Grab a chair and a couple of root beers...

We've had a plum tree, dunno what variety, in our front yard for three years. It's a lovely little tree, with purple leaves, and I thought it was purely decorative. The former owners planted it, and I have to admit, we thought we'd lost it last summer with the drought, but it survived and HOW!!!

Look!



Holy Mackinoly!! It's PLUMS!!!

They're close to ripe, maybe another week or so. They're sour and tart, but with an edge of sweetness, so... I'm hoping the taste will improve as they ripen.

Here's one with the Husbandly One's thumbprint on it...



I'll post later about the Impertinent Daughter's adventures on the last day of school. Right now I'm mellow, and I'd like the mellow to last!

At last, I can believe it's spring in Central Texas! It's green again, there are flowers, it's starting to get uncomfortably warm, we've been able to have the windows open for two weeks, and haven't had to turn on the heat at night for one! It's wonderful!

And now, I believe I promised y'all pictures!
( Green is a wonderful color! )

Very well, actually!!

*pauses to squee*

We've got tomatoes!!! And wee peppers!! And pears!!! The pumpkins are coming up and the sunflowers, and I've got FOUR moonvines coming up! WOOT!!!

( Image heavy, since I'm posting photos of my garden so... beware!!! )

What a day.

Ran some errands, though I found to my great irritation when I got home that I had forgotten to pick up rooting hormone for my rose cuttings, and teflon tape. It doesn't help that our local WalMart is remodeling, so you can't find anything. I swear, it's like going on a treasure hunt every time I go in, and not the fun kind. Half the time, even the employees can't help you because... they don't know where anything is, either. And I must say, I find their method of grouping merchandise eccentric, if not just plain entertaining.

Anyone want to explain why I found two shelves of sanitary napkins in the paint department?

And hey, you know, every time I go shopping for underwear, you know I'm really thinking about pork rinds, right? So, I guess it's handy to have them right there in the big middle of the women's bras and such.

*shakes head*

And the fabric department is gone. Not that I was wild about the fabric they had, but I didn't mind buying, say, denim, or tapestry fabric, etc, at WalMart, and it beat driving into Austin or San Marcos when I was in a pinch. Now, though... *grimaces*

I've dug and created a bed at the end of the back porch, and added compost to amend it a bit. The folks who lived here before us left the head and foot of a metal bed frame in the garden, I guess to provide architectural interest. I'm going to put the head in the bed I just dug, and plan to plant moon vine there. I love moon flowers. They're big and fragrant, and bloom in the evenings. I planted them at our first house in this area, and loved watching the sphinx moths come out to sip nectar from them. We used to deliberately wear white shirts so the moths would fly up to us land on us. They were so cool!

I'm hoping to plant purple hyacinth bean against the back fence, too. That won't bloom until August/September, but it will be so pretty when it does! And the hummingbirds love it.

I want to clear some of the flower beds in the front yard, but for some odd reason, I can only work out there for a very short time before I start feeling extraordinarily bad. Like, "Oh, gods, I have to go to hook up the nebulizer and go straight to bed," bad. And we have no idea why. There is no obvious difference between the front yard and back yard unless...

*is suddenly thoughtful*

In other news, I have discovered that the Impertinent Daughter will not find out if she's made the 7th grade soccer team at her school until the day before their first game. Which is on Thursday... this week.

They only started tryouts/practice last week.

O_o

You know, when I was in swimming, we started practicing for the season (which was November through May, though it didn't get really competitive until February) in September. And we started basketball practice in early October for the season that ran from November through April.

I find it sort of nuts to start soccer practices a week before the season starts. And what really blows my mind?

A lot of the girls trying out have either never played before or... they only started playing last year.

Out of 33 girls that were trying out, I only recognized maybe... eight, that played in our league. And one that I know plays select outside our league. So that's... twenty four girls with little or no experience.

o_O

*does not know what to think*

Well... it should be an... interesting season!

Oy... what a day!

It's raining, it's pouring,
The old bear is snoring,
He rubbed his shoulder on a great big boulder,
And wouldn't get up in the morning!!!


