Sunday Stills: Go Low Looking High

Had a wonderful opportunity on Wednesday to take a shot from the Llano River looking up at sandstone bluffs, but not having a waterproof camera case and already slipping around trying to cross the river on foot I just didn't want to chance it. We all know I already had to bake my camera last year to get the moisture out and I didn't want to make a regular habit of it! As it was I took the camera with me on the kayak enveloped in three ziplock baggies. You can check those panoramic photos out in my previous blog post.

Purple Coneflowers at sunrise this morning

Looking through the patio table (too bad I didn't think to clean it first!)

Looking up through the Speckled Siberian tomatoes

 View from our outdoor shower

For more views up, visit Sunday Stills!

Macro Monday: Borage of a different color

This weekend I noticed that our Borage plants had pink and lavender (sort of the pink and blue mixed together to make it) flowers along with blue ones on the same plant. I have never seen anything but blue petals before. A quick Internet search showed that this does happen, but very infrequently. I kind of like it!

For more up close images, visit Macro Monday!

Macro Monday: Dinosaur Kale

There's a light rain this morning forming little ponds in the centers of the dinosaur kale. They are two years old and about to bloom; new ones are being propagated as replacements.

Farmer Rick and I finally planted the grape vine this weekend we've held captive in a pot for four years. We've had a difficult time deciding where to plant it as it will require building an arbor, and those tend to be focal points in any garden. It continues to amaze us with new shoots each year, waiting for us to get it together. So we chose a sunny spot in the short grass prairie, overlooking our sky chairs and pond.

As soon as we got it planted, we came in the house and found out our son and his wife are expecting their first child! So it was a momentous weekend! Happy March everyone!

For more close up images visit Macro Monday!

Macro Monday: Water...at last!

While the rest of the U.S. has been enduring an unusual winter, we've actually been back to what we consider normal--a couple of days of gentle rains in the 40's followed by a sunny day in the 60's but freezing at night, then the cycle repeats.

Yesterday it felt like the first day of spring! Farmer Rick and I spent the day gardening in t-shirts! The asparagus also thinks it is spring. They are predicting 2 inches of snow tomorrow. That's just how weird our weather can be.

But the most amazing news I want to share is our well is now topping off at 5'9" of WATER which means: I am now able to once again run the washing machine and dishwasher! I have not been able to do this in NINE MONTHS. If you are new to my blog, we have just endured the driest, hottest year on record and our well was entirely without water for four months, and has been limping along ever since. I will never take turning on the faucet and water coming out for granted. If you want to see what it looked like empty check out this post

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Here's some highly aerated water down at the river, and a couple of riffles.

 

 

Suddenly it comes back to me why I live here!

Just listen to the river sing:

For more up close images, visit Macro Monday!

Macro Monday: Garden Memento

This weekend I cut the asparagus patch back to the ground, and fondly came across some bits of Phoebe's wool stuck to the seed pod of this Thornapple, Datura metel.

I love this one because you can see the garden gate, which is in my header. We are still having 'fall color' with the blackberry canes on the bottom left.

I need to cut this plant back, too. Perhaps I will bring the dried stems in with the wool and place them with Avo's feathers.

For more up-close and personal photography, visit Macro Monday.

All Our Ducks in a Row

Today, when we woke up all our ducks were in a row!

Farmer Rick and I have much to be thankful for--we've made it through another year together including our better foibles in chicken husbandry and accidental gardening, and our worse drought in history. His love did not waver even when I persisted on having curved walls in the new coop, and admits his carpentry skills improved with my nagging encouragement.

Nor did he admonish me for the outrageous debt we incurred from me having to take rabies shots after being bitten by the fox. Yea, he understands and supports my need to rescue critters, stick fingers into their wild mouths and to nurse them back to health. He loves my cooking--even when I forget that I am cooking and serve dinner a la charra y el carbon.

I have come to enjoy being awakened at 4 a.m. when he begins playing Chopin etudes and Joplin rags, mistaking my back for the piano in his deep slumber, and have begun to see it as a new way to get a jump on my busy day. I look the other way when he consumes all the household pickles, and gleefully cap the toothpaste and shampoo after him, because secretly I think I got the better end of this deal. He assures me we are equally fortunate!

People tell us we were made for each other. Indeed, we are cut from the same recycled cloth, quilted together by the poets, nobility, explorers, and farmers of our ancestry, having since discovered an 8th great-grandmother and 21st great-grandfather in common. When we cross the creek, neither of us can remember what we went there for.

Honey?

Uh hum?

Look, all our ducks are in a row! How cute!

But...we don't have any ducks!

Oh...You're right!



Y'all better go home!

