Nothing massively impressive...

Just a couple of pics I took between deliveries today.

For some reason this tattered flag against the morning sky struck me as moody or something. Anyway, I liked it, so I took a pic.

And there was a mass of grape hyacynths blooming by the road...

I seriously think that they're self-seeding. They're all over the darned place... by highways and roads and everywhere. Of course, when you're speeding down the highway, you kind of mistake them for Texas bluebonnets, which are just starting to bloom now, and will continue long after these have gone dormant. But the bluebonnets are much larger plants and blooms.

So, I was driving along minding my own business today, when I took a cut through a neighborhood in Ft. Worth, (not the best neighborhood, btw) to avoid a traffic issue on the road.

My GPS started sputtering... it's not good with deviations from its planned route. It has control issues... and I suddenly had to come to a screeching halt.

OK. I'm exaggerating. I was going maybe 30 mph. There was no screeching of the tires involved. But I did have to come to a rather abrupt halt.

Here's why.

I saw this in someones yard :

This massive cactus clump has obviously been here for a very long time... and it would appear to have survived this winters record breaking temps.

Please, please, please... somebody tell me what this plant is called.

I want one.

I want one really really badly.

There were other cactus in the yard too... including a 6 foot tall cholla nestled up against the mailbox. I'm sure the mail man is just thrilled with that. There was also a few prickly pears, and a ferocactus wislenzeni... that has outgrown it's attractive stage. The F. wislenzeni will survive our winters fairly well, but not usually unscathed. They're cute as a bug when they're small... but after they get big... not so much. But... I digress...

I couldn't hang for long, I was on a run, but I did take note of the address so that I can keep my eye on this plant over the next few months and take more pics when the blooms show up... in the close-up pic, you can see the fuzzy beginnings of buds starting out. And if I just happen to be in the neighborhood when they go to seed... or better yet, when the owner cuts off a branch and puts it by the road in the trash... oh well...

Well, I was out in Mansfield again today, with a very few minutes, so I decided to stop by the cemetary to check out the cemetary cactus... they're putting out their fruits this time of year, and in about a month or so they'll be blooming their fool heads off. (The blooms are the ones in the header pic)

I've done some checking around, and this is evidently one of the few remaining areas where these plants are growing in a wild or semi-wild state in this area... would have gotten a few more pics, but I got an order and had to run...

I was intent on blogging today. I'm trying to make a point of blogging, as I've been very lazy about it lately. Actually, not so much lazy, as working on another writing project. It would appear that, when it comes to typing, I have only so many words a day before my brain says 'no more'

But here's a few pics from the yard... some pansies...

The Rosemary is blooming too... usually it blooms in December, if it's gonna, but this year it decided to surprise me... I'm one of the few people I know who like rosemary blooms... I've always thought they looked like tiny little orchids...

And the Southern Snowflakes are going haywire...

And that's really about it. I know, not very exciting huh?

Bad news, good news, bad news... etc...

Well, the last post I was kvetching about how I didn't have any time off.

This post, I'm gonna kvetchy about how I have too much time off...

The blasted truck blew a piston.

This has happened before. The last time I blew a piston, we had to replace the piston in the engine... which is really really not a good idea. The problem was that we couldn't find a replacement engine for the love of money. Replacing the piston is really a band-aid job, and it's so not a good thing to do for several reasons... but we had no choice.

So, when I blew a piston again, I figured it was the band-aid job that went... turned out it was a different piston. Fortunately, this time, we found a replacement engine, and a little heavier duty engine at that...

The good news is that Spring is arriving in Dallas-Ft.Worth. Soon I'll be out in the yard planting and digging and all that jazz... I'd be doing it right now, but the weather isn't allowing it. Rained all day yesterday, and it's started up again today... any digging in our clay soil when it's this wet results in a large mass of compacted, rock hard dirt clods.

So, I took pics in the rain.

Here's the neighbors ornamental pear tree blooming...
Soon, the tree will be covered with dark purple leaves.

Here's some jonquils blooming in my yard...

I've never really figured out what the official difference between a jonquil and a daffodil is... or a narcissus for that matter. But, these were labeled jonquil when I bought them, so I'll take their word for it.

Now, for more bad news... I'm sure my regular readers will remember the record breaking snow we had a few weeks ago. (Officially, it was 12 1/2 inches at DFW airport) Carports collapsed... roofs caved in, Live Oaks, which have branches that grow more or less horizontally and keep their leaves all winter, catch a lot of heavy snow, and were dropping branches all over the place. My carport made it, and I don't have any live oaks, but the Prickly Pear that I grow for jelly-making also has extremely large pads, which caught the snow and snapped branches.

The plant will survive, and I may be able to actually root some of those branches by standing them in the ground. The extensive, established root systems will send up a lot of new growth this year, although blooms, and therefore fruit, come off older growth, so I'm not too sure of the harvest I'm gonna get come presserve making time. But we'll see...

It looks like I've also lost my variagated agave... which was fine till it got buried under the snow and it just gave up. And there's a few more plants which I'm just not sure of. We'll see I suppose...

Yes... I'm still alive!

Sorry I haven't been posing for a while... the truth is that my life hasn't been all that fun lately...

You see, I've been working 6 day weeks. 4 days driving the dang truck and 2 days at the flea market... except it isn't really two days as much as it is 1 1/2 days, because I go to church on Sunday morning, and then go directly to the flea market... but what it all boils down to is that my only day off is Monday, and I have to do everything (ie: laundry, cleaning, grocery shopping, etc.) on Monday, and, quite frankly, thsi schedule is not really working out all that well for me.

But, when I left the house this morning, I was bound and determined I was gonna find something to take a picture of...

Here's a house in Ft. Worth... (Yes, I'm taking pics of other peoples front yards. I justify this by telling myself I'm looking for gardening ideas.) These Agaves scattered over the front lawn look kinda cool... but I don't know that I want to do this in my yard... quite frankly, I can think of better ways to spend my time in the garden than weed-eating around agaves...

This is one of Ft Worths street trees... more specifically a Yucca aloifolia... you see a few of these in the area... but this is the only one I know planted by the city... and it had to have been planted quite a while ago, as it's now about 15 feet tall... quite possibly the largest one I've seen locally...

And this is just one of those rocks that you see by driveways in shopping centers. The purpose is to keep cars off the lawn. Of course, they also tend to turn minor roadway accidents into major ones, but that's a whole other arguement... the only reason I was really interested in this lump of sandstone is because if you look really-really close....

you'll see this...

I have no bloody idea how that echeveria got there.

The entire landscaping in this shopping center consists of small strips of grass and these huge rocks and this single, solitary clump of echeveria.

It's very puzzling.

Anyway... I hope everybody out in blogland is doing well... have a great day!