summoning spring

this winter started up her mess early back in november. the cold, the wet (not complaining there, though) and the dreary. way too early for central texas.

last weekend was winter ice alerts. this weekend was spring awesome perks. tomorrow will be 75 degrees. can i get a what what?

i needed a little sparkle in my kitchen and decided to upcycle some perfume bottle tops as succulent cutting vases. the fitting size for the window ledge and the perfect sizzle of sparkle. if it is shiny, bring it on. truly, i was a rolls royce hood ornament in my past life.

we will be back to the cold rain on thursday, but every moment was enjoyed this weekend.

biergarten under lights

when the studio redo was under way, i had to remove all of the outside lights that were attached to it. the electricity to the studio was completely redone with no more janky cording connected from the roof of the house to the garage. legit stuff.

one of the splurges was an outside outlet in the biergarten for twinkle lights and music.

two nights ago, i finished rehanging all of the twinkle lights and then some. now, we don't need an extension cord to turn them on.

this photo makes me really happy and i love how the garden has matured these past five years.

tuteuring ol' luckenbach

this summer has been half relaxation and half preparatory for change. with the womanchild moving off to university in less than a month, i have been readying this house for the next chapter.

having less stuff calms me.

saturday was the second of three garage sales this summer. at the end of the day, a customer was loading his stuff up that he bought and unloaded two old wooden ladders that goodwill wouldn't take. i knew exactly what i would use the six-footer for.

my luckenbach rambler has been growing like crazy this year and sending out long, thorny canes. she had been using the kumquat tree next to her as a structure to climb on. i know that next year will be balls to the wall and staying true to the old adage of "first year, they sleep. second year, they creep. third year, they leap." this old ladder is a perfect tuteur for it. i had been meaning to build another rebar one, but hadn't gotten around to it yet.

score!

a new season

weeks have whirled by way too fast with spring teasing us with her woos of the eighties and her dropteases of the forties.

change permeates the air on this lot of land. not scary change, but exciting change. in my forty-seven years, i have finally learned that where you are not supposed to be can direct you to where you are supposed to go.

that is good stuff, man.

ready to be sugared

this was the first year to get a small croppette (could that be a definition for a crop of three?) of grapefruit from my very own tree. they were amazingly wonderful and i had to utilize even the rind for our table.

i have been glacéing fruit for over twenty years. i started back in brooklyn when i wanted to be that misplaced french country girl raising a passel of children just off the F train. glacéing transforms even the pithy rind of citrus fruits into something that i could never afford at dean & deluca.

now, i am a rightly placed texas girl with those bebes raised (and replaced with a passel of garanimals) and now could afford to buy some at dean & deluca. but why buy it when you can make your own?

it is marvelous how translucent the glacéed peels become. and yep, you can read through them, if you ever needed to.

glacéed citrus peel

3 large oranges (or 2 grapefruit, 4 lemons, 4 limes)
3/4 c. water
2 T. light corn syrup
2 1/4 c. sugar

1) cut the peel on each orange into quarters, then remove peel in sections. slice peel thinly.

2) in a nonaluminum saucepan, cover the peels with enough water. bring to boiling and cook, covered, for 15 minutes. drain in a colander.

3) boil water, syrup and 2 cups sugar, stirring until dissolved. add peels. simmer, stirring occasionally, 35-55 minutes, until translucent and tender.

4) remove peels with slotted spoon to large rack (over a cookie sheet. let drain and then separate the peels. dry for another hour.

5) place the remaining sugar in a large bowl. add the peels and toss until they are evenly coated with sugar.

6) airdry for another two hours. store peels in an airtight container or freeze.

clementine in the garden

dating a rogue

my grandparents' huge kitchen garden ignited a love for personal, as well as public, gardening. my own turn with gardening was dictated by where i lived until i had my own dirt. in los angeles, it was love from afar and in someone else's space. in brooklyn, it was by windowsill and backporch, coupled with multiple daily visits to prospect park and weekly visits to the brooklyn botanical garden. in new hampshire, it was the caretaking of existing borders of raspberries and rhubarb, but with my very own kitchen garden plot to nurture.

as a gardener who tends an overall live-in landscape design, it has taken me fourteen years to learn how to control that design. why, i don't know.

it wasn't until we bought our first home in texas that i had the luxury of designing living spaces within nature and the confines of our propertyline. to me, gardening likens itself to dating a rogue. you can bring it water and fertilizer and play nice, but you are not in control of it at all. maybe, at the onslaught of my first garden i rolled over and bared my stomach and hoped it wouldn't gouge me, but rather love me if i just kept wagging my tail. the submissiveness of being a gardener psyched me into thinking that i had no right to control at all.

this summer marks four years in this home. it was a clean slate to start with. i sketched in my head how i envisioned it and picked up a shovel. the past month has found me cleaning up the beds and tucking some plants back into their place. i had found myself walking around roses or errant bougainvilleas instead of showing them their places. anklebiters were bitten back and boundaries were reset. the garden is now easier to live with and definitely more the marrying type.

happy summer!

afternoon creeper

all week, i have been waiting for the rangoon creeper to pop open. yesterday, i turned the corner and it made me catch my breath.

rangoon creeper (quisqualis indica) is a semi-tropical vine that is rumored to be an invasive, but i have never had a problem with it growing out of its spot. it freezes to the ground in the winter and comes back in the spring. i planted it here to be protected from the north wind and so far the porch is doing its job.