It's raining!! It's raining!!!

*is very excited and happy*

When I went to bed last night, the rain gauge at the elementary school down the street said .06 inches of rain (it's a WeatherBug station). When I got up this morning, it said .69 inches of rain. And just now, when I checked it, it said 1.26!!!

*does a happy dance*

I've filled three recycled cat litter containers with rainwater, and my buckets are filling again. Those are for the kalanchoes, aloe, alyssum, star cactus, portulacas, bougainvillea, cyclamens, and antique rose I have on the back porch. I'm wishing I had the energy yesterday to turn two more beds for our vegetable garden. We've done three so far, having to do it by hand since we don't have a tiller. Oh well, it's good exercise, and I'm good with a hoe! Mind you, I'm not complaining about the ground being wet, because I'm telling you, there was no ground moisture at all when I was turning the soil! It was dry, dry, dry, even ten inches down!! I've even had to water our compost pile at least once a week, because it was DRY!!

I know this is just a proverbial drop in the bucket, rain-wise. It won't break the drought. But it's so nice to see everything wet, really wet, and to go outside to feel the rain, even if it is only 40 degrees outside, and not expected to get any warmer until Saturday. I can live with that! I got my thermals (yes, Chan, I finally found my CuddlDuds! And y'all, Chan is laughing her ass off right now, because she can probably hear me saying "cuddle-duds" in my Texas drawl), I got my thick wool socks, I got something to wrap around my neck... I'm good!

It's sad, though, that this rain won't be enough to fire up the bluebonnets in all their glory. It didn't get cold enough to crack the seeds (we need sustained periods of below freezing weather to do that), and we didn't get any rain in the last two or three months, which all adds up to little or no bluebonnets. Oh, well... there's always next year. Maybe we'll trek out to the Wildflower Research Center this spring and take pictures. It's not the same, though, as seeing waves and waves of hills covered in blue and white, with spots of red from the Indian Paintbrush, and the big red/gold faces of Gallardia spotted here and there among them. And the smell! One bluebonnet alone has little to no fragrance, but a whole field of them! It's such a light fragrance, but it's sweet and fresh, and cool. I'm going to miss that this year.

Now I need to sit down and plot out my herb garden, decide what I'm going to grow. Oregano, basil, peppermint and spearmint... rosemary... dill... parsley... balm? Comfrey? Hmmmm... guess I'd better get out my sketchbook and start planning...

*rubs hands together with glee*

I can't wait!!

Did I mention how confusing and crazy the weather can be here?

Yesterday morning, it was 34 degrees (1.1 C), and it barely got up in the fifties (10 C). This morning, it was 61 degrees F (16) and will climb to a warm, muggy 76 (24).

I was dressing Mr. Manzie in shorts and a tee, and the Impertinent Daughter came in wearing jeans and a sweater and said, "You're putting shorts on him???"

I said, "It's 61 outside, babes."

She blinked, then went back to her room and came back in a tee with a cardigan. "How's this?"

"Yep," I said, and sighed, thinking, man, if it's going to be cold, could it just stay cold for a while instead of this day to day thing?? Because a front's coming through this afternoon, and THO and I need to move the plants inside again, because we're expecting a freeze.

GAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!

I've probably mentioned this before, but in Texas, you can put your winter clothes away when spring comes, but... you can never put your summer clothes away. Because... you're going to need them. Because while it sometimes gets cold enough to snow here, it also gets warm enough to go swimming.

Yeah.

Oh yeah, and we're so dry, we've been raised to "Extreme Fire Danger." Yay. We were under a red flag yesterday because it was so windy, and the humidity was below 20%, and oh, boy, was there a huge grassfire north of town! And it doesn't look like it's going to improve rain-wise, either. I'm wondering if it's even worth trying to prep the garden beds for spring at all.

*grumbles*

I might do it anyway, because y'all, I seriously need some time with my hands in the dirt. That's something I've always enjoyed, and you know, gardening is just a grown-up excuse for playing in the dirt. I can't make mud pies anymore, but I can grub around in the soil and yank weeds, pull out rootlets that don't belong, fuss over the herbs and vegetables and determine where the roses are going to go and how much compost to add, etc, etc.

