Summer Sights

Here are some things happening in our yard so far this summer. It's been hot and dry though we did get a bit of rain a couple of weeks ago. In the above shot is borage - anyone use it for any cooking before? Someone gave it to us and we've never used it though I read you can use it in drinks and saute it as you would spinach. It's got a lot of white fuzz on the leaves and stems. Interesting and pretty plant.

Here's one of our little tomatoes - we got a late start on them so they are just now starting to bloom out a bit. We planted eight but only six are left with us and I'm working hard at keeping them well saturated to fight the extreme heat and sun. Our squash and zucchini didn't make it sadly. Asian Long Beans are doing fine though no white blooms on them just yet. I plant a LOT of them since we liked them so much last year. I also put some sunflowers in so hopefully they will continue to grow and then bloom for some photos. :-) Below are some of the peaches on our little tree out back. You may recall last year we had so many peaches we had to give a ton away because we couldn't eat them fast enough. They were delicious! This year, we have a decent number of fruit on the tree though nowhere near what we saw last year. I think they look lovely when they turn this beautiful blush color.

Finally, this morning I continue to try and keep our grass from drying up too much so I put the sprinkler out for a bit. I also like to do that for all the birds - they love to come to the water and get a bath in while they can. They fluff up and twirl all around - a lot of fun to watch. I especially love the red cardinals since they remind me of North Carolina.

Gardening, Bees and Jets

Still no rain this month. I don't even remember the last time we got a decent rain. Please, please rain soon. In between everything else we've had going on in life, I did manage to clean up three sections of our garden. It had really gone to the weeds since we had no time for a garden last year, nor did we manage the space at all. Oh well, there are six tomato plants, a ton of Asian long beans, one surviving egg plant, two yellow squash and two zucchini plants - let's see who makes it this long hot season. I can tell it's going to be a tough summer because we are only in April and it's already been in the 90s. Not unbearably humid YET. But it's coming.

And here is a beautiful sky shot (missed my Sky Watch Friday post) from one of our bee yards which is now located where the Schulz Nursery on Highway 123 was, ever so briefly. Pedro, who owns My Father's Farm, relocated there and we moved our bees from his first farm location to this one. It's an organic farm operation. These jets flew by for a while. I think there were five or six fly-bys and I think they were all different planes but I could be wrong on that so don't quote me.

Gorgeous Blooms in the Summer Heat

I have great news to share with you! Mark's book got a great review in Southwestern Historical Quarterly and I am SO PROUD of him! I read it and my chest felt like it was going to simply burst, I was so happy for him. Congratulations, honey!

What does that have to do with these pictures? :-D well...all weekend he tried a source where we could access the quarterly (typically an institutional subscription rather than an individual subscription) and read the review. Unfortunately, our public library didn't renew their subscription so we trekked over to Texas Lutheran University but they were CLOSED since it was a summer weekend! Rats! BUT...the trip was not wasted. I spotted these lovelies right outside the library. They are, by far, he largest Hibiscus blooms I have seen and I loved the color! Gorgeous splash of vibrant life in the sweltering summer heat. I loved it. Hope you all have a GREAT week!

A Visit to Green Gate Nursery

Before we left on our pick-up-the-bees trip, I went to Green Gate to pick up a pretty poinsetta for our daughter and her husband. If you haven't been to Green Gate lately, you should go soon. Christmas is one of my favorite times to go because of all the beautiful plants they have for gift giving and decorating your own home. The poinsettas are always lovely, as was the case when I went so it took me some time to decide. In the end, I went with pink since I know Melissa likes that color and it's pretty unique. I love pink, too!



I posted about Green Gate and a certain bird back in 2007 also.

Tomato Plants

It was 87 degrees today. And the allergens were killing me and Mark. Blah. And the Spurs lost to the Rockets by one point. And we went to a Spurs Fan Event but no autographed winnings this year. Oh well. And my head is hurting.

On to better news and a brighter look on things more important...we got tomatoes on the plants!!! Mark pointed out four of them. I love the way they smell right now. When you get close, you can smell the fragrant plants and it's wonderful. Gives me a nice feeling.

