Turns out the martins haven’t actually left the area, they just moved out of the house. On reflection, it seemed like a bad time to migrate south — it’s still winter on the other side of the equator. Plainly, I don’t know as much about purple martin migratory habits as some people. I seem to [...]
Jul 012010
Jun 292010
The martins are gone. No goodbyes. No forwarding address. They just took wing and flew away. Their house looks a little forlorn, with just a random sparrow or two perched on the porch railings, where a few days ago the two pairs of adult martins and their well-grown offspring had all been jostling for the [...]
Sep 262009
I can’t tell you how nice it was yesterday to be able to put the dogs out in their yard and not have to run right back out and bring them in. As rough as this summer has been with the prolonged triple digit heat wave and the drought, I got spoiled. My dogs love [...]
Aug 262009
It RAINED! Here. Yesterday. In my yard. On my crispy, crunchy grass. It rained hard, then tapered off, and was over after about twenty minutes. My roses loved it. They’ll be happy for days, maybe even put out some new blooms for me to smell. My brother may have to mow the lawn this weekend. [...]
Jun 172009
There’s no getting past it. It is officially summer in Central Texas. It almost always gets here well ahead of the “calendar” start of summer, on the solstice. Some years it starts in March. I kid you not. The temperature has been 95 degrees or higher (that’s Farenheit) for over a week, and at night [...]
…would be, well, a different rose. My Mr. Lincoln is the only rose bush that survived last summer’s drought, and that, just barely. All of my roses are in containers. Mr. Lincoln was lucky enough to have the largest, which is probably what saved him. The other containers made it hard for me to find [...]
Apr 062009
Some people call them weeds. A lot of us call them “wildflowers.” Those of us who live in more rural locations, where it doesn’t make sense to try and have a “lawn” of any size, usually see a lot of these whenever we get some rain, and are too lazy busy to mow. I had [...]