The day started out nice, but has gotten overcast as the day's gone on. I think there's some chance of rain for tomorrow and Monday. If it's going to be gloomy, I hope it does rain. I still prefer the sun though.
One of the little male hummers decided to be cooperative when I was outside and wanted to take a picture of him. This is the little guy slurping from my feeder. Soooo tiny and cute, isn't he? He's around the feeder quite a bit. And the sparrows and finches are eating me out of house and birdseed. I'm back to filling the feeders about every other day. Remind me again, was I looking forward to them all coming back? There are enough of them that they squabble for places on the feeder.
I also have a fox squirrel who forages underneath both feeders. He/she/it has no qualms about hanging out amid the birds on the patio and getting his share of seeds. So far he hasn't tried to get them from the feeders directly, just those dropped on the ground by the birds.
The girls and I were outside early this afternoon, not really doing anything, just checking out how things are growing. It was really nice out and the cat-kids hung out a bit out there.
I went shopping this morning, trying to get some gifts bought for Mother's Day and Father's Day. Early I know, but I'm traveling a bit the next couple months and this will be my last free weekend for a while. So I thought I'd take advantage of it. The Mall was packed!!!! Everyone was out hitting the Easter sales apparently. Not my favorite shopping experience but what can you do?
I discovered this week that I need a visa to go to Turkey. I'm going there in June for two back-to-back meetings. Luckily, it's very easy to get a visa online from the Turkish site. I'm on the organizing committee for one of the meetings, so I'll be busy at that one. I'm hoping to have a little time to do some sight-seeing during the second meeting.
Anyway, not much to say today. Just thought I'd post some pictures of the girls outside today and the little hummer.
I'm happy to say that we're getting another day of rain. You'd almost think I like rain, to listen to me. We're so far down in the water balance this year though, that I'm still glad to see it. This last week I drove down through the south metroplex area, and the bluebonnets are spectacular. Solid purple-blue rolling hills along the highway. I was afraid they wouldn't bloom much this year, but they have. Sooooo pretty.
And you can see from these pictures that the little azalea is fairly happy too. It's also blooming well in it's new place. And all the trees are leafing out. Yay! I'm so glad Spring is here. My rose bushes are all growing gangbusters and starting to put on buds now. I'll have roses in the not too distant future. And my grass is finally starting to come up.
I've now seen three hummingbirds, two little black-chinned males and a little female. They all frequent the feeder, the two little males not happy with each other's presence of course. The little female likes to just sit out there on the feeder, hanging out. I'll have to keep sugar water made up. With only the three of those tiny little guys, the stuff goes bad before they get through it when days are in the 80+ temperatures. Growing fungus. Yuck!
I've also seen two pair of cardinals out there at my feeders and more than two pair of house finches. The massive horde of sparrows came back from wherever they were also. And this morning I saw the male brown-headed cowbird for the first time. I've been seeing the female randomly for the last week. And the white-winged dove is back! I haven't seen him since that first ice storm last winter - only the mourning doves. And actually I only ever saw one white-winged dove, or only one at a time, even during the ice storm, which makes me think there just was one. There are two out there under the feeders this morning, so now there's a pair, or returning young from last year. It's really fun to watch all the birds, especially the little flitting hummers.
Actually, I think this little tiny yard and patio are is the perfect size for me. Enough of a place for me to putter around in and put out plants and grow things and trim things without requiring a massive amount of upkeep and maintenance. Of course, I pay a lawn service to do all the heavy work - mow, edge, clean out gardens, trim shrubbery, deal with leaves in the winter. That allows me to play at gardening while the place looks great and is kept in shape. Perfect for me, as I said. It makes me enjoy living here even more. I'm really happy with the place again now that all the repairs are done.
