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Me and The Goosey
I had a whirlwind weekend up in DFW spent mostly with friends, dear friends, and a smidge of time spent with my family. Zoe got to spend the night at my parent’s house Saturday night which meant hanging out with Aunt T (me) a lot, only I had to leave earlier than I would have normally so I could spend some time with friends, particularly one that only comes to town every so often because she lives full time in California. It was an excellent weekend and I will share some photos soon. (I’m pretty sure Zoe has a mouthful of Fruity Pebbles, so hopefully you can’t see the chewed…
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Digging the Earth | Homesteading, Gardening and Heritage
Slowly we’re starting to think about purchasing our first house with some land to go with it. Not a lot of land, but bigger than your typical suburban lot. It’s funny, we’ll be married 10 years this June and for those 10 years we’ve rented our abodes, bummed with our parents for awhile, called a flame orange tent home, as well as a couple of motels/hotels. So, it is a little strange to think that we would be actually putting money towards something that in 15-30 years we could call our own (because really, it is still the bank’s until we pay it off). With that I’ve starting seriously thinking…
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Enjoying Spring | Short Break
Howdy! Spring is in full swing and so this week, other than one post I have scheduled for Wednesday, I am taking time off. I need to get some work done on my book, finish a drawing and this coming weekend I’m spending time with my college friends. So, as much I have to write up and share here, I need to focus on some other things. Today I am over at Sprout Dispatch and you can subscribe and follow the garden antics of the three of us over there, but I’ll be back here next week. Time to get some work done! And because I’m obsessed with them right…
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The Ditch Iris
As I walked to the corner where I start my runs the other day I was admiring nature as I walked. A ditch is to the right as I pass by, and there wasn’t much blooming. At first I thought the dark color was a browning leaf, stuck on top of other vegetation. Nearly continuing on without stopping I changed my mind and backtracked. Peering into the ditch I saw it was an iris. I waited to go back to get a photo because it was beginning to sprinkle and I didn’t want to get my camera wet. The next day it poured and poured, and that evening the flowers…
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Taproot
A couple of weeks ago I was reading a blog when they mentioned Taproot Magazine, a new publication partly founded by Soule Mama. I used to read her blog often but haven’t much in the last few years so I went to the magazine’s website and to her website to read more about it. Instantly I was enamored and I had to have it. So I subscribed as a founding subscriber for a discounted rate and between doing that and reading more blogs with photos of the magazine, I’ve been wondering where mine was. Well, yesterday I opened the mailbox at lunch to see it sitting there. I was so…
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Meet the Ladies | Tomatoes
The Ones We Bought In an effort to jump start the season of tomatoes we decided to buy a few plants already started at our local nursery. I’m not big on hybrids but Chris’ mom loves Early Girl and so we decided to give her a try. I’ve wanted to try Cherokee Purple for years but it has never made it into our garden. I have seeds, in storage. We’ll see how she performs for us. I ended up with two Cherokee Purple’s because when I went to grab this one, I broke the tomato. Guilty, I had to get a second one and pay for both. I decided to…
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Bird Banding at Gulf Coast Bird Observatory
A few months ago Keely from State of Wilderness commented on my blog and after a quick look at her blog I realized she as in the greater Houston area too. This was exciting for me because I am in need of a naturey friend here, someone willing to go on hikes and explore and talk science-geek stuff. When I replied to her via email, as soon as I had hit send I worried I had come off a little too excited, too needy. But, no worries, all was well and soon she invited me and Chris to the Gulf Coast Bird Observatory. Unfortunately that weekend we had camping plans…
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The Lazy Lion
Is this not the laziest lion you’ve ever seen? I went to the Houston Zoo yesterday with a friend and her two daughters and I have to say, the animals were the most entertaining I’ve ever seen. Aside from the lion lounging on his back, there were two ‘baby’ elephants playing around, pushing each other, swimming together, it was actually fun! I hadn’t been to the Houston Zoo since college and it was similar to how I remembered it. If there a: hadn’t been glass between me and the lion and b: I knew the lion wouldn’t rip me to pieces, I would have given him a belly rub and…
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Mid-March in the Garden
We had two, mostly straight, days of rain last weekend. During the breaks in the rain we spent a little time in the garden getting seeds in the ground and transplanting tomato seedlings. I took all of these last Sunday evening after the rain has finally stopped and the blue sky came out. The photo above shows the sugar snap pea trellis but on this side of it will be some long beans. We planted salvia out front to entice the butterflies and hummingbirds. The sugar snap peas from below. The front half of this plot is spinach and flat leaf parsley. Chris was able to start sweet basil seeds…
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The Sunflowers
I popped into a Dollar General on the way home from visiting Chris at his field hotel two weekends ago to grab a few goodie package items to send to my niece and nephew. The seed display was promptly placed in the middle of the aisle near the cash register and I could not continue on, I had to stop. No, the seeds weren’t organic and who knows where they were from, but I was so enticed by the super cheap price, somewhere less than $0.50 each for most packets, that I grabbed up a few packages of sunflower seeds, ageratum, celosia and zinnia. I can’t wait for the celosia,…