You want to see something annoying?

Here it is:

Well yeah. I know it's pretty. 

But it's green. That's the annoying part. So all summer, in the searing heat, I have been nursing my garden. Shade cloth, water, fertilizer. I babied it. A few weeks ago the weather finally cooled off and the garden started flowering and producing. I thought for sure that there would be time before it got cold to have a little harvest.......... but I didn't. The past few days have been a low of about 28 degrees in Austin. Seriously, I am so tired of this extreme weather and because I have been rotting in the box (job) nonstop, I didn't have time to put up plastic or set up a hoop house and well, it froze. So this is what we are left with, a big ass bowl of green. It's ok though. You know why? Because in the spring, I am going to have the biggest, baddest garden ever. If I can grow the above in this heat, I think this spring I am going to knock it out of the park. I think I may have finally figured this gardening thing out.  Bring it. 

Thankful

Came home from work this a.m. and found this outside. Always a sure sign that Thanksgiving cooking has begun. 

I'm lucky and thankful for a lot of things...............

Rye Rye Rye

Remember the buffalo grass? Native seed my ass.

I tell you what, it may have worked out if this spring in Austin wasn't Death Valley Apocalyptic hot. But it didn't. After this summer, I had a backyard full of weeds and no buffalo grass mix. It was just too hot to germinate. No worries though, my nickname should be "second chance Kelly." I'm much better the second time round. Exhibit A: my small little harvest today, which is so much more than I grew this past spring when there was not a drought. 

Anyway, I am going to try again this spring. Not with buffalo, but with something else(not quite sure what). I got rid of all the weeds again and decided that I'm done with the mud pit we call our backyard. So, I threw down a cover crop for the winter and I can't believe IT WORKED! With a few days of rain, we have a backyard full of annual rye grass. It will stay all winter and die of in the spring when the temps warm up just in time for spring grass planting.  Even better, the girls will feel like they are in Heaven when I let them out to free range in the rye area in the spring. 

Exhibit B: I finally did something the first time around successfully. 

These Balls Make Me Smile

Stop it. 


Ok no really though, I'm still a little unmotivated. But my 70 year old neighbor is not apparently.  He sports these ginormous balls right in his front yard. They are all different sizes but the biggest one could probably barely fit in your living room. BIG.


For awhile they were clear, for awhile they were blue(yeah, I know), and tonight as I drove home they were a flashing rainbow. They literally put an instant smile on my face. Even better is when I wake up in the a.m. and they all rolled in the street after a windy night and I have to dodge them in my car like an obstacle course. 


Keeping Austin Weird...........one ball at a time. 


For your viewing pleasure:

BLAH

Been gone awhile.

I went to Miami a couple a weeks ago. Claire had a conference for work and hell, I needed to escape the heat so, I went. I'm really really good at tagging along on business trips and I am even better at sitting on the beach and doing nothing. Seriously, if there was such a thing as professional beach sitter I would be one of the best. There is nothing better to me than getting up early, grabbing a cup of coffee and heading out to the beach to read, swim, nap, and beautiful people watch. I could literally sit there all night, except, as always, the nice gentlemen who rent the beach chairs have to pry my sun burnt, salt laden body off the chairs at sundown. Why they start taking the chairs back and putting them away at 6:00 is beyond me. Anyway, a few days on the water makes me wonder why we chose to live in drought ridden, hotter than hell Austin, and not somewhere closer to the beach. Sigh.

Back on the mainland, I'm finding myself uninspired, unmotivated, and quite frankly LAZY. I have been battling a nasty virus that knocked me down for a few days and I'm sure that's part of it, but I just can't seem to get any umph in my step lately. Hence, the lack of posts. The list of things that need to get done here at Uprooted Bamboo is never ending and a direct correlation exists between my lack of pep and the amount of things being marked off as completed. I'm sure with the cooler weather finally coming in I will regain some momentum and start getting some stuff done. I guess it's good to take a step back, breathe, and re-evaluate the backyard. It's a huge blank canvas and while exciting to have such a big piece of property, it sometimes is a bit overwhelming. Which is where I find myself now.

The girls are doing well.  Bridget and Monica(the little ones) have been incorporated into the flock. They aren't hugging and high-fiving the big girls yet, but with a little more time they will all work it out and get along.

The garden, shockingly, is doing well. I have cucumbers, tomatoes(yay!), banana peppers, green peppers, green beans, serrano's, and jalapenos all getting ready to be harvested. I need to get some lettuce and strawberries in this month and in the next few weeks start digging my holes for the bare root fruit trees going in mid winter. And given Austin's hard, dry, clay soil that may take me awhile.

Good stuff........ lets just keep adding to the list.