It wasn’t intentional, but I found that several aspects of my garden were inspired by some of trips we’ve taken. One of the most different from southwest Austin was our 2007 trip to China. I really liked all the variations I found on Chinese Guardian Lions, Shishi, (aka Foo Dogs). Here’s what we have on…
Author: The Runcible Existentialist
Staving off dotage is not for the faint-of-heart…
So for various reasons, I’ve been concerned about potentially declining memory and mental faculties. To that end, I got a subscription to Lumosity for my birthday in June. Lumosity is a website that has computer games that are designed to increase memory and mental acuity. You ‘train’ everyday on five different exercises. It calculates a…
Dragon Fly
This dragon fly practically posed for this photo. It’s amazing to watch this one fly around – the white at the wing tips gets blurry…an interesting effect at twilight.
I am a camera.
I’ve been pretty busy lately so haven’t had much time to post anything. Brian’s parents are on their grand tour of Europe; six weeks and more countries than I can keep count of. Each afternoon we look forward to his mother’s recap of the day. They make me want to pack my bags. She’s an excellent…
Meet Me in St. Louie, Louie…
So I had a meeting in St. Louis last week. The meeting was tedious, but my first time in town. There was an interesting opinion piece in the New York Times about a month ago (Loving the Midwest) about how slow St. Louis is, e.g. nothing going on downtown. I certainly found that to be true. It…
Birds…and one lizard
I don’t think I’ve written about the birds in the garden yet. I’m pretty lucky to live on the edge of the Barton Creek Greenbelt which is a nice mix of trees (a gigantic live oak; cedars; Houston Yaupon hollies; a Texas persimmon; etc.) and meadow land. The ecology provides abundant nesting opportunities as well…
Happy 4th!
So it’s the 4th of July – one of my favourite holidays. Didn’t do much today but putz around the garden, rearranging and pruning a bit. I’ve been practicing with the camera; here are some odds-and-ends that came out half-way decent. Gotta go fire up the grill in a minute – we’re having fajitas and…
Mulch – I’m still alive to tell the tale…
So yesterday was my annual mulch day. I usually do that in late April/early May when the oak process – old leaf drop; tassles; pollen – is completed, but I was exceptionally busy with the Legislature this year and the oak process seemed to go very late. Anyroad, this was the first weekend I could…
Gourds and Goat
So this is what we got in our weekly shipment of produce from Farmhouse Delivery. Mostly recognizable, but I have no idea how I’m going to use that squash. It looks more like what I decorate the house with in the Fall. I wonder if it’s shellacable… One of the purple potatoes is not much…
Garden Update – First of the Year
So yesterday was my first real ‘work day’ of the year in the garden. I’ve been piddling around here-and-there all year, but yesterday was the first ‘back-breaker’ as it were. Odd-number years are never good for me because of the Legislature and this year was particularly bad because I was juggling so many bills and…
The Runcible Existentialist 