Rain! Yay!

Yes, it's true. I'm happy about the rain. As a general rule I'm not all that fond of rain. Considering our serious lack of it this Spring though, I'm pretty delighted when it happens these days. So even though it's overcast and generally gloomy outside, I'm glad it rained last night and hope we get a little more today too.

As you can see from this picture, that one spot on one side of my peach tree continues to grow. I don't think it will be enough to save the tree, but I'm kind of glad to see that fairly exuberant growth, if only in one spot. The little dogwoods continue to struggle to grow also. Believe it or not, they're not dead yet. I put a frame with a black plastic bag to protect them from the late afternoon sun. It's not pretty, but for now it seems to be helping a little. At least they're still marginally alive. Now if the frame doesn't just fall and crush them, maybe they'll live. I've also been spraying all my growing things, including the peach, the little dogwoods and my roses. Something is seriously munching down on them all.

I have a group of grackles (is that right, "group of grackles"? 4 seems too few to be a "flock of grackles") that spend a lot of time in my back yard. These guys are big! They're known variously as keel-tailed, boat-tailed or large-tailed grackles. There's a big blue-black male and three brown and black females, all with yellow eyes. The male was doing mating show-off stuff for the females for quite a while yesterday. I don't know what they're eating out there. They find good size bugs of some sort in my lawn and then they like to bring them to the bird bath, drop them in and then fish them out and eat them. Washing them off? Whatever the insects are, they seem to have a fairly hard shell because the grackles have to work at eating them. 17-year locust (cicada) grubs, maybe? I never would have guessed that there would be so many out in my lawn. I wish the grackles would eat whatever is eating my peach and dogwoods. Hmmmm. This morning there are two males out there, so maybe it is a "flock". The pictures of grackles in this post are borrowed from the Internet. I'm particularly bad at taking pictures of birds. This picture is the male and the picture further down in the post is the brown and black female.

The cats watch the grackles and make little cat hunting noises, but don't go after them much. Both my cat girls are getting older and stiffer and, in Zoe's case, lazy. I suspect that when the grasshoppers come back this year, Zoe will go after them. She loves chasing grasshoppers and other small creatures that try to escape her.

I've been trying to get organized for a trip that begins next Saturday. It's a nine day business trip and I have to be professional the whole time. I've been figuring out which suits, which dresses, which semi-casual, and which accessories to wear with which outfits. I'm doing this so I don't take extraneous stuff. Usually I pack thinking: "I'd better take this outfit too in case I decide I might want to wear it." I'm just not going to have the space to do that for 9 days of professional travel to opposite sides of the country. So I made a Table, and the rows are: day, schedule for that day, clothes (more than one set if a change will be necessary given the schedule), shoes, accessories for each change of clothes. I've been filling the table in and making sure I have everything and it doesn't need to go to the cleaners first.

*laughing* People who know me would just say that I'm always this anal-retentively organized, but I think I'm usually not on trips. Other things in my life (especially things I collect) are organized to an extreme. I can hear my friend arguing: "Oh, yes you are this organized on trips!" *throws up hands in surrender* Tabun ne. I've already admitted I don't do spontaneity well. At any rate, I should be ready for the trip by next Saturday.

I thought I had seen a swallow already but I suppose it's a little too early for them still. They should be back soon. Instead, there's a pair of house finches that I think are nesting in the old swallow nest. They're certainly hanging out there a lot, but they scram pretty quickly when I open the front door. Well, so did the swallows, but they hovered around unhappily until I left. The finches just fly away. I don't know whether I want the finches to nest there, or want the swallows to displace them when the swallows return. Actually I don't know whether the swallows can displace them if they decide to nest there and are already nesting. I guess I'll see. Birds are so interesting to watch.

Anyway this is short today and I won't be posting again until probably after mid-May when I get back into town and recovered from travels. More when I return.

Spring?

Yes, yes, I know. Texas doesn't really have a Spring as such. We may get a few days where the weather is fairly pleasant before we dive headlong into summer. This year has had some weird weather. We got no rain at all in March, so I've been watering my lawn to get it to grow. We have already had a few days that hit 90, and then this morning it was 50, with a forecast for 41 tomorrow morning followed by 80s during the day. Typical ups and downs for this time of year I guess. I could wish the temperatures were a little more consistent. Of course periodically in the blog I feel required to post pictures of Addy and Zoe. You can see how my lawn's struggling by this first picture of Addy. She likes to lay in the grass and so here she is, mostly surrounded by weeds. You can almost see her saying, "This is less than acceptable!" This pic was about a month ago though. The grass is finally starting to grow up amidst the weeds. I've even got some St. Augustine runners coming back in areas that were totally dead or weed-covered late last year. I'm delighted to see them. There may be some hope that St. Augustine will take over the back yard again. I'll be a little more proactive if I see chinch bugs out there again, now that I know what to look for. Last year when the St. Augustine started dying, I just waited for the Trugreen people's normal scheduled visit. The front yard is slowly coming up Bermuda.

