Summer In Texas, My Version

Tags

castle photo, michigan winter, nature, plants

Temperatures in the 80’s in summer was hot when I was growing up. If temperatures hit 90 all elderly people, children and pets were to stay inside. Although as I remember not many people allowed pets inside unless it possibly was a cat, and that was an exception, animals did not belong in the house. I will not tell that to my herd, they

English: Pictured Rocks National Park, Miners Castle Photo taken on summer vacation, wonderful weather hot and sunny! hike to misquote bay was wonderful except for of course the misquotes! (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

would most likely do something dreadful to me in the night for my past transgressions!

My childhood was growing up on the shores of Lake Superior so I understand cold and snow (lake affect) and being snowed in for days. I do not remember complaining about nor did I complain about the ‘hot’ summers seeing they were rare. If a very hot day did pop up we played in the sprinkler, the old-fashioned kind often rigged out of a basement window seeing only ‘newer’ houses had water outside! Unless of course you had an outside pump seeing you had not upgraded. The basement, (think cellar) dark, damp and cool was also a place to play until the sun was low in the sky and Lake Superior winds took care of the night. Summers were short and nice, Spring was fleeting and Fall could hang on for a while, a beautiful time of the year in Upper Michigan. Winter, lasted a long time and I was ready for it. Lots of sweaters, boots, scarves, hats, socks, whatever it took to stay warm and dry. Wool drying on the wood stove in the basement is still a ‘nice’ smell to me. Once dried I could go back outside and go ahead get wet all over again! And it was always dark after ‘supper’, very mysterious and beautiful at ‘night’ in the snow, that was before the 60’s when the ‘time changed’ and screwed me up for years.

I later moved to Wisconsin. There was a marked difference in the weather, it was most often a month colder or warmer depending on the season and I adapted rather well to that change. It was better to my mind, less snow (still a lot) but not snowed in for days with no escape! The big storms were more of an event then a way of life.

Later in life I moved to Punta Gorda Florida. There I would have year round gardening and become the best gardener ever known to grace southern Florida. That part did not happen. I gardened, and did a good job but the plants were the houseplants that I grew in the Midwest, imagine that! Toss something out the back door and it would root and become a happy camper. I finally realized how captive I had kept all the houseplants of my life, suffering a long death at the hands of a girl/woman who loved plants and provided little light. Low and behold a hurricane came along and blew my garden away. I regrouped but wasn’t going to ‘do that’ again. Needed to move on, better lands somewhere.

Life’s events do come to me through the memory of what the weather was at the time. I marked the seasons by what I was wearing, what was blooming, what the temperatures were. In Florida I had nary a clue what time of the year it was, I started to lose track! It was a bit threatening, was I losing my wits or was my inner clock terribly messed up 🙂 It was my inner clock I’m thankful to say and I still haven’t totally recovered the regular four seasons in my mind’s thinking, but Texas is an improvement.

We live in a beautiful part of Texas. Where the hills are rolling and the soil is mostly black with a bit of clay, on the edge of the Piney Forests. Our land would have been great for a rancher (it was a ranch) to grow crops and forage the animals near the Colorado river or in the valleys. I live on a hill with good soil, plants grow so fast I can no longer keep up with them. I tell myself it is my age but I know it would be a great deal of labor no matter my age! Especially seeing I tend to plant or cultivate way beyond what I am capable of caring for.

The late winter, which is wonderful weather I start with enthusiasm planting and cultivating, I am a model gardener, the gardener I always was! Praise worthy! I stick to this faithfully and plant more than I should certain this year I’m going to care for everything seeing temperatures won’t reach last year’s highs, maybe I forget how hot it was the previous year 🙂

Today I’m at the how hot it gets in Texas part of the season. My plants are gigantic, threatening to take over all walkways and stop cautious people from darkening our doorstep, and that includes my husband! I refuse to go outside when temperatures are 95 and rising! It’s miserable for a Midwest woman who has adapted and does become cold easily, but still gasps at the sweat forming on my brow! My energy has gone, I am a slug a sloth would sound better at least it’s an animal not a slimy creature. Best I check to see if any moss is growing on my appendages. I simply hate hot weather, I tell myself I am not grateful as the water from my hose burns my feet and hands and would cook spinach if I was growing it! That I don’t mind that everything I own is a shade maybe two lighter in color from hot sun! My car needs windows tinted darker than it came with seeing it heats up while parked outside while I am shopping, air-conditioning is my friend in my car, my house, any building I enter! My other best friend is the pool! After anything that needs my attention outside I head to the pool and I think I hear a sizzle when I jump in! This is fact!

My decision for coping with hot weather is I pretend it’s ‘winter’, I do inside things, work with fabric, wool, make this and that just like I was snow bound instead of sun bound. It works for me, most of the time. I do enjoy being outside, in the gardens, sitting and relaxing, one foot out the door and my good humor turns to nasty old woman!

