The list of things to do is long, the kids are antsy, many miles to go…but we are getting out of town this weekend for fun on the lake with extended family! We are leaving tomorrow at noon and are not even close to being ready. Hah! I’m working today (have the extra kiddos) so time is precious. Gotta get it all together so I’m exiting this venue until we meet again. Hope you all have a wonderful Labor Day weekend and I’ll see you all again next week!

Peace!

Another busy gardening day yesterday. We spent most of yesterday outside as it was finally “only” in the mid 90’s rather than the over 100 death heat. We got the front fence line cleared of the overgrowth and plants we didn’t want that had sprung up. Got the massive Rose bush pruned way back. Seriously, it was tied to the fence and was taking it down. J had to repair a couple of the fence boards so we just hacked the bush back. It was having a hard time with the heat and drought since I don’t water it regular and was stressed so we are hoping this pruning will help it. Of course, by doing that I opened up this shade bed and need to take care of the right side of it now. That side gets sun from about 10AM to about 1PM, so is pretty much in the shade most of the day. It is filling in really nicely and loves the misters from the drip irrigation. Now that the Rose is cut back it will most likely get a little more light and of course now needs to be continued on down.

I also used my brand new garden tool, the Cobrahead, to edge and weed. I’ll have a separate post about this awesome tool, but suffice to say I have no idea how we lived without it up to now!

The girls were outside for most of the day too as the weather wasn’t sapping all the energy from them. It felt good!

The garden is taking on a whole new appearance now as things fill in, grow larger and with all the things we got rid of yesterday. So much had died do to the lack of rain and it was starting to look a bit straggly out there in the very front. It’s nice to get all that cleaned up and refreshed.

How was your weekend? I hope full of good things and productive times, no matter what those were!

View from the front door:

These just make me smile:

Look at how tall that Golden Bells Esperanza is! My yellow one is just as tall and right behind it but not blooming at all, although the plant is super healthy. Anyone know why this might be?:

The smallest of the front beds. I am starting to really like how this one is filling in. It’s just out the front door, so makes me happy when I walk past it everyday:

Nice to see we have a fence!:

So, the right half of this really needs an overhaul now that the Rose has been cut back:

The bee made me happy on this Indigo Spires:

The Garlic Chives are about to bloom:

Aw..Ginger:

Peace!!

Is that even a word? Well it is now, randomness! That’s what today’s post is. Just random pictures from our last couple of days. It’s been hot, hot, hot! Did I mention hot? We are now at 66 days of triple digit temps for the summer and just about to break the record. If it tops out at 100 today, we’ll officially be experiencing the hottest summer ever in the Austin area since record keeping of temps of course. It’s been miserable! Not alot of outside activity going on past 10 in the morning, so the kids and I have had to get creative. Lots of playdough, art and pretend play going on. Today, however, we are venturing out with friends in tow to the fountain park here and having lunch with the fountains. Then we’ll pick Farmgirl up from school, drop kids at their correct parents and rush over to gymnastics. I hope we make it on time! 😉

Farmgirl Lola is basking in the glow of going to school. She absolutely loves every moment of it so far. Comes home just ecstatic, full of stories from her day. While it is public school and not the education system I’d choose for her if I could choose any, the school is a good school and the teacher completely understands that kids learn at different rates. So since Lola is so far ahead, she has her own reading and math programs she’ll do. I am of the “project based learning” bent, so that’s a hard one for me to swallow that she won’t really be learning in school along those lines. But we agreed to re-evaluate at Christmas and see if it’s all going well not only for her socially but also educationally. We are still going to supplement with our own homeschooling/unschooling style as well. But for now, she’s loving it and it seems to be feeding that desire to be with tons of her peers all at once. She’s a social one that kid!

Last night a small storm looked like it was going to roll through, but of course went south of us at the last minute, so aside from a few drops that didn’t do anything, we did have some really cool lightening and cloud formations. It was a nice change of pace from the clear skies we normally see. Hopefully more will head this way and actually decide to rain down on us! We need it. The lake is at 41% full now…sad to see all the docks up on the shore. The boat ramps are all closed now and there are islands where there shouldn’t be and dry land in other spots that are suppose to be in deep water. Hopefully El Nino will hit us hard over the Winter and Spring and bring up those levels!

