Finally Christmas!

This pyramid candle really helped to bridge the long wait for Christmas having tiny gifts embedded into it. The prospect of retrieving some “Pharaoh’s treasure” fueled her imagination for hours…okay 4.5 minutes.

“Daddy? How long do candles take to burn?”

“Hmmph?…Zzzz”

The first eardrum shattering 7am squeals started when they both ripped open some junior golf clubs from their grandparents in Scotland.

She could not wait to try them out on the range a couple of days later.

He got a retro post-apocalyptic phaser,

that made the most annoying obnoxious sounds imaginable. (The psychologically damaging part of the holidays)

What was I thinking? Oh yes…cool design.

This made him very happy.

She got her…

La La Loopsie doll,

a not-so-Easy Bake oven,

and her long awaited rock tumbler that has been tumbling a bunch of rocks since Christmas day. It takes a month to turn sharp raw stones into polished gems.

We took a sneak peak at them five days into the coarse abrasive phase (naturally), and already the stones were significantly smoother.

Even Kumo got a prime steak chop on Christmas day!

He devoured most of it before frantically running around with a really desperate expression on his face, looking for a place to bury the remainder.  For dessert he apparently opted for a large chunk of plastic attached to a string, this gastronomic episode sadly landed him in hospital requiring an hour-long stomach operation.

Poor Kumo.

He is still in the hospital and doing a little better, we all have our fingers crossed that he will pull through and make a full recovery.

Moving Sadly On:

Rosemary is looking particularly healthy and festive after finally getting some rain,

and so are the weeds. This green clump seemed to spring up overnight.

I planted a couple more Plumosa Ferns at the base of my steel gate a few weeks back,

and they have almost doubled in size with the recent moisture.

A visually frosty and festive scene courtesy of a neighbors China-berry and my Blue Ice cypress

Cuppressus arizonica var. glabra ‘Blue Ice’

And now we are having clear crisp days,

days perfect for…

lighting large fires with my new

“Bear” knife and magnesium striker.

Fires that keep the wild ESP cats at bay.

It has been a busy two weeks off school for the halflings,

I immediately got them to work on gathering seeds from this year’s rather poor crop of celosia.

It is tedious work but the challenge of getting the emptied husks into a bucket on the floor helped relieve the monotony, or so I thought.

“I am Sooo tired of shelling celosia”?

“Me too sis, I am ready to annoy everyone with my phaser again”.

Hey you two…did I say we were on a break?!

Finally:

A new “visitor” dropped into the Patch pond cypress tree this week…

Oh stop it!…It is an owl…just an owl!

Stay Tuned for:

“Just Leaf it Alone”

All material © 2011 for eastsidepatch. Unauthorized
intergalactic reproduction strictly prohibited, and
punishable by late (and extremely unpleasant)
14th century planet Earth techniques.

Happy New Year from us all in the Patch!

River Walk : San Antonio

And have a great “Bells” to all my family and friends in the Scottish borders:

With the excitement and anxiety of Santa’s arrival and passing, the interior of the Patch has taken on a very bizarre Blade Runner atmosphere, especially at night, when all is quiet and still.

It is like some mad genetic experiment is now being conducted inside our home. 

“Err, I don’t think you want to touch that one Deckard!”

“Priss…not the nose, please, not the no…”

“I make friends. They’re toys. My friends are toys. I make them. It’s a hobby. I’m a genetic designer”.

The late night journey to bed is no longer for the faint of heart, oh no, there are now numerous engineered “creatures” no doubt manufactured by the evil  “Tyrell Corporation” lying in wait in the shadows to either drop an egg loudly on our stucco tile, howl, scream, chirp, woof, burp, giggle and generally scare me to an early grave. They are also all extremely loud with their brand new Christmas Duracells lining their cybernetic stomachs.

The slightest physical disturbance can also set off a chain reaction between some of these creatures, especially the ones that react to sound, one small chirp or bark can ultimately culminate in a crazy chorus of electronic voices all reacting to each other (the equivalent of waking up the entire house).  When this happens I irrationally and frantically find myself “shushing” them, in a vain attempt to regain order.  This of course just activates even more of their circuits.

These creatures have even forced me to adopt a ridiculous sneaking affliction in an attempt to get into bed without disturbing or touching one of them.  A flashlight is now as necessary a tool as a toothbrush is at bedtime.  I have experimented and light is about the only thing these creatures do not react to, with the exception of the “Follow-me Thomas the Tank Engine”… I deal with him totally separately.

Here is a line up of the motley 2010 Christmas Replicants:

All waiting extremely innocently and patiently until nightfall once again descends on the Patch.

Still, I suppose it could be worse.

Oh yes, needless to say, they both had a great Christmas…

Her first dangly earrings…

and a new all-terrain chopper to carve up my decomposed granite pathways, (thanks M&D).

