New Kid on the Farm

There is a new kitty hanging out at the farm. She's a petite white kitty with a grey ringtail and splashes of dark grey on her ears, but her most striking trait is her eyes. The right eye is brilliant blue, the left one - under the biggest patch of grey - is yellow-green. She's beautiful, and friendly, and sweet, and loving. She has followed me around for two days now, where ever I roam on our property, although she doesn't like the long grass and she carefully picks her way through it. She came to us with a collar and a bell. I personally think a bell is the most undignified thing to do to a cat. It just screams 'coyote food'. She's obviously a housecat. She loves to be picked up and carried around. She is starved for love. She has fleas.
We have put up a sign at the corner store, so I hope we find her family. Another recent loiterer, Yellow Cat, is male and has taken quite an interest in her. I am quite sure he's very much unneutered, since he's a farm cat on the loose kind of character. I checked her over, and from what I can tell, she's not spayed, either. Dangit. We're going to have to do something about that if she's still hanging out waiting to be petted when we return home from Mexico. Just so that you can bask in her cuteness, I snapped a picture of her face when she tried to climb my leg the other day, check it out at the left there. I call her Scoop because she's pretty irresistable, and you just want to scoop her up and love on her when you meet her. Also, she seems like a small scoop of something sweet. So, Scoop.

The Wind Began to Switch

The house to pitch! A mighty wind has kicked up this evening on the Texas prairie! The long grass was wiggling and waving, the tree branches were being tossed about. This must be a cold front bringing more fall and winterlike weather... at least we'll be down to 70 degrees tomorrow, and 40 tomorrow night. Not exactly enough to make one shiver! But the wind is blowing tonight at 20 or 25 miles per hour. The weather service had this to say:

Gusty Winds Of 15 To 25 Mph Will Will Result In Extreme Fire Behavior As Vegetation Fuels Have Dried To The Point Of Becoming Cured For The Winter.

That's a fairly amusing away of putting it. I wonder if I'm cured for the winter?

Wind always makes things talk. Fences squeak, houses groan and whoosh, and trees tap and scrape buildings to make the most otherworldly noises. Last night the coyotes where whipped up in to a yapping, howling frenzy - tonight it is the wind's turn to howl.
I'm almost prepared for our trip, at work and at home. Tonight, by lucky chance, I ran into Bev at the fabric store and we picked out her very fabulous wedding dress fabric. I was just there to browse, very synchronistic. We found the perfect most dramatic stuff for her, and said our goodbyes. I'll see her on Friday night at her house in South Padre!

Freakwency

Ooof, I'm supposed to blogging more, and I haven't been. With the time shift, it seems so late all the time when I get home. I've been very busy babysitting, seeing MacBeth performed in the round (Bravo!), driving...

We did manage to visit Jonathan and Bev in South Padre Island, where we didn't get to spend enough time being beachy. The four of us spent a day in Mexico doing some paperwork for Charley, and having lunch with my Grandparents. We also had a day to spend just with my Grandparents, and we geeked out over postcards for most of the day and enjoyed all the delicious homestyle cooking at Chez Dittmer.

We're currently packing and preparing for a paddling trip down the Rio Guayalejo somwheres abouts Ciudad Mante and Valles, south of Ciudad Victoria at the tail end of Taumalipas (maybe even into San Louis Potosi, my favorite Mexican State?)We're travelling on Friday and I have a whole week off to enjoy life! There will be many pictures from that trip - hopefully even some butterflies! We won't be too far north of Gomez Farias, I think. I'm excited to put my fancy new PFD and gloves to use.

It has been dry here - as dry as it was wet this summer. The trees have dropped the majority of their leaves, with the pines and the live oaks the only hangers-on. The mesquites were slow to lose their greenery, too, but are mostly bare twiggy sculpures now. The grass that's allowed to grow is all waist-deep and golden, purple at the base. It waves and swishes around and adds to the warm feeling of desolate prairie I love so much. The landscape is stark and brown right now. There are a few flowers blooming in the yard - a small brown-eyed susan, a patch of some other yellow flower shaped similarly. Spiders abound - especially jumping spiders. There are still some grasshoppers, and on warmer, humid nights, a few gekos still gather on the screen. It's been weeks since we've seen toads, and no butterflies lately. I know a little rain would liven things up. We had a cold snap, and now, unseasonably warm temps - almost record setters. Mexico will be warmer during the day, and about the same as here at night. I'm curious to see what kind of vegetation is blooming and green down there, but they likely have had more rainfall recently, although we'll be dry all week. It's been pretty boring here at the casa, and we haven't worked on the house much - we only got the utility trenches as far along as we needed to hook up the internet in the house and set up the new computer!
Charley's headed to China about Christmas time - with the holidays and stuff, I'm not sure we'll get the hot water in the kitchen hooked up until spring! But we're comfortable and functional for now. The house is feeling much more lived in these days.

Hooray for Technology

Team Savvas is experiencing a sweeping, mass upgrade in technology! Add one new digital camera (early christmas present for the wifey) and one new computer (supa fast and large-screen enhanced) and one halloween party (cavers and ancillary Ian-and-Jessica-got-married party)and that means new pictures for the blog! And new photos on Flickr, too, so check out My Photos at the link to the left.
We've had beautiful weather, much cooler... and all the critters have gone into hiding or slowed down considerably. I had to poke at a grasshopper twice today to get it to hop. We had a small spell of rain, but it is very dry. Caldwell county has had a fire (small, eventually contained) once a day for the last several. The grass and the trees are all turning brown and leaves are crumbling to the ground. There is barely anything blooming except for some fleabane-looking flowers. The ground is hard as a rock. Luckily we were able to get the internet cable moved, and the lines for the propane to the kitchen in the ground before it got too hard to dig. I really enjoyed using the pickaxe for that. Most of my time lately has gone to setting up the new confuser and I have recently excavated my sewing machine from storage to put it to good use. I made all of Charley's "leather" accessories for his 300 costume! I have a few other Solstice gifty projects going, and have all but forgotten my embroidery by the wayside. All in good time... Well, enjoy the pictures! I can promise more blog entries in the near future with the ease of use of the new machinery (and, I've been handing out my new moo.com minicards with my blog address on it, so I am feeling the prods of the masses... er, of the few)

Lingering

Summer is lingering. It has been somewhat like high summer in Iowa here in Texas these last few days. The ground is drying out, even cracking in places. All of the weeds and prairie grasses are towering over my head. It is humid, warm, even hot in the middle of the day, and there's a drowsy buzzing that accompanies the sunset each night. The frogs start up their chorus and the fireflies flicker above all the greenness into the night. Now, I should mention that Texas doesn't really get fireflies. It's a new phenomenon, what with all the rain. It has warmed up a little again, and the humidity shrouds the rolling hills and leafy green trees each morning in a thick blanket of cottony fog. It gives the illusion that our house is an island, a secret Avalon, each morning as I walk Charley and his lunch cooler out to his truck to kiss him goodbye for the day. As he dissapears down the lane, I sometime imagine he's gone to the land of the humans!
I came home in the daylight today, a rare treat. I cooked a huge homey meal and we had John, our tenant, over for dinner. The guys were most excited about the warm fluffy biscuits, and I was most happy with the salad topped with a florette of cucumber and a crisp red pepper strip. Before they got home, while the potatoes were roasting, I walked around a little bit. My volunteer garden has gone kaput. There have been some really spectacular spider webs,by one Banana Spider I spotted, and some other plump, 25-cent-piece-sized arachnid, that have been put up in corners and across neglected paths. The Agalinis and the Parralena are still blooming, although the Agalinis is drooping. There are often little tiny sulfer butterflies at the base of the weeds. There is a 20% chance of rain tomorrow, and Autumn usually brings to us another rainy season. Who knows what it will bring us this year - it may continue to be unusual in weather patterns as the rain was to the height of summer.
We're headed to Connecticut on Friday, and I'm going to enjoy the 75 degree weather, although it is hard imagine right now what it will feel like to wear long sleeves. But if it is chilly, and I do get to wear long sleeves, you can bet I'll linger a bit longer than the others, outside in the Northeastern evening.

