Happy Earth day to all ya'll!!
This morning we went down and checked out the local CSA but decided the portion offered was way to tiny for the money they were asking. Bit disappointing, but we are reluctant to spend more money for veggies than we absolutely must. It wasn't like they were anything special either.
From there we went down to the Denton Master Gardner's annual plant sale and walked away with some awesome plants for an awesome price. The real problem with buying plants is actually planting them, but I have stuffed them into the ground with a little effort. Fortunately, it is only 82 this afternoon with a breeze, so it is still comfortable to work outside. Though I must admit, I am rather soft right now. Digging the holes and planting and dragging bags of mulch and garden soil around played me out.
We bought and planted:
Black and Blue Sage
Greggs mist conoclinium (supatorium)-aka blue mist (butterflies are supposed to love this)
Aster Fall/ Woods Pink Dwf
Turks cap, pink
Butterfly bush "honeycomb"
Gaura (pink)
French Hollyhock
White lantana
columbine aquileria
Bit of a hodgepodge of plants, but fun.
I find I am really enjoying sitting out back at this new place.
This is the Denton Arts and Jazz fest. I can hear a band playing, sax, drums, piano, and even at this distance it sounds fine.
Saturday, April 28, 2012
Sunday, April 22, 2012
We arrived home early Friday morning, just as I had hoped. Traffic was light for most of the trip, so we had no real delays. We did miss some of the pretty flowers along the side of the road just outside of Houston, but we were still able to enjoy the massive fields of bluebonnets as we came closer to Dallas.
Yesterday was a day of restocking and running about. We were able to get a morning walk in, and a later, afternoon walk. It felt great after a week of sitting and traveling.
Both yesterday and this morning have been perfect. 50, no breeze, no clouds. Perfect early summer weather, and it really does feel like early summer.
I mowed the front lawn yesterday and the back lawn this morning. I am sitting out back right now enjoying the flowers, fresh mown order, and the birds that are visiting the bath. Butterflies are fluttering about the center flower garden, mourning doves coo, a light breeze ruffles the leaves, and my peas have climbed above their fence. It is a perfect morning.
Thursday, April 19, 2012
I am currently sitting in a lobby/coffee shop in the downtown Houston Hilton. I would much rather be in my wee hotel room to the north with my shoes and socks off and my feet up than here, but here I am. It has been a long day, though I must admit there were parts of it that were pleasant enough.
The weather the last few days has been great. Highs in the low 80s, a light breeze, few clouds, and lots of green. I really love green. Houston is a strange city and I wish I had more time to explore it more fully. It seems to have less traffic than DFW though that impression may be mistaken and I have just not been on the right road at the right time. However, I was on one road at 4:30 and it was not a park and go lot the way I-35 E is at that time.
The conference is over for Carol and I, well mostly. Carol is upstairs doing a meet em greet em thing at the moment, but that is the end for us. We will be heading home tomorrow morning though I am not sure what time we will leave. I would like to be on the road early so we can be home early, but we shall see.
Houston has not felt like the big city I expected it to feel like. Maybe the downtown is as dead here as it is in so many other cities? I guess I was expecting more traffic, more pedestrians, more bustle.
I did manage to attend a few interesting sessions at the conference. I don't know if it was really worth my time though it might have more relevance if I were working in a library. It has been interesting to observe it as a sociological experiment, though I must admit, all my observations are colored by my participation within the group.
There is a little park just outside the George R Brown Convention Center that I found interesting. A nice green space with a pond and play pool for kiddies that is built above the underground parking lot. Not far away is a grocery store/deli/restaurant called Phonecia that had some decent food. Last night we ate at the Green Vine, a mostly vegan eatery. It was nice going into a place and knowing that there were a lot of options to choose from and that the staff knew what a vegan was and what we did and did not eat.
I am soooo ready to be home with my monkey and my dog.
The weather the last few days has been great. Highs in the low 80s, a light breeze, few clouds, and lots of green. I really love green. Houston is a strange city and I wish I had more time to explore it more fully. It seems to have less traffic than DFW though that impression may be mistaken and I have just not been on the right road at the right time. However, I was on one road at 4:30 and it was not a park and go lot the way I-35 E is at that time.
