Architecture

“All Quiet on the Eastern Front”

ESPatch Oct 23, 2010 12 comments

” I must get out there and keep weeding”.

“Relax ESP, your tour of duty (ahem) is over, you must rest now”.

Phew, what a crazy week it has been in the ESPatch. I have actually been watching all five episodes of the Rime of the Ancient Mariner back to back as a form of deep relaxation and depression educing therapy to bring me down to earth a little. As readers, you will be drawing ever closer to the dramatic finale yourselves with the forth riveting installment at the end of this post, I can sense your anticipation.

First there was the build-up to the Conservancy tour, the grueling midnight weeding shifts that involved Davy lamps, loincloths, and copious amounts of mosquito spray (FYI: the Naboo insist on this attire for anyone in the Patch after dark). Then the tour itself happened, what a mad day that was. I cannot remember a time I have talked for so long, by the end of the day I was sounding like:

Marty Funkhouser.

We had a really good time on the tour and thanks so much to all my Patch helpers, and all who visited the Patch on the day. You can read some great accounts and see some pictures at the following links, if you haven’t read them already. I think I took only two pictures the entire day! :

http://www.penick.net/digging/?p=9584

And here:

http://wwwrockrose.blogspot.com/2010/10/i-knew-it-was-going-to-be-great-day.html

Thanks Pam and Rock Rose! If you couldn’t make it, here is a rather wobbly walk-through of the Patch just before the gates were opened. Oh come on Mr circular-bed Sotol! You can grow faster then this!

My daughter sold enough limonada on the big day to purchase a toy she has had her heart set on for quite some time:

These little bundles of fur are called Zhu Zhu pets and when you first meet one they seem harmless enough. We naturally had to purchase two of them to mitigate a potential war breaking out between our two hobbits.

“They can take oor’ lives, but they will never take oor Zhu Zhu pets”

Have you quite finished William?

They make cute snuffling noises, roam around freely and have character shifts when different accessories are attached to them, naturally. Oh yes, initially they seemed like a perfect non-real pet…no mess, no hair drop…but then the realization of the purchase kicked in, the snuffling noises, the squeals, oh the repetition.

I sit here typing on my laptop with two of these creatures running circles around my feet, their chirps and snuffles long having lost their appeal . I am now seriously resisting the urge to get up, get my metal shovel from my shed, and…well, I will leave the rest up to your imagination…I’ll give you Zhu Zhu pets! (I wonder how long their batteries last)?

A couple of days after the tour we had the friendly crew from the Gardener’s Supply Co come over to the Patch.

They spent the day setting up and photographing planted window boxes on the outside of our house for their catalog. After they had left, we found the fantastic surprise they had left for us near my back deck…

I could not believe how many plants they had left us!

My daughter and I have a long history of: “Daddy, why don’t you ever buy pretty plants with flowers?” “Well, I just prefer foliage plants, that’s all.” “But daddy why don’t you…” and on and on this monologue usually continues. Imagine her surprise when she was confronted by this scene as she went down the back steps, she could not believe her eyes. Her expression says it all.

Guess who was thinking more about the box that the plants came in?

Ragamuffin.

Yes, between obnoxious Zhu Zhu’s and garden tours and photo shoots, it has been a busy time in the Patch of late to say the least,

even this Texas spiny lizard seemed more immune to foot traffic and the camera after the tour and shoot, allowing me to get in closer then usual to this extremely shy creature. This was the largest one I have seen to date.

This plant most certainly got a lot of attention from a lot of people. I cannot tell you how many times I said celosia on the day.

The seedpods are now huge, and visually striking set against a backdrop river of artemesia…jumping salmon!

Bluebonnets are also popping up in the Hell Strip. (Thanks once again RR).

I will finish with a couple of shots of the Salt Lick, an infamous Texas barbecue destination. They have recently opened up a side garden and wine tasting house on the property, selling wine, cheese and pate’…

The central fountain is surrounded by gaura.

A huge stand of lantana and numerous roses and salvia line the perimeter of the garden

Inspiring Images of the week:

Peter Allen is the Marketing Director for UC Santa Barbara’s College of Engineering and Scientific Illustrator/Animator for Engineering and the Sciences. As a pre-medical student at UCSB he got his start doing hand drawn/painted cel animation for Developmental Embryology tutorials in 1984.

His subject matter can range from tau protein mutations in Alzheimer’s disease… to tuna fish. Using protein recognition software and numerous scripts and tricks to get the biological and chemical structures into Maya and Mudbox ready for rendering, or traditional modeling and texturing for the more playful artwork that he does in his spare time.

Drum-roll please…as promised, here is the latest installment of the…

Stay Tuned for:

Pumpkin “Patch”

This was more fun at stop lights then an iced turban in the middle of summer!

