Ron helped me put up our Purple Martin house today. Maybe I should say I helped him. I don't know why the house seems to get heavier every year when I try to put it up. I finally put a winch system on my houses in San Antonio so I can just crank them up and down. Ron had some left over red paint so this year our house is red and white. We had not had it up five minutes when a Purple Martin came by and landed on it to check it out. There were twelve sparrows on the tennis court fence waiting for the martin to leave so they could check it out. You can see in the picture the sparrows are moving in. Since the Purple Martins are the mosquito eaters, sparrows are not a good thing to have around to compete for nest space.
We are getting back to a ghost town here as most of the winter Texans have departed. There are three boats left here, mine, Scott's(702) and Gus's(203) and about ten cars. Some will leave tomorrow and some on Tuesday.
Rob has done some more repair on the decks and replaced the stairs on 501,502, and 503. Some of the deck work done three years ago was not done very well and had to be redone.
The lift station has been on the fritz. Rob and guys spent a lot of time on it week before last. It seems to be working now. They called the Honey Dipper out and I saw the truck here, but they already had it pumped down.
The rapidly changing tides have opened up the culvert drain under the entrance road. The water is rushing through and the wading birds are waiting for the bait fish to come out and jumping on them. I had not seen the drain open it at least three years. It takes a high tide followed by a rapidly dropping tide to create enough hydraulic pressure to open it.
Remodeling work has started on 303. I'm not sure 101 is finished, but the blinds are up. The workers in 508 say they will finish on Tuesday.
The old Duck Inn has been remodeled and opened as a furniture and apparel store. How is that for a combination. The Jokers nightclub, the old Silver Anchor restaurant, has closed it's doors.
The wind has kept most off the water. Bill said that Otis(604) had been under the weather for the last month, but went out with his brother last week and did really well. I believe they had six reds and fifteen trout with the biggest trout measuring twenty six inches. They got them at Spaulding reef.
The February financial statement arrived on Friday. I really don't see how anyone but an accountant can tell what it means. I do see that we still have $32,000 of the last loan that is not spent. That means about $150 a month of interest that we are paying. With $352,000 in current assets, this part of the loan could be repaid now and save us the interest. We budgeted well over the expected costs for the improvements and I doubt the $32,000 will be needed. I also noticed that in January, Johnson and Cate charged us an extra $600. What's up with that? I asked Karra in November if it would be possible for the property manager to annotate the monthly statement to reflect the reason for the major variations to any budget items. We had done that in previous years. She didn't, as I recall, give me an answer.
I'll include a picture of the sign that the concrete contractors put up to show who is doing the concrete work. This is just to identify the contractor. I hope that now that we are in the off season, the work will resume.