The conference is over for Carol and I, well mostly. Carol is upstairs doing a meet em greet em thing at the moment, but that is the end for us. We will be heading home tomorrow morning though I am not sure what time we will leave. I would like to be on the road early so we can be home early, but we shall see.
Houston has not felt like the big city I expected it to feel like. Maybe the downtown is as dead here as it is in so many other cities? I guess I was expecting more traffic, more pedestrians, more bustle.
I did manage to attend a few interesting sessions at the conference. I don't know if it was really worth my time though it might have more relevance if I were working in a library. It has been interesting to observe it as a sociological experiment, though I must admit, all my observations are colored by my participation within the group.
There is a little park just outside the George R Brown Convention Center that I found interesting. A nice green space with a pond and play pool for kiddies that is built above the underground parking lot. Not far away is a grocery store/deli/restaurant called Phonecia that had some decent food. Last night we ate at the Green Vine, a mostly vegan eatery. It was nice going into a place and knowing that there were a lot of options to choose from and that the staff knew what a vegan was and what we did and did not eat.
I am soooo ready to be home with my monkey and my dog.
Monday, April 16, 2012
Tomorrow morning we are off to Houston to attend the annual TLA conference. I have never been to the big city before, so it should be an interesting trip. It is the fourth largest city in the US and the fifth largest metro area. I am not sure it matters how big a city is, after a certain point the just become to big and swallow everything nearby. Unless they are like New York which has no where to go but up. I don't know if I will make the time to do any site seeing, but I will take my camera with me.
Our garden has been hit by pests (rabbits and bugs I believe). Some lettuce of almost eating size was totally devoured, some Swiss chard was nibbled, a baby dill plant was half consumed, and some tater leaves were shredded. Our peas are doing great and have almost reached the top of the 4 foot netting we have set up for them. Beans and okra have poked out of the ground and are starting to grow. The bluebonnets are fading but other flowers are taking over so their color is not totally missed.
I have been thinking that this is the greenest spring I have seen here in Texas. All the rain has made things look almost like NC though there are no pines here. Or hydrangea. Well, not many anyway. I wonder if I will see any when we get out east later this week. Houston is one more zone above us, so they may have some interesting green stuff poking out of the ground.
Other than that things are carrying on as usual. I head off to Ft. Worth twice a week to volunteer, do my friends stuff (new member of the friends board I am), and keep on looking for work.
I have begun to think about becoming a high school teacher. Not sure if this is for me, but I need a job and I am too old to become a truck driver again. Sides, the traffic would kill me.
Last week some of our shrubbery (anyone remember Monty Python's famous movie?) was covered in white flowers and butterflies. It was quite amazing. I tried to get a photo of more than one butterfly at once but was never able to do so. This was the best I was able to get.
Sometimes I think technology is more fuss than it is worth. Last week the old laptop I was using quit working (fan gave out). Next the hard drive in the computer that we use for watching netflix quite. I changed out a hard drive and we were back up and running. After some discussion with Carol over the old laptop and the possible cost to fix, I moved over to her old computer and tried to do a re-install of the original os and programs. It quite, and after some diagnosing, I decided it was the hard drive that wanted changing. No biggie, they can be swapped out in 5. The problem is the hassle of adding the os back and the necessary programs. Ok, I finally mostly finished this morning before getting busy for travel. Tonight I am mucking about and trying to find a fix for some of the problems remaining after the fix and decided I should flash the bios. No problem once again. There is this new program they have that will do it without the need for burning a cd or the flashdrive work arounds. So I do it. It finishes, I think, and the laptop turns off. I turn it back on and it stops working. gah I say, thats it! Fortunatetly, the old thing just overheated with the flash and decided to take a break cause its back up and running once more. Give me that degree in computer grumbling!
Our garden has been hit by pests (rabbits and bugs I believe). Some lettuce of almost eating size was totally devoured, some Swiss chard was nibbled, a baby dill plant was half consumed, and some tater leaves were shredded. Our peas are doing great and have almost reached the top of the 4 foot netting we have set up for them. Beans and okra have poked out of the ground and are starting to grow. The bluebonnets are fading but other flowers are taking over so their color is not totally missed.
