Water

I came home today and decided that I really ought to water the garden since I haven't watered it all week (I try to make sure it gets water every 3 days or so--so if it rains I skip watering, if it doesn't, then I water, you get the idea). As I walk out of the back door I think "hunh, why is there water in the dry creek? It hasn't rained in a while."
Then I grab my watering can and walk over to the rain barrel only to see that the hose part is laying on the ground instead of being attached at the top like it should be. And then I remember that because I'm a nut case about freezing weather (something that happens more frequently I think when you're from Colorado...which is only odd because some things I'm a nut case about (e.g. always turning off the water connectors to the washing machine) while other things I'm not (e.g. covering the outside spigots in the winter.), I leave the hose "open" when there's freezing weather about, and I've only started it this year because of all the hard freezes. In short, my rain barrel is effectively empty. Good thing we're supposed to have a wet spring.

I'll take S words for $100

These small plants are used in gardening to get a quick start to the growing season. What are seedlings?



The fruit of this tree is used to make guacamole. What is a Sharwil Avocado Tree? (okay, it's actually a Hass avocado tree, but I needed an S word)



This is the event that happened on February 23, 2010. What is Snow!!?

sawdust

Ever since the Arizona Ash in the backyard was removed, Shawn has periodically been drilling holes in the stump in order to help along the decomposition. Today he drilled a couple of holes and of course the yellow/white sawdust came out the the holes. However in some weird chemical reaction, after about 5 minutes, the sawdust turned pink. Like REALLY pink. Anyone out there have any clue about why this is, or if they've ever heard of it?

Foliage Follow Up Feb '10

Foliage Follow-up. Because it's all foliage. Picture taken 2-6-10.

Garden Bloom Day

I have nothing blooming right now other than the afore pictured succulent. Nothing, nada. I question how much has made it through the winter (Artemesia, Rock Rose, Liriope and Society Garlic for sure). And of course my stunted little winter garden. The spring garden I replanted with peas, beets, spinach and chard on Jan 25, and it FINALLY looks like something is starting to sprout. It probably has to do with the 3" of rain I've gotten in the last week or so. Still, I don't know how much is going to have grown by the time I start planting the spring garden stuffs (so by end of March maybe).

I did plant some cat grass for the cat that had/has kidney problems and it's growing great (about 4" tall). I planted it because her nibbling on plants is probably what got her in trouble in the first place. Of course when I placed it in front of her, she sniffed it and was like "What am I supposed to do with this? Silly human. Let me outside now, please."

sigh.

My Little Ray of Sunshine

The Duo (I think) at Fits and Starts has given me a "Ray of Sunshine" award. This is totally awesome since I tend to think that I'm mostly blogging for myself as opposed to other people (I started this blog as a more environmentally friendly alternative to a paper journal about the trials and tribulations of gardening in the "frying pan that is Austin, Texas" TM Lee17 at The Sun is Killing Me.

Of course, I always think of the sarcastic "Ray of Sunshine" whenever I hear it--I work with a woman who is the lead for determining when to close roads because creeks going out of bank. She's always thinking of what the worst case scenario will be (Example: It will be raining cats and dogs in the Hyde Park area, but not downtown. Stubb's will be having a music show and something will be going on in Waterloo Park. Since it's not raining at either venue, the people don't know that the water is going to come flashing down the creek and they'll get swept away. Death and mayhem ensue.). This is why a bunch of us always refer to her as "our little ray of sunshine"

The Blogs I'm awarding this to are the ones that I already have linked in my sidebar:
Gardening at Draco
The Transplantable Rose
Cool as a Cucumber
Vert
Fits and Starts
Kiss of Sun
Conscious Gardening
Rock Rose
East Side Patch
Sharing Nature's Garden
Urban IPM
Digging

And the rules:

• Put the Logo on your sidebar, or within a post.

•Pass the award onto 12 Bloggers

•Link the nominees within your post.

•Let the nominees know they have received this award by commenting on their blog.

•Share the love and link to the person from whom you received this award