It has been an eventful week in the Patch. 

The gleaming surfaces,

the clean shining grates, I love getting a new grill can you tell?

My old Weber was, to say the least, looking very much under the weather, its visual hygiene compromised by the confounded laxative popping doves that seem to follow the grill around up in my pecan trees. I am convinced the accidents are not accidents at this point but a stupid bird conspiracy. As the summer is drawing to an end (tell me it is) I am looking forward to some much more humane grilling weather. I also fear for our sanity if the temperatures do not start to taper-off soon…

I found this rather peculiar sign taped to my daughters room the other day,

 naturally curiosity got the better of me and I immediately had to “dstrib” her.

This is what shuffled past me as I entered the room, very “dstribing” indeed. The heat is certainly getting to us all at this point.

The long hot summer has been good for some things:

She practically grew gills this year,

whilst he weathered the heat, brushed up on his short game and tried to ignore the rather large dinosaur looming behind him. 

Talking of gills and golf…

…I shot this writhing mass of feelers on a golf course this past week…Brrr.

From cat whiskers to horsetails:

This plant is dependable no matter the conditions, (well it is housed in a large container underwater).  Unlike a lot of aquatic plants that outgrow their pots, get root bound and go into a steady decline in their maturity, this reed does not seem to care about its confinement at all.

I have grown it in the same container for years now and it always puts on a dependable great fall show.

Cattails are also great as tinder to ignite say a brand new Weber grill, did I already mention how I love getting a new grill?

Moving on…

One plant that has completely impressed me is this baby 

Leucophyllum candidum

Thunder Cloud ™ (it is trademarked by Texas A&M University). Its naturally compact growth form, silver- white foliage color, and very dark purple flowers all combine to make this a great small, drought tolerant shrub. It gets to about three feet high and three or four feet wide.  I planted this little one in the middle of our continuing 70 days of consecutive triple digit temperatures in a place that has killed many a healthy plant, and then I neglected it.

I was a very surprised when I put on my sun / UV reflective attire the other day to safely venture down my garden to see it not only alive but positively thriving…

…and covered in these deep purple blooms. 

Make sure this one is planted in soil that has most excellent drainage.

I did bump into Ernie (my neighbor) on my dangerous venture to the back of the Patch, I think he may have spent just a little too long watering his vegetables.

As you can probably tell I am desperately trying to avoid publishing…

more pictures like this. It appears the heat is now randomly selecting loquats to fry up in the garden wok, garnished with some of my society garlic.  This is one of my neighbors but my death toll is also rising, I have lost two well established trees so far.

A slight forgetfulness on my part with the garden hose gave Kumo “the opportunist” the chance to a) cool off in a wallowing-pig like fashion and b) dig out what was left of my Salvia leucantha whilst yanking out some dead gaura with his teeth as a sort of cooling-off hobby, well it saved me the bother.

Picture courtesy of my eldest halfling.

Considering that my garden looks like it is hovering in that parched veil between life and Ernie, I though I would leave you with this rather melancholic but very fitting poem for all central Texas gardeners right now. 

Relax, I am not re-running the “Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner”…at least not yet. 

This is a rather long poem but stick with it…

…there will be a multiple choice test on it next week. The winner stands to win Ernie’s ashes glamorously displayed in a nice contemporary vase, it was what he would have wanted.

The Garden of Proserpine

by Algernon Charles Swinburne 1837–1909

Here, where the world is quiet;
Here, where all trouble seems
Dead winds’ and spent waves’ riot
In doubtful dreams of dreams;
I watch the green field growing
For reaping folk and sowing
For harvest-time and mowing,
A sleepy world of streams.

I am tired of tears and laughter,
And men that laugh and weep;
Of what may come hereafter
For men that sow to reap:
I am weary of days and hours,
Blown buds of barren flowers,
Desires and dreams and powers
And everything but sleep.

Here life has death for neighbor,
And far from eye or ear
Wan waves and wet winds labor,
Weak ships and spirits steer;
They drive adrift, and whither
They wot not who make thither;
But no such winds blow hither,
And no such things grow here.

No growth of moor or coppice,
No heather-flower or vine,
But bloomless buds of poppies,
Green grapes of Proserpine,
Pale beds of blowing rushes,
Where no leaf blooms or blushes
Save this whereout she crushes
For dead men deadly wine.

