-
Miracle Fruit Season
Our miracle fruit tree (Synsepalum dulcificum) is looking a bit like Christmas with the deep red fruits decorating the tree and contrasting greatly against the lush green leaves, like lights at Christmas. I went and checked on them last night and pulled this handful off the tree and there are several more that have ripened today that I will go pick in a bit. Nothing like a fresh lemon eaten after gnawing on a few miracle fruits first! Mmmm! I’m going to save a few seeds for our friend Christine who requested some to start and I think I’ll plant the others so maybe we can have a little grove…
-
Cibolo Creek
I’m trying to finish going through some photos from Memorial Day weekend when we went to the Texas Hill Country. The first part of the weekend happened to be a little rainy. One of those days we stopped by Cibolo Creek a place we’d been to before three years ago when we did a Texas road trip, camping at various state parks from the Panhandle to the Texas coast. The nature center had changed a bit since we’d visited, a new building for nature education was built and the road entrance was improved considerably. While the creek itself was flowing rather lazily at the time we went, there was evidence…
-
Snakes: Friends Not Foes
Over the weekend a friend of mine had a snake in her yard which she ended up killing due to its being near where her dogs were located. She didn’t know if it was venomous or not at the time and later posted a photo of it which her friend identified as potentially a rat snake, to which I conconcurred it likely was. Now, I’m not writing this to pick on my friend, but it really was a bit of a tipping point for this post to be written as I’ve read several different items from other people in the last year about snakes being killed by people who felt…
-
Kombucha Fun
For the uninitiated into what kombucha is, here’s a run down. Last week when I was at my parent’s house for my grandmother’s funeral I mentioned to my brother and sister-in-law that I wanted to try their kombucha. Stephanie, my SIL, had received a ‘mother/SCOBY’ as a present for her birthday. They’ve been happily brewing kombucha ever since! Now the SCOBY has split enough that she could share so I was gifted a jar of fermenting tea and SCOBY. Last night was my night to pour it into Ball Jars and flavor it how I wanted and start a new ferment. I opted to keep the new ‘baby’ with the…
-
Down By The Pond
We’ve had a group of Great Egret’s starting to roost around the pond and sometimes they come to hang out in our trees down by the water. Of course now this makes it difficult for me to photograph without scaring them off, which is what happened last night. I managed to get a few half-decent shots of them flying around. I spotted this Argiope spider hanging out in the overgrown vegetation along the pond and rethought my plans of cleaning out the vegetation along the shoreline. I was planning on trying to remove some alligator weed and few other overgrown plants to clear up the edge a little so that…
-
Quiet
These last few weeks I’ve really been in my head and when I get in my head, as all introverts know, it can be hard to get out. And that usually translates into me not writing here. In my head, busy with life…I’m just quiet these days. Then, a week and a half ago my mom called and told me my grandmother had contracted, once again, a bacterial infection she’d had a few years ago. This time around they weren’t sure if she would be able to beat it, especially in her weakened health. I wasn’t able to get up to the nursing home to see her until last Saturday…
-
Late July Harvest
The garden is in an in between stage right now. The melon bed is recovering from too much water with the rain a few weeks ago; I’ve been babying it a bit and hoping for the best. There was one melon forming for awhile but it ended up rotting and so far the most successful vine has been a moon and star watermelon. I harvested the yellow corn a few weeks ago but most of the ears were rotting or undeveloped and not good to eat. We also had a patch of strawberry popcorn and the same thing has happened, though there were two ears Chris found ripe enough to…
-
Garden Macros
I tend to get locked up in using one lens for a long time and pair that with Chris having the macro for awhile when he was in the field, I didn’t have the opportunity/haven’t taken the opportunity to use the 100mm macro lens lately. I remedied that last night and went out and shot a few things in the garden. I’m going to have to dig this lens out more often! A close up of a zinnia. Next year I think we need to find a few more places for the white firewheel in the garden. In fact, I’m kind of in love with all Gaillardia species and varieties.…
-
Lunchtime Garden Ramble
I haven’t felt the urge to do a lot of writing here lately and that will likely continue for awhile. However, I was enticed by my garden when I got home at lunch today to take a few photos and share them here. Also, please stop by Sprout Dispatch today and check out the latest garden tour, my friend Matt’s garden. If you have even more time, check out the rest of the summer garden tour too! It’ll be wrapping up next week. White fire wheel, Gaillardia aestivalis var. winkleri Ascelpias tuberosa, the yellow version. The wild section of the garden, most of this is from wildflower seed packages. Cleome…
-
Cedar Falls Trail | Petit Jean State Park, Arkansas
Last weekend we were in Arkansas for a short vacation with my family. Saturday was the day they had to vacate the rental house on the lake and everyone else headed home for DFW while Chris and I were staying until Sunday. We weren’t quite sure where to go, wanting to take pictures, do a short hike, and sight-see. My brother mentioned he’d initially wanted to stay up near Petit Jean State Park and visit other areas nearby, but had changed the plans in order to simplify the issue of having to change locations every few days. So, Chris and I decided to check out the park and then see…