The Good... some flowers are showing their stuff! Blue Plumbago just getting started. Blue Plumbago ( photo / image / picture from cherylad's Garden ) The Hyacinth Bean Vine I got from Toni is really taking off. Hyacinth Bean Vine ( photo / image / picture from cherylad's Garden ) My Cosmos bed is going awesome... looks just like I hoped it would. Cosmos bed ( photo / image / picture from cherylad's Garden ) And an ear of corn that I swear is ready to eat... NOW! corn ( photo / image / picture from cherylad's Garden ) The cute... The momma Kildee is back and has laid her first egg... almost same spot as last year. I placed one of this highway construction cones near it so it wouldn't get run over. She sure was having a fit when I got near! Kildee ( photo / image / picture from cherylad's Garden ) kildee egg ( photo / image / picture from cherylad's Garden ) And the "resident" lizard. A few minutes earlier and this would have been an X-rated photo! Don't know where "his wife" ran off to in such a hurry. lizard ( photo / image / picture from cherylad's Garden ) The Ugly... Just an example how dry it is down here. This is out in the pasture where it's never gotten any "man-made" water. Yep... those are cracks in the ground. You used to have to be careful driving out there... even on the tractor or lawn mower... in fear of bogging down. This is near the baby fig trees and banana trees we planted earlier this spring. I gave each tree TWO wheel-barrow-water-bags full of water... and you couldn't even tell it! drought ( photo / image / picture from cherylad's Garden ) We used to be able to walk around the yard barefoot... ahhhh... nice and soft and cool! Now... you HAVE to have shoes on. It's hard and crunchy and stickers are beginning to take over. I'm placing myself on restrictions. I beginning to feel guilty for using so much water for the flowers... not to mention the garden. So... no more plants. And we're going into "in-house" watering conservation mode. That'll be easy for me... all I have to do is think back on the 20 years I lived in New Mexico. But Hubby and brothers... they've really never had to deal with "no" water. Now watch... soon as I finish posting this... a week-long rain will come and I'll be complaining about too much water!
Your flowers are pretty. I had Kildeer lay 3 eggs in my veggie garden last year. I had to wait until they hatched before I was 'allowed' to go into that part of the garden. I watched for them this year...I don't mind them in the yard, but NOT in my gardens! LOL I once heard they were endangered but I really think they are not. I've lost track of the # of mating pairs around here!
Cheryl, as a fellow "water is to be used, preferably twice" Texan, I can tell you that water from the house can have another life in the garden! We shower with a bucket in the shower stall--as the water warms up, all the cool water goes into the bucket. Any water used to can, cook vegetables, or wash produce from the garden goes into a bucket and then on to flowers or the vegetable or herb gardens. I have a bucket under the outflow from the air conditioner--that water goes on flowers. We have killdeer marching up and down the edge of our pond, and occasionally in the driveway. I've had to stop and wait for them to move before coming into the drive!
Great flower and wildlife fotos, Cheryl. I enjoyed seeing your Cosmos border and the killdee, egg and chameleon. That corn looks pretty darn good--I just put mine in the ground. hahaha--I have some catching-up to do.
Really great photographs Cheryl. I've still got my fingers crossed that you get a decent amount of rain soon.
Sjoerd... my cousin who is "co-owner" in the garden stopped by this evening. He just had to test one of the ears of corn. Natually, they weren't ready yet... but now we know about how long it'll be before they are ready. Jane... I hadn't thought about the bucket in the shower. That's a good one! Back in NewMex... I actually dismantled the kitchen drain so that any dishwater ran into buckets. Only used Dawn dishwashing liquid. Perfectly safe. We kept our trees alive for years just with that method. And... this may not sound to proper to some... but we only "flush" every-other-time....#1 of course. I still never never leave the water run while I brush my teeth. And now... no more leisurely filled-to-the-brim soaks in the tub. I do have to soak my feet at night to get them clean enough to get into bed. But I don't need a whole tub full of water for that! Every little bit will help. Netty... that poor momma Kildee was really upset with all the traffic around her egg. I can see why they lay them in the gravel... perfect camouflage. Almost TOO perfect! And right in the path of traffic. Last year she had at least 3 eggs. I think only one survived to hatch. Hope she has better luck this year.
Eileen... thanks for the "finger-crossing"! I'll take all the help I can get. Soon... I might have to resort to an old-fashioned rain-dance-at-midnight! Wait... I can stay awake that late!
Wow Cheryl, until I saw your parched earth I had forgotten the cracked desert floor of the Tularosa Basin in NM, dried by the baking summer sun only disappearing when mud season returned. Jerry
Hi Cheryl, gee i can see from your picture why you said you were jealous of our lush green grass and all the water,..now that is parched land!,..as Eileen said,.. i also will keep my fingers crossed that you have rain soon. Love that Hyacinth Bean Vine!,..how tall does it grow?.
Philip... this is my first time growing them. Toni sent me some seeds. The put on the neatest looking bean pods! I'm sure she can answer any questions about them. Toni? Are you there? And here at the house... we're practically at sea level. Used to be called "swamp land". The main crop of the region, back when it was farmland... rice and soybean. No need for artificial flooding! The Trinity River is about 10 miles away. You can practically walk across it these days. We're about a 30 minute drive to the Gulf of Mexico. Seems so far away these days. My, how the earth has changed.
Cheryl, your flowers are lovely, so glad you shared them with us. I'm still hoping for rain for you, it's hard to believe that you can go for so long without rain and things still survive and here we have such and overabundance of rain. the trees should start falling over pretty soon due to the saturated and beyond point. There was an article in the paper the other day about a heron rookery that is in danger due to the tree a bunch of nests are in leaning from being soooo wet. Too bad we can't trade forecasts!!!!!! you would want ours and we would like to have yours (for at least a few weeks), just so our farmers could get into the fields and get their crops in.
Yes Carolyn... I'd love to change weather with you? How do we go about arranging this? :-D I guess we have a pretty deep water table that is sustaining life. I'm actually considering watering the front yard. It has some really big areas of brown spots. I don't think that it has ever been watered with a hose! Normally we HAVE to mow everything at least once a week. It's been 3 weeks since we've mowed and it doesn't really need it. I did mow my area over the weekend just to keep it nice & tidy looking.
