Texas Gardening: A nice day to sit by the fire and visit... Come sit a spell, 1 by bettydee

bettydee wrote:
Pod, That warm fire looks so inviting. I love your greenhouse. It looks like you'll have plenty of air circulation through it in summer. Does it get shaded by the trees during the summer? Here, keeping a greenhouse cool is the biggest problem. That and keeping the Bermuda grass out. I made the mistake of asking for pavers to increase the humidity. Big mistake!!! Next lifetime, it'll be wall to wall grooved cement or solid cement covered with river stones.

Christi, my plants didn't get a chance to harden off either. I'm most concerned over my Crinums. They should come back. They did last year after all that sleet, but the ice cover came later in winter not this early. I was going to leave the dead leaves on as cover.

I returned yesterday after taking my DH to the airport to find the Crinums had been neatly trimmed — exposing more tender growth beneath. We have the materials to replace the fencing around the house and yard to keep the calves and cows out, but the gentleman who was going to do it has the flu. Meanwhile the yard has become a help-yourself smorgasborg. The calves keep shorting out the electric fence. A short time ago during one of his visits home my DH forgot to close the electric gate. The cows got in and ate all my persimmons and some of the leaves as well.

How did the summer go? Ummm...DH has been working out of the state. His job along with thousands of other engineering jobs went overseas to India in 2007. Age discrimination is alive and well in the U.S., but of course an employer won't come out and say so. My DH is overqualified. He wouldn't be happy working there. So he's been working as an independent contractor. I've had to take care of the ranch since August 2007. Things weren't too bad when he was working on the South Texas Project in Bay City. He was on a 4-day week and came home every week-end. But he has been working out of the state since March of this year and comes home every other week-end, but after recovering from 10 - 12 hours work day and working on the list of things that need to be done, I seldom get to really sit down with him and chat. This sets the stage for this past summer. I spent most of the summer feeding the cows and watering my plants.

I will never complain about too much water again although we seen to have a feast or famine situation with rain here in Texas. It was so nice to sit back for a few short months after the rains came and watch the cattle graze on green grass for a while. It's back to hay now that the freeze has killed the Bermuda grass. I found some temporary help just in time to pack all my potted plants back into the greenhouse. During the year I had to move some of the plants up to bigger pots so getting them to fit back into the greenhouse was a challenge. My Brugs seem happy in there and the cool temperatures in the greenhouse agrees with them. Going into the greenhouse in the evening is such a treat. About 7 of my Brugs are blooming and the fragrance is heavenly. If I can keep them growing and healthy, I'll have some cuttings available early spring.

I built a mini-greenhouse for the only Brug I have in the ground. I don't have an outdoor outlet anywhere near it so using a heater or Christmas lights is out. I'm using pipe insulation, bubble wrap, frost cloth, tubs of water and plastic to help it overwinter. I'm also going to spray exposed areas of the Brug with a new product called Freeze-Pruf, which is supposed to increase a plant's cold tolerance by as much as 9ºF. I didn't get a chance to completely set things up, but I finally worked up the courage to peek into the mini-greenhouse and found that my Brug had made it though this first freeze. Of course the ground was still warm. I'll find out in March how well this set up will work.

Our older son is coming for Christmas! We haven't seen him since Father's Day. I wish we lived closer to both our children. Unlike most families where the children go away to college and then move out of the house. Our children stayed put, we moved out. We moved to Texas. LOL. I'm looking forward to seeing him again. That week will scoot by so quickly.

Biggest hope, dream, challenge this coming year will be building our new house. After all these years of talking about it, it is finally coming true. Not the best of circumstances because I'll bear the brunt of the responsibility since DH is commuting between here and Mississippi, but I finally gave in. Better get it built before I'm too old to enjoy it. LOL. House plans have change three times. Not a project I look forward to. I remember the major remodeling we did to our house in San Jose.

Patrob, Your kitties look so cute lying together in front of the fire. Our two have only been that close one evening when the power went out and they took refuge on the bed together. What we do for our kitties. Our cats are indoors only cats because our younger cat has scarred lungs due to a bout of histoplasmosis. Our new house will have an small outdoor patio/pet enclosure so they can enjoy a bit of the outdoors without exposure to all the hazzards. My DH thinks I'm nuts.

This is Winston, the true owner of this house. He's the one with the scarred lungs.