Raindrops on the Plumeria

It's amazing how crunchy things can get in the South Texas heat and drought. It's equally amazing what a little rainy spell can do to moisturize things around here. We're finally moving into fall a little bit and rather than the upper 90 degree temperatures we've been getting, we've been enjoying cloudy days and 80 degree weather for a few days now. Despite it being the one weekend we set aside for moving, we can't begrudge the skies for dumping rain. We welcome it. Makes for good blooming and winter honey for our bees. This is the Plumeria leaves on a plant that has struggled quite a bit through the years. My brother-in-law gave it to us maybe ten years ago and when we put it in the ground it finally really took off. It reached heights taller than my 5'1" reach but then suffered a huge setback one year. No, not from drought, but rather, from a very hard freeze we had. Poor thing. That actually happened twice but here it is - still alive. Sadly, the pink and yellow bloom Plumerias from my mom did not make it that freeze we had. This one blooms white and is quite lovely.

Rain on Lemongrass

Finally got some rain yesterday. It wasn't a downpour but that's okay! Not sure the ground would know what to do with all that water anyway. :) This should make all the plants very happy as we had a nice lightning show to boot.

Mysterious, Lovely Vine Plant

Aren't these fruits spectacular? Mark spotted these on one of his bee yard visits this past weekend. He'd never seen anything like it and neither have I. When he showed it to me, I was stunned by the bold, vibrant color - it was almost unreal. Does anyone know what this vine plant might be?

Purple Sage

Have you noticed the explosion of purple blooms on the sage bushes lately? It's everywhere and this one is in our front yard which is great because our bees love going to it as you can tell in the picture above. Sometimes when I get in the car to head to work and the bush is alive with blooms, I sit still and watch the bees buzz all around the bush, which is right next to the end of the driveway. Once or twice I've even seen the entire bush just humming with a ton of bees. Kind of neat as long as I'm sitting behind the glass. :-)Here's what the bush looks like when you step back a bit.

What a Wet Spring

Well we sure can't complain about a drought this year. In the past eight days, we've gotten over five inches of rain. YAY!! And the bees are making a ton of honey - great news for local folks like me who suffer from allergies. Great job bees.

Look Up for Mistletoe

One of the things I love about Texas - abundant mistletoe. It just doesn't matter if it's 20 degrees outside or 100 degrees. If you look up, you will see mistletoe here in South Texas. I LOVE mistletoe because it always makes me think of the Christmas season and that's one of my favorite times of the year.

Hope you are all having a great Fourth of July weekend.

Summer Sights

Here are some things happening in our yard so far this summer. It's been hot and dry though we did get a bit of rain a couple of weeks ago. In the above shot is borage - anyone use it for any cooking before? Someone gave it to us and we've never used it though I read you can use it in drinks and saute it as you would spinach. It's got a lot of white fuzz on the leaves and stems. Interesting and pretty plant.

Here's one of our little tomatoes - we got a late start on them so they are just now starting to bloom out a bit. We planted eight but only six are left with us and I'm working hard at keeping them well saturated to fight the extreme heat and sun. Our squash and zucchini didn't make it sadly. Asian Long Beans are doing fine though no white blooms on them just yet. I plant a LOT of them since we liked them so much last year. I also put some sunflowers in so hopefully they will continue to grow and then bloom for some photos. :-) Below are some of the peaches on our little tree out back. You may recall last year we had so many peaches we had to give a ton away because we couldn't eat them fast enough. They were delicious! This year, we have a decent number of fruit on the tree though nowhere near what we saw last year. I think they look lovely when they turn this beautiful blush color.

Finally, this morning I continue to try and keep our grass from drying up too much so I put the sprinkler out for a bit. I also like to do that for all the birds - they love to come to the water and get a bath in while they can. They fluff up and twirl all around - a lot of fun to watch. I especially love the red cardinals since they remind me of North Carolina.

Mom's Plumeria

When I miss my mom a lot, I like to look at things that are hers or remind me of her. There are special pictures I like to revisit of her garden, her flowers, her scrumptious, edible works of art.This Plumeria is so beautiful and she has several in her Florida yard. It's perfect weather there for these. She has yellow and pink and one visit, she sent home a couple of cuttings for us. They did well for a couple of years until a hard freeze killed them, sadly. Anyway, if I want to see the most beautiful ones, I know where to go.

My mom had a bit of a health scare this week and she's on my mind and in my heart. But I think of her and my dad constantly and I have them in my heart always.

Spring is Springing!

Once I see these two sights, I KNOW spring is right around the corner for sure. The Redbud is about to burst with blooms this week and the mockingbirds have returned to their nest in the Crepe Myrtle. Plus I saw our third sign though I couldn't get a photograph - our woodpecker is back and digging out treats from our pecan tree. He typically arrives when fall gets here and then again when spring is hitting us. Though I have enjoyed some cold weather (and snow even though I had to see that out of state, I count it), I do enjoy wearing short sleeves and shorts and sitting outside on the back deck. I have to enjoy this before the 95 degree weather comes along, right??