Lately

Summer has come, and is slipping away already. I've been explaining that we've had a wet year, and while it can provide some inconvenience, it really has been a boon to us Central Texans. August was lush. Usually August is a dreary brown, similar to the blankness of February up north, but not this year! We have had more than plenty of water, and I have spent many weekends paddling a small boat down glorious stretches of hill country rivers: The Pedernales, The Blanco, Onion Creek, and the highlight - The Frio River. The Frio is a special place - ask anyone who's been there. But I should mention that almost every trip had a pretty high light of it's own. The Pedernales was swift, unobstructed, fell over countless ledges for a bit of a technical challenge - and was 36 inches deep, most of the time! If you fell out, you just stood up and got back in. Onion Creek had a beautiful hydro-massaging waterfall, and we had one exciting time pulling a friend's kayak, wrapped like a tortilla around a rock, off and out of the water, and with a foot kicked it back into shape to carry on. The Blanco trip was a treat, beginning with special access to a put-in that included on the same ranch one of the most spectacular features found on a texas river. The Narrows pours the Blanco river down a slot less than a kayak's width across, down 20 feet, into a churning, frothy, scalloped series of drops that ends in a bit of an overhung canyon and smooths out around a bend to push you on towards the rest. The Frio is crystal clear, emerald green, cold, quite shallow and pushy with incredibly deep swimming hole decorated with playground-perfect boulders for sunning and leaping from. Cypress trees with spanish moss usher you through narrow channels packed with standing waves and lots of action to scoot you on past towering pale limestone cliffs running with springs and festooned with bobbing ferns.
Flowers have bloomed all year long on our land. Right now there are Prairie Agalinis in patches about knee high all over the property. They remind me of foxglove, but are more delicate with spindly stems and leaves. The Bindweed is flowering a brilliant purple on every fence you see, and even in clumps and as a ground covering vine. Broomy Parralena covers the fields with technicolor yellow, and the big ugly mean mystery plant turns out to be some kind of prairie goldenrod, and is blooming right now, too. I saw some old man's beard near the Frio, and there was even one small, stunted texas paintbrush growing in the soggy shaded areas to the back of the property!! The don't usually bloom this late in the year. The vervain is also making an appearance again, something I usually associate with spring. I never did see as much wild geranium as I did last summer, but that may have had to do with how often we've been mowing and where we've developed walk ways and parking with the expansion of the house. Just last night I disturbed three toads walking between houses, one of them at least as big as my fist. I have seen numerous dragonflies and damsel flies, some of them as long as my outstretched hand with bodies as long and as fat as my finger. After the walking sticks and banana spiders disappeared earlier this season, praying mantis have been all over the screens enjoying the bounty our outside light provides them. On our river cruises I've seen Queen butterflies, swollowtails, sisters, hairstreaks, and lots of sulfurs. All of these except the sister made an appearance at the house recently, too.
I've been spending time with Charley and have been doing some embroidery, one of those hobbies I haven't touched in years. I"ve jumped in full-bore and it is a very pleasing way to pass the time. We have added a very big antique buffet to the furnishing of the house, with carved dragons and halfshelves and the original mirror above a set of 4 drawers. The piece is american, and from the early 1900's. We got a smoking deal, and even better, when we moved the 6'tx3.5w'x2'd monster into the house, we rearranged (but didn't remove anything) and wound up with a more open setting that provided us with more space!
So life is good and we've been busy. Fall is going to speed on by, and we have lots of plans. We'll be in Mexico, Connecticut, west Texas, and the south Texas shore by Christmas. There are caves to explore, family to be with, and friends to visit. NOt to mention work to do and a house to finish.... but I don't want to get ahead of myself. I'm very much enjoying this time of year. Tonight I walked the grounds for the first time in a long time, and a downright chilly breeze wrapped me in coolness. There's a dryness that we haven't been able to experience in a while that has settled in for a day or two - we're expecting some more rain this week. The light isn't as long into the night and there is something about the terrain that says Autumn is on the way, and if she doesn't get a speeding ticket on the way, she'll be here sooner than you'll know!

Notta Mucho

There isn't much to report... it is raining, a lot. Yesterday, all day today, probably tomorrow. It was probably all of 75 degrees today. That's quite unusual for a July in Texas! ONce we get a rain gage, my rain reports can be more interesting. I can tell you that when I checked the radar today, the storm stretched from Kerrville (3 hours drive to the west) to the gulf.
The ground is soggy and puddle laden. I have D & O for the weekend, so we should be able to get into all kinds of fun, with all the puddles around. I showed them the spiders and they totally want to feed them grasshoppers tomorrow. In the meantime, I might start to consider blueprints of an arc...

Spider Mentoring Program

I found three more Banana Spiders today. And a walking branch - it must have been a female. She had the pinched look to the end part of her abdomen, with some poop hanging out. She looked really fat, possibly gravid. I wonder if they lay the eggs? Dunno. I say she looked gravid because when I saw some walking sticks mating recently, the male had the female in these clamps in the back... it looked uncomfortable. The female I saw today had a crimp in that same place, like the female had that was being clamped, although now I have to admit that I don't know if they are shaped like that to begin with, or get that way in the clamping. hunh. But back to the spiders...
I went to visit the big banana spider on the eaves of the back of the house. I noticed a very tiny replica on a web about two feet away, on the wall Now the big daddy on the eaves is about the size of a pecan in the shell in the body. Overall diameter is about 5 inches. Junior, in the background, is about two inches diameter, and the body the size of a black-eyed pea. They looked like buddies, but who can tell. While I was standing back there, I turned my gaze to the over-grown acre up front, now filled with blue day lilies hanging out very close to the ground, and the green mystery plant that has taken over. I think it is a milkweed, I wonder if it will flower? It looks like milkweed now, and is about 6 or 6.5 feet tall at this point - about two meters. I was staring at it, trying to figure it out, and my eyes caught a huge web, as big as a framed 8"x10" piece of art, hung off the mesquite and the milkweed. In the center is another gigantic banana spider, resting on her fuzzy hammock. Just below her, my searching eyes found a partner, a little bit smaller, a little bit closer to the ground, on a 5"x8" in a mat. I became conviced we have high participation in the Spider Mentoring Program in our yard.

Twisted Country Fun - Big Spiders & Little Snakes

I mentioned we've been seeing turtles. Charley even stops the car to rescue them when we see them on the road. We've been seeing snakes, too, but the snakes are always smooshed flat and mangled if they are on the road. I've seen him handle his favorite snake, a harmless hognose gone limp, one we found out around the nose cone buildings last fall. Recently, I was talking on the phone and pacing around outside. I was hoping it would fill in for my usual tour of the grounds, but I found myself walking up and down the lane. On my second lap, I walked up farther, closer to the main road than the last. There, on the ground in the middle of one of the tire tracks on our lane, lay a broken and jointed looking snake. Snakes are usually smooth, with lots of curves. But this one lay with its tounge lolling out of its mouth, in angles. It had been run over to be looking like that. Except! It could be one of the tricks the hognose snake plays - opossum, being one of them. The others include hissing and flattening its head like a viper, and even sometimes shaking its tail and hissing to masquerade as a rattler. I watched it for a while, still absorbed in my conversation. It didn't look like the hognose I've seen, and besides, I've seen them go limp, but I've never seen one portray brokeness, for goodness sake. Only the roll of a big tire could have done that to the poor little thing. I was still having this conversation, but now I was really distracted. I wanted to get the dead snake and save it for my husband! He would like that. (weirdo) He could tell me what it is, and we might even skin it. That would be cool. But ew! I don't actually really want to touch it. I've seen a recently extinguished snake before - they still move in reaction to heat and touch stimuli, even without a head and skin on the meat. Ew. I didn't want to touch it because it might move, and then I would have an involuntary freakout and feel stupid. So I picked a stick. Well, I was looking for a stick, but the light was fading and I had to hurry, so I just broke off a dry weed, about 8 inches of dry weed to poke it with. Poke it? Well yes. I was pretty sure it was dead, but just in case, I was going to poke it. I'm faking attention to my conversation now. Remember? I'm still on the phone. And I'm moving in on the snake, reaching my - oh really probably too short, I realize, to keep me safe from anything, but I keep poking that stiff weed out towards it. .. poke. POKE! Scream! Kara jumps. Snake jumps. Hissssss! Slither! Scream! Pant. "Sorry for screaming in your year, Mom. " And I might have explained, but I remember at least thinking " yeah, I poked a dead snake. It wasn't dead. I guess that was a hognose. " It was kind of a weird situation to explain all the sudden. It was outta there, never to be seen again. I was left tasting the metallic tang of adrenaline that I hate to love so much. Yesterday, I spotted a Banana Spider hanging out on its web, attached to the roof and wall at the back of the house, by the laundry line and the rock pile. Banana Spiders are HUGE spiders, and weave a gossamer web with a thick, cottony zig-zag up the center, where they usually rest. I admired its race-car coloring, jags of hornet yellow and pure ebony all over the shiny carapace and smooth, jointed legs. Tonight, I spied a wild-eyed, stripey-legged large and juicy hopper - one of the damned grasshoppers that has been denuding the fig tree, and felling the mandevilla flowers within moments of bloom. I wondered aloud to Charley what would happen if we grabbed it, and tossed it into the Banana Spider web. He thought it would hop a lot, and ruin the web. We decided it was worth some action, and spiders repair webs all the time... that's the point. Just to be kind, Charley yanked the legs off the poor prickley hopper, and tossed 'er in. MAN. It wasn't 5 seconds and the big lady had her wrapped in one translucent layer of silk. Wide sheets appeared, and the spider rolled her bundle. The next pass made the packet opaque, and the spider crunched down to deliver some uh... anesthetic. We both stood there with our mouths open, and then our conversation was something like "that was fast did you see that?" "Yeah, oh my god that was fast holy cow!" That spider made quick, tidy work of that poor handicapped grasshopper. I felt a little guilty, almost, for greedily handing out an advantage. The spider didn't even have to fix her web, and she left her little package to liquify, and resumed her place on the soft pad of cottony zig zag, the throne in the middle of her impenetrable fortress.

Return with the Sun

If you hadn't noticed, it has been raining in Texas. A lot of rain. Daily. For the last three weeks. The other night, we got 6 inches of rain in 3 hours. Luckily, we haven't had to deal with flooding here at the Casa, but it is pretty soggy. As I like to say, we live in a swamp.Much has happened since I last chronicled life... the bee balm and the gentian and the firewheel are toast. The Brown-eyed Susans are hanging in there, but most are just black fuzzy balls atop withered, hairy stems. I did find a blooming vine of morning-glory like flowers, and the False Nightshade is blooming. The kudzu and the Mystery green plant that took over are about the only thing going right now, but some wildlife has perked up. We've seen lots of turtles and frogs and toads, and way too many mosquitoes. There is a whole village of walking sticks living right around our house. We've seen at least two different females (that we call walking branches because of their size!) and at least two different males, several itty bitty baby walking sticks, and even a couple in the throws of making more itty bitty baby walking sticks. There have been lots of spiders, and the gekos are really happy with the screened in kitchen, which was finished last month, because they can perch up higher and eat better bugs. We've planted a rosemary bush, a fig tree, and a mandevilla vine. Charley and I have each eaten one fig from the tree already - we bought it at the farmer's market already fruiting. We're accidental gardeners, too. Our compost heap is growing a huge patch of those weird, flat, wiggly-edged squashes that look like UFOs and also has a newly discovered and already flowering pumpkin vine emerging from it. The accidental garden makes me really happy. We're going to have a boatload of squash in a few weeks. The usual butterfly suspects are still flitting around - painted ladies, commas, and questionmarks.I've been to NYC and back, was a mermaid for a day. I got to see my friends Timothy and Erica and Alex and Susie and meet new friends - Alex's wife, Christine, and Ian. We ran all over New York, having ourselves a blast. HIghlights included the Carosel in Central Park and gorging ourselves on gormet chocolates all over Manhattan. We also went to the Natural HIstory Museum, which was pretty cool, but dissapointingly poorly lit. I got to touch a 23 ton chunk of ferrous rock that flew through space. The mermaid parade was crowded, chaotic, and beautiful. It was fun to see freaks in a different part of the country, and take park in the merrymaking. And hanging out with my friend Erica always feels so right.Charley and I are building a bed frame for our mattress and box spring. It's pretty cool, with 6 foot posts. It's pine, and we're going to finish it with a headboard and fancy finials on the posts when he returns from Greece in August. I've never built furniture before. We've completely furnished our once empty home. After staying up late, hot and tired, trying to arrange it all, we even decided that maybe we had recently aquired too much furniture. But with a good nights sleep and fresh perspective, we realized it all fit just perfectly. Our house is beautiful and comfortable, and everything I've ever dreamed that MY house would be. My favorite furniture purchase is an antique twin sleigh bed that we've decided to use as a window seat. I found a funky jeweltoned quilt and piled it with soft throw pillows, and it is a favorite spot to recline for everyone.Make sure to check the links at the left and look at my pictures on Flickr, too. The sun has finally come out, and the clouds that have hung over us for weeks have broken. Maybe we'll get a little more rain until tuesday, but then it is supposed to clear up and be the regular old hot stiffling Texas summer we're used to. Charley's headed out for a spell, so I should be able to be more regular here at the blogging. I am continuing to enjoy my yoga class, when I can get away from work for all the meetings and extra effort we've all been giving it lately. I've several successful dinners out of my crock pot, now, so I can cross that off the list! I just picked up two books for some summer reading - The Mermaid Chair, by Sue Monk Kidd and She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb. My goal for this summer is just to enjoy my happy groove. I'll keep up with notes on the Palace, and let you know when the standing water finally all sinks in, and what other critters we find. You'll have to stay tuned for the Tiger swollowtail chrysalis report - she hasn't hatched yet. Happy summer!