The ophthalmologist said the same thing the optometrist did. It's okay to have a vitreous lining pull away from the retina in your eye, as long as it doesn't create any holes or tears when it does it. They're concerned about that because if a hole or tear is there, fluid can leak out and get under the retina and cause the very bad "retinal detachment". So if they find a hole or tear, they seal it with a laser in about 10 minutes. Luckily I have no holes or tears and all is good. I'm glad to hear that.
The wandering jew I put in the hanging basket outside seems to be making the transition okay and will probably survive. The verdict is still out on the airplane plant or spider plant, whichever you want to call it. It's looking pretty bad, but considering how bad some of my other plants have looked and pulled through, I won't give up hope yet.
Not much to say today, so I'm ending this post with the most current picture of the resurrected pine tree. It's already put on about two inches of new height and seems quite happy out here on the patio. I'm pleased as all get out to see it growing and thriving.
I have a hummingbird!! I guess mid-March was NOT too early to put out a hummingbird feeder. It was up exactly two days before I saw him at it. This isn't a picture of him, but this is what he looks like. He's much too schitzy to wait around for me to take a picture, but he's definitely a black-chinned hummingbird. He's the only hummer I've seen at the feeder so far. I hope I get more, but I'm glad to have him around. So fast! And so fun to watch.
It's cool and rainy today. So far, no serious rain, just little spritzy, spitting rain. I'm hoping for more. And it's supposed to rain tomorrow too. If it does, everything poised to bloom will bloom. The azalea I planted into the ground next to my patio is covered with buds! I was shocked to see that because it looked so bad last weekend when I planted it, I was just hoping it would survive. I never expected it would bloom like crazy, but it looks like it's going to. I guess it likes being in the ground. I'll take pictures when it blooms.
We had a serious storm system go through here last week and I did not get so much as a drop of rain from it. Mother Nature is taunting me. That's why I'm grateful for today's misty stuff and am hoping for more rain tomorrow. I've seen one tiny little patch of blue bonnets this year and they should be blooming about now. Rain would help.
I went shopping this morning and picked up this pretty metal shelving to go on my patio where that old stove used to be. I wanted something to put my gardening stuff on to keep the patio neater and have it all handy to use. Since I had to be out anyway to get cat food and run by the bank, etc, etc, I stopped by Garden Ridge. I could come to love that store. So many cool gardening-related things. It was interesting getting this shelving home. It's just over 3 feet wide and the shelves are about a foot and a half deep. Luckily the shelves fold up and then the sides fold in, but it's fairly heavy. I could have gotten a smaller one, but I wanted this size, so I just man-handled it into and out of my Subaru. I like it.
I went to the eye doctor last week because I had a bunch of bright light flashes in my left eye a couple weeks ago and now have what they call a floater. Something floats across my vision in that eye and blurs it momentarily. Turns out I have a detached vitreous in my left eye. The lining around my fluid (vitreous) in that eye has pulled away from the retina. They don't do anything for it, it's just now detached. Weirdly, other than the floater, which they say I'll get used to, my vision isn't affected by having a detached vitreous. I had it checked while I was there and it's the same as it was 2 years ago. I did get scolded though for waiting two weeks after the light flashes. Apparently bright light flashes like that are a symptom of retinal detachment, which is serious and will screw up my vision. My eye doctor is sending me to a retinal specialist to check out that left eye anyway, and be sure its' okay.
The cardinal pair is on the sunflower seed bird feeder. They're actually one of the reasons I got that feeder. They struggled with the other feeders, which are really made for small birds, but they can sit on this one and eat sunflower seeds to their hearts content. I saw my first female cowbird of the season out there this afternoon. Last year I had a bunch of those. The cowbirds I don't so much care about, but I hope I get redwing blackbirds again this year.
Thought I'd end today's post with a picture of Zoe in her usual weekend place. This was taken before I moved the aloe outside, but she likes to sleep in this chair.
It's pretty much a perfect day for gardening, so I've been doing things out on the patio and in the yard today. And in case you didn't believe the little pine tree's incredible comeback, I'm starting this post with a picture of it from this morning. It still amazes me.
