Stories

“A Very Big Mistake”

ESPatch May 4, 2014 2 comments

Houston…we are a go for ignition.

These explosive clouds were fitting as we were up close to some rather large rocket engines at the NASA Space Center in Houston recently.

It always amazes me how much hardware is involved,

fuzes, cabling, flux capacitors.

It looks like the back of my TV.

Oh yes, we were back in familiar Griswold territory…

We even took a lame space shuttle simulator ride into orbit,

which turned out to be a very big mistake.

Being the first to embark the simulator we waited and waited until the attendants had squeezed enough people into the already confined space to make it feel really uncomfortable…hmm, perhaps they were simulating the cramped conditions in space?

The two doors finally closed sending the temperature inside the capsule sky-rocketing (ahem 1) to what could only be described as atmospheric re-entry conditions, oh yes it was really uncomfortable now and we had not even reached orbit yet.

index2 I glanced down at my daughter sitting beside me to see how she was holding up, she looked back up at me with wide-eyed distress, a green clammy complexion and a fake smile.

I also noticed she had some subtle facial twitches going on.

fat-bastard Add to the mix a perfusion of body odors, a fusing together of a myriad of personal hygiene and hair products and the fact we were all being shunted around on unconvincing hydraulics whilst looking at a graphical simulation that was a world away (ahem 2) from anything close to resembling high definition.

Oh yes, I was at the end of my endurance tether and ready to hit the emergency ‘Houston we have a problem’ button.

I would have aborted the ride if it were not for the fact we must have spent a grand total of 15 seconds in ‘orbit’ before our premature rattling decent back to earth,

but you certainly didn’t hear me complaining.

The doors opened up, everybody inhaled fresh oxygen and walked down the stairwell adjusting their garments whilst grumbling and mumbling about paying $7 for ‘that’.

We did get to see a mock up of the NASA’s next generation ‘Orion’ spacecraft.

Orion’s first flight test, called Exploration Flight Test-1, will launch this year atop a Delta IV Heavy rocket from Cape Canaveral. The green arrow indicates where the crew module is located on the launch vehicle.

Back on the ground in the Patch:

Feather grasses are now waning,

their seed heads are already matting and falling over under their weight.

He rolled the seeds up

and then kept rolling.

When I mentioned that under no circumstances should the seedball be planted as the resulting monster feather grass would most certainly consume our house and we would have to cut a tunnel through it to get in our front door…

…well they didn’t hesitate.

The first purple martin scouts arrived this week.

This one spent the entire day battling with aggressive sparrows (as they do every year) that had already set up permanent camp in the nest-box.

I had another much stranger bird encounter this week,

straight out of Wallace & Gromit…

I was driving down Cesar Chavez, as you do, when I noticed a small bobbing head down next to my wiper. It kept emerging then disappearing under the hood of the truck.

Poor little guy must have fallen out of it’s nest.

Staying with birds:

Desert Bird of Paradise

Caesalpinia gilliesii

is a relative newcomer to the Patch. I planted this one last year in poor sandy soil and it liked it. I was also surprised that it pulled through the freezes with ease.

This plant looks great paired with the dark backdrop and contrasting broad tropical foliage of loquat, a combination I will be replicating.

Another toxic plant gets established in the Patch.

I do not remember this Mountain Laurel ever looking this healthy, perhaps it is making up for a poor bloom year.

Apart from occasionally hacking back of the rosemary the front of the Patch thrives on neglect and relies mostly on foliage,

though larkspur really livened it up under the vitex tree this year.

Stay Tuned For:

“Uncle Wiggily wants his Ovaltine”

free-form All material © 2014 for eastsidepatch. Unauthorized
intergalactic reproduction strictly prohibited, and
punishable by late (and extremely unpleasant)
14th century planet Earth techniques

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“Running up that Hill”

ESPatch Mar 22, 2014 8 comments

The logistics, design and installation of this next back garden had me “Running up that Hill” more times then I care to mention.

This garden had very narrow access, just wide enough to fit a wheelbarrow.

Once through the initial entryway an immediate hairpin bend to the left needed to be circumnavigated before embarking on the relative luxury of stretch of straight pathway.

A third of the way way down the home straight are some steps that take you up to a patio on the upper level…the hill.

These steps, and the strategically placed double glass door at the bottom of them (just to add to the overall stress levels) in combination with trying to roll rather large and unwieldy slabs of 2″ thick over-sized Oklahoma flagstone up them, provided ample ‘excitement’ during the installation process.

images (3)

The concrete pathway on the lower section terminated in a sticky poorly-draining area at the other end of the house. The dirt from the hill had washed down into the trench and was creating pooling when it rained.

Here is the top plateau receiving a good clear-out, grade leveling and excavation:

This top area lacked definition and had no real function or purpose, a no-man’s land.