Moving On:

Back in the garden…80′s last week, freezing this week, classic central Texas weather, and just when I thought it would never rain again, it did, not too much but enough to lift the sad heads on a couple of my loquats.

The Dusty Millers looked even colder than usual…

with the moisture freezing to their furry leaves.

The ice crystals have finally taken care of all my purple hearts, turning them to the consistency of seaweed.

All this damp scene needs is a…

selkie acting all dramatic on one of the moss boulders.

Selkies are creatures found in Faroese, Icelandic, Irish and Scottish mythology, and my daughter is as obsessed with them as she is Ponyo.  Selkies can transform themselves from seals to humans. The legend apparently originated on the Orkney Islands, where selch or selk(ie) is the Scots word for seal.  Selkies are able to change into human form by shedding their seal skins, They often do this to sunbathe upon the rocks, (a rarity in Scotland, sunbathing that is, not rocks).  They can revert to seal form by putting their skin back on.  But if their skins are lost or stolen, they are trapped on land and are forced obey the one who holds their skin.

“Images taken from “The Secret of Roan Inish”

Stories concerning selkies are generally romantic tragedies. If a man steals a female selkie’s skin, she is in his power, to an extent, and she is forced to become his wife. Female selkies are said to make excellent wives, but because their true home is the sea, they will often be seen gazing longingly at the ocean. If a selkie finds her skin again, she will immediately return to her true home, and sometimes to her selkie husband, in the sea.  I have my wife’s selkie skin under tight lock and key, hidden deep inside my garden shed. I occasionally catch her staring deep into my water-filled stock tanks, and I have caught her inhaling deeply over a bottle of undiluted fish emulsion on more than one occasion?

“Hey, you kept talking about skin ESP”!

Brrr!

There is only one plant that looks worse then purple heart after a good freeze…

You guessed it, my “Ho Ho Hoja Santa” is not looking quite so jolly since the frosty nights have kicked in.  These disgusting handkerchiefs are once again blowing proudly on winter breezes.  Another wet handkerchief this week comes courtesy of my elephant ear:

Finally:

“Rock Circles”

Pris Retired

I thought I would leave you with a couple of simple planter platforms that I have just implemented on an install I have been working on. I flattened the ground, loose laid the bricks then dumped decomposed granite on the top.  A few minutes of sweeping the granite around the top with a stiff bristled broom works the granite in between the gaps in the bricks, setting them solid whilst still retaining the ability to easily move them at a future date (I avoid mortar almost as much as Bermuda grass in the landscape).

A future layer of mulch will take the grade up to the same level as the top of the bricks to finish it off…works a treat, and immediately draws attention to a cool planter you may own, would work great with a four of five foot urn, or an invisible fountain.  These two brick circles were added for formality and to visually anchor an otherwise very loose planting scheme, the one on the right will form the base of a future above-ground multi-tiered fountain.

As this post turned out a little more “Blade Runner” than I initially anticipated, I just bet it put you in the nerdy mood to want to leave those little origami unicorns everywhere you go, like Gaff left for Deckard in the movie?  No?

You will find instructions how to construct this noble creature and impress your friends here:

http://cgi.linkclub.or.jp/~null/unicorn/unicorn0.html

Apparently this is considered “intermediate” in the origami world!  Are you kidding me?

Stay Tuned  for:

“Two and Two are Four”

All material © 2010 for eastsidepatch. Unauthorized
intergalactic reproduction strictly prohibited, and punishable by late  (and extremely unpleasant) 14th century planet Earth techniques.

The anticipation of Christmas has definitely mounted this week in the Patch, our tree was once again pulled out of my garden shed and plugged in – (I love trees that are already pre-wired with lights…thanks China!).  Small hands eagerly grappled with shiny ornaments tucked tight in dusty boxes.  These nimble fingers made fast work out of decorating the tree to the point that it is now more reminiscent of an ornament than an actual tree. I was really happy that all the decorations were okay this year though, as I am every year since the rat incident of 2006, but I refuse to talk about that particularly “troubled time”.

To further the premature Christmas excitement, these eagerly awaited advent calendars arrived in the post from my parents in Scotland. Each December day has a small serrated window housing a chocolate and some small festive pictures, these calenders amazingly arrived exactly on the first day of December…the first boxes were immediately opened and the chocolates devoured in seconds, my youngest  then proceeded to have a complete meltdown, grappling with the whole concept of only one-a-day restraint.  He had apparently turned into Augustus Gloop.

A couple of days later I found a contraption with a blanket crudely strewn over it, in the corner of his room…

…he had secretly fabricated a rudimentary time machine, and according to his advent calendar, successfully transported himself five days ahead into the future, apparently eating the small chocolate treats steadily as he pushed the time-forward lever with his non-sticky hand. Naturally I destroyed the contraption in true Luddite fashion and the calender is now brought down on a daily basis from a very high place, although I am convinced he is planning something…I found these conceptual sketches yesterday hidden inside a “levitate in a day” book under his bed…

Moving on…

The new “don’t pick up the leaves until they have totally finished dropping” policy in the Patch is really stretching my patience to its limits!

