“Picking on the Paddles”

ESPatch Apr 20, 2013 4 comments

Looking like Medieval instruments of torture the hooks on these

Opuntia ellisiana

paddles (spineless prickly pear) have been keeping someone very busy this week.

First comes the paddle selection…

…there is no shortage to choose from,

then the picking,

and removal of ‘select’ hooks.

“The beauty of suffering.”

Like little voodoo dolls I keep finding them all around the house, dangling where ever there is a free nail.

http://www.eastsidepatch.com/2009/08/pressing-along/

They are like Cactus Man’s…

Moving Less Disturbingly Along:

Plants are very happy after our rain and sun.

My post oak has finally leafed out and stopped raining its catkins everywhere.

Inland sea oats are quick on the rise, and one of my favorite tropical-looking shrubs,

Nerium oleander,

‘Hardy Red’ is putting on a, well…red show on the edge of my Hell-strip.

‘Hardy Red’ tolerates temperature extremes better than the white and pink cultivars, it blooms sporadically through most of the year.

Prefers sharp soil and good drainage,

as do most things in the Patch, like this

back-lit sotol, and these barrels:

I contemplated picking off last year’s old blooms, then decided better of it. I will wait until I have my pliers, besides there is that stubborn piece of Bermuda grass that I always have to work on, (bottom-right) but I do not want to talk about that.

herbert lom dreyfus

With the discovery of the first tadpoles of the year, the netting began.

Not so little fingers went fast to work,

their catch and release policy even included a few baby goldfish which is a good thing considering recent events.

Finally:

My landscape design portfolio finally outgrew the page that it once inhabited in here, so for the past few weeks I have been busy learning Thesis 2 and building a new home for it in here:

http://www.leveridgelandscapedesign.com/

Stay Tuned for:

“Test of Courage”

All material © 2013 for eastsidepatch. Unauthorized
intergalactic reproduction strictly prohibited, and
punishable by late (and extremely unpleasant)
14th century planet Earth techniques.

Feel better soon Dad!

“The Small Patch of Land that Time Forgot”

ESPatch Mar 29, 2013 6 comments

I am repeating myself.

There is an awful lot going on in and outside of here…

an awful lot indeed.

I put on my backpack, grabbed some

kendal-mint-cake-white-large

and embarked on another expedition, this time into my circular planting bed.

Hacking a path with my machete, the foliage at ground level was dense and foreboding, not much sunlight made it through the dense larkspur upper canopy.

There were occasional breaks in the foliage where water had, over thousands of years, eroded deep gorges and holes into the ancient rocks.

I observed Sedum reflexum growing as large as pine trees on some of the rock faces and massive tarp-like hoja santa leaves that offered protection from the sun.

This particular rock face had vertical drop-offs and treacherous pathways.

I passed what I assumed to be some of this regions indigenous tribes-folk, strangely they did not say a word.

At the summit of this mountain I was surprised to find

these exotic tiny frogs, basking in the filtered sunlight. I observed them for some time until the silence was broken by a loud whooshing sound over the other side of the rock face.

Jings, crivens help ma boab!

What was this place that time had forgot? (Overly dramatic score)

compass_telescope_old_treasure_map-1680x1050

In the next valley there were

towering toadstools and

groves of these “Jewels of Opar”,

though their “jewels” had a lot of growing to do…ahem.

High up in the distance I could make out the silhouettes of more monsters,

monsters that had…RETRACTED PROBOSCIS!

And you all know how I feel about those.

Of course there are other monsters that roam down the decomposed granite pathways in the Patch.

This one has a green thumb.

Yes it was time for me to exit this small patch of land that time had forgot before things got any more ridiculous.

Back to my normal size:

These star gazer lilies sit there most of the year doing absolutely nothing. They burn at the edges in the middle of summer, require some trimming, but once a year, for a very short time they do this:

Which makes it worthwhile…I think.

The bluebonnets have also done amazing well despite the worsening drought situation in central Texas.

I even have one white one…just the one.

White bluebonnets are the result of a mutation in one of the genes responsible for producing the blue pigment of the flower, they are quite a rare phenomena, pink bluebonnets being the rarest.

Finally:

Now the neighborhood kids are getting in on the climbing the hobbit gate act.

The “Oh, I don’t think so” image of the week: