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!

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....