Bad Blogger

I hate it when people don't do this stuff regularly. And I'm certainly not being regular here. I'm having some technical difficulties with those aforementioned pictures, and I've been really busy!Paddling the Lampassas River, Antique and estate sale-ing like crazy, caving, postcard show-ing, going to yoga again. But it is paying off - Charley is sleeping on our new couch and I need to pack my caving bag for a beginners trip that I'm leading tomorrow yet before hitting the sack! I do think I'll get more stuff up here soon. We've continued to have lots of Bee Balm, Brown-eyed Susans everywhere, Rose gentian, spiders, ants, and butterflies - buckeyes, painted ladies, tiger swollowtails, questions marks and commas. We finally had a hot summer day - in June, our first hot summer day! That's an excellent begining to summer in Texas.

I finally got some pictures of all these plants I've been babbling about. I tried to get some really great pictures of a whole bunch of butterflies nectaring on some bee balm on the side of the road, but I got attacked by damn fire ants while I was standing still, trying to get a good shot. You know they crawl all over you (which you can't feel, because they are so small) and then they emit a chemical signal so that they can bite you all at the same time, don't you? And it really does feel like fire. Like very itchy fire, all over your feet. I know better than to walk into a patch of sandy grass in flats and a skirt and stand still without looking at my feet, but as I have related time and time again, I just don't learn.
I was walking by the side of the road with the camera because Charley brought home a Tiger Swallowtail Caterpillar on Wednesday! I had to walk a few blocks into town - which would be Lytton Springs, our town - to the house with the magnolia tree and steal some leaves so it would have something to eat. I took some pictures during my walk, and returned with a few fire ant blisters, too. As it turns out, it never ate the leaves, but - it pooped a whole lot, affixed itself to a stick inside the plastic jug we put it in, and turned brown and shriveled up. Isn't that great??!!That's exactly what they do before they pupate. So we are awaiting a full blown crysalis and eventually and really beautiful butterfly. Hooray!
In the last few days our kitchen has been completely screened in, the screen doors have been hung, painted and affixed with springs and latches, and our kitchen has been put back together. Of course, this didn't happen on its own, Charley and our friend Phillip and even our friend and tenent John have worked their butts off, making individual screen frames for each space in the wall, and cleaning up sawdust and putting all the bowls and cups and odds and ends back in place.. I merely experimented with cooking a roast and veggies in the crockpot to feed them. I have to admit, the screen project came out better than the roast. The roast turned out pretty bland. Tender, but bland. I think I have identified a few things I need to do in the future. For one thing, I need to make more of an attempt to marinate the meat beforehand. I need to cook stuff longer, and also I need to use flavored liquids to cook in, whether it be broth or just worschester sauce spiked water. I'm certainly open to suggestions. I did love how easy it was to put it all in the pot in the morning and come home to a hot, hearty dinner. We accompanied it with some bakery rye bread and butter. It was a pretty good meal, after some bbq sauce and aforementioned worschester sauce was applied to jazz it up some, but I think I can do better.
Our house has become positively homey with the addition of the screened in kitchen. I took some time tonight to marvel again at the amount of space we have to live in now (after spending a year in a cabin 10x20 feet) and how beautiful it looks painted, and furnished.
I walked our lane this evening when I got home - Questionmark butterflies, and more Red Admirals were all over the place. There was a remarkable number of buzzards flying overhead - there must be something dead somewhere, that's the only conclusion one can draw from that. The rose gentian is going crazy, but you can't see the bright pink star blossoms unless you look down into the weedy grasses. When you do, though, they are absolutely carpeting the front acre. I found a black egg, probably a moth or butterfly, hanging from the underside of one of the leaves of the mystery green plant that's all over everywhere right now. I'll have to keep an eye on it, and see what comes out. We're expecting rain tonight, probably, or sometime by this weekend. We're also going to make our sales debut at the local flea market - me with my jewelry and Charley with his junk, and try to go paddling on the Lampassas River on Sunday. I'm sure I'll have some reports to make on the flip side.
Lke I said, I do have pictures. They are pending a charged battery swap and some other computer voo-doo. Soon! For now, I'm just baiting you, so you'll come back and keep reading! Hah! I have strategery on you!
Have a great extra long holiday weekend, everyone!

You didn't get the whole Estate Sale Story yesterday! We went back with a larger, empty vehicle to pick up our chair. (We call this one the 'ugly chair' even though once we got it home I realized it looks pretty good with our colorful walls) We also spotted a nice side table to take home with us! It is a cool old retro-ey cabinet table that looks like it was meant for record albums. The doors slide back and forth. We also found a really pretty velvet rocker chair, with wooden arm rests and a tall velvet back. It rocks back and forth on 4 springs, and has a really elegant shape. We also got a really cool old enameled metal 3-shelf rolly cart for the kitchen, in unbeleiveable condition. Because it was the last day of the Estate Sale, everything was priced really low. Needless to say, this stuff did not now all fit into the vehicle we had. We had to make a couple of trips, and stash some of it at my office. We also had a pickup truck in town, but because we wanted to park on the street at this birthday party we planned to go to, and then, for the second night in a row had plans to go downtown, we couldn't very well leave furniture in a pickup truck parked on the street downtown on a Saturday night! So we had all this strategy. The furniture is all home now, and is just wonderful! We could still use a couple side tables, and eventually a couch. The search continues! We love this estate sale furniture, especially the old stuff. It's really beautiful and well made, and even better, much less expensive then shopping at a store. Plus, you get to meet who are usually very nice people, and hear a story of life that is passed. They just don't make furniture, or stories to go with it, like they used to!
After we had the furniture all squared away, we continued on with our evening. After a lovely afternoon barbeque with the birthday girl friend of ours, we met up with our friends Beverly and Jonathan and Stephen and went to the best little movie house in Austin, The Alamo Drafthouse. The Alamo is famous for their special way of showing films, with beer, wine and a hearty menu served during movies, often accompanied by live music or other special guests and features. That night we were there for the Japanese Spider Man film in Foleyvision. They had live Foley artists accompanying a bizzare Japanese film of their version of SpiderMan. We laughed like crazy! What a riot. The combination of the movie and the working foley artists in full view of the audience was hilarious! We had heard that Fred Newman, of whom I'm originally a fan of via the PBS children's series Between the Lions, but later found on Prairie Home Companion, ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Newman_(actor) )was in town for the event, but we were wrong, and some other local Foley artists did an excellent job of filling the movie with sound. It was a full weekend! We made it home very late with our furniture and all vehicles.

