Texas Blizzard

Sounds like a joke of a title, but we actually had about 8 inches of snow in Dallas on Feb 12th. It broke all kinds of records for snowfall in our area--and also made for some beautiful winter scenes--so uncommon in Texas.






Oak Tree


Redbud



Crepe Myrtle


Potato Boxes


Hackberry





cottonwood



We lost power for more than 24 hours and got to practice our 'emergency prepardness'... and we did pretty darn good--with help.

Good Points:
1) had flashlights and candles ready within seconds of power failure
2) hot water and range top stove run on gas and were functional without electricity
3) doubled up on PJ's for kids and eventually all piled into our bed for warmth
4) open blinds allowed for plenty of light during the day
5) did fun activities like making homemade pasta to keep from getting bored during the day
6) both of our jobs were flexible to allow us time for this local emergency
7) we have GREAT friends, who loaned us a generator to hook up the blower to the gas heater so we had heat.
8) house only dropped by about 10 degrees overnight

Bad Points:
1) had to borrow a generator
2) Had no alternative heat source w/o electricity
3) Had no safe, long term light source, only candles and flashlights
4) Sandra did not have enough warm clothes to really bundle up
5) got kind of bored during the day, and would have gone nuts during the evening before bed
6) had no means of baking (very minor point)


It was kind of a fun experience, almost like camping at home. It really opened our eyes to what we need to work on and what seemed to work well for us.

October 29, 2009

Finally, I see some evidence that we have a bee hive in our yard. The bees totally ignore all of my blooming landscape plants but were swarming the weeds!





Here is the garden in late October. The Hyacinth bean over the trellis did half way well, only the right side really grew great. I did not take the time this year to tend to the vine and make sure it grew over the top. This is what happens when it is allowed to just go crazy. If I don't go to the garden enough, the vines have a way of closing off the entrance and I have had to cut my way through the arbor.


The squash did not do so great this fall. Probably because right after they were planted, we replaced the fence and the garden got trampled repeatidly.

Here are a few small yellow squash. They are about the size of my thumb.

The peppers are doing great!

Mint has spread to 10x its original size (it was a 4" pot size in April).



Stevia has bloomed, but remained fairly short.



The pineapple sage is so pretty when it blooms, too bad bees can't see red!

Jacobs Cattle Bean

We planted a new type of shelling bean this year called Jacob's Cattle Bean.

Pretty beans, just like spotted cows. Purchased from Seeds of Change http://www.seedsofchange.com/garden_center/product_details.aspx?item_no=S10954

It is an heirloom variety of bush shelling bean. I put in a single row, as an afterthought along the fence line of the garden.
Jacobs Cattle Bean Row, April 24, 2009


The plants came up strong and topped out at only about 8-12 inches tall. Despite the small height, each plant had 4-8 pods on it.
May 24, 2009

When the beans were young, I picked about a dozen and cooked them up like green beans (blanched and cooled to eat), but they were too tough for my tastes. After that experiment, I just allowed the pods to dry on the plants.

Harvet on June 11th, 2009

I picked all of the plants on June 11th, just before a big rain. 90% of the plants were dead from the heat and the others were yellowed. I allowed the plants to dry in a basket for a few days and then enlisted the help of boy's small fingers to help shell the beans. Forget child labor laws, he loved the task.

It was not much of a harvest. I planted about 20 plants and harvested 1/2 cup of beans, mabye enough for a side dish. I'm not sure it was really worthwhile use of space in my small garden. Still, what a pretty bean and my first sucessful crop of shelling beans.