Wildlife Wednesday

Clouded Sulfur on Sage plant

Cabbage Worms

 

Eggs

What they turn into.

As far as I can tell, they're a cabbage worm.  I've just been checking the leaves, scraping of the eggs and picking off the worms, though I'm sure I could use Bt.

Hornworm

They get me, they really get me.

I love my family.  I mean, they're my family, I have to love them; but also, they get me.  Even though they may not understand all my gardening desires, they'll humor me.

For example - 'why would you want to attract bugs?  but whatever, she's got "bug house" on her list, so a bug house it is.'

Also, Ollas - now Ollas are something that's been on my list for YEARS and I finally made some homemade ones during the summer.  They've been working great, but it'll be even better to have these two so that I can see which type work better (always with the science experiments with this one).  It also would mean that I probably wouldn't ever have to surface water since I'll be able to have 2 ollas in each garden (one homemade and one official).

And that's not where it stops - oh no!  my sister got me the 20-30 something Garden Guide by Dee Nash.  She also got me a seed subscription to Grow Journey, and they've already sent me my first shipment of seeds which was the impetus to FINALLY build my seed growing lamp set up and get some mini greenhouse seed starting things so maybe I'll actually finally be able to grow some tomatoes from seed.

The toughest part about getting seed starter set up going was wiring the light - I bought a fluorescent light which is supposed to be hardwired into the ceiling and used an old computer power cable to convert it into a plug in light (or rather Shawn did it because he was worried I was going to electrocute myself).  Of course I needed to get the plug into the housing and the light was very industrial and had little punchouts on it, but I couldn't get the little thing punched out and ended up bending it which then meant that Shawn had to bend it back into place.  And then I had to figure out how to hang the darn thing from the shelf.  In the end it probably took longer than it needed to - and may have been worth the extra $30 to buy the ACTUAL grow light or a terrarium light that already is a plug-in. Oh well, at least doing it this way was a good way to spend 2 hours on a Saturday.

Mother Nature

So Mother Nature has decided that we weren't to have any freezes here in north Austin until late in the year - like I don't remember going quite this long before getting a freeze.  We may hit freezing tonight (predicted low of 34), and we'll likely get a brief freeze tomorrow as well (predicted low of 33).  And of course it's coming in with some rain which means that the sheets I put out are soaking wet and the Christmas lights on the plants keep tripping the CFGI on the outlet. 

Now you may be asking WHY I have Christmas lights on the plants - and I really only have Christmas lights on 2 plants - the tomato plant and the mum plant that has a queen chrysalis on it.  To be fair, the added heat isn't for the mum. 

This is the latest I've ever had a tomato plant; and it is loaded with green tomatoes. I may end up having to make Jenny's famous Green Tomato Chutney (which is very good); but I was so hoping to get some ripened tomatoes.  I just wish I had paid more attention to when the plant was flowering because then I'd have a better idea of when I should be expecting the tomatoes.  I feel like it was in early October because I was expecting them to be ready around Christmas-time...

Davis Mountain State Park & Balmorrhea State Park

In mid-September, Shawn and I took a road trip to Tucson, Arizona to visit my grandparents. It's a road trip, so that naturally means you have to drive places you normally wouldn't (or at least that's my theory). Based on coworkers' recommendations, we spent a few days in Davis Mountains State Park.

Davis Mountains State park is adjacent to Fort Davis National Historic Site.  If you plan to visit Davis Mountains, keep in mind that Indian Lodge is a popular place to visit so you may need reservations which you can schedule by calling the Texas Parks and Wildlife main office.  Other places listed here include Balmorrhea State Park and McDonald Observatory.

In the middle of the trail, there's a twisty-looking stick thing.  That, dear readers, is a rattlesnake in the middle of eating a rat.  I don't know what type of rattlesnake, but it was definitely a rattlesnake.  We saw this guy on our way out of the backpacking portion of our trip.

Me, drawing a picture on our Backpacking portion of the trip.

A hummingbird at a feeder in the Bird Blind area of Davis Mountains State Park.

Lesser gold finches

Inside the Indian Lodge

In the courtyard outside the Black Bear restaurant

Awesome agave

Cochineal scale on a cactus.  Yes, I made sure.

