It's nice someone is enjoying the great, hot outdoors. See the green grass? We pay a nice price to keep it going for our bee classes. Who wants to learn about bees or light a smoker when the grass is brown and crunchy. I get scared just thinking about it.

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.

Sky Watch over Texas Agricultural Education & Heritage Center

Recently Mark participated in Ag Week at the Red Barn here in town. We call it the Red Barn but officially, it is the Texas Agricultural Education and Heritage Center, founded in order to educate the public about the importance of agriculture as part of our heritage and how it impacts our lives today. Mark was out there speaking about the importance of bees so I was glad I had a chance to visit during lunch one day because I had not been to the center – it is really neat out there! I still need to go back sometime and check out all the buildings since I only had about twenty minutes there during that visit. Here are a few shots of my brief visit.



Above, Mark is speaking to one of the many groups of fourth graders from surrounding area schools that have been scheduled to visit during Ag Week. They asked questions if there was time and shared stories about getting stung and interesting things they know about bees. When asked if they knew what food bees make, he said one of the kids told him bees make cereal (as in the Honey Nut Cheerios from the commercial that many kids like to tell us about when we go to fairs and shows). Too cute.

Below is a shot of another group I passed by out in the garden area. I think it’s great that the kids are learning about gardening and the benefits of growing your own in addition to having produce from the farmers in the area. There are so many other things to see out there, I will be sure to visit again and highlight other things for you.

The skies have been gorgeous lately as we move from summer to fall. Be sure to check out other skies on the Sky Watch page. Have a great Friday, everyone!

Summer Bloom

It's been blazing hot lately but nothing like last year, that's for sure. In our garden, we still have several sunflowers left to enjoy though they are fading. I'm still amazed at many different blooms we have seen this year and it's still kicking. On our drive to Lost Pines (Bastrop) this weekend, we saw many fields of sunflowers (the smaller variety) and other very small yellow flowers (not sure what they are). It was lovely!

I hope you all have a really WONDERFUL week ahead!

Garden Update

I haven't talked about our garden so I wanted to give an update. It was late but we're beginning to really enjoy some harvested veggies lately. Above, Mark put hay around the garden and that has helped them plants retain some moisture these days. We are ranging from 98F to 101F degrees. Ugh. HOT! Below is a shot I really like of the green beans. I love the dainty white flowers but it's always hard for me to get a great shot of them. I'm glad I got this one, which includes a new green bean coming along as well.



Here's one of our yellow squash plants, doing pretty well! I love to saute these when we have pork chops, baked chicken or fish. They have a wonderful flavor I don't taste when we get them from the grocery store.



Here are some other veggies we have this week. Tastes wonderful! The zuchinni was served with some baked basa catfish and rice. Going to put the bell pepper in a stew we're going to do in a few days. The tomatoes went on top of some nachos we made for dinner. We have more green beans to pick so we can have that with more baked chicken. :)

Week's End Summary

Sorry. I had really intended to post garden shots this week for you while I was in Irving but it just didn't happen. :( I'm afraid I've been woefully neglectful of my blog so I apologize. Things have just been so darn busy that I don't even remember to eat breakfast sometimes. Now that's bad! LOL.

I always enjoy driving by this house because they were very creative with their garden -- I love how it's right there by the door in the flower beds! I have not seen this anywhere else so I just had to share it with you. There's just something about seeing the cornstalks next to the house. Very cool looking, if you ask me. Their tomato plants are looking pretty nice also.

Our garden is coming along though we're not sure what we'll get this year. I'll keep you posted. Like I said, maybe the mere act of gardening is the therapy for long, stressful days and weeks. That and visits to the beehives. Speaking of which, Mark is taking me tomorrow to visit the country hives. I'll see what's new and share with you. I do know our city bees in the backyard are bringing in all sorts of colorful pollen on their little legs. It's really neat to watch.

Long beans

Greetings from Irving, everyone.

Here's a shot from the garden - it's amazing how fast it's growing with a little rain! Though we are a little late putting the seeds in, we still enjoyed doing it and we'll just have to see how they do. I love the way the cover of the seed is being pushed off here. Looks pretty neat to me.

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!

Back Home

I'm back in town but with a lot of unpacking and washing to do, I must do only a quick post. This is from our garden a few months ago. I wanted to share something bright and cheerful since I'm happy to be home even though it was a great work trip.

Since I've been gone, we've actually had some rain in town, hooray! And we trekked out for dinner even though it was pouring this evening. I love the sound of rain and sometimes we just love riding around in it. It's been a nice departure from our summer drought.

Hope everyone's having a great weekend! For you local readers, look for some information in the next day or two of a Bloggers Social at Chiro Java. Some of us would like to finally meet over a cup of joe. Everyone's invited and I'll post some info once we firm up details like where and when. Fun!

Garden Update - Week 11

This week the garden highlight is on our cucumber plants, which are finally showing lots of progress! There are several nearly ready and many more that are beginning to develop so we just have to provide plenty of water.

