Man. Once again a month has gotten away from me. Here we are at the end of September. Time continues to move way too fast. Plus I've been busy on the weekends, which is when I usually post to this blog. So blogging falls by the wayside when I have too much to do.
I've been gardening today. Or at least puttering around outside, pretending like I'm gardening. I pulled nearly all the mint out of the garden around my patio. Mint tries to take over everything, so I have to pull it occasionally. I love the smell of it though and the bees love the mint flowers. I also pulled lots of other plants that I have no idea what they are. But they're not flowering, so they go. I found this little blue flower in the first picture, a morning glory maybe?, hidden in the mint and I did leave it growing. I also pulled up the remains of the sunflowers that grew from the birdseed. I let them grow until they flower, because they're pretty, but it was time for them to go.
Then I dead-headed all my roses and then drained and cleaned the metal tub out by the fence that's become a gnat-squito (Dad's name for these damned tiny mosquitoes that are about the size of and as aggravating as little gnats) breeding ground. That tub is also where the birds like to drink, so I cleaned it out and refilled it, with the intent of flushing it out every few days.
Then after all that, I planted two sages in between the shrubs around the patio - one on each side. Those are in these two pictures of plants with purple flowers. When I was in Colorado this summer I kept seeing this shrub that was flowering a gorgeous purple color. It was such a bright spot in every landscape where I saw it, that I finally asked someone what it was. It's called Russian Sage, and it's supposed to grow here in Texas too. So yesterday I was picking up some potting soil at Home Depot to plant cat grass in (I grow the cat-kids grass every month or so), and I saw some small Russian Sage shrubs. And right next to them were some small Texas Sage shrubs and it reminded me how much I liked the Texas Sage at my old house when it would bloom purple. So I bought one of each type, and today I planted them on either side of the patio.
I know it's probably not the ideal time of year to be planting things, but I figure, this is Texas. If we get a freeze it probably won't be until January, December at the earliest. So the sages should have time to take root in place and grow some before the weather turns on them. We're still dry as a bone here though, so I'll have to be sure and water them a bunch.
I took pictures of the three peach trees today. The one by the back fence is doing okay, but the other two are growing gang-busters. I've but in some pictures from June and from today, so you can see how much they've grown. The top picture is June on the smallest tree when it was almost half as tall as the fence. Below it it today, when it tops the fence. Then below is the oldest tree in June when it was just taller than the wall, and the last picture shows it considerably taller than the wall.
You can also see that they think they're shrubs, not trees. When they drop their leaves this Fall, or before they put on new leaves next Spring, I'll try to trim them into some sort of tree shape. That won't be easy for the one that was the smallest and it now the largest because it got mostly buried by the foundation guys and came back up this Spring as multiple limbs from the ground. There's not really a central trunk there. I'll have to see what I can do with that peach shrub.
The birds are unhappy with me because I was outside on the patio a bunch today, disrupting their feeding. I did pull the hummingbird feeder today while I was out there. I've been watching it this week and haven't seen any hummers at it for at least a week, so I guess they've moved on for the winter already. I still have plenty of sparrows and finches though. Some of them may try to stay through the winter.
Anyway, That's what I've been up to today, digging holes and planting things and cleaning up. It's been nice and decently cool in the mornings lately, although it was getting hot by the time I finished. I like the cool morning time of year. I could wish it wouldn't get up to 90-ish in the afternoons, but I can't really complain. For Texas, we've had a cool summer.
That's all today.
I'm so past due to post something on this blog. It's September 1st! The whole month of August just seemed to disappear without me being able to make it last longer.
Actually almost the whole month of August I took vacation. Three weeks worth. It was so nice! I went back to Utah and hiked my favorite hikes. Landscape Arch in the first picture is from Arches National Park. I first stayed in and hiked four National Parks in Utah in 1994, so this was my 20 year anniversary trip. I intended to stay in the four parks again and hike the same hikes, but it didn't work out that way. Partly because two of the hikes I wanted to do were closed for repairs. And partly because the weather wouldn't cooperate.
I had LOTS of rain and cool weather. In fact I hiked one hike in the rain! I was determined to do the Navajo Knobs hike in Capitol Reef National Park, because Capitol Reef was the first place I ever camped in Utah and Navajo Knobs was the first Utah hike I ever did. Only I had 24 hours of continuous rain while I was there. So I hiked it anyway. 9.4 strenuous miles in the rain. Nope. I'm not goal-oriented. Nor stubborn. Why would you ask?
The picture above is the view looking down on the road while sitting up on the Navajo Knobs. The view isn't clear because it's raining all out across that land (and where I was). Then this picture is looking up at the Navajo Knobs from the road later on that same day. As you can see, the Knobs are now above some of the clouds. The clouds weren't that low when I was up there.
Other than uncooperative weather I had a good time on the trip. I started in Zion National Park as usual, hiking Angel's Landing, but left a day early because the other hike I wanted to do was closed. Then I ended up skipping Bryce because it was 57 degrees and pouring when I got there and they were forecasting that same weather for the next two days. So I went on to Capitol Reef and ended up with rain there too. Then I went to Moab and Arches National Park, where the weather actually cooperated. After that I went down to Durango and spent some time in Mesa Verde National Park since I was three days ahead of my planned trip. And ended the trip up spending a couple days in Buena Vista visiting my sister and her husband. It was overall a really nice trip. And if I didn't get to do all the hikes I wanted, I did my three favorite ones, Angel's Landing, Navajo Knobs and Dark Angel.
The cats survived my absence just fine. They've finally warmed up to my pet sitter and accepted her attention. It's been awhile since I've been away from them for this long, so I'm sure they got lonely. This last week I've been home and doing all the house-related things I never get around to when I'm working. And of course getting ready to go back to work after being off for three weeks. The second week I was gone, I accessed my work email and cleared 700 emails. This week I did the same and cleared almost 400 more. "Cleared" being a euphemism for: tagged those that I need to deal with and deleted the rest. At least tomorrow shouldn't be too overwhelming, email-wise.
The one thing I'm a little worried about as far as work tomorrow is shoes. I pretty much destroyed both my big toe nails, I guess hiking in boots that didn't fit well. Although my toes did NOT hurt while I was hiking. They were new boots and hiking in them was really comfortable. I don't know whether they shrunk just a little getting so wet in that long second hike, but when I took my boots off after the third hike, both nails were pushed up and shifted over from all the blood under the nails. The right big toe nail I'm definitely going to lose. It's creating a new nail bed because of the damage to the original one. The left toe nail I may keep. It's slowly turning from solid purple-black to yellow-red. Anyway, I've only worn sandals since that last hike, so we'll see how closed shoes do tomorrow.
It looks like the little pine tree will survive after all! It's put on new growth all around and through the dead areas, and is growing taller as well. That little tree just amazes me. It reminds me of that line from the original Jurassic Park, "Life will find a way." It just keeps striving to live.
I also decided that I'm going to try planting some flowering things next Spring. Around the Buena Vista area there is a lot of a shrub called Russian Sage that is a gorgeous purple and beloved by honeybees. And I saw some beautiful hollyhocks too. So next Spring I'm going to try those two and see if I can increase the bees and hummingbirds around here. I really like growing things and especially things that bloom.
That's the short version of my August. I guess that's about it for now.
