Spring = Compost and Roses

I’ve been neglecting this blog lately. Something about this winter has made it difficult to motivate myself to write anything. I blame Facebook. Facebook can easily suck up any available time you have for other pursuits.

But today, I have something to say.

First I feel bad about missing an obligation. I was supposed to work on the church today as part of a Hands on Live Oak thing. But the sun woke me up early, and I got up to make coffee and enjoy the stillness of the morning and the singing of the birds (which turned out to be the Aerogrow garden). Then I decided to do some work around the house instead of going to church.

James Earl Jones believed that you have to have some connection to the earth to be healthy. He had a shallow pit in one of his flowerbeds where he would lay and meditate. My connection is in the garden where I think more in terms of tending the soil than the plants. If the soil is healthy, whatever you plant there will be, too.

So my first project was to work the compost pile. It yielded about a half-yard of delicious, rich blackness. I also found that one of our variegated ginger plants had survived the winter intact. I’m hoping that the others come back from the roots. They are supposed to be cold hardy in this region. We’ll see.

Then Suna and I went to Home Depot to buy some plants. We got some coleuses and three rose bushes to replace the two that died last year:

• Apricot nectar (yellow floribunda)
• Iceberg (white floribunda)
• Double delight (red and yellow hybrid tea rose)

This is the first time I have tried the Biozome roses, which are advertised to be “easier on the environment” because they need less fertilizer. We also bought some wild bird seed formulated for our region and a new feeder and birdseed for small birds.

Back at the casa, I turned turned the compost into the shade bed and area where we lost the two rose bushes last year. Then I stuck all the plants into the dirt.

So while I didn’t do what I was supposed to do today, I feel good about what I did accomplish.

Thursday Blues

Even though Mesa Rosa means “red table,” I decided to use this photo of roses because the Spanish phrase always makes me think of roses on the table.

Today was a bluesy day. I was able to go through the new job listing in only a few minutes. Then I couldn’t get a lot done this morning because I didn’t want to wake up the kids. This is the last full week before school, and they deserve to sleep in. I always wanted to at their age.

Then I went to the home center to look for a band saw, and the only one they had was a lot more than I wanted to spend. I need the band saw to finish a project I started a couple of months ago, but I don’t need it $400 worth—not while I don’t have any income.

So that left me lolling around the house, doing laundry and cataloging books on LibraryThing. By the time Suna got home, I was hopelessly dumpy. But she cheered me up by offering to take the boys and me to Mesa Rosa for dinner. That meant that I didn’t have to perk up enough to cook, but the food and the company were so good that they did the trick. By the time we left, I was feeling human again.

So does this count as a Grateful Thursday?

Buchanan Trip

This double-wide mobile was the nicest place with lake frontage that came anywhere near our price range.

We had fun this weekend!

With the pending sale of some of my property near Yorktown, we decided to take a trip to Lake Buchanan to see what we could find. Suna really wants a house on the lake, but all we can possibly afford (and that would be a stretch for me) is the double-wide shown here.

Luckily, it is in really good condition. It also has so many of the amenities I want: a nice two-car garage, four other out buildings, a great lot, and a sprinkler system that draws water from the lake. (I really like the idea of watering the lawn with “natural” water (as opposed to chlorinated and treated).

We’ll just have to see what happens at the fruit company tomorrow.

After looking around, we ate dinner at this really quirky restaurant called The Maxican. It features really good Texas cuisine (Tex-Mex, BBQ, and so on) and barely adequate margaritas. Suna seemed to enjoy hers, but mine were only about 60% frozen. There’s nothing like the taste of a warm margarita. Luckily, it was strong.

Today, we took a look at two other properties that would require a structural engineer and a geologist as well as an architect to build on. Not for me. I really can’t see stretching the budget that tightly just to get a piece of land on the lake that will require pouring tons more money into and still not having a house. So I walked around the mobile again while Suna knitted.

Then on the way home, we bought a fun bird bath and some miniature roses in hanging baskets.

Shaking Hands with Mr. Stripey

Suna stands in front of Mr. Stripey

It’s funny how a small thing can lead seamlessly to a big thing.

Mr. Stripey has put out lots of wonderful foliage. (BTW, he is taller than she is, even when she stands at the same level.) He has even put out a few of those ugly yellow flowers, but so far, no fruit! I have begun to wonder if Mr. Stripey is shaking hands with Mr. Happy. I had always thought that was OK for tomatoes. Can’t they self-pollinate?

Well, just in case they can’t, Suna and I went shopping for a friend. We bought another variety of tomato, a pretty John Fannick phlox, and a trio of rose bushes. These are the first roses for this address. Of course, we don’t have any place to plant them.

So I took out a chunk of my original front flowerbed. I’m going to run it down the side of the house in a nice windy meander. And you know what? July is a freeking hot time of year to do that!