except for the sun that it gets from the porch, it is protected from the hot afternoon sun. the fragrance is sublime and reminds me of a fruitier plumeria. growing vines seem to add another dimension to your garden and an established grown-up girlness to your house.

captured sunshine

thesis was reviewed and accepted.
oral defense was a success.
girl is graduating.

this cactus captured the sunshine in its bloom
and is the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel.
Amen to that!

once i got the acceptance notice, i loaded up all of the research books
and took them back to the library and then bought my cap, gown and master's hood.
now, it is for real.

earning my MFA was the fourth best thing that i have ever done
and lemme tell you that the first three are hard acts to follow.

and even bigger hooray for finally finding a church that fits.
our pastor referenced kurtis blow's 1984 basketball today.
three. two. swag.

luckenbach rambler

i grew up on waylon jennings and the other outlaws, so luckenbach, texas holds a special place in my little country heart.

luckenbach rambler is new to me and had me at 'luckenbach'.

this rose has a sweet lemony scent. according to robbi at the antique rose emporium, it is a mounding rose that can grow to 12-15 feet across and 8 feet tall. the rambler is truly texas-tough and blooms continuously.

just listening to waylon makes me want to take a drive over. we donated our out-of-state license plates to its outhouse outerwear when we moved back to texas years ago and it is high time to shuffle back over and sit on the porch for a bit.

happy sundaying

click to see a larger photo.

DIY garden tuteurs

after i got off work this afternoon, i unloaded the nine rods of eight-foot rebar out of the car to make three more tuteurs for my roses. one went in front of the coop to support katy road pink, one on the side of the garden to support sombreuil and the other in the front garden to support lamarque which i want to climb on the corner of the porch.

i started making these years ago in my old garden and they are easy to make and super affordable. tuteuring roses gives them more support to grow upright and they can use their energy to grow instead of trying to support themselves.

all you need is baling wire, wire snips, ladder, hammer and the rebar. i use three pieces for each tuteur and place them in a triangular design and hammer them about one foot in the ground. i then wire the three pieces together at the top, going in and between the three pieces of rebar.

after that is done, i move down about two-three feet and wire the three pieces together tightly with another long piece of wire. after that is complete, i repeat the process further down the tripod.


this abraham darby is tuteured in the back garden. after all of this crazygood rain, he is growing by leaps and bounds.

since i have been in grad school, i have been substitute teaching to pay my tuition each semester on the days that i don't teach at the university. today, i was the monitor for in-school suspension in junior high (note to self::never again). to hammer rebar into the ground is exactly what i needed after a day like today.

wide open spaces

this weekend, i gardened from the moment i woke up until night fell. every cutting that rooted was planted, as was my kitchen garden that the chickens promptly ate to the stalks.again.

i rearranged some areas and some areas rearranged me. ten bags of leaves were spread for mulch in the garden.


oh, and we introduced the chicks to the coop. they look like miniature chickens even though they are still tiny. the black ones have feathers on their feet and they seem to be loving wide open spaces.

the girls are back in town

for some reason, this photo reminded me of thin lizzy's the girls (okay, boys) are back in town, but then the soundtrack of jaws keeps creeping into my mind. sunday, i had a soft moment and let these two girls out of their coop. we haven't forgiven them for what they did to helen feather, though.



this is where i will be sitting a week from tomorrow. the one-week countdown is on with the thesis due next week. can't freaking wait to clean and i have a list of projects to clean and organize after i submit my thesis and get another project completed. is it normal to be excited about cleaning?

patiently waiting

1) these little guys are patiently waiting for spring.today, i will start them inside and we can all wait together.

2) as they sit on the window sill with front row seats to the rain that we have been having, we are still under flash flood watch through the morning. yeah for almostspring rain!

3) i finally learned what a dot leader is on thursday and how to do them.

4) after i get my thesis in, we are getting six more chickens. we are so excited about chickens at the end of the tunnel!

5) this article on spending habits is quite interesting. what would yours say about you?

at this moment

someone was throwing this vintage desk top away and it inspired the idea to shoot what i find in my garden. maybe, as a series. so far, these are the roses that are blooming at this moment in my garden. my abraham darby has some fat buds on it and will make it to the next spread.

evening barn

1) syllabi and forms copied
2) bougainvilleas cut back
3) leaves raked and mulched
4) coop cleaned
5) frozen passion vines cut to the ground and mulched
6) laundry done
7) entire house cleaned
8) last of garden harvested and roasted
9) car vacuumed and detailed
10) orders packed

the garden is ready for spring and i don't want to be so busy this semester that i miss it. today we hit the low 70s and tomorrow night we will get into the 30s again.

recovery

1. i had forgotten how much an antique rose can make my heart swell. souvenir de la malmaison does that to me each and every time.

2. my heart still hurts for this hopeful-to-be family, so this rose (and a daily prayer) is for them and the baby as they all recover.

3. it rained yesterday and last night. actually, we are slated for rain through tomorrow. the garden has been in recovery for the past two months with the bits of rain here and there. my papaya tree even has its first blooms on it!

4. i can't wait to have all three of my kids together on thursday. fish has been requested. with blue skies in the forecast, we just might cook our entire thanksgiving dinner on the firepit in the garden.

5. tonight and tomorrow night, i will continue to price as i simplify our life with the garage sale this weekend.

this morning