The weather vagaries this year are clearly demonstrated by following my attempts at growing things. Of course I probably can't blame it all on the weather. I've never had a green thumb, despite having two sisters who can grow anything and everything. One of those sisters brought me some little dogwoods and a small holly from east Texas, which my friend and I planted in my back yard on April 2nd. The holly will probably live. If it does it will be due entirely to it's own hardiness. I can't say the same about the dogwoods. They looked fairly good the day after we planted them, but have gone steadily downhill since then. This first picture was taken the morning after they were planted. Not too bad, I thought. Then the wind blew hard that whole day. The next morning before sunup we had a major storm. It was like all the March rainfall we didn't get in March hit us within about a 2 hour time period that morning. Plus I got hail. Needless to say, the little dogwoods didn't do well. Then for the last two weeks it's been windy and warm with no rain, and yesterday it was 60-mph-gusts windy. There's a picture further down in the blog on the right where you can see what the baby dogwoods looked like this morning. Poor things. And those cracks in the ground are not due to dryness. Water runs off out there right now. From the looks of them, it's pretty amazing that they're still alive at all. So even though I'm still trying, I'm not expecting too much from them. Truthfully, I didn't pick the best spot for them. I know dogwoods like the protection of other trees so I put them close to the fence where the neighbor's tree hangs over. Except, I had that tree cut back so it's not hanging over. And that spot gets late afternoon sun and heat right now. The poor little things have sun-burned leaves, and also I noticed this morning that something is eating them! I sprayed them, so hopefully that will help. I'll keep hoping they somehow make it. I may also go to Home Depot or Lowe's and see if I can find some sort of something to place out there to block the late afternoon sun and maybe some of the wind from hitting them for a while.

The peach seedlings I transplanted into pots are doing well, and so are my roses. So I'm not totally incapable of growing things. *laughing* Although I probably shouldn't speak too soon. They could all still curl up. The peach tree itself continues to struggle to survive also. Some of the budding limbs came off in the strong winds we've had, but at least one area of growth is now looking like true limbs rather than a few leaves. You can see how it's doing in this picture. So the peach continues to try to keep growing.

Seriously, anything around me that grows . . . it's due entirely to it's own ability to grow and thrive. I have the exact opposite of a green thumb, whatever that may be. Black thumb, maybe? But I do love Spring and growing things. I'm not so happy when things are dormant and skies are gray.

I thought I'd better get a blog post in because I'm about to start some traveling. The first two weeks in May are hopeless. San Diego for 6 days, followed by Charleston for 3 days, back here for 4 days, then Berlin for 4 days. Can you say jet lag? I suspect that by May 16th when I get back home, I'll be TIRED. Still. I enjoy the stuff I'm doing, and my colleagues. The traveling will be worth the meetings and the socializing. These are all people and associations I'm fond of working with and for. Then the third week in May I start teaching my Summer Biochem class. I've already started putting that together and updating lectures since it starts so close to when I get back from my travels.

I had a period of time in March where my stomach was seriously bothering me, almost all the time. I've had reflux for years, but this was the first time I couldn't control it with antacids. (well, it wouldn't be me if I didn't discuss my medical issues at some point in a blog). So the Monday that I was hurting all day and had been for most of the weekend, I gave up home remedies and made an appointment with my doctor. The upshot is, I probably have an ulcer (very positive test for H.pylori), so today I'm doing the antibiotic therapy. Hopefully this will clear it all up. I also had a sonogram since the pain was in a gallbladder-like position. The sonogram showed a possible cyst or polyp in the gallbladder which we'll follow up if the antibiotics don't work. Easy fixes first, I always say. Actually I'll have a follow up ultrasound in 6-ish months even if the antibiotics work, just to make sure. If the antibiotics don't work, my Doc wants to follow up sooner.

Here's the prerequisite picture of Zoe in one of her favorite places, inside the coiled up hose. I'm not sure why she likes that but she does. This year the birds are disrespecting her as much as ever, but she never gives up trying to be the mighty huntress. She's a little more handicapped this year without the overgrown peach tree to hide in. Hard to believe that tree went from massively overgrown and healthy last year at this time to barely, maybe surviving this year. Interestingly, I found out peach trees are difficult to keep alive anyway, having a relatively short life span for a tree. The life span for a peach is 10 - 20 years and I've been in this house 10 years now. So I suppose my little peach tree's demise is not entirely my fault. It may have just been it's time. I guess I'll see if I can grow some more from the little seedlings, and in the meantime consider what type of tree I might want to replace it with if it completely dies.

My weeds in the backyard need to be mowed again already, but I'm not going to do it yet. The front yard doesn't need it, and the grass in the backyard (what there is) needs to grow some more before I cut it. I'll just have to struggle getting the mower through the overgrown weed areas when I do mow.

I guess that's all for now. Later!