I have been thinking that this is the greenest spring I have seen here in Texas. All the rain has made things look almost like NC though there are no pines here. Or hydrangea. Well, not many anyway. I wonder if I will see any when we get out east later this week. Houston is one more zone above us, so they may have some interesting green stuff poking out of the ground.
Other than that things are carrying on as usual. I head off to Ft. Worth twice a week to volunteer, do my friends stuff (new member of the friends board I am), and keep on looking for work.
I have begun to think about becoming a high school teacher. Not sure if this is for me, but I need a job and I am too old to become a truck driver again. Sides, the traffic would kill me.
Last week some of our shrubbery (anyone remember Monty Python's famous movie?) was covered in white flowers and butterflies. It was quite amazing. I tried to get a photo of more than one butterfly at once but was never able to do so. This was the best I was able to get.
Sunday, April 1, 2012
It has been a wonderful spring day so far. The morning was warm, though a touch humid, with clear blue skies and a wee breeze. At the moment it is warm (77), breezy, and clear blue skies. I am sitting on our back seement pad enjoying the birds chitter and chat. With the return of the leaves, they have moved back in full time. At times they can be quite noisy, almost enough to drown out the T.V. in the evening.
I just spent a few minutes pulling pansies from the round flower bed that is in the center of the back yard and planting a few replacements (one is a wave petunia as an experiment). I should be digging some more garden beds for okra and what not, but I am feeling a bit lazy right now. I have taken a few photos of selected spots in the garden, though I would ask viewers to forgive the mess. I should be mowing the lawn again, both front and back. The rain and warm weather is making the grass (weeds and thistles) grow like crazy. The peas are doing well also, with the one batch of early peas half way up the pea fence!
Someone in the neighborhood is having bbq for lunch, I can smell the lighter fluid and briquettes burning.
I have posted some photos below. They may not be clear or even in focus. I am sitting in a semi-bright light writing this, and I find I cannot really see the images. I am very pleased that the rose in the center is doing so well. It was a remnant left here when we arrived, stuffed into a medium sized pot, unwatered and mostly desiccated. Two leaves were left hanging from the brittle branches and I was not convinced it could survive. I stuck it into the soil shortly after getting here, watered it and left it alone. All winter, it recieved no special treatment, mostly because I was sure it was dead. Even as recently as three weeks ago, I was considering pulling it up! I hope it blooms, but even if all it does is survive I will be satisfied.
Carol's mother is not doing well at the moment. We are planning to go up that way for Easter, but may go earlier or not at all depending on what we hear in the next day or so. If I don't post again until after next week, I hope everyone has a great Easter (snow free in those places where it may still snow) with lots of flowers and chocolate.
I just spent a few minutes pulling pansies from the round flower bed that is in the center of the back yard and planting a few replacements (one is a wave petunia as an experiment). I should be digging some more garden beds for okra and what not, but I am feeling a bit lazy right now. I have taken a few photos of selected spots in the garden, though I would ask viewers to forgive the mess. I should be mowing the lawn again, both front and back. The rain and warm weather is making the grass (weeds and thistles) grow like crazy. The peas are doing well also, with the one batch of early peas half way up the pea fence!
Someone in the neighborhood is having bbq for lunch, I can smell the lighter fluid and briquettes burning.
I have posted some photos below. They may not be clear or even in focus. I am sitting in a semi-bright light writing this, and I find I cannot really see the images. I am very pleased that the rose in the center is doing so well. It was a remnant left here when we arrived, stuffed into a medium sized pot, unwatered and mostly desiccated. Two leaves were left hanging from the brittle branches and I was not convinced it could survive. I stuck it into the soil shortly after getting here, watered it and left it alone. All winter, it recieved no special treatment, mostly because I was sure it was dead. Even as recently as three weeks ago, I was considering pulling it up! I hope it blooms, but even if all it does is survive I will be satisfied.
