Texas Gardening

I love to garden. And I can do it all year. In the winter, I will move plants around that may not have done well in the particular spot I planted it. When the plant tag says full sun—does that mean full sun in Ohio, or our incinerator blast furnace heat we have in South Texas. There is a big difference. So I work on doing native and xeriscape planting. If you have been reading my blog you know that I compost like a mad woman. Mulch, too. And boy do the Texas critters enjoy it. I get ravaged by fire ants, stung by wasps, threatened by Palmetto bugs and here is what happened to me when I went to move the Bulbine.


I did not notice anything strange until the plant root flicked its tongue at me. Yes, that is a snake. Baby, albeit.


And lucky for it (and me...) a harmless brown garden snake. I was grabbing for the hoe and jumping backwards at the same time. I am hollering for Sam to bring the camera. Blog material. He is asking "why inthehell do you want me to take a picture of plant roots!?" Sweet Jesus, he says, when he sees the root/snake curl around.

So I toss the snake out in the field, plant the bulbine, refresh my iced tea and call it a day. Hope you all have a good weekend out there.

Me Love You Long Time

One happy momma dog and her girl.

Family

We love our hounds, they become part of our family nucleus. I have enjoyed teaching my grandchildren that bassets are special. And they agree. My grandkids can spot a basset faster than our eyes can adjust. I believe it is impossible to be depressed if you have a basset in the home. Or lonely. Or be bored. And you will have basset stories to last a lifetime.

Here is one: I discovered a cluster of children sitting indian style around basset in the yard. They were taking turns using the long ears to rub on their checks. "Look!" "Her ears are just like that velvet stuff!" So I had to sit down and do an ear rub also. Yep, velvet.

Here is another: I have church guests over, we are sitting in the living room visiting. My big KatieBelle saunters in to the middle of the room, gives a brisk shake, and a large globule of saliva goes soaring across (in slow motion) and splats on the front shoulder of the victim. Luckily my good friend works for a veterinarian, so we mop her with a dish towel and all is well.

I have been bassetless for about 4 years now and it is time for me to move forward. I had some wonderful news this week, and I think by the end of May my life will be dominated by a basset. We cannot hardly wait.

"It is Art!"

I had been eye-balling this chicken crate for about 3 weeks. It sat in front of one of the antique shops by my home. Each night I drove past and it was still there—waiting patiently for me to buy it. As you can see, I had to bring it home. The door still works and even has the patent pending information stamped on it. I Googled the maker, W. J. Carpenter Company and they are still in business over in Virginia. No web site, just old fashioned wooden country goods if you want to drive over there.


My crate is old. I knocked the dust off with a hard jet of water and let it dry in the sun. My boyfriend looked at it and started the "What the Hell..." and my look stopped him right there. I informed him it was "art" and I am going to hang it in my studio. Right next to my cool paper wasp nest still stuck on the branch—minus the wasps.

How Was Your Weekend?

More leaves I picked up from a neighbor.

It is a polite question that coworkers ask each other on a Monday morning. I am so tired I can hardly walk. My hands are callosing from raking leaves. I had a good weekend. Call me crazy, but the only thing I missed was running out of time for baking the new yeast roll recipe I found.

I have an obsession for composting. I get excited when the worms start showing up in it. It is labor intensive and that is how I get my exercise. Turning compost, adding more nitrogen (Lucy and Lacy's rabbit poop), shuffling in the coffee grinds that I have absconded from work. One friend is a vegetarian and me brings bags of vegetable and fruit peelings. After months of working a pile of leaves you can lose a kindergarten class in, I have Black Gold.


My seed orders have came in and I have started my seed peat pots. My son has a 1980 K5 Chevy Blazer that we keep covered until he can restore it. He doesn't know it—but I have turned it into a greenhouse. There is a row of seed trays geminating on the dash where the sun shines on it. It is working perfectly. Kind of a strange dichotomy though, a gas guzzling Chevy truck being used as a greenhouse for Mom's organic garden. I like it. I also store the rabbits hay in the back of it, he doesn't know that either.

Have a good week, my friends.

Pile of seeds from friends and catalogs.


I will have Purple Coneflowers coming out of my ears. 90% came up from seed. Go Blazer Greenhouse!

I Love You Too, James

My grandkids and I are separated by states. They are in Alabama, I live in Texas. They have already told me I am not like the other grandmas, which I take as a compliment. When the grands and I are together, we are up at sunrise eating bacon and waffles. Then heading out the door for a long exploratory hike or swim at the beach. They fell in love with my basset hound, KatieBelle. I love to cook for them, and play games in the evening. Our separation is painful for me. I hope to see them soon. I love you more.

V.... Vaughn

Sunrise


Sunset

Saturday I met Virginia Vaughn. She taught a plein air painting class from sunrise to sunset. Literally. I thought getting up at 4:00 a.m. would get me to Calvert, Texas in time to paint the sunrise. I was late by about 15 minutes. The sun does not wait for anyone. Virginia makes it look easy. She has a beautiful style of impressionism and holds her paint brush like a pallet knife.

Early spring in Texas can be volatile . That day, it was a gorgeous rainbow prism colored sunrise and about 1.5 hours later a front blew in, taking our clouds with it. We were given an ultramarine blue sky and wind gusts of 30 mph. We had to anchor our easels and hold tight to our thumb boxes. We had a great, small adventurous group. No one was afraid of getting up early, crazy weather, and using bright, bold colors on their canvases. I hope to paint with them again.

V, I hope you get picked as our Texas Artist. You are the real deal.

My attempt. Why do I always try to do the hard architectural stuff? Whyyyyy?


Two sisters, Barbara and Cecilia. I enjoyed watching them together, such love!