It’s a beautiful spring day – sunny, blue sky and tons of puffy , flat bottom clouds in the sky The red poppies I planted in Nov as seeds are blooming in all their glory. Besides the poppies, I planted a lot of Texas Natives. In a couple months it will blazing hot and I wanted plants that could take the heat and not require me to fuss over them. So its spineless prickly pear cactus, yucca, Texas Sage, Desert Willow, Apache Plume, Spanish dagger and Mulhey grasses, interspersed with drought tolerant flowers. For some, this is their second spring. I’ve been here exactly one year!
The Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center in South Austin hosts a native plant sale in March- April and it’s a great way to get new plants. They have a bunch of demonstration gardens there as well so you can see what some of those plants will look like when more mature or in bloom. Plus we picked up something fun and spring appropriate in their gift shop- KITES! I got a bumble bee kite and a friend got a hummingbird. It’s always kind of windy here in the spring so we thought we’d make “lemonade” and find some reason to embrace some of that wind. When was the last time you flied a kite?
Across the state the bluebonnets are blooming but there are many other flowers, just as beautiful covering entire pastures and roadsides. The state of Texas apparently purchases 30,000 pounds of wildflower seed every year. Considering most of them reseed on their own, that’s a lot of seed being added to roadways every year. And we can thank the legacy of Ladybird Johnson for that. Texas knows how to rock Spring!
Colorful red-orange paintbrushes, gallardias, yellow evening primroses, pink Primroses, Yellow Four nerve daisy and greenthreads, white blackfoot daisies, and pricky poppies, the list goes on. Flowers in every color spectrum. Plus all the milkweeds that attract and sustain butterflies. I’ve enjoyed taking some long country drives just to look at flowers and the majestic wonder of spring.
I was hoping to road trip to Big Bend National Park and Tucson, Az this spring, but it doesn’t look like I can make that happen right now, so maybe a late fall trip instead.
In my last post I talked about trying some ceramic mosaics for the first time. I got my tiles back and was thrilled with the results. I’ve been arranging them in different ways for either a backsplash in my kitchen, or a decorative border along the front of my fireplace. Of course I wish I had many more to choose from and play with, but without my own hobby space and ability to fire clay , it will be a while before I figure out how to continue. Tiny living can have some limitations but it makes me think about how I could enclose y large porch and make that into a more functioning space in the future.
In any case I have work to do with the tiles I did make as I’ll add some blue background tile for “sky” and some brown shades or pebbles for “ground” I’ll show my progress as I make it. For now I have a rough idea and next step will be to glue them to some sticky netting where I can also apply the background. Then we’ll glue that to its destination prior to grouting.
HAPPY SPRING WHEREVER YOU ARE!
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