I am grateful for my home, where I live, the gardens that thrive (too well) and the critters that entertain me outside the windows. I have one exception re: critters. I do NOT like to find a shed snake-skin, which is as long as my arm in my rose bushes. I find something unsettling about that! The opossum that fell out of the tree a few weeks ago was more entertaining, not so much for the dog! A roadrunner looking in the sunroom at us is funny no matter the temperature.

This weather too shall pass and the many months of beautiful weather I enjoy will again be here. Next year at this same time I will again complain that it’s simply to hot for man or beast and it will again be my ‘winter’.

From My Back Door to Yours, the Beauty of Texas Wildflowers

Tags

lupinus texensis, nature, outdoors, plants

The last few weeks have been  a mixture of one unhappy event after another, today I’m putting all the serious thoughts aside, and enjoying the sunnier side of life.  At times taking a breath, stepping back and letting life happen is the right approach.  I intend to discuss all my thoughts of the last weeks but today, I’m heading to the wildflowers in my ‘back 40‘.

My ‘back 40’ is definitely not 40 acres by any stretch of imagination, we have 3 and a half acres and our house and formal (make that somewhat planned) gardens take up the rest.  We do have a large field behind our house.  It could use more tending and if I was a younger woman, oh the delights I could create.  One must have either wealth, youth or be realistic. Making do with what I have and my energy level seems to suit me.

We did take the steps of having the ‘back 40’ seeded when we moved here, not knowing what we really should have done and hiring a man flying by the seat of his pants to do the work, we reaped the not so beautiful results of our mistake.  We were growing every weed seed known to Texas, churned up and brought to fruition;  that was not the plan.  When you tell people your plan and you are a landscape gardener, well, some ‘taking it back’ on my part did take place.  A little humility is not a bad thing, but it’s still not fun!

Texas (Lupinus texensis). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The wild flowers in Texas start if it  is a good season with the outstanding burst of bluebonnets, I had never seen anything like them, they are spectacular and Mother Nature is in control, let me repeat that, Mother Nature (or just nature if you prefer) is controlling this show. Other wild flowers follow, not blue and soft in color but bright and joyous. I haven’t counted the several varieties in our field this year, I’m so grateful that the seeds we did sow years ago have found their way to bloom and give us the best  show to date.  We can’t count on this show for next year, it might bloom but may just as well not.  Depends on ‘Mother’ and it also depends on weed seeds, biannual plants and a wing and a prayer 🙂 So I don’t sound like I’m the only one able to pull off such a riot of color, the roads and ditches of our part of Texas look like a painters palate of color!

Yesterday started as a day of stress in a few areas, my solution is to head to the field, bring the camera, dress for the occasion.  Living in Texas you know that walking in fields with shoulder deep flowering plants you don’t wear your cutest shoes and shorts.  It’s boots, it’s bib overalls, long sleeves and a stick wouldn’t hurt.  Although I arm myself with my camera and I walk carefully.  I’m not afraid of what I might find, I’m hoping I do find something!  Our land isn’t flat so I’m up and down and avoid pot holes (no need to have Hal hopefully searching for me hours later while I languish at the bottom of a sink hole)!  He’s accustomed to me wandering off,  it might take some time for him to realize I was missing:-)  I think a neighbor or two may have seen me poking around back in the field, camera in hand.  I enjoy having just enough land for me to ‘wander’; if I sat down (heaven forbid) I wouldn’t be seen by anyone.  Just think what may go on in that field when we are not looking!  All manner of animal activity, that pleases me.

There are deer paths that I try to follow, even a bedding down place or two.   Not sure why that should make me feel pleasure other than a critter had a nice soft place to sleep and was relatively safe for the night.

Many of the plants grow tall,  over my head!  I’m only 5’4″ so that’s not gigantic but it’s a pretty nice size for a plant.  To photograph these lovelies I need to duck down, hide myself, not from critters but from the unrelenting winds.  If I used better camera equipment like I did years ago I’d perhaps have less problem with the wind, maybe better photos; but my time for fiddling with equipment has passed so I use a simple Panasonic Lumix HD and it serves my needs very well.

I hope that a peek into the wildflowers that have given us pleasure this year also give you a glimpse at how beautiful Central Texas (Cedar Creek) is in the spring, Isn’t it pleasing with all nature can do, good and bad,  it does also entertain us with such beauty?  It pleases me, especially in stressful times.

A Reluctant Traveler Enjoys the Journey

Tags

cat hairballs, nature, plants, sault st marie michigan, travel, vacation

As many of you know I am a ‘reluctant’ traveler.  Give me a reason and I’ll stay home, it’s safe  ( baring fires, hurricanes or tornadoes).  My house will not smell like a farm when I come home after ten days of enjoying myself, having seven animals does have drawbacks.  Not many people want to clean up cat hairballs, lost dinners or mounds of fur while you are away so when you arrive you do know what will await you, it’s enough to ask to have the cats fed and litter robots cleaned, thank you Tracy.  The dog greets us as if we’ve been gone for months, but then she does that when we buy groceries!

Hal and I went on a cruise to the Panama Canal. Seeing travel plans are most often made in advance I had plenty of time to conjure up all sorts of dreadful things that could befall me or our home while we were away. All for no good reason, you would think I would learn!  Panama was a good draw for me, it’s historical and I like  big ships and I enjoyed the locks in Sault St. Marie Michigan. (A bit smaller scale)  The other ports of call were tropical and of more interest to Hal, he’s a beach guy, me, not so much other than photo opportunities, you never know when an intriguing window or door may pop up (one of my favorite subjects) or an especially interesting critter wandering the beach (sometimes human). Costa Rica and the Veragua Rainforest were the last stop on this cruise, with my love for nature both plant and animal, I did want to take the trip. 

There is a 12-section zip line available in the forest, that was Hal’s aim and to see the forest and some of what lives there.  I was there to absorb the air, the smells, sounds and amazing sights; for those who enjoy houseplants, it would be heaven on earth.  If you want to see a sloth at home, you will and it will stay that way until you come by once again.  They really don’t move very often, tend to look like a large gray basketball high up in a tree.

Like many people in the 1960’s and 70’s I tried to grow suffering  houseplants at every window in my house, until  I discovered growing plants outside was much more rewarding and stopped torturing jungle plants. I still enjoy seeing where the plants I tried to confine to containers, dry houses, lack of sun, too much sun, all manners of plant torture, do grow and what they look like happy, and at home. Before going into the forest and a tram ride  we were given an informative tour of what we might expect to find if we were to wander  in this forest, who and what live there.  I can’t imagine who would want to set out wandering in this mass of gigantic trees, wet, dripping, lush, solid foliage and intriguing sounds, certainly not me. I’ve been told a  machete  is usual  equipment if you are going to find your way through a jungle, and I can easily believe that is true.

The rainforest has a pulse; I could feel life all around me, I could smell and hear it, for me it was a very emotional experience.  At times I wasn’t certain if it was raining or just amazingly humid. The tour and information of what to expect in the forest  was a good beginning,  much of what was explained to us before we took our tram and walking tour  we did see, these critters do indeed live in there and aren’t hiding!  Don’t touch anything, rule number one, rule number two, DO NOT touch anything, no hugging trees!

The family we were taking our tour with and Hal were all going to zip line high above all this beauty; I was to meet them at the end point.  Our trusty and entertaining guide and his driver drove me to the ‘end of the line’; there were a couple of times I thought I might literally be ‘at the end of my line’!  Many men speaking a language I didn’t understand, in the middle of a Costa Rica rain forest, laughing and joking, me wishing I had learned to speak Spanish instead of Latin and French!  They were gracious, I had no reason for concern, and in fact everyone we met was so pleased to show us their remarkable forest.

When the men understood I wanted to take photos they were more than helpful showing me the treasures that could be found right next to and around me.  Including an adorable red (poisonous) frog.  The guide told me I would probably not die if I touched it, I’d get mucho ‘high’ for a pretty long time.  Well, all right then, more information than I needed right then, I’d wait until I was back on the ship and have a glass of wine. I took his picture instead!   All around their cabin, any piece of fruit they tossed out that had a seed remaining, was a growing plant, bananas, mangos and pineapples, for a plant woman, I had a great time.  I could hear the whooping of the zip liners and had no wish to be zipping above the forest, wandering on the ground was excellent for me.  The zip liners did have a wonderful time with little to no mishaps.  The zip line guides are remarkably skilled.

The Veragua Rainforest is not in a prosperous part of Costa Rica; the trips into this forest have only been taking place for about eight years.  The people are proud of the forest, they want it preserved, the gigantic trees with valuable lumber left alone, to be enjoyed and to continue to grow, the reptiles and animals, butterflies left to live without intruders unless guided by the people who love and live in the country.

The cruise lines bringing travelers to see these beautiful places are a good source of income for many of the residents.  The cruise lines do invest in the countries they take people to visit,  just the docking area it’s self employs and improves the area.  There are open air markets enabling visitors to buy products, some made by hand, often the artists are selling their own creations.   Poverty in this part of Costa Rica was clear away from where the ships dock. All the people we met were friendly, proud and industrious Costa Ricans.  I hope they are able to keep more and more of their beautiful country protected from people whose interests are in harvesting trees, plants, taking animals, it is a pristine area and should stay as it is.

I survived another trip, nothing fell off my body, my house did smell funny (it doesn’t now), but like the houseplants that grow so well in the Veragua Rain Forest, I do well in Cedar Creek Texas, although my life is now richer having seen an amazing structure (the Panama Canal) and a beautiful work of nature, the Vergua Rainforest.