For now, enjoy some of the randomness in photos that were taken by me and little Xi..;)

I love this shot! Xi took this and we didn’t realize how she captured the angle of the moon with so much love until we uploaded it to the computer…hehe:

Another by Xi of the cloud formations:

My blurry attempt at no flash with my old-ass camera:

It’s a stand-off. Moose the ferret was playing with Emo the cat for awhile and it tuckered both of them out:

My super duper thrift store find! A Le Crueset whistling kettle, the large one, for a whopping $20! I had just looked at them in a retail store and they were $85 there…literally 10 minutes later we saw this at the thrift store, almost un-used:

When I realized that there were going to be sacrifices in the garden due to the drought, I decided to try and save a little of a couple things. This is from the Honeysuckle and is growing from a vase of water on my kitchen windowsill..and blooming!:

Sweet potato vines and Honeysuckle cohabitating:

Peace!!

We discovered my second favorite nursery of all time…Barton Springs Nursery. After reading about it from several of the Austin bloggers, we had to make a trip and we are super glad we did! We found several plants we’d been looking for and even some we didn’t know we wanted. A couple of them are mystery plants to me as I just was in that crazed mode that gardeners go into when browsing rows of the most gorgeous greenery, that I just grabbed them. So I’ll get pictures up of those for identification purposes in a bit. For now, enjoy these new creatures and a couple extra garden pictures to boot!

Oh, do I spy Bat Face Cuphea? I think I do!:

A new, hanging succulent. Any ideas on this one?:

The potted succulents are doing well in this heat:

I am loving this combination, Giant Benary’s Purple Zinnia and Green Envy Zinnias (I’m pretty much dedicated to always having zinnias in the garden):

So pretty, Green Envy:

And another new one, I’m very excited about this one. Black and Blue Salvia!:

The shade garden is filling in nicely:

I do admit I water. We are still on Stage 1 water restrictions, so we have 2 days we can water during designated hours. In Austin they are now at Stage 2 where they only have one day to water using irrigation. You can hand water anytime, and I do. I put alot of time and money into my garden and I don’t want to lose it. Fortunately we planted drought tolerant plants and the ones that need an extra boost everyday are in shadier areas so not quite as affected as the full sun plants. Plus we have some really established plants that were here for years before we bought the house, those don’t get any watering at all and are still doing pretty good under the circumstances. Plus, except for one little bed and a pot in the back, we don’t water the back at all and that’s where most of our property is. We really need the rain though!

And now, on to the first day of school. Our darling Farmgirl Lola started First Grade yesterday…eeekk! She absolutely loved every moment of it. She came home full of stories and timetables of her day’s events. She has been home schooled so is pretty far ahead in reading, math and comprehension. She said the teacher told her during English, while she was talking to the other kids about phonics, that Lola could go to the corner of the classroom where they have a little in-class library and pick any books to read. She loved it! When Xi and I were waiting at the bus stop for her, we saw the bus coming down the road and all I saw were arms waving and her little mouth moving…haha! When they stopped the bus driver was laughing and said he now knew our whole history…hah! She’s a talker that one!

We all walked her in for the first day. She was thrilled that she had her own desk and cubby. She promptly hung up her backpack and lunch, grabbed her name tag and started introducing herself to other kids. Didn’t bat a lash when we were ready to leave, I think she was even trying to hurry us out! hah! After school she was super excited about homework…but she LOVES to do schoolwork anyway, so that isn’t too surprising to us. I didn’t get any pictures in the classroom or at the school as it was pure chaos with everyone walking their kids in. But I did manage to get a couple before leaving the house early in the morning.

So the first day went off without a hitch and she had a blast! She may want to go back to homeschooling in the future, which is fine with us of course, but for now she’s totally stoked to be at school and that’s all we can ask for!

Someone just a little excited:

Hope your first days and new things are going well for you too! Peace!