Ahhh, I can sense that the Summer is finally giving up its sweaty grip, we actually
switched off our air-conditioning the other night, the sheer anarchy!
This cooling image of water beading on the underside of some shell ginger,
reminded me to hang up my turbans in the shed for next summers sweat fest.
Staying with shell ginger…has anyone seen the size of the ginger outside
of bookpeople, on Lamar? Wow!
It was so hot this past summer, even the blue jays
have been pulling out their feathers, in an attempt
to keep cool.
The heat also attracted some of the more exotic species of chameleons into the back yard, I believe this variety is referred to as the “Blue Beaded Long Tongue.”
Looking up into the giant timber bamboo. This particular bamboo has grown a tremendous amount this year, it has hoisted up five new culms this summer. My oldest giant timber at the back of the property has not grown a single culm! Very odd.
When young, the culms are covered in this white powdery
substance – I believe it may be silica?
“Aha! so that is vere my snap-on spare collar vent to”!
The sheath surrounds the culm, then gradually unfurls and drops off, as the culm matures.
Here is the same bamboo bed with a mass planting of Hoja Santa.
And now for something completely different...
This was to be the morning, the morning I was to reach for my
lumberjack shirt in my closet, the morning I was to ready my axe,
the morning I was to cut down the Agave beanstalk!
I have been striding over it, Limbo dancing under it, and
practicing balance beam on it for way too long.
Today is a day for felling!
TIMBER!!!
I was surprised how easy it was to cut down and also how light the whole thing was. Even though I am not very tall (about 2 1/2 feet) I had absolutely no trouble cutting, or carrying the trunk. For some reason I had thought that the trunk was still feeding the attached pups, but, looking at the trunk interior I think this stopped quite some time ago. I have needlessly be hurdling up my back yard for nothing! I guess the exercise can’t hurt.
Here is the severed pole…mmm…now what to do with it? Tossing the Caber anyone?
I decided to store it next to it’s offspring, which are all doing well, – a fitting end!
So if any Austin bloggers want to pick some agave plants fresh from the stalk, swing by and help yourself to one ot two, ten or twenty!
Perhaps the stalk will last until the Oct 19th get together, if it does, it will be manditory for you all to take at least
ten each! (Thanks Pam for “including” me in this event).
Oh and Vicki, dysfunctionality is a given at the east-side-patch **smiles**
Now to extract that agave carcass, where is my half shovel?
“Say AAAAHHHH”
The wizened base of the dead agave looks like the underside of a giant mushroom.
With a considerable amount of shoving and hacking, the giant octopus was finally landed on deck.
Sir David Attenborough:
“Here we are in the middle of the Nabooboo forest where we can observe a tribal member of the Na,Na,Nabooboo tribe wearing an agave carcass as a ceremonial headdress”. It is widely believed that these headdresses were adorned to signify a “bad hair day” to the rest of the tribe.”
Ground zero of the agave site, the extraction turned out to be quite destructive, it looks like a shock wave has hit the nearby terrain of succulents.
I caught this swallowtail laying eggs on one of my small citrus trees. They are always so easily spooked, it is hard to get a good detailed photograph of them. I stood quietly at this citrus for 10 minutes, looking certifiably mad, and these were the best I could do.
A good reason to grow a few citrus trees though.
“Get a grip Spock, you are chief science officer,
I have told you before, this is a swallowtail
butterfly from Earth, not “Q” in one of his disguises”.
“Captain you always help me to quell these illogical
human emotions.”
Amaranth going bezerk, this one is particularly huge, it is now working on growing the long purple seed pods. A great fall show.
Amaranth is an abbreviated term for the members of genus amaranthus (family Amaranthaceae). Amaranth (Amaranthus) has a colorful history, the Aztecs made a mixture into idols that were eaten in their sacrifices and religious rituals. Because of this the Spanish conquistadors abolished amaranth to eliminate the sacrifices. So the plant was lost for hundreds of years. Only to a few out of way places used it and thus saved it for us.
Amaranth? Amaranth? Yes, we must ban the plant with the
silly seed heads!
This succulent bed’s weird inhabitants always capture my attention with their oceanic forms.
Mexican fire bush. I only recently planted this, it has grown really fast!
Stay tuned for:
“So many weeds, so little time”
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