Water Canto

Dear Saint Isadore the Farmer
I don't believe we've met, seeing as how I'm not in your flock
but farmers are a family of sorts, so I thought you might
understand our predicament

The neighbor's new, deep well has so much pressure it keeps bursting hoses--theirs and ours. Farmer Rick repaired ours late the other night and connected it to the pumpkin patch--which we located at the furthest reaches of our property as recommended by permacultural practices, with the assumption they need little tending--HA!

Emily Dickinson said water is taught by thirst
yet our parched land can't seem to command the clouds
and our well is bone dry--nothing down there
but echoes of better times

After adjusting all the spray emitters to the new pressure, I got back to the source and discovered a huge loss of water at the repair site. One inquisitive touch sent parts flying and a geyser of water up my nose, drenching me before I could reach the lever to turn it off. Then, it was off to the tool shed to repair it again.

I thought I'd start with you--
kind to animals, patron saint of farmers and rural communities
--because I like the looks a saint with a shovel
and water springing forth

After completing the mend I had to walk back over to the pumpkin patch and reset all the emitters to yet another pressure. By now the 103 degree temperature has rendered the water in the black irrigation hoses to scalding. It's burning my hands and probably not making the plants too happy to have their thirst answered like this. I feel awful about it, but what can I do?

D.H. Lawrence said water is H2O,
hydrogen two parts, oxygen one, but there is also a third thing,
that makes water and nobody knows what that is
(I believe God knows)

Because of the mineral content that clogs the emitters, each one has to first be turned on full blast to clear the holes, then turned down to reach only the plant roots, no more. But the last one scalds my hand and I inadvertently let go, blowing the emitter cap to the heavens or at least into the surrounding grass where I cannot find it. There is now another geyser and I scramble to turn off that lever.

Who made it follow the path
of least resistance, yet strong enough to carve a canyon
there is a lesson in there somewhere for us
if we would stop to ponder

I go in search of our stash of irrigation parts and do not have another. The nearest one is a three hour round trip away. I apologize to the pumpkins for our lack of preparedness. It is now noon, and I have spent the better half of a day spraying myself in the face while my vegetables are wilting.

Loren Eiseley said if there is magic on this planet,
it is contained in water, but I think it is spirit he's talking about
like the angel of the flower contained in each seed
that brings forth the fruit

I spend another half a day getting the parts, and a few extra. Now a pond from the back pressure begins to form in the neighbors yard where the spigot lives, where this kind gift of water originates from, where their daughter is getting married this weekend. We decide a solution is perhaps to turn down the pressure on her side and up the pressure on my side. This means going back to the pumpkin patch and readjusting all the emitters. It is 104 degrees outside, the water much hotter. Both the plants and I groan accepting the only water we have.

Your prayer is for all Creation
--the fields, the plants, living water, fresh air, all creatures,
love for one another--this has been my prayer, too
we both know the worth of water

If there ever was a time Farmer Rick wanted to talk me in to relocating to a cooler climate, like the one he grew up in, this would be it. I'm frustrated and exhausted, and I can't even find the towel to throw it in. I'm hot, thirsty, sweaty and a magnet for west Texas dirt. I'd like to cry but I don't think I'm hydrated enough to make the tears.

So, I'm throwing some dirt in the well
tierra bendita that came from the Santuario de Chimayo a place of miracles
asking for clouds and rain to keep our well replenished
and our souls succulent

The well service calls to say, no, they can't deepen a hand dug well. Just to get the rig out to dig another shallow well is $4,500, but eight others already called before me and there's no guarantee in this alluvial gravel. All the new wells drilled around us are at 800 feet or $15,000 dollars deep.

And if your compassion can be so moved, Saint Isador the Farmer,
for our fields, plants, and creatures, to drive your spade
we'd be very thankful for the water!

Don't Worry: You Just Aren't My Type

This morning we planted four types of cucumbers and some dill.

Pulling weeds in the garden this afternoon, I dislodged this Checkered Garter Snake, Thamnophis marcianus. We love diversity. This is a new addition to our species list. It was eating a small toad or spider when I ran for the camera.

For those of you afraid of snakes, there are a couple of comforting things you should know:

1. Snakes desire only two things in life--eating and mating--and you aren't appropriate for either.
2. You can outrun any snake.

During times of drought, they will come out after a rain to find something to eat. We got a little rain yesterday, which was refreshing. The evening air smelled earthy and complex, like patchouli. The sky is grumbling like it wants to rain again. Let's keep our fingers crossed!

The Great Pumpkin

Today we planted this Giant Pumpkin seed that I received from gardener Jim, who got it from a woman from Tennessee. It came from a 790 lb pumpkin. He suggested we only let one pumpkin develop and to be sure we have a pallet under it so we can move it with a fork lift.

Tonight we planted it in the garden by the light of the 97% full moon, with the Myotis bats swooping overhead. So, I'm expecting a 766 pounder!

Sunday Stills: Things with Wings

This week's photography challenge was wings. I have been working on my own challenge of color manipulating backgrounds without altering the colors of the subject.