This morning my alarm went off at 7, and it confused me. What the hell is that noise? The alarm? Do I need to go to work? Why? Can't I sleep some more? Oh yeah... we set the alarm for the ungodly Saturday morning time of 7 so we could make the farmer's market and do some estate sale shopping. Damn.
So we got up, went to the corner store for coffee with Prisilla, our friend who works at the corner store and runs the flea market on the last Saturday of each month, which we have a booth on reserve for this month. We had some questions about tables and stuffs, and we just like to go have coffee with her. We usually walk there, but today we drove. We stopped in quickly, got some coffee and squared away our table needs for next week, and agreed to do a plant trade at the market next week. She has some passionflower vines I want to plant to grow on our lattice over by the kitchen, and we have some exotic pepper seeds she wants to grow.
We zipped into town, and I drove to where I assumed the Farmer's Market was. I do this a lot. I think I know where something is, and when I get there, find out I'm wrong. A half hour later, we had gone to my office and found directions on the internet, and made our way there. We had never been very far away, afterall. I had just confused two very similar downtown parks. We started by having some breakfast tacos at the Market, and walked around to look at produce. Charley wants some sauteed greens for dinner, and I wanted some of the fresh local peaches that were for sale. We got what we wanted, and even tried some Buffalo Jerky and got some local honey to boot. We met a nice lady from Turkey and tried her spanikopita and beet salad. It was pretty good. Frankly, I make a better beet salad, with fennel and apples and feta and yoghurt and a wee bit of vinegar and lemon juice. It all turns a wonderful beet purple color and tastes so fresh and delicious, I could eat it by the bucketfull. We were really suprised at the prices of produce at the Farmer's Market. Granted, we were in Austin. But we spent $50 on squash, beans, chard, peaches, & honey! I do beleive in buying locally, but I think that was a bit on the expensive side. I think we'll start looking around in the smaller communities out by us and see if we can't find something a little more reasonably priced and similarly chemical free, locally grown, and delicious.
Then, we headed out for the Estate sale. What an excellent time we had there! I found a beautiful hand knitted shawl for $1.50, and we found a really comfortable chair for $10! It's somewhat hideously floral and green, but I think a slipcover will fix that. It was REALLY comfortable, and it is probably going to be 'my' chair. What we really need now are some side tables so there are surfaces near the chairs we have. We will be on the hunt in the next few weeks. Charley also got some antique papergoods and I picked up a lovely orange linen tablecloth ($1) that will match the placemats and cloth napkins Charley brought back from Guatemala for me. They are purple and orange and pink and really cool. I also got to use the bag he got for me in Guatemala, a really psychedelic blue woven pattern, at the Market for the vegetables. At various other garage sales we found some star wars figurines for a friend, Charley got an old cigarette tin, and I picked up a set of really fabulous fake eyelashes for my mermaid costume, and a wall map of Guatemala.
Our real goal of the day was to end up at Sears, and Charley got himself a brandnew table saw. The old one was failing, and taking way too long cut stuff, and lordy, do we need to cut stuff. So, we got him a new one with my favorite feature - an attached bag to catch the pile of sawdust that comes out at the bottom! Within 5 minutes of getting it home, he had it put together and started to rip apart the wood for the kitchen screen project. I won't be able to tear him way until they are finished! I understand, though, I like to play with my new toys right away, too.
We have to head into town for a birthday party next. I took a few minutes to wander in the yard and saw the following butterflies: Questionmark, Comma, Red Admiral, Painted Ladies, and a huge Yellow Swollowtail! There are spiders on all of our Agaves with striped legs, that make a web with a zig-zag stitch in the middle. They are really cool little spiders, and one of them was feeding on a rolly polly. The flowers are beautiful, still blooming like crazy, all sorts of colors everywhere, and it did actually get down into the high 70's and low 80's today! Hooray! I"m going to grab my sun hat and see if I can get Charley to put on a Party Shirt and head back out! Good day to you!

I've come inside early tonight to seek refuge from the mosquitoes, which have become quite a nusiance. I didn't escape without some welts, they are itchy and burning. I've been eaten alive in the last couple of days, with or without bug spray. The only real solution is long pants and long sleeves, and if you can't tell, that's a stretch for me. I hate getting all covered up like that to go outside. Besides, it is hot. The thermometer says the hottest temp today was 94, making May 15th the hottest day of the year so far. We're supposed to get a cold front tonight and cool off to be in the 80's for the weekend. I'll believe it when I see it. If it rains tonight, we could get there. Despite the heat, some very spring-like flowers are hanging in there like champs. I noticed the Day Flower - sometimes called Widow's Tears - was blooming yesterday, but they are gone since Charley has come home and done some much-needed weed-eating around the house. (yay! Charley is home!) There are some winecups still going at it, and Texas Paintbrush, and the Beebalm is blooming like crazy, all stacked up like cakes. The firewheel are still chugging along, and the Rose Gentian is probably the most beautiful bloomin' thing we've got right now. The cows spend most of the day around the big tree in the next-over field, but by the time I got home, it was cooling off and they were spread out. I moo'd at them in their flower-dotted field and they looked at me funny. I should be able to put some pictures of these plants up soon, because the camera came home with Charley. We're going to spend the weekend boating and seeing a friend who is leaving Texas for Alaska, and going to a birthday party, but also getting our Media organized, so fresh pictures will be more available soon.
I also saw another fuzzy caterpillar, 3 Comma Butterflies, 2 Questionmarks, a couple buckeyes and several Painted Ladies, one of which was obviously freshly hatched and vibrantly colored. Charley and I also spotted a big green metalic fly that moved as though it was animated, and someone hadn't drawn quite enough frames to make it move smoothly enough. I walked around with the Amdro for a while, looking for ant mounds to kill. I probably would have found more if I was just out for a wander, but I found the two I definately remembered and cheerfully sprinkled my poison around for them to find. It might rain tonight, but I thought I would at least give it a try, and it was an excuse to walk around the land for a bit. We've also moistened and covered the compost with a black tarp, just to give it some encouragement. It is filled with Rolly-pollys and turning into rich, black fluff at the bottom.
Needless to say, its been wonderful to have Charley home. He brings such a spark of life to the house, is motivation incarnate, and with his newspaper spread out around the easy chair and his reading glasses left nearby, makes the house even more homey that it was. He's all culture shocky, and so every convenience is a little piece of heaven to him. He's really appreciating having a wife, air conditioning, a comfy bed, and no need for a machete. It's very cute. We had friends over last night, and we both mentioned later how we savored having our wonderful new house filled with laughter and food and people and candlelight. He cleaned out the shed today, a big job! Now we have a caving and camping shed, and a separate tool/workshop shed. We even threw a bunch of trash away and put some stuff in the scrap metal pile to sell in town to the junkman. He sure works hard. I endured a day of meetings at work today, so I was happy to come home and help put the last few things away in the shed, and not be sitting at a table analyzing my reports. I did my wifely part by bugging him about seeing his travel doctor and wearing his arm brace. Back to domestic bliss....

