I’ve been in Austin, Texas…
Wow, the Texas hill country — and the bluebonnets — was everything
I’d always heard! Pics and tales to come… Now here’s one sure way
to discourage thieves from getting in your window!! I was in Austin
the same weekend as the Garden Bloggers Spring Fling, but I was
traveling with a group of (non-garden-blogging) friends so didn’t get
to hang out with the SpringFlingers. But we did a lot of garden touring
regardless! Please stay tuned! L.
(While I was away, seemed to have lost my Blog-legs and it took me about six tries to get this photo and text up at the same time! Sometimes I wish Blogger would make it really possible to email photos to the blog so I wouldn’t have to email photos via Flickr… But since Bloggers photo emailing never seems to work for me..I’m sure glad that Flickr makes it possible. Ok, enough tech whining… out to the garden to see how the baby kale, spinach and peas are faring!)
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Wet Spring Garden Walk around Larrapin
I thought I’d take you along on the stroll we took today around the land. Ok, that makes it sound too tranquil. What really happened is it stopped pouring for a few hours and the sun came out yellow and bright. We grabbed galoshes and cameras and made a mad dash for the door!
Above is the view down the slope alongside the chicken paddock. I love it because the sun sets behind it and lights up the uncut grass and wildflowers under the trees. You can barely tell what it is, but the thin sticks in the front left is a clump of wild maples we brought home from my mother & father-in-law’s place. It has been so happy once we planted it in its new home.
Out front, the row of redbuds are beginning to put on their show, always an amazing shade of pinkish purple.
The ornamental pear is blooming and covered with pollinators of all kinds — bees, butterflies and little wasps (when it isn’t raining anyway). It’s not a Bradford Pear, but some kind of rangy early attempt at one I think. We’ve spared it — despite my feelings about Bradfords — because obviously the blooms are important to the pollinators. (And Mendy wouldn’t think of letting me take it out, even though it partially shades the veggies, because she loves it…)
Meanwhile, the “Prairie Fire” crabapple is getting ready for her amazing show. I love this tree! It was the very first tree we planted at Larrapin.
And the curly willow is greening up there beside one of the bird baths. Spring is greening! Thank goodness.
Now, if you notice I didn’t show the veggie garden, it’s because it’s not very pretty right now. I’ve got tarps and buckets and tools all over the place from last weeks’ digging frenzy. I’ll do photos once I get it cleaned up a bit! Thanks for joining me for a wet spring walk around Larrapin Garden.
Read MoreIn case you doubt it’s been raining here…
This is one of the new pots I bought for dwarf figs on the patio. Obviously I haven’t removed the plug from the drain hole and it was sitting underneath a place where the gutters overflow if it’s raining hard. This pot is thigh-high on me and it filled with water just from the thunderstorm last night. The ground is muck, the grass is greening and the farm ponds in the area are very, very full. Unfortunately, all this rain is exactly what the folks downstream don’t need at all right now. I was startled to read in the paper that nearly half the counties in Arkansas were declared disaster areas after the recent flooding (ours wasn’t among that group). But this explains why out of state friends and even out of the country friends called last week to “make sure we were ok.” It’s a good feeling to have people checking on your well-being! My thoughts go out to those folks who were not so lucky.
Read MoreSpring Down the Road – The Old Cabin
This is the wonderful falling-down cabin down the road from us. The flowering quince and tiny daffodils are still blooming, even as the walls tilt and the floors cave under. There is a cardinal guarding the quince, where the nest probably is hidden.
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