The other pictures in this post are the three peach trees. The oldest one is shown first. It looks the best from a distance, but up close it's infested with some sort of insect layering the newest growth. They look kind of like aphids except they're black. But they bunch around the new growth like aphids do on roses. I sprayed the heck out of the tree with Seven dust spray yesterday and today and hope that will take care of them. There's not a sign of them on the other two trees.
The littlest peach thinks it's a peach shrub, growing out from the ground. I guess I should be grateful it survived being buried by the foundation repair people.
I've been transplanting things out on my patio since around 11:00 this morning. I transplanted the wandering jew and the airplane plant (spider plant?) into hanging baskets and later this afternoon I'll put hooks up and hanging them over my patio. They're looking kind of puny so I decided to move them outside. I also moved all the aloe vera outside. And I took some of those cacti that I raised from seeds and transplanted them in a big pot outside. I'm seriously acting like we're over all our freezes, so the weather better not disappoint me.
I have a pair of house finches who have commandeered the one bird feeder. They spend a lot of time there and zealously guard it from all other comers, including another house finch pair and a pair of cardinals. Another thing I did today was move one bird feeder out to the tree by the back fence because I decided to put a hummingbird feeder up on that hook close to the house. We'll see if I manage to attract any hummingbirds.
I also transplanted the one azalea from the pot it was in, into the ground next to the patio. It's been looking a little peaked, so I'll see if it does better in the ground. While I was doing that I noticed that the mint is coming up in various areas around the patio. I'm glad to see it but will have to try to keep it a little more under control than I did last year. I'm more motivated to mess around with plants and things this year. Last year I was just watching for what would come up and grow. This year it feels more like it's mine, and I'm making some changes and working out there. I cut all the roses waaaaaaay back in February and they're all putting on new growth now. I also feel good about having all the foundation-repair-killed shrubs removed and replaced with pretty new shrubs. It makes me happy to have growing and blooming things.
Which makes me think - I haven't seen any sign of the Indian Hawthorne blooming. I wonder if the weather we've had has made them really late or prevented them blooming. It seems to me that they bloomed close to when the quince did last year. Nope, just looked. It was about a month later, in mid- to late April, so they aren't late yet.
Anyway, not much to say today and too nice to sit by the computer. Guess I'll go hang those plants.
I thought I'd spend today's post talking about the amazing saga of a little pine tree. First a little history. If you've read my blog along the way you know I tried growing some little pines from seeds. I had nine pine seeds which I attempted to start and two of them came up. It was a bonsai gift, so I babied the seedlings and planted them in the bonsai box they came with. The first picture in this post is when they were at their most healthy, and maybe 7-8 inches tall. That was last March, a year ago.
At that point they stopped putting on any height and I thought maybe their growth was restricted by the bonsai box they were in. I decided to transplant them and let them grow instead of leaving them alone and stunting their growth into bonsai trees. Or that was my thought process anyway. So I transplanted them into a bigger, deeper pot. As you can see they did fairly well at first. But shortly after this second picture they began to decline. The moss growing with them all died and so I thought maybe they were too dry, then I thought maybe they were too wet. I even tried transplanting them again, but despite everything I tried the pine needles turned yellow and then brown, in a pattern moving up the trunks of both trees and outward on the limbs. I tried fungicides and meters to determine how wet or dry the soil was. Nothing worked. By late last November, the smaller tree was dead and the larger tree seemed to be fast approaching that state.
So I put them outside. I figured they are pine trees and probably they stand a much better chance of surviving out in Nature, without my tender loving care, then they did with me trying different remedies on them. Unfortunately, about a week after I put them outside, we had our first ice storm. The third picture is of the poor little things encased in ice the morning of the ice storm. I figured they were goners, and that seemed to be the case. The picture after that is how they've looked all winter . . . like dead twigs that might once have been a plant.
