what a mess....

Last night I was rather rudely awakened by a brou-ha-ha in the yard....

It would appear that one of the local racoons had decided to pay an unanounced visit, and my cats decided they didn't particularly care for this rather rude interuption to their plans.

This resulted in a lot of hissing, and jumping and bouncing around, and I managed to just catch the racoon running along a garden bench and knocking every pot in his way off... I couldn't do much about it in the middle of the night, but this morning I awoke to cacti scattered all over the patio, and even a couple floating amongst some rather indignant goldfish in the pond. So my plans to go work in the flea market stall are kaput, as I will be cleaning, sweeping and repotting.

99.9 percent of the time, I truly enjoy the occasional visit from opposums, racoons and even the occasional black snake in the yard, but this is a little ludicrous. Wish me luck...

more random thoughts...

Well, nobody seems as impressed with the beer can garden as I was... It's a shame. I was hoping to lead a protest into Ft. Worth City Hall... complete with hippies singing peace chants.

Oh well.

yesterday was a very trying day... One of my brand new tires went flat, and my jack has gone missing, so AAA sent a guy to help me change it, but he didn't have the right tools, so he sent for a guy to tow me, but after 3 miles they had to charge me, so I told him to tow me to the nearest tire store, where they just put the spare on for me, but there were a whole bunch of people ther first, so I had to wait an hour. But he didn't charge me, so that's cool. Then I went to the store that sold me the tire, and they replaced it for free, and I went home and made muffins...

1 large can of mango puree (usually you have to find this at the nearest Indian market, but sometimes the Asian market will carry it.)
2 white cake mixes
a handful of dried cherries, chopped.

If you can find a small 15 ounce can of mango puree, use 1 cake mix, but the small cans are hard to find.

mix all the ingredients, (do NOT add the oil, eggs, etc to the cake mix)
bake in muffin tins, either sprayed with non stick spray or use cupcake papers... at 400 degrees for 22 to 25 minutes. 2 cake mixes will yield 24 muffins, 1 cake mix will yield 12...

because you don't use the oil or eggs, this is low fat and low cal (there are some calories & fat, but you're greatly reducing them) And they taste good...

This is one of my favorite recipes, because you can vary it and get creative... If you can't find mango puree, you can use any pureed fruit, either processed or fresh. You can also use any dried fruit (dates, raisins, cran-raisins) or nuts.

Try a 15 ounce can of pumpkin, and a devils food cake mix... that's good too.

beer can garden 2

I forgot to mention 2 amazing facts...

1) the cans are hanging from cristmas lights... so at night IT GLOWS!

2) even more amazing, somebody actually drank that much coors light.

just thought I'd update...

beer can garden...

So I was delivering in a certain area of Ft. Worth and I dropped by to see one of my favorite things... the beer can garden....


This is in one of those neglected neighborhoods, that existed before the warehouses and factories were built around it. Fort Worth actually has a lot of these little neglected neighborhoods. Little houses with a train track through the back yard, or a fish packing plant across the street... One of the big advantages to living in these neighborhoods, is that you can do whatever you want. The city tries to forget they exist... so you're in the middle of the city
and see a small herd of goats, or geraniums planted in an old commode, or a beer can garden...

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that I want to do this. And if my neighbor tried it, I would throw a fit on an absolutely lunar level... but it's nice to think that there's room in the world for this sort of thing... I mean, it's a big country, I think there should be room for anything somewhere...

Well, it turns out that this neighborhood is undergoing urban renewal, and nearby is being bulldozed for condos... so the city has made him reduce that up there to this...

The thing is... before it was kind of cool... One string of beer cans hanging from a tree is, undeniably, tacky, but there is a point where 100 of them become folk art... the breeze through the cans made a really relaxing sursuration, and some of them are cut to spin and catch the light.

Now, condensed and belittled, it's gone back to just tacky.

As for the yuppie condos coming in... hey, this guy was here first... isn't there some sort of Grandfather clause?

Anyway, I was just posting random thoughts... probably one of my wierder posts... but I've had a wierd day.