Do YOU Blog?

I am newish to this blogging thing. I mean, I have understood the artform since the word weblog was first contracted and the resulting 'blog' word coined as a term, but I just started keeping one myself. I used to think they were boorish and narcissistic. (used to?) No really, but then my mom started keeping one and it changed my attitude. I really looked forward to reading hers, and it felt like I was getting to know her better. Because aren't we really all just mysteries to eachother, mysteries we occasionally get to solve but, more often than not, are just able to attempt resolution?
Do you blog? Do you read blogs? Do you ever browse blogs? I am spending the last night of my husband's absence doing stuff I'd do if I were single. Yes, like staying up all night and geeking on the computer. (I had a dull single life, eh?) It seems like everyone and their brother's dog has a blog these days. At least it does when you click 'next blog' in the nav bar at the top. Most of them aren't even in English, that's refreshing. Here's some interesting stuff I spotted:
http://kristinandjoshcanfield.blogspot.com/
These people are just way too pretty and have a too-cute lifestory. This shit is like porn for travel/adventure dorks. I want to live in Costa Rica, too! Damn. I want friends like this, except I'd feel resentful and jelous and not quite sure I should believe they are for real.
http://etheralplanes.blogspot.com/
Something like eye-candy, only more like eye-gourmet-buffet.
http://massiveunderstatement.blogspot.com/
I think I like eavesdropping on someone a lot hipper than me. This blog makes me laugh.
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<----- Anyway, check out my list of links over there. I have a buncha cool stuff and you should. Especially TShirt Hell, because they have THE most offensive t-shirts and it makes me happy that they exist. I giggle and think of all the pissed-off people out there, mad at a t-shirt, because people who get mad at t-shirts are usually a pretty hilarious kind of pissed-off. Because, damn, their t-shirts are O-FFENSIVE.

OH, and listen to This Week in Science. I'll give five bucks to the first person who tells me the date of the episode that I got a shout-out LIVE ON AIR FROM TWIS! It made my day, I want someone to hear it, and I'm a gambling type.

And Comment, dammit. (if you were going to comment and just hadn't yet, I didn't mean 'dammit' at you. :-) )

A Two-fer-one Day

Spring is indeed lingering in Texas. Today was beautiful, a swirling mix of warm with sunshine and cool with shaded, cloud-dappled skies. As one flower droops, another bursts into floresence. Everything is long and tall and weedy these days. Today I noticed the weedy lands were covered in Rose Gentian blooms, hiding below the bobbing seed heads on foxtail grasses and fading firewheels. I saw a Questionmark Butterfly manically skidding around the Agarita in the last sun patches of the day, as I pulled in tonight after work. It lured me out for a walk, even in my knee-length, sleeveless dress. This time I had the presence of mind, at least , to spray a little DEET-y spray on my legs before my wander. I am sick of so many itchy bumps, especially since the last time I went berry-picking I ended up with the large, puffy, insanely itchy red welts that herald the long-suffering of the chigger bite.
I watched the clouds form boiling pink and orange towers, the dark threat of rain in the opposite corner of the sky from the sinking sun. I couldn't help but take a quick step in every newly discovered ant heap I found, staring at the resulting chaos I just can't seem to resist creating for every colony I come across. I need to get out into the yard with the Amdro again, during a rain-free spell, whenever that comes, to put the ants down once again. They are the only critter I enjoy getting rid of, because they might eat you if you fall down into one of their mounds.
I found a plump, fuzzy, black caterpillar clinging to a bobbing blade of tall grass. I'm always pretty proud of myself when I find a caterpillar. I love the whole transformative life cycle of those squishy little bags of bug guts. I particularly enjoy identifying butterflies, by watching their unique flight patterns and flashes of colors, scanning with my eyes and quickly changing my range of focus to follow a specimen long enough to get a lock on the genus, if not the species. I am not very good at finding caterpillars or crystalises, however. So, woohoo! Score one for me.
There is a light green, stalky, soft, leafy plant that is taking over the yard. I do not know what it is, and I would like to. It seems really useless and is crowding out the more interesting stuff right now. I would like to know what it is, because I would like to love it more, since there is a lot of it. I also spotted lots of slender, glittery-eyed spiders with furry, light-colored limbs and tiny, weed-colored, almost perfectly camoflauged grasshoppers. They always seem like paranoid little weirdos to me, with their ridged carapace and their large eyes that extend into the back of their head segment. They make a lot of noise.
The ground is dry and hard, except for a few regular marshy spots on the back acre, even though we've a had a few nights with pretty good rain showers lately. Ruts, carved when the ground was more like frosting, have remained however, now crusty and likely to trip a wanderer like myself. But ending up with my hands in the dirt and my face down near that strip of grass that grows down the middle of all country lanes, I was reminded of one of my favorite flowers, the wild honeysuckle, still blooming like crazy, like it has for months, nestled among the long weedy grasses. The wild honeysuckle always tickles my fancy because it is so delicate, but blooms so steadily on that punished strip of grass I'm talking about. It amazes me that it continues to bloom here, because I know my exhaust system cuts right over it, and the bumper of our friend's truck slices right into its space, too. Wild Honeysuckle might be small, but I could smell it, pitched over onto two hands and only one foot, head down, and only one delicate, tiny, half-inch bloom inches from my face. I could smell it like it was a hedge of star jasmine, not just clusters of white and pink eyelash-like petals arrayed on a slender stem. I picked it, and carried it around with me, smelling it constantly. They wither quickly, and it is all stem and curled up petals by now, like a miniscule columbine flower. I admire these little beauties, for being so perfect and delicate and strong blooming in the dangerzone, the middle of the road, where even grass only dares to grow so high. I took a deep breath and noticed it was getting duskier by the moment.
When I returned to the house to putter inside, the Indigo Girls were on the radio, singing "...when God made me born a Yankee he was teasing" ... a song about springtime in the southlands. Amen, sisters.