Pale, without name or number,
In fruitless fields of corn,
They bow themselves and slumber
All night till light is born;
And like a soul belated,
In hell and heaven unmated,
By cloud and mist abated
Comes out of darkness morn.

Though one were strong as seven,
He too with death shall dwell,
Nor wake with wings in heaven,
Nor weep for pains in hell;
Though one were fair as roses,
His beauty clouds and closes;
And well though love reposes,
In the end it is not well.

Pale, beyond porch and portal,
Crowned with calm leaves she stands
Who gathers all things mortal
With cold immortal hands;
Her languid lips are sweeter
Than love’s who fears to greet her,
To men that mix and meet her
From many times and lands.

She waits for each and other,
She waits for all men born;
Forgets the earth her mother,
The life of fruits and corn;
And spring and seed and swallow
Take wing for her and follow
Where summer song rings hollow
And flowers are put to scorn.

There go the loves that wither,
The old loves with wearier wings;
And all dead years draw thither,
And all disastrous things;
Dead dreams of days forsaken,
Blind buds that snows have shaken,
Wild leaves that winds have taken,
Red strays of ruined springs.

We are not sure of sorrow;
And joy was never sure;
To-day will die to-morrow;
Time stoops to no man’s lure;
And love, grown faint and fretful,
With lips but half regretful
Sighs, and with eyes forgetful
Weeps that no loves endure.

From too much love of living,
From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be
That no life lives for ever;
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea.

Then star nor sun shall waken,
Nor any change of light:
Nor sound of waters shaken,
Nor any sound or sight:
Nor wintry leaves nor vernal,
Nor days nor things diurnal;
Only the sleep eternal
In an eternal night.

In the classical myth Proserpine was kidnapped by Pluto, the god of the underworld, to be his wife. She begged to be returned to earth, but because she had eaten some pomegranate seeds Pluto confined her to his kingdom for half of each year.  Her reemergence each year ushered in the forces of spring and the growth of vegetation, causing Proserpine and the pomegranate to forever be linked to the emergence of spring.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Here is a depiction of her consuming a pomegranate which symbolizes captivity.

On Proserpine, Rossetti wrote:

She is represented in a gloomy corridor of her palace, with the fatal fruit in her hand. As she passes, a gleam strikes on the wall behind her from some inlet suddenly opened, and admitting for a moment the sight of the upper world, she glances furtively towards it, immersed in thought. The incense-burner stands beside her as the attribute of a goddess. The ivy branch in the background may be taken as a symbol of clinging memory.

Stay Tuned for:

“Detector”

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

I considered starting this post once again with a rather long drawn out moan about the current conditions in central Texas, but then decided I would not subject you to another barrage of images of scorched foliage…at least not immediately.  No, this post will start on a very different tune,

a fancy glittery tune.

This glittery mess on my back deck could have been the result of an arts and crafts project, or perhaps some sort of face painting mishap, but this time it wasn’t, this time it was caused by something much less predictable.

  Our young puppy Kumo has been devouring considerable amounts of rather odd artifacts (of which there is no shortage) he finds lying around our house.  On this particular occasion he came nose to nose with a vessel filled with glitter which, feeling very proud of his discovery, he quickly ingested…(I think you know where I am going with this)…Now I will spare you the rather disgusting details of the party that exited him some time later, but I will say that all that glitters is most certainly not gold.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

Now back to the burnt and crusty foliage and incessant moaning you have come to expect from me in this, our year of relentless triple digit heat.

Nothing is crusty in this bed though.

Lets take a peep through some barrel cactus eyes and see where the latest heat damage has occurred.

First out of hell’s kitchen and looking more than slightly overdone,

is this Persian ivy appetizer. Followed by a main course of Flambé Mexican bush sages and roasted artemesia on a bed of dry soil, drizzled with a dressing of absolutely nothing, naturally.

“Excuse me sir, would you like a side of

crispy cast iron with that”?

For dessert witness this poor post oak quickly seared on its extremities over my neighbors fence. This old tree has been getting watered regularly since the damage was initially noticed in the late spring..

It is going to take quite some time to see the extent of the carnage of this prolonged drought, especially on our larger mature trees.  Keep a close eye on your specimens extremities and should you see some defoliation, just remember, long slow soakings are the ticket. (Now that is something you don’t get to say every day without a few odd looks).