Mushroom Beauty

I have noticed some really interesting looking mushrooms around lately and wanted to share two of my favorite shots. The top one is one that Mark noticed out in the countryside along a fence line as we excited one of our bee yards just outside town on Highway 123. The one below is a tiny little one (of many) that I saw hidden under all the overgrown grasses at the same Big Oaks bee yard. Both times were evening lighting and I changed the lighting just a touch on the shot below. The shot above I changed lighting a color just a little also.

Gorgeous Blooms in the Summer Heat

I have great news to share with you! Mark's book got a great review in Southwestern Historical Quarterly and I am SO PROUD of him! I read it and my chest felt like it was going to simply burst, I was so happy for him. Congratulations, honey!

What does that have to do with these pictures? :-D well...all weekend he tried a source where we could access the quarterly (typically an institutional subscription rather than an individual subscription) and read the review. Unfortunately, our public library didn't renew their subscription so we trekked over to Texas Lutheran University but they were CLOSED since it was a summer weekend! Rats! BUT...the trip was not wasted. I spotted these lovelies right outside the library. They are, by far, he largest Hibiscus blooms I have seen and I loved the color! Gorgeous splash of vibrant life in the sweltering summer heat. I loved it. Hope you all have a GREAT week!

A Visit to Green Gate Nursery

Before we left on our pick-up-the-bees trip, I went to Green Gate to pick up a pretty poinsetta for our daughter and her husband. If you haven't been to Green Gate lately, you should go soon. Christmas is one of my favorite times to go because of all the beautiful plants they have for gift giving and decorating your own home. The poinsettas are always lovely, as was the case when I went so it took me some time to decide. In the end, I went with pink since I know Melissa likes that color and it's pretty unique. I love pink, too!



I posted about Green Gate and a certain bird back in 2007 also.

More Prettiness

This time the prettiness was photographed on my drive home. Right around the corner from us on Camp Street is this great big mass of vines and on the vines are some of the most amazing flowers you'll ever see. I have been wanting to stop and shoot these for some time (like every year they bloom for the past 3 or 4 years) and yesterday I decided it was time. And the lighting was nice I thought.

I love the vibrant colors. With all the rain, everything is so green, so lush. And the layers, textures and numerous elements of these flowers just amaze me. There are different varieties in different colors. If I could find one potted, I would take my mom one. She has such a green thumb and I think she'd love the uniqueness of this. Do you know what it is? (Without clicking on my Flickr b/c I put the name there.)

Prettiness

...at the Mill! These flowers are blooming at the Mill and I love looking at them. I don't know what they are called though so if you know, tell me please! :-) Lately we have finally started receiving steady rain so everything is green and lush and flowers are everywhere. I'm glad since this is a little extra goodness for our bees! Speaking of which, the ones here in the city are MEAN. You know what that means...

Hope everyone's having a great week. We are half done with the week already!

Raindrops!

While I was up in Irving this week, we started getting rain...a LOT of rain, actually. I hated missing the action. Apparently 1620 right out front of our mill was under quite a bit of water! It's fantasticly green this week and I love it. Today I am enjoying the cloudy day, with occasional rumbles of thunder, brief downpours, light sprinkles...I snuck out between showers to get some shots in. From where I sit in our office, we have a nice view of our plumeria and I really like the way the raindrops fall and collect on the giant leaves of our plant. Very refreshing.

Last night I didn't get into SA Airport until after 9pm due to the wild weather. Lightning up in the Irving area prevented us from taking off so we sat on the plane for over an hour, I believe. It was sure nice to get home. This is a fun-filled weekend for sure. Date night with friends, including bowling -- we love bowling even if we haven't done it often. Tomorrow is our church in the park (Starcke Park if you want to join us, down at the bowl near the falls) AND a bridal shower. And then a special dinner -- king ranch casserole. I'm gonna be busy! :-)

Prickly Pear Blooms

Hi everyone, I'm back in Seguin again. Last time I went with Mark to check on the country bees, we noticed the prickly pears were starting to bloom. I love the beautiful yellow of the blooms and if you drive around right now, you'll notice many of the cacti are in bloom. I hope the bees are enjoying them and I hope you all have a great weekend!

Golden Fall Color

This redbud is next to the red Crepe Myrtle from the previous post. If you look at both trees and they are aligned with one another so that you see a great mix of gold, green and red, it's just really breathtaking. I can see this mix when I see at our kitchen table because I have a direct line of sight out our front door. And when I see our fall colors, it makes me happy and very appreciative of the beauty around us in the world.

Some Signs of Fall

We don't get fall colors here in Seguin like I knew in North Carolina, but we do have a splash here and there this year. I love this red color of the crepe myrtle in our front yard.

Still trying to play with the camera and I'm really enjoying it immensely. I love the zoom (15x) and the Smart Feature. Most of the time, I turn it on and really just point and shoot. Literally. It handles almost all my settings just right. That firmware update also made all processing super fast. I love it.

Currently it's about 42F degrees, but feels like 34F. Nice. I love this cold weather. And the Spurs are ACTUALLY 20 points up on the Nuggets at halftime. Also nice, considering the way we've been playing lately. :)