. A place for birdies and butterflies to flit and roost, and a lacy veil behind which to enjoy my porch perch sans the watchful eyes of alleyway pedestrians. And thorns be-damned, I'm not ready to give that up just yet.
So I began yesterday carefully trimming, making neat piles that might not make my poor trash man bleed too much. I was making great headway when Don came by - he's the one who is going to give me a quote on the fence work. He is the one that suggested the truck pull - especially when we realized that the fence plan ran right through the center of a 6" wide stump at the base of the mass pictured above. I yielded at the moment, gave up my dream. Moved on with fence plan 'A'.
How often does my plan 'A' make it all the way through to fruition? Ha! During a wee-hours-of-the-morning musing session, I realized all I have to do is move the fence line 18" to the left. It actually will fit better with the lay of the land - you can't see it but there's a little slope and a small retaining wall we would have had to work around. I lose 18" of driveway. Oh well. The hard part will be breaking it to Don that I'm keeping his nemesis for the foreseeable future: The Boug won The Battle. I will finish the careful pruning when I return.
Aside from that, the really exciting news is that the power is on! The meter box cover slid into place perfectly, and within 30 minutes of my phone call an FPL guy was on the scene to snap in a new meter. I almost kissed him! Then I went into the basement and flipped the breaker like Dr. Frankenstein: "IT'S A-LIIIIVE!" I was laughing and jumping around like an idiot. I called Bobbie and I could barely contain myself. You have to understand I've been doing hard labor in 90+ temps without a fan or refrigerator... though the breeze on the front porch was delightful.
I met with fence guy as I said, and the ADT guy came and turned the system on so the alarm is now active. One other thing: I had advertised on craigslist to sell a crate of leftover slate tile in the basement. The only person that showed up was Al, with his little 7- or 8-year old daughter Besa. These two were great. The tile was so broken up I decided to give it to him for free. He also loaded up two truckloads of busted up cabinets and other miscellaneous that I would have had to drag out to the trash pile and drove it all away! Little Besa wanted to help so I gave her a broom and she worked away on a small area and got that all swept up. So much work that I didn't have to do! Plus they were a delight to chat with - he is also a handyman and renovator of older homes. Thanks to them the right side of the basement is almost completely clean. I left with another batch of metal for the scrappers happy and tired. Sorry I didn't click a picture before I split.
Here's a picture from the bridge over the inter-coastal waterway heading into town. See the church way over on the right? My house is right near that. You can see the Ferris wheel and some other stuff on the boardwalk and the big hotels to the north. Just a hint - I know I haven't divulged where the house is yet.
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