Spring

It's definitely spring here in Galveston, Texas, even though we are having cooler than normal weather. The roses are growing like crazy and blooming more and more.  The Mexican butterfly weed has leafed out and then been devoured by thirty-some catapillers. All the deciduous shrubs are leafing out. The Mexician honeysuckle is in almost full bloom.  The grass is needing mowing at least every ten days. And Natalie and I have a strong compulsion to play in the dirt.

Part of the pansy bed

These begonias bloom all year round

Each day is a new adventure in the garden with new blooms appearing,new shoots coming up out of bare ground, and new butterflies appearing. Anticipation is building as we wait for the first ruby-throated hummingbirds. I have a feeder just outside the window where I work on my computer  so I'll be sure to see them.  Natalie did some rearranging of the dog fences she has up and now we have a way into a section of the garden that was almost inaccessible.  So I'm working on getting it weeded and dug out a Confederate Rose that volunteered to grow to about twelve feet over last summer - that starting from a seed - and which then shaded a lot of the vegetable area.

Mexican sage - this was blooming in the winter and is starting back up

The Kalanchoes are in full bloom

Mexican Honeysuckle is almost fully open and ready for hummers

One of the few petunias to survive - snails ate the rest almost immedately

I think this is a non-native, tropical sage - but it grows like mad here - both sun and light shade

 I have been weeding the front yard (weeds are seldom dormant here) and transplanting and planting more cilantro and parsley.  (Our first batch of cilantro went to seed while we were in Big Bend and the seven big beautiful parsley plants are usually just inch high stems, thanks to an unknown, and very sneaky predator. We even covered some with screen but they were eaten down overnight anyway. So a couple of new ones are in pots and I'm going to transplant the others into pots and see if I can hide them where they will be able to produce leaves.

Snapdragons Natalie grew from seed and I transplanted

The fruit trees are almost through blooming and are putting out leaves

 Our baby zinnias, tomatoes, and basil are mostly sullking but hopefully putting them outside in full sun will get them going. On cool, nights - under 50 degrees - we still carry then back inside.

Some of our seedlings

I couldn't resits this little Cherokee tomato and also bought a new Earthbox for it. 

 We only had one day with about five minutes of frost. So our fall crops are still alive and are thinking about making another crop for us.

We have lots of tomatoes in the tomato jungle - but all are still green

Last year's eggplants are blooming again

A lot of what I've been doing is digging out stuff, cutting back, and weeding, weeding, weeding.

 I just had to take a little break from reports on Big Bend Hiking.  But I've finally finished editing the pictures from the most beautiful (and hardest) hike of all I did. But we'll go back to Big Bend at least one more time.

I'm also spending a lot of time at doctors.  Currently I'm up to six: A chiropractor, a family doctor, an orthopedic surgeon, a pain specialist, and a nerve specialist, and a gastroenterologist. But it is all just for general checkups and to try to figure out and fix what ails my shoulder.  It doesn't stop my paddling so it's not that bad. But I don't like being poked and I'm getting way too much of all that, including blood work this morning.