Here is the winged stem of Frostweed, Verbesina virginica. It gets its common name from the fact that in the winter when it freezes the dead stems will split and curly shavings of ice will extrude out. They live in colonies in the understory of our creek and serve as butterfly cafes when blooming. You can see a photo of one in bloom with a butterfly at this older post.

I think Borage is one of the most intensely beautiful blue flowers in the herb garden. After we finished picking blackberries yesterday (see previous post) I caught these ladybugs enjoying them too. There is a folktale that if you float these flowers in the drink of a man you like he will ask you to marry him.

This is a Pipevine Swallowtail, Battus philenor, so perfect it must have just emerged from its chrysalis to sun itself. The bitterness of its host plant--Pipevine--makes it unpalatable to birds.

Check out more interpretations of wings at Sunday Stills.

A Berry Good Day

Today we harvested about seven quarts of blackberries, and there's still more to come.

This has been our most abundant crop yet, and yet we entirely neglected them this year, forgetting to prune them at the end of season or tie them up to the trellises. It seems our best successes comes through our own inattentiveness. You might say we are accidental gardeners.

This hearkens to Masanobu Fukuoka's idea of not doing unnecessary work in the garden, especially when Nature will do it for you.

She certainly did a fine job with the blackberries!

Some Tuesday Farm Photos

You may be getting tired of all my chicken posts, so for a break today I've taken some pretty pics around the farm.

Here's a native Lantana, Lantana horrida, blossom about to open. The bright orange reminds me--the Hooded Oriole and his gal have shown up at the feeder for the second year in a row. They are so bold to clack clack at me from atop the seed feeder in front of my computer when they are out of sugar water. Service please!

I saw a Painted Bunting and an Easter Bronze-headed Cowbird (they have scary red eyes!) at the this feeder yesterday. Too bad I had to shoot through a screen.



And some interesting insects on a Yucca constricta blooming in the prairie. I love how architectural this bug looks. It was very shy and kept moving around to avoid the camera lens. I wonder how it's shape, especially the leg protrusions, help it perform its daily tasks?

Sunlight through a "Bright Lights" Swiss Chard leaf in the garden, reminds me of the delicious meals of it we will soon be having.

Ideal

This morning I caught this beetle on a flower known as Crow Poison, Nothoscordum bivalve. Over the next week I will be sharing the various native wildflowers blooming on the farm. Because of the exceptional drought there aren't the usual big stands of things, but most species are represented if you are willing to look for them. I had the pleasure of guiding some folks from out of state recently who were interested in the flora of the Hill Country.

Normally the short grass prairie would be so full of flowers you could not leave the path without stepping on one.

The garden is looking good, although we are behind on planting many things.

The lettuce grew so slowly, even with irrigation, that by the time it was the right size to eat it was already bitter.

Farmer Rick has been doing a great job with the compost process. We will be adding more bins across the creek near the new coop once it is finished.

A week ago we heard the Chuck Wills Widow calling from the creek. It is such an ethereal sound. Wednesday the Hooded Oriole and his gal showed up at their feeder. It's nice to have them back.

I wish I could say the same for the bird that sings (if you can call it that!) so loudly by my bedroom window that I cannot get a good night's sleep. He showed up for the second year in a row on Tuesday. My friend Bob B. helped me identify it as the Yellow-Breasted Chat, Icteria virens. Their song is described as "an odd, variable mixture of cackles, clucks, whistles and hoots. Their calls are harsh chak's". To this I would add very loud, and continuous from midnight to 5 a.m. I've started turning the sprinkler on under the tree all night to shoo him off. I hear him in the back keeping the sheep awake now.

After all, Finley is already used to annoying birds.

Avo...well he's just Avo. What can be said for a rooster in love with a blind sheep and thinks he has fathered Finley? (Notice how he's posing by the word Ideal?)

Here's Finley's idea of the ideal rooster...

Winter greens

We have been harvesting lettuce, mesclun, arugula, turnip greens, and kale for several weeks now. Friday we ate the first asparagus of the season. (It's in the back row, where the tall wooden trellis keeps its summery fronds from falling into the next bed.) Three kinds of onion sets are on the left, and we are finishing the raised bed to the right this weekend.

Except for the top edge, which we use as a seat when we weed, everything has been accomplished with free scrap wood. We hope to get the left side of the garden just out of the picture raised this spring. Both are already drip irrigated. The two tall structures are trellis towers which still need to be strung for beans. After last year's entanglement of morning glories we'll let the legumes have them this year.

Here I am totally covered by spent flower vines taken off the trellis this fall in an attempt to sneek up and startle my spouse. It would make a clever costume for a botanist at a masquerade party don't you think?

Phoebe and her son Finley, our rescue Barbados Blackbelly sheep, are admiring the winter greens. We line our paths with the pine shavings taken from our chicken coop and compost the rest. It's a nice system.