And it's been a fairly long, cold winter this year, even here in the South. The first decently warm weekend we had after our last ice storm (the first weekend in March), I was out looking at the little peach trees and quince and roses and I happened to glance at the dead pine trees in passing. Wait a moment! Is that buds I see on the end of those dead branches? It is! It's buds! Is this thing alive?!?
Yes, non-believer. Check out the last picture. The larger pine tree is definitely putting on new growth all along the trunk and along the remaining branches. It's an amazing thing what plant-life is capable of . . . despite my inability to grow things. I don't think the smaller pine will bud out and come back from the dead, but I'm pleasantly shocked to discover that the larger one is indeed growing again.
In retrospect, I wonder how much of the little pine's problems was that pines need to go dormant. Even though they generally don't lose their pine needles, they still go dormant in the winter. Those two little pines had been growing for well over a year without any stopping. Maybe they needed the rest. Anyway, I suppose now I'll see how well the surviving pine stands up to the Texas heat this summer. While it's this small I suppose I can always bring it into the house if it starts struggling, but I would hate to set it back again. I'm hoping it can fend for itself now.
I'm seriously hoping that last week was our last ice, anyway. This is my frozen birdbath from last Sunday, and down below, ice pellets on the table. It's hard for me to imagine that less than 24 hours after that last blog post, in which I was rejoicing over how everything was blooming and beautiful, an ice storm swept through and killed everything. All the gorgeous Bradford pears because brown and lifeless. My quince became brown and lifeless. It was so sad after they had one day to bloom and be beautiful. The new growth on my roses is all dead, also, but roses are pretty hardy. They should come back.
Actually, the Bradfords are attempting something of a comeback. They're not as pretty as they were, but white blossoms are peeking out of the brown dead blossoms, so they may salvage some of their Spring bloom. The quince is past blooming now. There are only two or three flowers visible on it so the ice really killed it's blooms. It's leafing out nicely though, so no overall damage to the plants. And the three little peaches continue to put on new leaves, so they fully survived the winter and weren't hurt by the latest ice storm either.
The centers of the two aloe vera that stayed outside all winter look like they're going to survive also! That I wouldn't have believed. They've taken so many hits this year. You can see this one for yourself though. Alive and thriving in the center.
The lawn people were supposed to replace my shrubbery last Monday, but since it was icy and the temperature never got above 26 they didn't show. Plus I imagine freezing weather's not the ideal time to plant things. I'll have to call them this week and see when they plan to do it.
I had two migraines this weekend. Yes, TWO! I'm trying to figure out who to complain to about that. I had one that started about 6:00 pm Friday evening. I took the Relpax that the doctor prescribed for me last June, and I'd have to say it worked. That one on Friday was starting off to be a killer of a migraine, with vision loss in both eyes and my right hand and arm going numb. But the pain never got unbearable, thanks I think to taking the Relpax as soon as the visual loss occurred. I went to bed and slept 10 hours. Then I got up Saturday, had my coffee and yogurt and INH, and was doing the morning newspaper crossword puzzle about 9:00 am, when I lost vision in my left eye! Damn it, damn it, DAMN IT! Or anyway, that's what I was thinking. So I took another Relpax and then had to take a second one 2 hours later to keep the pain under control. Still, the Relpax worked better than the old hydrocodone I've been taking. But I lost all of Saturday. I wasn't in unbearable pain, but I was feeling kind of yucky and disconnected and lethargic. I watched TV on and off all day since reading doesn't work with migraines. So I feel like I lost half my weekend. I feel fine today though. Not even much of a migraine hangover. Of course I slept 10 hours last night too. And even remembered to change my clocks.
Today I'm catching up on all the chores I didn't have the energy for yesterday. I filled the bird feeders and the house finches, sparrows and juncos are all happy little campers. And Addy's happy to be able to sun outside. I seeded one more little pot of cat grass. I grow cat grass for the cat-kids in the winter since they have none outside to chew on. I say one last pot because my grass outside should start growing soon, or anyway as soon as we get moisture. We've had less than an inch of rain here where I am so far this year, and usually we have about 6 inches by now. Much as I love the sun, we need some rain.