I recall helping my mom put in cucumber plants in her garden. She always had the most amazing gardens -- everything was always so green and produced plenty for her. She always had me put in the cucumber seeds for her. I think it was due partly to superstition -- she thought for some reason, I would be the good cucumber grower. I was always proud to do it and we had pretty good crops, so hopefully my luck will hold out for us now. I don't know what type she grew but hers grew very tall onto the trellis my dad built for her. Mine, however, grows low to the ground (as many do in other Seguin gardens we noticed).

I picked one off the ground since it looked like ants are beginning to enjoy it. We had our first cucumber/tomato salad and it was pretty awesome. Mark and I have really been enjoying our garden. And we're really glad to have tomatoes given the removal of tomatoes by the grocery stores.

Ladybug in hiding

I spotted this little ladybug tucked away in the folds of the drooping sunflower. Ladybugs have been everywhere this season. Especially about 2 months ago...they were flying everywhere. When I was cleaning out my bamboo flower bed, there were tons of them everywhere among the leaves that had fallen. And then I noticed lots of ladybug bodies in the window sill in the bathroom. And occassionally, I see a ladybug body when I pull out dishes or a frying pan or the honey. :) Funny.

I spent some time in our new store in Rosenberg, TX. This location is a part of our Construction Services division and it's only my second store to visit. The first was a small store in Vegas. The people at each location are so, so wonderful! It's been such fun! And tomorrow, I will post about something awesome that I found while visiting our new store. Good night!

Garden Update - Week 10

Here are some of our tomatoes from the garden. So far, Mark estimates that we've had about 4 pounds worth and we've really enjoyed them. Tonight I made crispy baked chicken with rice and sauteed squash and green beans from the garden. I also made a tomato and cucumber salad though the cucumbers were not yet from our garden. As you can see below, we have a little while to wait. Can you spot the cucumber? It has been a long time since I've grown cucumbers with my mom so I forgot they grow like the squash -- from the flower!

Garden Update - Week 9

Today I have several pictures about the garden. First, we have some squash and tomatoes that we fixed for dinner last night. It was such a great feeling to have fresh vegetables that you grew yourself and that tasted so great. I remember our store bought squash was good but it was always a challenge to find any that were not all banged up from handling.



Our tomatoes are finally turning a bit but we'll have to make a trip to Home Depot tomorrow to find some netting that will keep out some critter that's been chomping on a few of ours as they ripen. Mark pointed out that we still need to make the plants accessible for pollination so I show you what we end up doing in next Sunday's post.



Our sunflowers are in bloom and it's fun to see the bees on them. There's a lot to be had I would say. However, after I snapped this yesterday, we noticed today after church that something has bent and broken another of our big sunflowers. Might be the squirrels. We are over-run with them here and they get into EVERYTHING. :(

Finally, can anyone help us identify this mystery plant?? We had bought a package of okra seeds and this is what grew. Obviously NOT okra but no one seems to know what it is. We are just going to let it grow and see what happens. Mark's been researching it and can't figure it out. He's eliminated any kind of root plant (carrots, etc.) since there's no action down there. But there are no flowers up top. As for the other okra plants...no luck this year. We only have 3 that are showing any progress and they're in a little pot and are no taller than 10 or 11 inches. Too bad, because we were really looking forward to some okra this year.

Pollinating the Squash

Finally the bees have discovered the flowers on the squash plants. Mark still helps them using the q-tips but they seem okay on their own now. You know what's really cool about these plants? I don't believe I ever realized that these flowers become the actual squash! Did you know that?? After the bloom peaks, it starts shriveling until at a certain point, it becomes a tiny little squash. And then that little squash grows into a big, beautiful, healthy squash that we enjoy for dinner. I think it's fascinating to watch this process.

Meanwhile, we have one more day in SC and then we go home tomorrow evening. I love it here but I'm pretty tired with all the travel. Looking forward to some kind of routine at home for a while.

Curly Q

One of my favorite things about climbing plants is the swirling, curly twine. Is that what they are called? My friend and I can't think of the word nor could I find it on the web. I know there's a specific word for it.

Back in Columbia, I'm having a great time with my fellow coworkers. Despite logistical issues, this week is a much better start than last week when a slow network really slowed training down for us. We also moved the class up an hour so it runs 7a-5p though we managed to finish at 4:17p today. It made us all very happy. The weather is fantastic, food superb and companionship awesome!

Garden Update - Week 8

Our tomato plant finally showed progress this week! I got home from the trip and Mark told me to take a look at the plants and I was treated to this shot. It was really exciting! The cucumbers are also coming along and I eagerly await my cucumber/tomato salad.

I'm in Columbia, SC again this week so I'll try and post when I can. I anticipate long days during our training.

Garden update - week 7

We harvested our first couple of yellow squash today and we sauteed them to go with a spinach quiche Mark made. The squash was beautiful and tasted delicious. The tomatoes are still doing well and we still await some ripening.

Happy Mother's Day everyone! Hope you have all had a great day. Mark has treated me wonderfully and did cooking and clean-up all day. I felt so spoiled! I'm off to finish packing for FL for the week. I'll try to post when I can. Have a great week!