O's Kickball game, D's past life

Well, D was tired and needed to get to bed early, and so D& O's mom made a last minute plan for a friend to take O to the aforementioned kickball game, so that I could stay home and put D to bed. Olivia came home in a good mood, but the team had lost the game. She was a little bummed about that, but she admitted that they other team had "strategy" and some good kickers. Besides, O's team had beat them the last time they faced off, so she figured it was just kind of like taking turns.
Before the game, a couple of other teammates were at the house, playing on the trampoline in the backyard with D & O. The subject of the team they were going to face came up, especially the "big kicker", a tall-for-her-age 1st grader opponent, who aparently has good timing and power in her legs. The girls all groaned and wailed and imagined horrible scenarios in which the big kicker knocked it out of the park, or into one of our heroine's teeth. I talked a little about visualization, and asked them if they thought it would affect their game if they instead intentionally imagined themselves as a big kicker, or zipping around the bases, light as air. I explained that imagining all these horrible big kicker storylines was called "psyching yourself out" and asked if they thought that might effect their game. It was pretty cool. They did seem to think that they would be better off not thinking about imagined situations that hadn't even happened yet, when they could be spending their time making up cheers for their own team, or even just playing kickball! They were really open to the idea, and even tried the visualizations, for about 2 seconds, before resuming their tumbling and bouncing on the trampoline.
When O got home, she did mention a couple things that I found interesting. She wished that the other team just wasn't very good, that all the other teams weren't very good, so they could just beat them all the time. I told her that I feel that way, too, in general, but have found that the only times I get better at something is when I'm around people who are better at it than I am, or challenged to do better than I already do. I talked about how if there were never any challenges, then she might not be very good at anything, because there would be no reason to ever try harder, and grow. O really got this concept, and embraced it. She spent the rest of the night telling me about times she had been challenged, and had overcome it, or not. She did say that the times you're challenged and it whups you are the times that were easiest to think of. I have to agree, on most days.
She also made a pretty quick and dirty analysis of the skills of the team, and while she assessed herself as a pretty fast runner with the ability to do some quick footwork to avoid close calls, she put herself in the bottom two kickers on the team. She wasn't embarrassed or even very critical of herself. She said it with a shrug. She even knows that its a technique issue, and she needs to work on it. I suggested that once she gets a few good kicks she should try to remember how it felt, and replicate that feeling as much as she could. She said she just needs to kick with her foot in a different position. Heh.
I told her that one of the things that was so cool about babysitting her is that it was a lot like just hanging out with a friend, and not so much like _babysitting_ at all. She paused for minute, smirked at herself, smiled at me, and gave me a big hug. Then while she had me by the neck, she pulled me down to her level for a bounce-off-my-face, big smack of a kiss. She said her friends had noticed that I'm the only one who ever calls her by a nickname, but it was okay, because that's just how I am, and she didn't mind that. She told them to call her by her full name.
While O was at the game, I pushed D on the swing for a little bit before dinner and bath and story and bedtime. She launched into a story in a very condescending, lectury manner, as though I may not understand, about her "other mother, the one up in the clouds" who she says she speaks to, who used to take care of her, and was her mother "a very long time ago before she was born". Curious, especially if you believe in ANYTHING supernatural. (I admit, I do) I asked if it was a different mommy than her mommy now, who I named. She assured me it was a different mommy, who used to be her mommy. I always speak pretty acceptingly, especially during imaginary play. Sometimes kids will end up laughing at you if you take them seriously when they are putting you on, but she was just as matter-of-fact as I. She swung in silence for a while, and then decided that we should go and play some music together.
She hooted and wheezed and heaved minor chords out of her harmonica, I slowly plunked out a new song from her sister's piano lesson books. Then, she danced, while I played her favorite waltz from an old piano lesson book from my childhood. I have stashed my old book in their bench, so I have some familiar material when they demand a concert.

The herd of buffalo at 183 and 21 was clumped up together, by the part of the field nearest the road, tonight on my drive home. There are three little cinnamon buffalo babies, where just last week I had only noticed two! They were mingling with the Longhorn in the fading bluebonnet patch, a quintessential Texas scene, in the golden light of the setting sun.

It's been rainy and humid by turns, with more storms likely brewing. The forecast was dismal today, with a big question mark over a dark, raining sky picture, complete with a cartoon cloud blowing wind from its puffed up cheeks, for the next TEN DAYS. Good grief! Certainly it will rain and clear off, they just don't know when. We need the rain, its true. We're pretty close to caught up, if not caught up already, but the water we get now has to sustain us through another long hot summer. This afternoon was suprisingly breezy and sunny, and bordering on hot. I am savoring the lingering spring, now that I have a small taste of what is to come!

I checked the compost and the ants are gone. I did poison them with Amdro, and now I wonder if it was bad to put that in the compost? I have a lot of stuff to put in the compost, since I've been such a bachelor while Charley's been gone, and there is, sadly, rotting food left in the fridge.The compost heap doesn't stink, though, so we must be doing something right with it.

This is my last weekend to putter around by myself and really work on the mermaid costume for my trip to NYC in June. It's almost done, I mostly need to glue some things on more securely. Something to cross off the list! Woohoo! Then I can work on learning to cook in the crockpot, and report on my adventures.

I had a wonderful weekend. I attended a Cinco de Mayo party with the best Fajita spread I have seen in a very long time. I dominated the Bocce Game, and won so many rounds I got bored! Hah! Then I got to introduce a bunch of friends to the game "apples to apples", which is a scream. I was also honored to have guests out on Sunday. Two of my girlfriends, who are going off in different directions for the next large part of their lives, came out to enjoy my solitude with me. We had lots of coctails and giggled and gossiped, and it was a really wonderful day. E is off on her way to South Dakota for the summer to her seasonal parks job, and M is headed back to school - grad school - and both have incredible possibilites out before them. That kind of energy is a real delight to be around. It was one of the easiest, most comfortable afternoons I've spent recently. Lovely.

I'm babysitting tomorrow - an overnighter. O (6) has a kickball game. We're going to be busy. I never knew before spending overnights with the girls, that doing anything besides playing in the back yard, cooking dinner, taking a bath, and going to bed means you're going to be VERY busy and barely get it accomplished with there are small children involved! I get to do the whole gettin' up early and making sure she catches the bus and her sister, D (3) gets to her friend's house for the morning. I love spending time with these kids, who have truly become friends to me over the years, and it is always fun to spend time with your friends. I'm excited about the kickball game. I can't wait to cheer O on. I know she's a bit nervous about this match, and we always have interesting conversations about stuff going on in her life. I hope I can provide some encouragement and insight. She's such a good listener, and conversationalist, and our exchanges always leave a lasting impression on my life, too.

Sounds a little boring, but that's the update on life here at the Butterfly Palace!

A quick survey of what's blooming in the yard from my walk to get the mail:

Texas vervain
winecup
brown eyed susans
blue-eyed grass
spotted beebalm (my current favorite plant)
spiderwort
firewheel
crow poison
Texas paintbrush
rose gentian
wild iris
yarrow
sow thistle
plume thistle
prickly pear cactus
several yellow sunflower/coneflower/daisy looking things I should take the time to distinguish
a ruffly, peachy colored flower on a hairy leafy stem I can't identify

the dew berry bushes continue to have berries
the agarita has berries

Mourning Cloak Butterfly
Hairstreak Butterfly

several dragonflies

It is Cinco de Mayo! I am going to a party! But first, a little chinese food in town.

I left work earlier than usual today. A few cavers, fresh from the Guatemala Expedition, are returning and our house is a convenient stop over on their way further west and north. I wanted to be home to greet them. They'll be here any minute.

Leaving early grants me the pleasure of a few hours of workweek evening daylight hours. I am sure that this delight will increase with the growing summer, but right now these hours are at a premium, I haven't experienced them much all winter long. I often take this extra grant of time at home to walk our land. I still haven't been everywhere on it! Frequently, and especially when I'm not wearing long pants in which to brave the wild bramble on most of the land, my path follows our lane, at the front of the property. There are lots of flowers blooming along it right now. And the butterflies were out tonight! There must have been a hatch, there were several with ruffle-y wings not yet quite expanded to fullness for flight. There were bees, which I note especially right now amid so much news of the rapidly failing populations of honey bees. There were remarkably many black flies, as well. And of course mosquitoes. I actually screeched in fright at the big black bug that landed on my arm at one point - a large attack mosquito. I know better than to wander with bare legs, but my linen skirt rustling in the breeze felt so liberating that I didn't pause to change before heading out, so now I am itching and suffering the welts of mosquito nibbles. I absolutely marvel at how big they get, and at how weirdly shaped the sharply defined welts are on my wrists and behind my knees.