“Hold…Hold…Hold…”

I want so badly to clean it all up. I am wading through leaves waste deep at this point, and I have lost my son so many times of late that I now attach a line of garden twine around his waist every time he goes out to play, a slightly inhibiting aggravation on his part, but a necessity. I refuse to lose him, and I am well aware that the Naboo are food deprived at this time of the year, if you catch my cannibalistic aversive drift.

I am not sure how much longer I can hold out with this new Patch clean-up policy?

“Ach! Typical! I canna bulieve ye would just gi-up mun…Ye canna…”

Oh Shut your pie-hole William.

The blue white hue on the margin of this agave is looking very frosty at the moment.

And etched into the side of the same agave – a ring wraith!

Some type of borer?

“Frodo you have to get the ring out of the Patch, the black riders are close”

Although the yard is knee-deep in decaying brown leaves and pecan nuts, I am taking some colorful solace in a few hotties still gracing these cold days and colder nights: It is the age of the pinks! (okay, enough Middle-Earth references for one post!)

Although a little disheveled looking this stock tank of King Tut papyrus with the now bright pink celosia around the perimeter is like a crackling fire (of Mordor) on these cool crisp days. The celosia colors have now transcended into the unreal, the psychedelic.  No color correction or saturation enhancement required on these photographs.

Ice plants always respond to the crisper cold weather conditions with their almost fake looking blooms, I am still trying to determine if I even like this plant aesthetically. It is an anomaly to me, should I like it?  Well it does bloom when blooms are stark, it does spread fast, but the question remains, do I really like it?  I cannot seem to decide.

The moisture in this photograph is naturally not natural, oh no, we have had no rain in Central Texas for quite some time – when DID we last have any substantial rain?

As a result, this is a common sight right now…

Plants are stressing like it is summer!  Cooler weather yes, but so little moisture, and winds drying things out even more.  I am watering my containers a lot more then I should be at this time of year, I caught this parched golden bamboo barely in the nick of time. My in-ground weeping bamboos have also felt the dry-pinch, requiring additional water to pull them through…it is December!

More pinks are emerging from my shrimp plants which are incredibly leggy this year.

And this…

“Queen Elizabeth”

Sedum spurium

or Dragon’s Blood Stonecrop is in her colorful prime – flushing dark red as the year draws to an end.

“Much better than that potato that other chappy brought me ESP!”

Finally…

My butterfly vine continues to amaze me with these bronze butterfly seeds.

Oh, and just in case you thought that you had escaped the Patch without something tickling your gag valve this week,

“I cannot look”…

you are naturally incorrect…

Yes folks those are eggs, I do not care to find out what horror is transpiring in this bucket grabbing scene.

On that wretched note I will leave you with a few more refreshing things I have meandered upon in the course of writing this post:

Inspirational images of the week:

Living Ornaments:

“Forest Floor” glass ornament created by San Francisco designer Flora Grubb. Lichens, moss, feathers and seeds cushion a living Tillandsia air plant inside a tiny glass ball.

And here are some unique gardening utensils from Cal Lane…but the decomposed granite would fall right on through!

Eyebrows would be raised if I turned up to an installation and pulled this wheelbarrow down from my trusty steed!

Okay just one more…

Anarchy In The UK?

Stay Tuned  for:

“Android Assassins”

All material © 2010 for eastsidepatch. Unauthorized
intergalactic reproduction strictly prohibited, and
punishable by late  (and extremely unpleasant)
14th century planet Earth techniques.

This months http://www.gardeninggonewild.com/?page_id=13248 photography competition will be judged by Allan Mandell, the theme is: “On The Road Again”

“This is what I am looking for: that choice image you discovered when you were out there on unfamiliar ground with an open mind and open eyes, when you were far away from home or close to where you live. But you still sought out a garden, other than your own, to reveal the soul of the place you were in. Every culture on earth has a way of expressing its essence through a sacred spot, or garden. Maybe your farthest travels have been a few hour’s drive away, or maybe they have been long plane-flights away, no matter. Let me see the beauty you found when you were way out there, tuned into the universal language of the garden.  Let me see your treasures from the road.”

This shot was taken last year on a visit to my homeland and family. This is the stark, gnarled and storybook understory of a particularly old stand of rhododendron shrubs on the grounds of Hoddom Castle Estate in the borders of Scotland, a magical place.

This scene would make a great film set…I think Helena Bonham Carter would be right at home under these invasive bushes?

Oh you wouldn’t? …Sorry Helena.

There really was a fantasy world underneath that light draining canopy.