And how I'm going to water it all without driving our water bill through the roof.

Oh well, I'll figure it out. That's half the fun of gardening. I may not be able to take over the world, but I can at least tackle the challenge of a garden during drought!!

"A lady's hands proclaim her habits."

This was one of those really strange sayings Great Aunt Nosy used to spout around me as one of her efforts to get me to stop biting my nails.  Of course, the fact that I STARTED biting my nails in order to give her nothing to dig under and "clean" never occurred to her.  

Well, if that's true, then my hands proclaim that I am in the habit of grubbing in dirt a lot, or getting into all sorts of messes, because my hands are often either covered in dry soil, because I just came in from trying to tame a garden gone wild, or spattered with ink, paint, food, whatever, because I'm always up to something.  Whether I want to be or not.

Right now, I'm taking a breather from trying to rip out wild sunflowers from the places where we plan to put tomatoes, squash, greenbeans, pinto beans, peppers, and whatever else our greedy little stomachs suggest.  Last summer was a bad year for my garden, one because of the drought, and two, because I was on bedrest all summer, and fortunate if I was allowed to put so much as my nose past the back door!

There are also various grasses trying to take hold in the vegetable beds, as well as squirrel planted pecan trees, and hackberry trees.  I have a lot of work cut out for me, and darn it if one of the neighbor kids didn't run off with my grubbing fork!!  I'm going to have to send the Impertinent Daughter to retrieve it, because I NEED the damn thing!

I also need to decide where I'm going to plant my moonflower seeds and the purple hyacinth beans.  Maybe along the back fence.  Should be pretty come August for the hyacinth beans.  I'd like to plant the moonflowers closer to the house though.  I love sitting out in the early evening when they start opening, and the fragrance starts floating in the air, and then watching late hummingbirds and sphinx moths fluttering around the big white flowers to sip nectar.    If you wear a white shirt, the sphinx moths will flutter to you, too, and try to sip from you, which is hysterical.  I've got pictures I might post later of the Impertinent Daughter holding these giant moths on her fingers, or standing while one flutters in front of her nose, nearly cross-eyed as she tries to focus on it.  

I'm also hoping to find some night blooming jasmine that my parents used to have around our house when I was a little girl.  We didn't have air conditioning (yes, in Houston, Texas, we lived in a house with no air conditioning until I was about 8), but we did have a big attic fan that drew cooler air into the house.  We left our windows open at night, and my mom had the night blooming jasmine planted all around the house so that when the attic fan cycled on, it drew the sweet fragrance into the house.  I'd like to plant it around our deck and back porch so that when we hang out in the evenings, we'll have that sweetness in the air around us.  

There's another fragrant plant I'd like to get my hands on to plant around here.  It's a Texas Mountain Laurel, and the flowers smell exactly like Grape Nehi.  I swear, it does.  The first spring after we moved to Austin, we were driving around with our windows open and I'd smell that smell and go nuts because I couldn't figure out where it was coming from.  Then one day, we were at a mall, and parked next to this small tree with clusters of purple flowers on it and out of curiosity, I turned to sniff it and nearly had a cow.  "This is it!" I shouted.  "This is the Grape Nehi plant!!"  I finally found out what it was when we were at the Wildflower Research Center, and I did a quick sketch of one when talking to a native plant specialist, and she laughed and said, "OH!  Texas Mountain Laurel!  We hear that ALL THE TIME!"

Well, I suppose this lady should get back to her dirt-grubbing habit. Perhaps I'll see if my gardening assistant feels like playing in the dirt... er... I mean... WORKING IN THE GARDEN with me!  After all, I'm supposed to be staying off my knee (stop fussing at me, Alex, GEEZ!!) and behaving myself, but y'all know I never do that.  I only LOOK like a grownup.  I'm really just a little girl PRETENDING to be a grownup.

Perhaps I should finish plotting out my herb garden, too.  Anybody want to help?  Anybody?

*holds out gardening trowel invitingly*