Category: North Texas Gardening

Sometimes things don’t turn out … And I’m talking about Pies

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Tonight I worked my tail off to make two different pies for my church’s family night. I planned to blog about it and include several recipes – Buttermilk pie, Pumpkin Pie and Never Fail Pie Crust. The pies turned out great. However in my documentation process, I missed a few key steps in the photography … So I’ll have to go through the process again to fill in the gaps.

I hate it when this happens! I had a little imperfection, then I tried to fix it, but made it worse!

I had a few distractions:

My sweet little kid with his butter knife ready to slice open the pumpkins
  • A helper, who needs a lot of help
  • Burned-out light bulbs, making my photos look really off tonight, way more than usual
  • And a malfunctioning iPhone
  • Kid homework that ended up not getting done – thank God he is only in preschool.
  • Time change … just thought I’d throw that in too

The pie recipes will come later this week. Hopefully it will inspire you to make one of these pies for your family’s Thanksgiving.

Here’s the teaser:

Buttermilk Pie (with the Never-fail Pie Crust) Recipe to follow.
Days of our Chives and Elvis Parsley keeping watch over the pumpkin pie baking.

Aquarium Gone. Now What?

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Aquarium, part deaux.

The aquarium in its glory days:

And the photo doesn't do it justice.

Over the weekend my husband started the process of taking down our 120 gallon saltwater aquarium. Three days later, and a whole lot of elbow grease, the tank and contents have been broken down and moved into the garage. The garage smells like Galveston, Texas. Amazing how smelly saltwater can get when it’s not moving.

It’s also quiet in the house – really quiet. There is no more pitter-pat of running water. No more whirl and hum of filters and pumps. No more fizzy bubble sounds.

Saltwater is seriously corrosive. It peeled the paint off the baseboard and discolored the the wall. We’ll be going to get a gallon of primer and matching paint so we can touch up [repaint] the wall. No wonder classic car enthusiasts don’t want cars from the coast or northern states where they use salt on the roads.

But now we have this huge, blank space in our main living room – a little more than 8 ft. of wall space. Everything is off balance. Before we had this nice balance – the fireplace on one end and aquarium on the opposite end.

Before/After

The initial set up
After the aquarium ... (the photo isn't great, but you can see the space).

I have a some ideas …

  1. Bookcases, you can never have enough
IKEA totally Rocks!

2. Kid space, with toys and games and stuff (all organized)

Yeah, right. Our crap never gets put back up and our kid is spoiled.

 

3. Art! (I’m not an art-y person but can appreciate a nice original, professional or amateur.)

Starry Night, Y'all.

 

4. A collage photo gallery — I take lots of photos of flowers. Maybe a good place for a collection of framed originals.

Zinnia blossom a few days before the "killer" frost.
Passion vine. Hearty vine that even the grasshoppers don't bother.
A Taos Mountain flower with a moth. Maybe a entomogy major can identify it.

 

5.  A wine rack (with wine, of course)

Williams Sonoma Rocks!

 

 

Nanny …  all I want for Christmas is a gift card to IKEA!

When Frost Happens

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One and a half days ago the weather really changed when a powerful cold front move through. The temps dropped considerably in an 18 hour span. It went from being summer to fall in a few hours. There was nothing gradual about it. But then again this year has been anything but typical … 10 degrees in February then 100 degrees in April. Really!? Seriously!?

Yesterday… (OK, 1.5 days ago)

Today …

The first hard, killing frost happened close to dawn today – it was 25 degrees at 8:15 this morning. The frost twinkled brightly all over creation this morning.

At the stop sign near my kid’s school …

Sun on the left, frost on the right. Awesome display of the warmth of the sun.

I attempted to cover my garden and a nice stand of Siam basil in my front flower bed. I had beautiful zinnias in orange and pink. Zinnias are a favorite of mine because they bloom constantly and do well in the hateful August sun plus they are drought tolerant. And we had a hell of a hot, dry summer this year.

When Frost Happens, Things Die.

Yesterday …

Today ….


The frost happened, and made this a very sad flower (and a dead flower.)

Frost killed this future eggplant.

Dead basil.

Although, the frost can bring about beauty of its own.

(How great is it to have a handy iPhone when you are driving down the alley and see something pretty?)

Welcome to the weekend, y’all!

Working for the Weekend

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It’s almost Friday, and I’m Working for the Weekend. Some weeks are longer than others, and that’s when you need a good laugh.

The song is Solid Gold 80s and Loverboy’s contribution to the working man’s anthem. If you remember the 70s guitar rock and over-the-top 80s hair bands, then this music video will sing to your heart.

I can remember standing in the music section of the local Walmart ogling the album cover. It was so salacious for its time and so very 80s excess – red leather pants on a hot ass with crossed fingers behind your back, titled “Get Lucky.” That is 80s greatness.

My husband and I had been talking about a YouTube lip-synch video we saw a couple years ago featuring this song. Considering the 80s era, subject matter and music itself, there is a lot to work with here.