Had to share this last picture. This is what I did last Sunday, during the ice storm. Yes, Yes I did. No, I haven't been replaced by an alien clone. I baked cookies that I made from scratch and used a cookie press to form. Just goes to show you truth really is stranger than fiction.
Yes, it is really nice outside today. I love days like this - just warm enough and brilliantly sunny and things beginning to put out their first Spring growth and show that they are still living, coming awake from their Winter sleep. And I'm enjoying it for all it's worth, considering that it's supposed to rain tomorrow and then drop down to 20 degrees tomorrow night. Winter's definitely not through with us yet. It's hard to believe today though.
I took this picture today of my flowering quince with the neighbor's Bradford pear in the background. All the Bradfords are blooming right now, and it's all going to take a hit when it freezes tomorrow night. I uncovered the remains of the two outside aloe vera so they could get some sun today. I hope I remember to cover them back up tomorrow because both of them have one little central plant that's looking nice and healthy, surrounded by the dead and dying areas of the rest of the plant. A part of each of them may survive after all. I would love to move the rest of them back outside, but I don't dare with this temperature roller coaster we've been on.
The flowering quince are bee magnets. They're swarming with honeybees this afternoon, kind of like the mint does when it blooms. I wonder if the previous owners knew how much honeybees were attracted to the things they planted, or it's just a fortunate side effect.
When I was wandering around outside this morning I discovered that all three of the little peach trees I planted in the ground last year are beginning to leaf out. Even the smallest one. I was sure that little tree was buried under dirt when the guys dug those massive holes to fix my foundation last Fall. Honestly, I don't know how they missed it. But it's leafing out strongly from right down near the ground, so I'll be interested to see how it grows this year. The other two seem to be doing fine also, even the one that was more yellow than green last year when I planted it.
My roses are all beginning to leaf out also. And I have three little pink hyacinths blooming out front. Spring is definitely coming, even if Winter refuses to let go completely yet. I'm so, so grateful not to live up north though. They've had (are still having) a brutal, brutal winter.
I've made arrangements for my lawn service people to replace the shrubbery killed by the foundation work. The quote they gave me included the work, plus 5 burford holly shrubs, 5 indian hawthorne and 3 nandina. I'm glad I decided to have them do it because it would have been interesting for me to determine what type of holly I needed to match what's already there, and I had NO idea what those other small plants were called (nandina). Anyway, the guys are supposed to replace the dead shrubs with the new ones on Monday.
I had to call the lawn people because I've discovered someone is messing with my mail. The Saturday before President's Day (Monday holiday) I didn't get any mail. That can happen but it's really unusual. Usually I at least get a load of junk mail. I checked it again on Sunday, just because I checked it late Saturday and thought maybe I didn't see the mail in the back of the box, but no, there was no mail in there. On Monday as I was leaving for work, I forgot it was a P.O. holiday and went to put an outgoing piece of mail in the box (the signed contract for the shrubbery work). There in the box was my mail from Saturday! So I took it and left the outgoing. During the day I remembered no mail delivery, but left the outgoing piece in the box, figuring they would get it on Tuesday. Tuesday morning I went to add another 2 pieces of mail to the outgoing, and the original piece was gone. The lawn people never got that contract either. So now I don't leave outgoing in my mailbox. I mail it at a drop box. And I get my mail as soon as I get home each day. Luckily, I don't pay much by checks, charities mostly, but I worry that my small checks from the gas company drilling on my property won't reach me. And I know I have a new credit card coming in the next week. I'm kind of paranoid now.
Anyway, I called the lawn people, and sent them my copy of the signed contract (after making another copy, of course) and they are scheduled to do the work Monday. Then all trace of the foundation issues will be erased. That makes me really happy.
That's about all today I guess.