The yuccas continue to perform well in the heat. 

After my last attack from the snout noses (the evil weevils), I put down generous amounts of Diatomaceous earth around all the rest of my yuccas and so far it appears to be working, of course having no precipitation helps to not wash it away…a rare drought benefit. I think I will stick with this regimen for a while as I hope the Diatomaceous earth sticks to the noses of the weevils.

Check out Wizzie Brown http://www.urban-ipm.blogspot.com/ discussing the uprising of the snouts on a recent CTG episode, and thanks Linda http://www.klru.org/ctg/blog/ for the image credit on the show and your blog.

Moving on:

It has been a poor year for butterflies in the Patch, they have been few and far between. I did come across this Western Gulf Fritillary

Agraulis vanillae incarnata

this week on one of my yellowing rosemary plants. I leaned in close, hoping to catch a subtle breeze as it slowly fanned the surrounding heated air with the most amazing of wings.

More dead giant timber bamboo culms were felled this week…

“Thou shalt not pass!”

Talking of Gandalf the Gray,

he was looking a little dustier than usual so I swept off the cobwebs with an impromptu hosing…that took his breath away.

Evergreen wisteria continues to bloom as it has done sporadically since the spring,

and this purple oxalis hovering above a soaker-hose offers a welcome illusion of wetter and cooler days.

This brickwork is destined for removal in the fall,

Stop being dramatic William.

mainly for drainage issues. I have decided to continue the decomposed granite around this circular bed for better continuity.

Stock tanks are still providing color and 

the opuntia tree in my Hell-strip seems to raise up its paddles to gather in even more of the sun’s rays. This is one tough trio.

and fitting to finish on a Mexican fire bush.

Inspirational image of the week:

Here is another idea for a rather unique garden shed should you have the time and the wine.

Images credit : The Bottle Houses

Edouard Arsenault started collecting bottles in 1979.

In the spring of 1980, at the age of 66, he began his construction, a mere hobby yet. As his six-gabled structure was taking form, visitors started coming in. Impressed by his work, they encouraged him to continue and to advertise it as a tourist attraction. And so, in 1981, the first Bottle House was open to the public. From 1980 to the spring of 1984, he cleverly cemented over 25,000 bottles of various shapes, sizes and colors, into three fantasy-like buildings.

Stay Tuned for:

“Ashes to Ashes”

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

You can see why it is called Texas star hibiscus,

Hibiscus coccineus

and what an ornate and complex bloom it is, on the subject of blooms, this sunflower has taken on storybook proportions.

I planted a lot of different kinds of large sunflower seeds earlier this year but I think the super-dry conditions or perhaps the birds got to the them before they had a chance to grow. Even though I managed to grow just the one, it was well worth it.

I came across this intimidating insect next to a patio I am working on.  It was large and adorned some serious tribal markings, it was moving at a frenetic pace on the ground.

This is a cicada killer wasp,

“Sphecius speciosus”

or sometimes called a sand hornet, this large female was extremely busy digging in the earth.

She was digging a burrow beneath a live oak tree, no doubt a good source for future cicada hunting and gathering. Yes folks, I am afraid it is another one of those – I am going to paralyze you, drag you into a dark cave, then my offspring will slowly devour you stories.

After digging a nest chamber (which have been reported to be over a meter long), female cicada killers capture cicadas, paralyzing them with a sting, the female wasp then straddles it and takes off toward her burrow…

yee-haa!

This return flight to the burrow is difficult for the wasp (and I am sure no joyride for the cicada) because the cicada is often more than twice her weight. After putting the cicada in the nest cell, the female deposits an egg on the cicada and closes the cell behind her with dirt…Brrr. On a brighter note, these large wasps are generally non-aggressive towards humans. Still, I was taking no chances photographing this one.

Tiny voice: “Scared of a wasp now ESP?”

Be quiet Jeff and enjoy the ice cream that you are stuck in.

Staying on the subject of rather large insects I unearthed this female

Strategus aloeus julianus

or rhinoceros beetle and it was a monster. I threw a saddle over it and took it for a walk around the garden. These chaps are among the largest of beetles, reaching 60 millimeters in length, but are completely harmless to humans because they cannot bite or sting. Their common names: Hercules beetles, unicorn beetles or horn beetles refer to the characteristic horns borne only by the males of most species in the group.  The males use their horns for fighting (usually over food) and impressing a female. If a beetle is feeling threatened and cannot dig itself into the ground, it will make loud hissing squeaks.