It is a clever lip-synch music video that looks like a well-thought out SNL skit, complete with stereotypical musician characters and a cowbell.

The original video upload was on a blog (back when we still called them weblogs) in 2005 by a guy named Shawn (Barrett) Barrester, now archived on YouTube. Watch closely–and this is the best part– it’s the same guy. Barrester plays every part, in character.

What might have started out as a party trick ends up being a true homage to Loverboy, not to mention it’s damn funny and impressive all at once.

After watching this a few times I can tell a few things about the star of the video:

  1. He has a witty sense of humor and isn’t afraid to use it.
  2. He’s a technophile because for 2005 the editing and production value are sophisticated.
  3. This guy is a really talented musician and can play any instrument he picks up. He has quality instruments and plays every lick. Replay the video a few times and watch when each instrument is featured. He is really hitting the guitar riffs and he knows how to play the drums. But the characters are what really bring the video to life. .
  4. He’s very fit and works out, probably with weights. He has impeccable rhythm and timing
  5. He has been singing in front of the mirror for a really long time. Go baby, go!

I’m working for the weekend!

Happy Friday, Y’all.

Killing Frost and Terrorist Black Flies

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The first day of November was glorious—a bright blue sky, upper 70s, no wind, overnight low in the upper 50s. Totally kick-ass weather for growing a fall crop of tomatoes, eggplants and chili peppers.

This is North Texas …It can be 90 degrees one day and 30 the next; we can have 100-degree temperature swings within the same year.


(February 2011. It was 10 degrees. 113 degrees August 5, 2011 after 10 p.m. )

I knew something was up because the last two days have been filled with black flies acting crazy, terrorizing me – at home, the office, the coffee shop, everywhere.

Black flies are one of the most annoying critters on Plant Earth. I grew up on a ranch with lots of animals pooping nearby, let’s just say you can never have enough fly swats, fly paper or bug zappers. But when the flies swarm and act crazier than usual, you know the weather is about to change. After a sudden killing frost you can walk around and see thousands of fly exoskeletons on the ground.

As a gardener, I know the end is near for my tender annual vegetables—it’s November. I’m in USDA zone 7B with an average first frost date of November 14. But, I’m clinging to the hope that I can nurse my plants along, especially since they just started producing fruit after surviving a wretchedly hot, bone-dry summer. (No exaggeration, it’s on record as the driest, hottest summer since 1950).

So I pulled up my trusty weather app on my iPhone and sure enough … big cold front moving in—decidedly not good for the garden.

I put in an emergency call to handyman husband to get supplies at the hardware store and I made a mad 5 p.m. dash to the feed store to get plastic sheeting. An hour and a half later we have the garden covered. (I am not going back out there to take a picture, Ok I took a picture this morning.)

The temps went from 70 degrees to 45 in about two hours with winds gusting up to 40 mph. I made one last harvest, just in case.

Jalapenos are beautiful, fruity and spicy-delicious right out of the garden.

Serrano peppers just off the vine.

Thanks for the help, sweet husband. Eggplant parmesan is in your future.

Hometown Halloween

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Halloween is one of those holidays that, as a kid, you look forward to all year long. I remember moving to a neighborhood after college and looking forward to greeting trick-or-treaters, only to find that there weren’t many kids around. And they didn’t go to a stranger’s house, even if it was next door.

Halloween moved into the category of a reason “to party” as an adult. Then I left the big city and traded my zero-lot line home for a traditional neighborhood in a small town. Now married with a kid, I live on a street where I know everyone’s name, and their dogs’ names too.

Halloween has once again become something magical and full of whimsy. All the things I remember as a child growing up in a small town. My son, John, was adamant about being Mario this year. (I’m glad we had Fox News on … that always indicates that my dad is at my house.)

Here in my little town they do it up right. There are car loads and trucks pulling trailers full of kids, decorations and an abundance of children weaving through streets and yards.

My son is trick-or-treating at the across-the-street neighbor’s house – he got homemade sugar cookies. That doesn’t happen in the city. People will think you are trying to poison their kids, even if they live across the street. These neighbors are also retired teachers that taught science and algebra to me.

And it’s on! We trick-or-treat on something I call the “miracle mile” also known as Rodgers Drive. We can walk up our alley, cut through a neighbor’s yard and walk a one-mile loop and get all the good loot.

It’s a gaggle of girls plotting their next Halloween maneuver.  How much you want to bet that this basic scene will occur many times in the years to come? I’m glad I have a boy.

There are multiple generations waiting on the door step to give out candy because there are so many kids …

Not the greatest photo, but you get the idea… there are quite literally thousands of kids that stream through this cool  neighborhood. (We actually don’t live in this neighborhood, but we’re in walking distance!)

The intersection at Randy and Rodgers Drive … I wasn’t kidding when I said cars, trucks and trailers full of kids.

After our loop we end up back at our house and answer our own front door for the second wave of kids. Halloween is something of a marvel in our town. It really is something that looks like it was staged for a movie. By the way, we live in a place where we leave our kids outside to play in the street, which seems crazy in any place other than Arcadia.