Gardening and ungardening

The last 10 days have been very hard for me, I am sore and limping and exhausted and grinning anyway.  Looking back at changes in my yard two years ago, here is how it was as I had a perfect front lawn dug out completely.

 

When laying out big curves in a yard for planting beds or such, I use a garden hose, pushing it back and forth till I get a shape I like. Then the hose makes an outline for laying the edging.

 

 

Now the front yard is like this with a shady glider, two little tables and three metal chairs. The mostly native Texas plants are blooming with very little else out there but a crepe myrtle and some phlox both of which were already established when I started this in 2013.

 

In 2014 I had planting done on the side yard and a large brick patio built with space left open for a kitchen garden.  This had also been nice grass.  I was working against a drought of historic proportions. 

 

With many aches and so little success, I have decided my farming days are over. Vegies will have to come from the market except a few cherry tomatoes in pots.

I called my workers back and have had more brick laid, as well as major brush trimming behind a back fence.

This modern little house is an ugly duckling to me, made more pleasant by having a lot of greenery around it at all seasons. So digging up the lawn might sound counter productive.

 

The bare bricks look a little stark right now but pot plants and pretty yard furniture plus growing some size on a few large shrubs will make it more appealing.  The back of the lot is shady and the small trees planted there are doing very well.   There is still plenty of garden on my tiny lot.  I hand water and weed it myself more or less continuously, and have good helpers in to do trimming and pickup about once a month.  No lawn to mow and edge.  It is a yard made for relaxing. Sounds good if I can just overcome the mosquitos.  e

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Fourth of July in my little town

Waiting for the parade to start takes a long time.

Macy loves her tiny sister Ramsey.

 Watching the children enjoy the parade is much of the fun for the rest of us.  There were 4 old prop planes buzzing main street at the start of the parade.

Most of the crowd of several thousand  had flags to wave. It was a friendly happy crowd.  A number of floats had bands.  

A brave man on top of this.

 

 In the afternoon two friends gave a painting demo at Fredericksburg Art Gallery.  Besides being Fourth of July, this was also Art Walk weekend.  I went for two hours and enjoyed it.

 

 

At seven we met in Lady Bird park for a large picnic, serving hot dogs and potato salad to just over 20, along with Beth's cake, shown here by Bailey.

 

There was a long twilight of watching little children run and chase before we all sat still to watch a great display of fireworks. Happy Birthday USA. 

 

Red White and Blue Kids

Ramsey is 4 months old now.   They grow so fast! 

 

This is the height of Peach Season and the  Lorings are in. In addition to so much else going on, this is one of the Weekends we have horse racing here, one of only 4 a year. The town is packed with tourists and out of town family to enjoy one of our biggest summer weekends.  e

 

 

Enchanted morning

One of the pretty natural areas near Fredericksburg is Enchanted Rock. The park is well run by the state park department, with a nice balance between plenty of amenities for visitors and scenic trails with a minimum of invasive elements to spoil the experience. There are parking and camping in the front of the park and then well maintained hiking trails in the rest with no bikes let along cars allowed. You can choose between camping sites close to the parking or primitive camping areas where you pack in your tent and supplies by foot.  One spot I wanted to see is Moss lake but it can only be accessed by 2 miles of hiking which I cannot do.

This morning the weather was perfect, cool, bright, breezy, and fabulous for July 1st here!  Because of the nice rains we have had, the countryside is green beyond my remembering for July.

 

I was in search of pretty spots to paint plein air for an upcoming workshop, and I found many! Every where you look is a painting. I took over 50 photos. 

Fredericksburg is intensely patriotic. We do up the 4th celebration in a style to make Norman Rockwell proud.  Our parade on Main St lasts over an hour.  I hope to be there Saturday morning.  Happy forth of July.  e