“Scared me to death it did.”

The hissing squeak does not do anything but frighten a predator.

Okay that was bad…moving quickly to birds.

This family of doves perched in their “nest” on my Afghan pine, look totally ridiculous. These birds are not noteworthy for their engineering prowess when it comes to the art of nest-building. Oh no, in fact they appear to be totally rubbish at it, but they seem happy huddled together on their teetering platform. The whole scene is very:

JERRY: You ran over some pigeons? How many?
GEORGE: What ever they had. Miranda thinks I’m a butcher but i-i-it’s not my fault is it? Don’t we have a deal with the pigeons?
JERRY: Course we have a deal. They get out of the way of our cars, we look the other way on the statue defecation.
GEORGE: Right! And these pigeons broke the deal. I will not accept the blame for this!

These Monk Parakeets / Quaker Parrots must be nesting somewhere around the Patch as I keep seeing and hearing them squawking and squabbling, and do these birds like to squabble, one carry-on after another. These birds have naturalized in Austin for over twenty years.

This year is most certainly the year of the desert willow or Chilopsis. The hotter the temperatures, the dryer the drought, and the harsher the conditions the better this tree looks. I have never seen so much foliage and blooms as this year. This tree is actually not a true willow, it is called a willow only due to the shape of its leaves, the tree is actually a member of the Bignonia family.

Hummingbirds love it, and it is perfect for a hell-strip or anywhere that suffers reflected heat.

These feather grasses are now up to three years old and still going strong, they are currently in their brown phase awaiting some summer hair combing and trimming.

Or perhaps not.

Celosia is now springing up all over the place, this will put on a great fall show, attaining heights of 6+ feet.

Finally:

“Just like that, not like that, just like that.” 

It is the time of phlox in the Shire.

lots and lots of phlox,

what a great word…phlox.

This stock tank planted up with King Tut papyrus and burgundy canna lilies is also relishing the baking heat,

heat that is affecting some of us in some very strange ways.

Stay Tuned for:

“Eviction”

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

Inspirational image of the week:

I want this as a guest house at the end of the Patch. It is the phlox!

Our car bulged at the seams…

buckets and rods were at the ready, and so were we.

I was very excited at the prospect of replacing the mist from my misters

with real surf spray,

yes, the Levwold’s were finally going on a vacation which was a really good thing,

as I believe if we had not left when we did this angry mocking bird would have pecked us to death – look at that face. This bird was a menace, swooping at me and Kumo causing him to continuously throw nervous glances over his shoulder to the sky, and me to flail my arms frantically above my “tucked-in” head every time it dive bombed me. This bird was ruining our outdoor activities, no more paddling pool, no more sitting out looking at the fish for fear of the terror that would reign down on us from the sky.

Yes, it was definitely time for a holiday.  I informed the Naboo of our travel dates, polished the cactus man’s monocle, and left a fresh box of napkins next to the Botox Lady.

We were finally off.

In apparently more ways then one…it was a very early start after all.

Some hours later we were driving through the very martian looking environment of South Padre Island on the Texas gulf coast.  Time during the journey was measured in “Harry Potters”…“Stop asking!  We have been traveling one and a half Potters, we have two more Harry’s to go…now stop asking!”  15 minutes later: “Has it been two Harry Potters yet?” ….oh for Slytherins sake!.

A chunk of this pristine coastline a little north of south Padre is currently all for sale for future development, a little depressing.

On arrival, the moisture filled winds and warm sea waters washed the journey behind us in no time at all. It was the first time our halflings have ever witnessed the ocean so there was a lot of excitement (and high pitched squeals) filling the salty air.

I thought she would be obsessed with finding sea-shells, but she found something much better in addition, something alive and shimmering with all the colors of the spectrum, creatures that would bury themselves in the sand seconds after a wave sucked back out into the ocean. Oh yes, this quickly became a high-intensity hunting activity,

and she loved it. She had discovered these colorful jewels of the ocean, and became thoroughly obsessed collecting them with eager fingers. These Coquina Clams are small members of the clam species who live in the tidal zone of many of our beaches.  The southern Atlantic Coquina lives from Virginia south into the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico.  In good habitats of clean water and sand, these clams will multiply and become plentiful indicating a healthy beach. The tiny clams move up and down the beach with the movement of the tide. The water gives them a lift, first up the beach and then back down. When they find the spot they are looking for, they quickly bury themselves in the sand.