I visited our compost heap, and it seems it has been made into a fire ant apartment complex. I couldn't resist poking it with our compost stick, and watching them roil forth. As I sit here and type, I still have the 'creepy-crawlies' - the feeling that there are little teeny insects crawling on you, whether or not they actually are there. There are, in fact, a few small critters wandering lost up my shins, but I have crushed them to dust with my ninja-like reflexes heightened by fire ant paranoia.

The flowers that are blooming are called Firewheel, or Indian Blanket Flowers. They were being visited by Red Admiral Butterflies, in abundance. Also I spotted two American Buckeyes, a black swallowtail of some sort, and a large hairstreak. They were sunning in the fading light, and I was entranced. I think I saw about 20 individuals flittering about and pumping their wings. The winecups and the Texas Paintbrush are still blooming, and the field off of the short leg of Hwy 21 that I travel was still boiling over with bluebonnets. I lingered in the flower patch in the ditch, outside our gate at the very front of the land. Several folks drove by in big rumbling and whistling trucks, and waved at the girl standing by the side of the road, staring at the weeds.

Did I mention that my new husband is out of the country right now? He is galavanting in Guatemala, with little contact back home, but I did hear from him yesterday. He always emails me from internet cafes when he's away. I've never been in an internet cafe, or at least, have never relied upon one for internet service.
They have been caving near Coban for the last two weeks. A few folks have splintered off and returned home, camping out on our land as they pass through. Phillip has been sick. He's better now, though. Matt and Nancy might go do a gig for the Discovery Channel in Belize. Charley is going to kick it at a friend's mother's beach house on the Pacific side for a couple days and do some mangrove swamp kayaking. He was looking for postcards on ebay when he emailed me. The good news is that they are coming home! He and Phillip will arrive by bus sometime on the 13th or 14th. It's just nice to know, to have that date to looks forward to. He hasn't mentioned much caving, but I know they found a big one, because one of the early returning folks showed me some pictures. Charley did say they seem to be the only folks caving in that country.
I've been having great fun while he's away, going to music and community festivals, hanging out with old friends. I'm going to do some overnighter babysitting for D&O, my favorite kids, next week. And clean the house. I live like a messy batchelor when he is gone!
This time his absence really threw me off all my routines. It's been nice relaxing at my house alone, but I"m just getting adjusted. That was kind of a suprise, since we've been apart before. Definately something we'll do again in the future, so its got me thinking about how to make those transitions a little more smooth for myself. I felt like maybe I was just unprepared this time, with so much happening right before he left. I'll have to think on that.
It rained like hell again tonight. We've had a lot of rain, but we need it. It's been either nice and raining, or hot and humid lately. It is much nicer to appreciate the needed rain from a sturdy house than from in the car when I can't see the road. That was kind of a scary drive home tonight. Mostly, because I have to drive across a lot of creeks, and this part of the country is known for its flash floods, and I couldn't see the road. There was definately standing water in a few places. But I made it home by driving really slooooowwww and feeling the pangs of adrenaline in my body until I could drive more normally when the rain let up for a while. The adrenaline was kind of a metalic taste, or an electric feeling, mostly in my mouth. It definately helped me be more alert, and also a little stressed out. Our place isn't mucky, though, and it can get mucky with enough rain. Right now it is just wet and puddly. This wet weather does at least extend the comfortable temps into late May, and I am not complaining about that. Coolness and rain become something precious come August.
I have been thinking that our place needs a name. A Casita Something, or something. Just so I can say that instead of "our place" which sounds kind of boring. Compounds should have names. There is a miniature pony farm around here called "Little America". Like that. I'll have to give it some thought, and consult with Charley when he returns.

I am a newlywed. I married a guy whose antique orange 1953 Dodge Bus I admired 10 years ago when, unbeknownst to us at the time, we lived within three blocks of eachother, in the city. Now that bus is parked on my land. In the meantime, he took up inhabiting 3 acres on the black prairie lands south east of Austin, Texas. I lived in the city in little apartments. We met at our caving club, but only got together because we'd been doing some paddling together, and some friends of our conspired and planted the seeds, knowing we had crushes on eachother.When we started dating, one of the things that Charley liked about me was that I liked his place. It was definately... rustic. He wanted to build his conglomerate of salvaged buildings into a real house, but didn't have any firm ideas for what to do. A few days later, I approached him with some plans that I had drawn up! I didn't know if he was really serious about the building project, but I had plenty of ideas! He asked me to move out and build it with him. So today, we have one building finished. We have an outdoor kitchen that is quite unfinished. I am living in the finished building, built around a metal gas station building. It is such a great house! We painted in really crazy colors, and there is so much room! It's really neat to live in a space you designed yourself, and you know exactly what is in the walls, because you helped to put them up.So now I live in the country. I drive a lot, because I still work in the city. We're trying to participate in our small town life more often. I want a dog. Charley travels quite a bit. We have plans to have a family, very soon. Our 'compound' is a work in progress... we have a shop, another building, a garden to plan, a kitchen to finish.My life has changed quite a bit, recently! But it also feels very natural, like I'm right where I'm supposed to be. My life as it is now is very different from how it has been for the last 10 years, so I'm using this blog -pportunity to chronicle it.Stay tuned. Mostly I'll be writting about my day to day life, living in the country and commuting to my citylife and having a family, growing a garden, building a house, managing 3 acres, being married, and getting a dog. (we'll see)

Berries VS. Stabby Ankle Grabbing Bushes

I picked berries off of the berry jumble tonight before the bugs attacked me. I wore my Slosh Boots and glad for it, too. There was mud, and lots of thorns. The berries were sweet and I netted plenty, although I wasn't greedy. I had to chide the birds for letting some of them rot on the vine. I also picked a big bunch of flowers for my bedroom. They look beautiful next to the goddess statue and the wafting incense and the flickering purple pillar candle.

I hate these berry vines most of the year, when I want to wear flip flops and wander about my yard. Charley told me to wait and see how I felt when they had berries on them. I have to admit, I like them a whole lot more with berries on them. I wonder if I can confine them to a particular patch of the yard? I'll have to put it on the list of stuff to do in the yard.

I keep lots of lists. Otherwise, I would forget some of the good stuff I come up with! Lately, I'm crossing lots of things off of my lists! Yay for me. Like, build house, get married. Yeah, lots going on. Sleep! Better put that on the list! I think I am going to retire to my bedroom, with this month's copy of Texas Co-Op Power (Bluebonnet Co-op Edition) about lady cattle ranchers.

G'nite! See you around.

ps oh yeah and here's to my new blog! I'm sure it will all become much more clear, very soon.