• Gardening

    Alliums

    The edible onions keep attempting to bolt….they need to hold on another month or so until we can harvest them. I’m a little worried they aren’t bulbing up as much as they should be by now, but with a month or so left to go I can only hope they get their bulbing into high gear! Last year I bought a pot of chives in hopes that one day they’d find a permanent home in our herb beds. They are still biding their time at the end of the one of our vegetable beds. Out in the yard the wild onions are giving off their aroma as we walk around…

  • Gardening

    Blooms, Blooms…Everywhere Blooms!

    Chris grew these giant snapdragons last year and they returned this year from the roots, at least I think from the roots. The coloration of the blooms is gorgeous! A few muted maroon bluebonnets were mixed in with the blue-bluebonnets we bought. I’m still in love with the columbines blooming. I never would have thought they would have become a favorite spring flower, but they’ve proved to be a wonderful addition to the garden. The garden is almost in full foxglove mode, too. They are so striking with their height and color it is almost a disappointment we’ll have to wait two more years for them to bloom again. The…

  • Gardening

    The Fig Tree

    The fig tree area of the garden is one of my favorite spots. Really, the fig tree worked out to be in the perfect location there on the side yard, fitting into the landscape perfectly. Currently there are many new plants sprouting beneath the tree, a lot of ferns, a few lilies, some different tropicals. Still biding our time for some of the tropicals to re-emerge…giving them only a few more weeks to appear before calling them toast. We’ll find something else for the spots where plants didn’t pull through. I’m ready for a balmy summer evening where I can sit out under the fig tree and read, maybe nabbing…

  • Gardening

    Perimeter Bed Complete!

    Back in February I wrote about the latest garden project we had going on. Well, last Sunday Chris finished it up in between mist showers by planting the azaleas we’d purchased in Nacogdoches the day before. We’d bought two native azaleas for our main flower bed from Cook’s Nursery just outside of Nacogdoches when we were there in February and kicked ourselves for not buying more. The plants were a good size and had only been $20, plus finding native azaleas can be difficult. So, since we were already in east Texas for a plant sale we went and bought five more azaleas for the back side of this perimeter…

  • Baby Teddy,  Family

    19 Weeks and It’s A…

    BOY! We had our appointment on Monday morning and promptly went in to the ultrasound room right away. The tech asked if we wanted to know the sex, which of course we did, and while Chris had full view of the screen the tech did a few measurements and then asked what we thought it was. I swore it was a girl this whole time and there was even a potential girl name we’d talked about. And then she showed me the screen and pointed out the leg….the other leg…and then the other ‘leg’…and I may have said “It’s a boy! Damnit!” The damn wasn’t out of disappointment, it was…

  • Famous Trees of Texas,  Texas,  Travel & Places

    Finding Texas’ Famous Trees | Trees 135 & 153

    The last time Chris and I went to Westcave Preserve I was browsing through their small library of local and natural history books. I picked out one called Famous Trees of Texas. Even though it was published in the early 70s, the book looked pretty cool and I told Chris we should try to find it. Lo and behold a few weeks later one arrived in the mail that he had bought off of Ebay. It had been sitting on our coffee table for the last few months when I decided last minute over the weekend to bring it with us to Nacogdoches when we went to theSFA plant sale.…

  • Florida,  Ghost Orchids,  Outdoors,  Travel & Places

    The Magic of Little Slough | Part I

    It had been four years since I had been to Little Slough. (More background on what the slough is on that link.) Chris had been in the summer of 2011, but otherwise we weren’t sure what we would find when we returned to our ghost orchid oasis. Because the water levels had not dropped as they normally do during this time of year, we were in for a lot more water than we were expecting. Navigating in was a bit hairy too, the usual pathway in quickly disappeared once we began. That’s a good sign that the area does not receive a lot of traffic, something we’ve tried to protect…

  • Thoughts

    Sunday Thoughts

    +It never fails that this time of year I get wistful for the Appalachian Trail. I didn’t really follow any hikes last year, but I’ve got a couple I’m keeping an eye on this year. +Renee Tougas and her family of five just recently started the trail. I’m particularly interested in seeing how their hike goes as a family. It also looks like they may have started just late enough to not deal with a lot of snow. +Then there’s Wired who is working on finishing the Triple Crown by September by hiking the AT. +Chris’ mom has an aquaintance hiking the trail as well. I’m a little concerned about…