Every evening our third floor apartment became a laughing gull feeding frenzy.

As bread and crackers were thrown high into the heavens.

This was all well and good until the droppings began, driving us once again cowering indoors.

We spent a lot of time up there on our balcony observing cloud formations,

orbiting satellites,

and lines of pelicans that flew by every day. The island is home to nearly half of all bird species documented in North America.

Padre Island is the second largest island by area in the US after Long Island, and it is basically a sand bar that over the years got very large.  The island has been known by several names, with Padre Island being only the most recent. It has also been known as “la Isla Blanca” (White Island)

and “Isla de los Malaguitas” (Karankawa).

The first permanent settlement on the island was located on the island’s southern tip.  This area was established around 1804 by a Spanish priest, Padre Nicolas Balli, after whom the island is named. Prior to then, the only people known to have inhabited or visited the island were nomadic hunter-gatherers, Native Americans, Spanish troops, and the survivors of three shipwrecks on the island’s shore in 1554.

The Island is also home to the Kemp’s ridley sea turtle, the most endangered sea turtle species in the world, which nests on the beach from late April through mid-July. I did not get a shot of a turtle so you will have to settle for this comical crab,

this Auger,

and this baby Portuguese Man o’ war jelly fish that washed up on the beach. This creature is actually not a jellyfish but a siphonophore which differ from jellyfish in that they are not actually a single creature, but a colonial organism made up of many minute individuals called zooids.

Each of these zooids is highly-specialized and, although structurally similar to other solitary animals, are attached to each other and physiologically integrated to the extent that they are incapable of independent survival. Sound familiar?

Moving zooidingly along:

After a rather nervous escapade with a man and his parrots we popped into the Sea = Life Center in the background where I came face to face with a creature I had no idea even existed.

A “walking” batfish.  These fish are found in the gulf and are so named because they are flat and can use their stout, arm-like fins to shamble along the seafloor with a stilted gait, reminiscent of a walking bat. Brrr, brrr and more brrr, (right leg immediately starts some imitating involuntary bat-like walking gestures). The gills are just visible behind its “legs”.

The touch tanks filled with starfish, hermit crabs and many other creatures were an instant hit.

Staying on the subject of fish for a moment, we naturally had to try our luck down on one of the piers at nearby Port Isabel. We had an unorthodox set of fishing equipment that ranged from Sponge Bob and Tinkerbell fishing rods and me wielding a large and unruly surf casting rod, oh yes, how the locals looked at the Levwolds with “interest”.

I baited up Sponge Bob first, fitting a float to the line that weighed about as much as this tiny rod could handle. I dropped it over the edge and pulled some line out. Ten unbelievable seconds later my youngest pulled out a spotted sea trout (with just a little help).

And as fast as Tinkerbell’s bait was lowered into the water she also was into a fish, this time a young yellowfin tuna,

and then another spotted trout.

I caught one more trout, a porcupine fish (that I had no idea what to do with) and a hardhead catfish, all in a couple of hours. All fish were safely released and all grins were wide as we strutted proudly down the pier past the other fishermen with the more “conventional” equipment.

As a weather disturbance moved into the Gulf, we decided to make the trip to Brownsville, home to the Gladys Porter Zoo http://gpz.org/, and what a great zoo this is, well worth the visit should you be in the area. We got our maps, the sky thickened,

we saw giraffes and it started to grow dark,

we saw Jurassic palms and it started to drizzle.

By the time we exited this enclosed exotic wild foul exhibit…

Well, need I say more.

The upside to these downpours was that we almost had the entire zoo to ourselves, it was like our own private tour around the park…just like the Griswolds at Walley World.

One final sandcastle,

and it was time to try and jam our belongings, buckets of shells and ridiculous surf shop souvenirs back into our car.

Three Harry Potters later and a substantial amount of sunburn scratching and we were home,

back to the puppy that they were both missing terribly.

Me?

I exited the car with a few groans then immediately looked around frantically for the mocking bird.

I know how to relax.

Stay Tuned for:

“Not So Fun in the Sun”

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