I'm Not Making This Up

I kid you not. While driving home from the baseball field, on Main Street, in town we were dive bombed by a buzzard. There it was, a full sized turkey buzzard flying down the middle of the street. It flew right at us and then swerved to the right. We barely missed it. Boy, that would have been a smelly mess. I am not hallucinating. Baby Monkey saw it too. He was so scared he dropped his snack.

Wildflower of the Week: Winecups

Winecup or poppy mallow - Calirhoe involucrate is a low growing sprawling perennial with beautiful wine-colored cup- shaped flowers. They are blooming all along our roadways here in North Texas.

Native Americans used the roots as a food source. The root is sweet and starchy.

I found a Native American legend, which tells of the wine cups origin. The old king was sick. Many feared that he would die soon. The doctors call the king’s oldest son to the kings bedside.

As he cried over his father, the boy had an idea. He would dance the Dance of the Winecups as a final tribute to his father.


The boy began to dance while balancing cups of wine in his palms. As he danced, he began to spin faster and faster spilling drops of wine on the ground.

The next morning he returned to his father’s bedside. He found his father chatting with friends and eating. The gods were so impressed with the boy’s dance that they had restored his father’s health. On the ground where the drops of wine fell while the boy had danced the evening before beautiful cup-shaped wine-colored flowers had sprouted.
I found some great information at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center website
http://www.wildflower.org/ There is a whole section on wildflower ledgends. Check it out.

Now if you have a wildflower post or link or just something wild, leave me a comment and I will link you.

Matt and Jen at Our First Garden went camping and got some great wildflower shots. Check them out.

Rose cottage Garden wildflower post also.

To tired to make a real post.

I am tired. Today I fit in a broke down 1971 VW Bug, two maintenance customers, getting monkeys and monkeys' cousins to and from school, and two master gardener committee meetings in two different parts of the county. I will be back tomorrow with the wild flower of the week. I think we will talk about Gilardia. I am too tired to look up Gilardia if it is misspelled I apologize.

Bye bye and good night.

I almost forgot. Remember when we were worried about an alien invasion. Okay, the weird eyeball-like thing was actually a gall. Well, explain this. There is an X, that's right a giant X mowed in my front lawn. Do you think it was Martians or Monkeys?

International Compost Awareness Week

As many of you know, I am dedicated to composting. I love compost. I like it when things rot. This week is International Compost Awareness Week. Here is the link for information and the Composting Council website.

In the past I have made cold compost, which breaks down in its' own sweet time and container composted when I lived in an apartment. Now I have three different composting situations going on. There is the worm bin. The worms are feed vegetable food scraps, egg shells, coffee grounds, and tea bags. The bin is a bottomless wooden box sitting on the ground by the rabbit hutch. The worms and worm compost are covered with a layer of my shredded bills. I love feeding my worms our bills.

I also have a regular compost pile. This is were I wage my war trying to create hot compost. I have not been able to heat up this pile over 105 since I started this blog. Therefore, it must be the blogs fault. As of right now, it is 100 degrees. I want it to be 120. That compost pile gets weeds, pasta, rice, moldy bread, bunny poo, and vegetable oils. I know, I know, don't but anything greasy in your compost pile. Well, I'm not buying it. The oil breaks down just like the rest of the stuff. In fact, after I poor oil into the center of the pile it heats up a little for a couple of days. That is a clear sign of microbial activity. So vegetable oil composts. The only other options we would have with oils are poor it down the drain (bad idea) or send it to the landfill (horrible idea). I feel it needs to be returned to the earth.

The third composting project I have going on is to pull weeks and lay them on the ground that has not been planted. This smothers weeds in the fallow areas and enriches the soil. After about two weeks, the pulled weeds have done there job and the areas is ready to be planted. This saves a lot of time and work. I just remove the weed mulch and the ground is pretty much prepared for me. Just a little cultivating and a little bit of nitrogen and it is good to go.

I have to add that Meme is now saving her vegetable scraps for me. She had two gallon bags full of stuff for me yesterday. Go MEME. Remember when I stole her garbage. She mentioned starting her own pile. I am so proud my Meme is growing into a gardener/environmentalist. Mamala also saves scraps for my worms. The worms are thankful. Favorite Sister and Sister #2 both have the container composting set up. They are doing well. Sister #2 actually was able to harvest about a half gallon of compost after just a few weeks. The trick to that is to freeze the scraps before putting them in the container. This damages the cell walls of the food scraps and the stuff breaks down faster after if thaws.

I should explain that the title of Favorite Sister can be applied to any sister who has done something for me. It changes as the wind blows. Favorite Sister made me my pretty header up there. If Sister #2 or Baby Sister do something nice for me, they will get to be Favorite Sister and the current Favorite Sister will become Sister #3 until she does something nice for me. Now don't think I am being selfish. We all do this. When we are together you will hear things like, "If you bring me a coke, you will be my favorite sister" or this, "If you change my baby's diaper, you will be my favorite sister. " We are all pretty fickle. Fortunately, I have a bunch of great sisters.

Something Weird on an Oak Tree.

These things came off of my neighbors oak tree. The little ball is opaque, gelatinous, and has something green inside it. It is stuck to the leaf. the other is a hollow ball of something. Maybe a gall? Something is shedding white stuff. Probably the big ball. My mouse is in the background for scale. Anybody have any idea what in the world these things are?

Blogs I Dig

I never cease to be amazed at the number and types of blogs. Mostly I read gardening blogs. I also have a few others that I visit mostly because there is a great story or the writer is very interesting. I read one daily that is in a field of it's own. The blog is Tomato Casual. There are several writers and a new tomato related post daily. Recently Michael Nolan did a spot light on my blog, which made me feel very honored. Check out the site. There are recipes, planting information, funny stories, and a lot more. Today's post was on companion planting.

I also read Poor Richard's Almanac each day. There is always an interesting post by Ourfriendben, Silence Dogood, or Richard Saunders. The writing is excellent and covers various topics. Sometimes there are great recipes. Check them out too.

Of course I go to Blotanical everyday. There are hundreds of great blogs and interesting information to roam through. I have cyber meet some of the nicest people. In fact, that is where I found Tomato Casual and Poor Richard's Almanac.

I had to come back and add one more. Rees at Green Side Up posted about square watermelon today.

You can see on my sidebar that there are many other blogs that I like to read. I have them linked for quick access and because I think if you are visiting here, you might enjoy visiting over there.

News Flash: Killer Rose Bush Attacks School Bus

A Dr. Van Fleet rosebush attacked a school bus on the afternoon of 5/5/08. The bush had grown out of a yard and onto the pavement of First Street. Thirty forth graders on board the bus were saved by a weed wacker welding Manly Man. Mr. Man arrived just in time to keep the bush from puncturing the tires and taking over the bus by brute force. The Tiny Town Texas police voiced shock and awe at size and thorniness of this monster plant. An emergency meeting of the Tiny Town Texas Garden Club convened in order to discuss tactics to keep the monster under control to avoid further incidence. The Antique Rose Society of Tiny Town Texas launched an investigation into allegations of illegal growth hormone and fertilizer use by Aunt Debbi. There have been reports of other attacks by the same rosebush in outlying areas of Tiny Town Texas. The victims were unsuspecting husbands whose wives took a cutting of the rose not knowing what it was. The husbands were all innocently mowing their lawns when the attacks occurred. A fund is being set up to provide Band-Aids for the victims.

Dr. Van Fleet a hybrid wichuran rambler is a 15 x 10 foot rambling rosebush. It will put out roots wherever it touches the ground. Dr. Walter Van Fleet introduced it in 1910. New Dawn is a sport of this rosebush.