Time to hit the drawing board…

I wanted to link the top and bottom areas with a pathway that would connect up with the top patio (and the “stressful steps”) providing a walkable loop around the entire space.

These are the renderings that I used to communicate the design intent to the client, and oh yes…is that another hardy red oleander in the plan TD?…You bet there is!

Although this winter has been hard on even the hardy:

It will soon recover though.

Back to the plan:

Sunken flagstone steps would be required to get to the upper plateau which would be planted with drought tolerant and tough plants on either side of the flagstone. Trailing rosemary and lantana were added to take advantage of the front limestone cliff.

Here are the flagstone steps getting hacked and leveled into the existing limestone shelf:

Before:

And here is the finished top plateau freshly planted:

The alternating trailing rosemary and basket grasses will eventually fill in up to the flagstone, cover and stabilize the limestone rocks and earth on top of the cliff.

Basket grass (Sacahuista)

Nolina texana

works great on dry limestone slopes like this.

Basket grass is not a true grass, it is actually a member of the agave family. It is evergreen, requires no pruning (unless to remove an old flower spike), it is heat, cold and drought tolerant, resistant to deer, slow growing, low maintenance and best of all it can tolerate almost all soil types.

Oh yes, this plant packs an impressive and versatile xeriscape resume.

It is happiest in the rocky soils of West and South Texas – its native habitat.

The silver-blue color pairs well with rosemary and opuntia offering a lot of winter structure and color. Be careful not to plant too close to a pathway as the long flat blades can be quite sharp.

This installation took an intensive four days to complete, the intensity clearly evident by the state of my truck by the end of it:

Urgh!

Back in the Patch:

I am really happy to report that his front pearly whites (both top and bottom) are now in the tiny hands of the fairies and once again I can relax when he approaches me although, I have noticed a substantial increase in wet projectiles as he talks.

Best stay at ‘DEFCON 3’ for the time being.

DEFCON 5: Normal peacetime / home readiness, general and peaceful couch / movie / gaming / relaxing ESP family time.

DEFCON 4: Normal, increased intelligence and strengthened security measures:

This generally relates to screen-time abuse / Minecraft server / WordPress logins / Password and Username issues, DEFCON 4 has a direct effect on weekly allowance and can sometimes involve internal WIFI connectivity issues, domestic bills, Amazon ordering debates and sparrows populating our purple martin box.

sparrows
DEFCON 3: Increase in force readiness above normal readiness:

Including intermittent and unintentional saliva evacuation, flies in the house / on food and gross things found in the garden and pond that are subsequently brought into close proximity and presented on our back deck or worse, inside the house…as in: “Dad…Kumo has a….

“…Lets move to DEFCON3 people!”

Example of a DEFCON 3 incident: http://www.eastsidepatch.com/2012/04/exploding-goldfish/

DEFCON 2: Further Increase in force readiness, but less than maximum readiness:

This includes the wiggling of teeth at obscure angles and involves me directly should a major domestic appliance or vehicle suddenly stop functioning. We ALWAYS move directly to DEFCON 2 should the toilet plunger see some action or the compost bins are full and require immediate evacuation.

DEFCON 1: Maximum force readiness:

Obnoxious odor-emanation at close quarters, instantaneous projectile vomiting, high-fevers and stepping into any unmentionables. Rats, roaches and toilet overflows warrant an immediate DEFCON 1 emergency response.

Internally we classify the degree of a DEFCON 1 incident by the height of the reactionary jump:

Moving more sensibly along:

‘Cactus Man Jr’ is now in a somewhat unnerving state of perpetual winking, and

his acne is getting alarmingly worse.

For anyone who does not know this somewhat disturbing story, I killed the original Cactus Man in a horrible, overtly aggressive face-carving incident which, in turn, killed all the other paddles in the adjacent area (his family).

Some time later the paddles started growing again and Cactus Man (Jr) popped up in exactly the same place where the mutilation originally occurred, only this time the paddle had already grown some eyes!

The recent winking transformation is like his way of acknowledging the botanical irony.

Finally:

Yes once again I got bullied, as I do every year around this time, into buying another ice-plant from the nursery.

I tucked it into a secluded spot around this yucca where it was was not in my direct line of sight.

Out of sight – out of mind.

The first Walsker lily pads are showing up in my ponds, these early pads always carry some of the most vivid coloration.

This sand cherry does a pretty good job also.

I need some burgundy canna around the base of this shrub.

I will leave you with a couple of performances on Saint Patrick’s Day:

http://youtu.be/WAAth4KMqyQ

Stay Tuned for:

“Blooming Canthas!”

All material © 2014 for eastsidepatch. Unauthorized
intergalactic reproduction strictly prohibited, and
punishable by late (and extremely unpleasant)
14th century planet Earth techniques