This is Phennig... who has taken it upon himself to guard the garden hose. Pity the fool who tries to steal it. Or roll it up for that matter... I have the scars to prove it... I know he's just trying to play, but he hasn't quite got the art of playing down.

I share my life with two cantacerous black cats. Both are rescued alley cats, and they refuse to spend much time inside. They do, however, manage to keep the yard relatively rodent free, for which I'm grateful.

I had a productive day, at least... did manage to catch up on all the laundry... since it was so sunny and warm out, I hung a lot of it outside. Laundry actually dries quicker outside than it does in the drier here... and of course, I don't have to pay the electric bill. I've become very cheap since gas started going up...

just a quick post. No garden pics today...

same old, same old...

It's been a very trying day... very hot, and very windy... of course, my job demands that I deliver to building sites, so where there's wind and earthmoving equipment, there is a courier who ends up looking and feeling like he's been sand-blasted.

and then, of course, at the end of the day, they give me a delivery to the 41st floor of one of those all glass buildings downtown... and so I walk in, grungy, tired, and utterly dishevelled, and all the suits look at me like I'm a bug.

I so love my job.

But I seriously am looking for another job now... after gas cost, insurance, upkeep and stuff, I'd actually be making more money by working at McDonalds.

That ain't right...

sorry, just a kvetch...

The cactus... again...

I know I showed you this thing blooming a couple of weeks ago, but it only had a single bloom then... today I got home from work (after 12 hours... ugh) and the thing was blooming its fool head off and I couldn't help taking another pic...

hookey from work...

well, I can't really call it hookey... I'm considered an independant contractor, so I don't have to work if I don't want to.

But I'm taking a day off to achieve things which absolutely must be achieved. I need new tires, as I've pushed these to a point where they're probably not safe, I have to run around and take care of things that I couldnt't do during the weekend, I have to pay some bills... all that crap that piles up and bites you if you don't do it...

Real life is so annoying...

more blooms today...

Cleome, or spider lily, or sparkler plant. This came home with me when I saw it at the nursery... we were talking about it on Julies blog, A Succulent Life... (see link to right) I normally wouldn't buy a plant this size. Half the fun of a plant is watching it grow up, and go through it's changes. But, it was only 3 bucks, so what the heck...

This is a Pavonia hastata... aka rock rose or swamp rose... Now I don't know the why of the swamp rose name, since it survives here with absolutely no extra water in very un-swamp conditions. That's actually why I grow it... the blooms are pretty, but not overly impressive, being less than 2 inches across... but these mini hibiscus flowers are produced by the hundreds, and all summer when the heat has pretty much brought everything else to its knees... each bloom produces 5 seeds. Which spread and sprout... a good amount of time every spring is spent pulling up extra seedlings... but before the heat hits, it produces buds that never open, but self fertilize and still produce seeds... hence it's a little invasive. (by the way, violets produce those self-fertilizing flowers too.)


And of course, a purple coneflower... I started with 2 plants, and they've seeded over the years... there are now 20 or 30 scattered around the yard. Very reliable in the heat, these are the ones used to produce echinacea, which people use to treat colds.

Well, here I go again...



In case you haven't noticed, I'm a sporadic blogger at best... got a new battery charger, so here's a better pic of the gardenia...

and here's a hypericum... these were vaugely popular a few years ago... when St. Johns Wort was being touted as a cure for depression... this was sold as St. Johns wort in the nursery trade... actually a cousin with absolutely no herbal use at all... The blooms are interesting, but they don't produce many of themm, and they're pretty much beat up by noon... The plant just spreads around and looks green. Not my favorite plant, but I don't have the heart to clear it out.

And these are "Mother of millions" or "Pregnant plant" A pest further south, these survived the winter here... each leaf produces little plants along the sawtooth edges, there were a couple under the agave last year, and they dropped plantlets that survived down in the leaf litter all winter, and have now sprouted. Interesting, but not particularly pretty, I'll probably leave them for now.