Green Spring

 Bluebonnets peaking, has been a pretty good year.












Hinckley's Columbine starting to bloom at farm, my favorite is Rocky Mountain blue columbine but this beauty will have to do in our Texas climate.

Everything must have been perfect for the petunias, hundreds have come up - along w thousands of weeds. Am pulling weeds every weekend, sooner or later will be a magnificent patch of Muskie petunias (but for armadillos?). Mostly white w some purple and shades in between. Very fragrant.







Tall green grass, mostly rye grass - rye grass may not be good to keep, choking out wildflowers. Also masses of dandelion like plants called Cat's Ear, past years mistake to let them grow alongside bluebonnets going to seed, now they're about to take over. Last few years have been pitiful, but things are looking very good so far this year. I personally like hot and dry, but feel bad for plants/trees suffering.

Spring

First pale blue bonnets are appearing. May be a good year bc of rain.

Found a new flower in the field last year - came back this year, claytonia virginica
















wild muscari

one more dead tree gone - so far this makes 4 trees we have removed bc they are around house. A big water oak seems half alive so far this spring - hope it makes it. There are others that are dead and even starting to fall over on their own out in the woods. It's a sad thing - includes many cedars and native pecans.

A few weeks ago noticed that a number of trees on the hill had bad wind damage. A number of oaks had big limbs at the top knocked out, and about four cedars (about a foot+ diameter) were just broken in two about 6' up. Maybe a small tornado didn't touch ground or something. Sorry for the trees, but glad it didn't hit the house or barn.

Big Rain

Finally had a gully washer, almost 4" here, other close-by areas had 6" - it tried to wash out the new culvert. Started fixing it but will need some gravel. Lake Winedale is all of a sudden about half full and many dry tanks are full or almost full.

 

then started working on dead tree, Bro is way up there... Will cut it down next week if weather is good.

Dandelions are blooming, white seed head reminds me of someone I know... Also narcissus and other very small flowers (< 1/4") - one is called houstonia, but thought it was blue, maybe related to white flower here, looks very similar. Learned how to work the digital macro on my little camera so got these closeups.

Warm Winter So Far

We have had a little rain off and on and a few 70˚ days so far this winter. The narcissus have been trying to bloom for the last month but now they are starting for real. And very nice to see green grass growing after such a dry summer. Lake Winedale is slowly catching a little water. But it can still become very cold yet - until the beginning of March.

Christmas Lights

Put up a star and some lights on barn.

Blue Bonnets

 Pearl Harbor Day - Granny Kleypas' birthday.

Blue Bonnets are coming up after the little bit of rain we've had - seeds are amazing things. The plants will just stay small and grow roots until spring when all of a sudden they will start growing and explode into magnificent color - hopefully they won't dry out before then. But Blue Bonnets are tough - some of them will make it no matter what.

Culvert Progress

ok made a little progress. Needs some tuning up but there it is. Now need to figure out a gate and some other details and be done w it for awhile.

Might need to move the entire thing over a few feet.