Little Toad buddy on a step.

Blue sky in the window

A view from the back parking lot

A view from the trail run that Shawn and I did when we first got to Davis Mountains.  The backpacking area is on the ridge on the other side of the road.

A view of Indian Lodge from the trail run

Rocks and the trail on the hike over to Old Fort Davis

One of the CCC built structures in Davis Mountains

Hiking to Fort Davis

More hiking through Flash Flood Alley

Our first view of Fort Davis.  The row of officers' houses runs north/south on Magnetic north, while the old foundations (which you can see to the right) run north/south on True north.

A view of the hospital at Fort Davis

A wagon at Fort Davis (the commissary is just to the right)

Heading out on our backpacking adventure

One of my pictures I drew while backpacking

Sunset during our backpacking trip

Hiking out in the morning.  You may have noticed that Shawn always goes first in our photos - that is because when we were backpacking in Washington, it became pretty obvious that I am oblivious to snakes when I almost stepped on a rattlesnake.

Hiking out from backpacking

Balmorrhea State Park.  After hiking out during our backpacking, we decided to drive the 45 minutes to Balmorrhea to go for a swim.  Balmorrhea was also a CCC location and everything was built by the crew.

"Come on in, the water's fine!" so says the man who has no problem swimming at Barton Springs.  He said he thinks Balmorrhea is a few degrees warmer.

Fish.  There was also a large turtle swimming around in the springs.  I almost lost my shit over it.

A view from one end of the pool.

Our room at Indian Lodge.  We only stayed one night in the lodge, but damn the room was cool.

Another view of the courtyard area.

A view of the Indian Lodge swimming pool looking toward the entrance of the park.

Yucca against a white wall.

A view from one of the lower areas of Indian Lodge

The night we stayed at Indian Lodge was the night that we had tickets for the McDonald Observatory's Star Party. We arrived around sunset, and then had to kill some time until it was dark enough for the tour to start.  Caroline at Shovel-Ready Garden went to the Big telescope viewing the following night.  If you are going to be in the area during one of their Star Parties or telescope viewings, be sure to attend.

A view of the native plant area at McDonald - this looks much better in person and obviously my cell phone camera is just crappy at capturing it at night...

Sunset at McDonald

Indian Lodge light outside our room

Garter Snake.  We also saw a tarantula (the first wild one for either of us) but it was when we didn't have our cell phones, so no picture, no proof.  Thankfully Shawn had his cell phone at the time when we saw the rattlesnake.

The area had received enough rain for the ocotillo to all have leaves.  It was actually very strange and it made me want to grow one even though I know they don't have leaves most of the year.

Inside Austin Garden Tour

Awesome.  I wrote a long entry and then the browser crashed taking all my hard work with it.  So now you get the condensed version.

The Inside Austin Garden Tour is happening on October 17, 2015.  It runs from 9am - 4pm and costs $20 (for all 7 gardens) or $5 for each individual garden (the extension office demo garden is always free).

The Austin Garden Bloggers were invited to have a pre-tour to allow us to blog about the tour BEFORE the tour.  Because of prior commitments, I could only make it to the last garden and the extension office - but based on photos from others, the other gardens are not to be missed.

This is the "Flashy Natives" garden.  I foresee the giant purple grass on the right being the next big thing in the garden blogger world...

Hamelia Patens and Philippine Violet combo.  Hamelia patens is commonly known as Firebush or Butterfly bush/plant - which there are like 30 different plants marketed as "butterfly plant" so be sure to look for the scientific name.  Also, why doesn't my plant look like this?  It probably doesn't get enough sun, dammit. 

Master Gardener Demo Gardens - I really ought to do hoops on my garden - you can keep the sun out, keep the bugs out, keep the heat in depending on what you put on the hoops...so yeah, I should look into doing hoops.

Lady bug larva (right) and pupae (lefT)

"Fireworks" Gomphrena.  I think I need to print this picture...

Purple Passionvine

Mexican Flame Vine.  I think this may be my next vine I'm going to try.  I keep trying vines and not being happy with the results.  I probably need to cut them back or something to force branching...