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

“Raining Beetles”

ESPatch Sep 9, 2010 15 comments

This week in the Patch has been alive with the rather flatulent sounding flying antics of these large bumbling beetles. Loads of them. The short journey to my garden shed has had me ducking, hopping, and occasionally screaming like a young girl as these beasts of burden try to desperately control their flight paths, occasionally dive bombing me like blundering wildebeests on the wing. When navigational and flying skills were handed out, these Figeater beetles (also known as the green fruit beetle or fig beetle)…

Cotinis mutabilis

…apparently missed the entire meeting, they probably just got “turned around” and then distracted by a fig or peach tree on the way. I witnessed one hit into my back porch with such velocity, I swear I could hear the wind get knocked out of it…it audibly wheezed, gathered itself, before going on it’s random way in a kind of stunned, sideways flying fashion…“I’m alright, I’m alright…meant to do that…doing okay now.”

They have turned up this week in plague-like proportions. Figeater beetles are oftenconfused with the green June beetle ,their appearance is quite similar, but the green June beetle is smaller and as the name suggests they are generally witnessed earlier on in the year. To make identification even harder, the only possible geographical crossover of both species occurs right here in the state of Texas. It is a member of the scarab beetle family.

I rather like these blundering iridescent beetles, as do my kids who have been running around catching them in their butterfly net…and those legs and front pincer feet (top image, brr) are as formidable looking as this science fiction splitting datura seed pod…

I have a tray strategically situated under this “ready to hurl” spiny seed pod. What an amazing sight, there must be hundreds of seeds here ready to go “Blah” on my decomposed granite pathway. It is ridiculous that I now consult my wife…“do you think I have the tray positioned in the right place?’ We both look at the seed pod from various angles and position the tray accordingly…“left a bit, yes, right there”… until we agree. I have already planted out a lot of these seeds in my hellstrip.

It is like we are playing one of those skill cranes at Dave and Busters!

“Aye, look at her, she is about tae have a core dump ESP, she’s gonna blow!”

“Ach, ah canna’ believe yer using Scotty’s fake Scottish accent and vulgarities, instead of mine now ESP!”

Poor William.

With the forecast of bad weather on the horizon I thought I should go ahead and get some plants in the ground for one of my clients. I pulled into a nursery, got a bunch of plants and as I approached my trusted steed to load up, I noticed that something was not as it should be…

I have no idea how or when this hole in my window appeared…as if my pick up wasn’t red-neck enough already. It now looks completely ridiculous with dwarf miscanthus grasses poking out the side and a huge Buddah’s belly protruding five feet beyond my tailgate (asomewhat disheveled turban naturally completing the scene). What made the situation even worse was that every time I went over a bump…well exactly.

So how do I try to start to summarizewhat has happened this past week in central Texas? We went from scorching dry conditions…

…to hurricane Hermine, and Hermine was not going to be satisfied until she had packed a punch with lots and lots and lots of rain. Oh, and did she deliver!

Some areas around Austin ended up at around the 8″ mark at the end of a night and day of sustained heavy rains. My pathways turned into running streams. I could hear the spirals of the hurricane hit my metal roof in waves whilst I was lying in my bed grinning like an insane Cheshire cat.

With every wave of rain my grin widened.

The noise of the storm brought with it the sound of tiny scampering feet (non-feline) followed by the inevitable late night, rather poltergeist sounding…

“Mommy it’s here!”

This midnight wandering is always followed by some predictable groaning…“No, no, no…Go back to bed, its late”…shortly before everyone immediately ends up in our bed…(the ESP / Walton’s ‘norm in a storm’ reaction)!

When this happens, my five year old daughter transforms immediately into a rugby union scrum-half, she proceeds to take full-advantage of her luxurious (I’m in my parents bed) position and for no apparent reason proceeds to repeatedly kick me in the kidneys until I am teetering on the edge of my side of the bed, bruised, battered and curled into a submissive fetal position. It does not matter how I react or try to anticipate her abusive nocturnal habits, over (subconscious) time, she always has me in a check mate position (the edge of the bed) by approximately 4am. (A number that is ironically comparable to the strategic chess / body moves it usually takes her to get me there).

She is a Russian Master!…Paige Nosleepnifcofv.

Naturally this is perfect timing on her part to totally ensure that I break all natural biorhythms, ensuring, once again, complete sleep deprivation. The ‘quacking-goose’ I-phone alarm goes off at precisely the moment that I fall back to sleep…6:00am – kindergarten…Ahhh.

Back to the Patch…

This little chap (I believe it is some type of squirrel treefrog) was enjoying all the wet weather in the bottom of this toy bucket.

My Celosia on the other hand had buckled over onto the sidewalk in the soggy conditions. I placed a few large rocks at their bases to support them. I am hoping they will regain their composure as we dry up a little.

The returning and reflected sun hit this gazing ball perfectly, illuminating the underside of the leaves of my Mexican lime tree that has made a pretty decent return after I cut it back to the ground after last winter’s freezes.

This Mexican Petunia immediately responded to having its large underground container filled up with the wet stuff.

I will leave you all to contemplate this rather mysterious scene from my garden…

It looks like a bunch of tiny red light bulbs devouring some paper wasps wings?

Inspirational image of the week:

The balconies of the “Cactus House” apartment building in Rotterdam were designed to maximize outdoor gardening space for tenants. The splaying stack of slabs creates big terraces for gardening and the irregular shape allows sun to enter from multiple angles.

The cactus house reminds me of my pine cone cactus:

I have been meaning to do this for a while…