Carol's mother is not doing well at the moment. We are planning to go up that way for Easter, but may go earlier or not at all depending on what we hear in the next day or so. If I don't post again until after next week, I hope everyone has a great Easter (snow free in those places where it may still snow) with lots of flowers and chocolate.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
I walked from my office to the back patio door just a few minutes ago and watched a red-headed woodpecker taking a splash in the bird bath that came with the house (likely too heavy for the previous tenants to haul away). I don't think I have ever seen that bird at the bath before this, though a large number of birds are making good use of it this spring even though it has been a wet one.
I planted my tomatoes this morning and hilled my taters this afternoon. It is a warm humid afternoon and it really reminded of hilling potatoes down on the farm. I am glad I only have 8 or so plants to hill as I am getting to old and out of shape to want to do an acre of the darn things. Our peas are growing up the pea fences we stuck into the ground, still to early for any flowers or peas, but not too much longer I suspect. I should be planting some beans and some okra, but haven't been able to due to the wetness. I need to dig at least one and a half more beds to accommodate everything i want to plant, but can't. I did dig a little this afternoon to give the last tomato some space, but it is really soggy, and our last rain was a week ago. That was a real bridge wrecker of a series of storms, the whole back yard was afloat, puddles and everything for over a day. It almost drowned a few plants (primarily the lavender, though it seems to be recovering a little). The bluebonnets we planted this spring are blooming, wish we'd been able to buy a lot more plants.
Some of the plants are doing great though, including the rose that was in a pot when we moved in. I am seriously surprised to see it leafing out.
Most everything has gone green and is flowering. Only a few old trees remain without leaves. Spring flowering plants are going like crazy (big patches of bluebonnets and Indian paint brush are everywhere), while the summer flowers are getting ready to take over. It feels great to be able to sit out in my back yard and enjoy the wonderful weather.
Next weekend we are off to Arkansas to see Carol's parents for Easter. Should be a great time to visit. The week after that we are off to Houston for the annual Texas Library association convention. Not really looking forward to that, but I need to go.
No job yet, no signs of one either. Very disheartening, but I carry on. Still doing my volunteer stuff and enjoying that a great deal.
I have started running again after a long break. Well, more walking than running, but it is a restart. I would like to get up to 3, 3, 6 by the end of the summer. Maybe at that time I will look into doing some heavier training.
I planted my tomatoes this morning and hilled my taters this afternoon. It is a warm humid afternoon and it really reminded of hilling potatoes down on the farm. I am glad I only have 8 or so plants to hill as I am getting to old and out of shape to want to do an acre of the darn things. Our peas are growing up the pea fences we stuck into the ground, still to early for any flowers or peas, but not too much longer I suspect. I should be planting some beans and some okra, but haven't been able to due to the wetness. I need to dig at least one and a half more beds to accommodate everything i want to plant, but can't. I did dig a little this afternoon to give the last tomato some space, but it is really soggy, and our last rain was a week ago. That was a real bridge wrecker of a series of storms, the whole back yard was afloat, puddles and everything for over a day. It almost drowned a few plants (primarily the lavender, though it seems to be recovering a little). The bluebonnets we planted this spring are blooming, wish we'd been able to buy a lot more plants.
Some of the plants are doing great though, including the rose that was in a pot when we moved in. I am seriously surprised to see it leafing out.
Most everything has gone green and is flowering. Only a few old trees remain without leaves. Spring flowering plants are going like crazy (big patches of bluebonnets and Indian paint brush are everywhere), while the summer flowers are getting ready to take over. It feels great to be able to sit out in my back yard and enjoy the wonderful weather.
Next weekend we are off to Arkansas to see Carol's parents for Easter. Should be a great time to visit. The week after that we are off to Houston for the annual Texas Library association convention. Not really looking forward to that, but I need to go.
No job yet, no signs of one either. Very disheartening, but I carry on. Still doing my volunteer stuff and enjoying that a great deal.
I have started running again after a long break. Well, more walking than running, but it is a restart. I would like to get up to 3, 3, 6 by the end of the summer. Maybe at that time I will look into doing some heavier training.
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