Busy week for us with travel here and there. So if you don't see a post for a day or two, that's why. Take care and I hope you all have a great week.

Home Depot

Hi everyone, I'm back from Irving. It was a really productive trip but pretty jam-packed so I didn't have a chance to post. Here's a shot of some of the beautiful flowers currently available at our local Home Depot. I loved looking at them! It is so wonderful to begin seeing the flowers coming out everywhere. AND that means food for bees! :) As a matter of fact, as I was snapping shots of the flowers, I noticed plenty of bees gathering pollen so that made me happy.

About ten or so years ago, Mark and I started working on our old house and we did a lot of work ourselves. We lost count of the number of trips we made to Home Depot...in New Braunfels! That's about 20 miutes from here so imagine how happy we were when we heard that we were getting our own HD! What's funny, though, is that we had finished most of our work by the time the store opened. :) Still, it's great to have them in town as we still have plenty of things to pick up from time to time.

Garden & Yard Work

Today we spent the morning outside since it was a warm day and we have lots to catch up on out there. First we went got three tomato plants to start the garden but I'm sure we'll be putting in more than that soon. The first three plants are residing in the tub again. It's a great garden container still! Then we cleared out the old shed of all the STUFF we have in there so that Mark can demo it, take down the tree in front of it and then start his new workshop. But clearing it out was long overdue and we're both glad we did it. Also worked on one of the flower beds but not the bamboo, despite it being the subject of my photo. I just thought it looked pretty. :) I'm tired. So, thought I'd post an entry and then I must continue to pack and prep for my trip to Dallas next week. Hope you all have a great weekend!

Birds & the Garden

Besides the squirrels, birds sure do love the pecan trees in the backyard. I've posted about the woodpeckers before but I never get tired of seeing them in the trees.

Sad news on the mockingbird front. I posted a shot of the nest in the front yard tree earlier this spring but never posted about it again because the nest was destroyed by a wind storm we had. BUT the birds came back a few weeks ago and rebuilt the nest and we were so excited to see them. Today after church, I even saw the tail feather of the mama sitting on the nest but my hands were too full to snap a shot. This evening when I went out to water, I saw a dead baby on the ground. It had feathers and was maybe 5 inches long, good long legs. I was sad to see it and haven't seen the mama flying around. I wonder if there are any other babies up there.

Garden update: no new pictures to share since I'm sure you don't need to see more tomato shots. Those are the best plants we have going, next to the lemongrass. Everything else is pretty much done for the season I think. The cucumbers are really suffering but I don't know from what. Too much sun and heat? There are only two cucs on the vines and they don't seem to be producing more. Not sure what the deal is on that. Disappointing. Next year, we'll try a different variety and maybe in a partly sunny spot.

Tub o' Tomatoes

After all that prepping, we got three tomato plants into the tub. This tub is pretty cool and I'm sure it's had quite a history. We live in an old house (circa 1860) and we have spent about 8 years really working on renovations and it's finally looking pretty great and we love being home to enjoy it.

This tub used to be in the bathroom and we thought about refinishing it with a kit from Home Depot when we saw the cost of a new cast iron, clawfoot tub a few years ago. However, prices came down and we decided to get a new tub. When we turned over the old tub, we saw information about the company who made it and the year. You can see a shot of it here.

Updated 3/26/08: Abe made a good comment about how we're going to water this. We put bricks and then a layer of gravel on the bottom for drainage and the drain is open. We'll see how it works out. We've water lightly everyday now. Once the full Texas heat arrives for summer, it means a lot more water everyday.

Digging in the dirt

Do you know that song? It's by Peter Gabriel and I like it a lot. It's an oldie. Not a golden oldie, but considered an oldie these days.

We got to work on the garden this weekend and really enjoyed being out in the yard together again. Here I am working on mixing up peat moss, manure and rich soil for our tomato plants. We also put in green beans, yellow squash, cucumbers, okra and sunflowers. And I'm going to try to grow some rosemary too. I'll take pictures of the plants once there's something to look at. Right now, there's just a lot of dirt. :)

I'll post more pics of our gardening this week. Hope everyone has a great Tuesday! Thanks for all your nice and sometimes hilarious comments. As usual, I always enjoy reading what you think.