Wildflower cruising and other Texas sports

~It is spring time here in central Texas and actually this one is lasting longer than usual. We are enjoying showing Burger some local treasures and introducing some warm weather fun stuff.


~Springtime gardening...Sprouting cucumbers



...and flowering sage

...good garden smiles(this is a "smile" for the camera)...


~Bluebonnets and other pretties

...we were searching for butterflies to chase(one of burger's favorite activities right now)
...but only found a few bees, it was very windy

~Dropping in on the VFWVpost 3377
.....They had a big plane to look at .... and bluebonnets across the street for mama to enjoy


~Checking out Doug Moreland's Chainsaw art sculpture gallery



~The inside gallery was closed (although I think the best stuff is probably outside). Doug is not only a chainsaw artist, but also leads a great country band(the Doug Moreland Show) and plays a mean fiddle. (Quite a handsome fellow huh?) ...Truly a postmodern Renaissance man

~Playground hopping
~Standing on a fire ant hill, unknowingly(um ouch). I gotta do this at least once every spring
~checking out the cows at 35mph
...and of course roadside relief cropped(KG was kind enough to make it a kodak moment)

Inspiration...The Natural Gardener

~Today Burger and I took a trip to one of local favorites the Natural Gardener. I felt a little like driving far away from there when I saw how many people had the same idea as us, but I had to pee something fierce so we found a spot to park and headed inside. Luckily all the other folks had come to buy stuff instead of looking at goats and chasing butterflies(?!).... It was lovely as ever and with all the rain last week the place was exploding with color .

~Burger investigates the rain water distributing system.
~We came home loaded with old fashioned petunias and inspired to do a little cleaning, planting and of course bug hunting! ~I have been taking baby steps around our yard but we have big plans for a family yard cleanup this Saturday.( not pictured daddy)

Pretty new Paints and Pretty new Flowers!!!

Well, we used up the finger paints so, it was time to buy more. My gal pal over at babybolt recommended getting tempera paint this time, duh! They were awesome ...I forgot about the smell of tempera it really sent me sailing back to some sort of early childhood euphoria( i have terrible memory skills.... through no extra curricular activities of my own)


Needless to say we had a blast and you can use them with brushes...

...both ends, and sticks, and on bellies...



oh my sweet little Matisse (he chose all the colors by himself)


Also here is the garden this week....



cukes... YUMYUM


and these crazy beautiful rutgers tomato flowers ( they look like tiny mums to me)




and my gerber is finally flowering again after a few weeks off( lazy little thing) yay Monday fun!!!!(speaking of lazy) now I must do some sewing!

A look at the garden...

We are slowly getting the tomato plants in the ground.
I have been very neglectful because of the Farmers Market. However I did manage to pant my cukes and some bush beans as well as some more basil and nasturtiums about 2 weeks ago. The beans and the cukes have sprouted and are so cute.

These are the baby cukes

these are the baby bush beans




I can't wait for cukes! They grow so fast and do so well here , I always have way more than I know what to do with.( so locals let me know if you like cukes) I use like a pickling variety that I got from Callaghan's General store. Look how teeny that tomato plant looks in that big ole' cage....just wait they won't even fit in the cages by the end of the summer.

The spring garden

Pretty old fashioned crawling geraniums from the natural gardener


We started prepping the garden for spring planting a few weeks ago.


You can see how little it was last year


Daddy tilled the plot twice as big this year.


We ordered tomato seeds from Heirloom Seeds.
They were so sweet they sent us some extra surprise seeds with our order(very nice)
Anyway the little tomato plants we started indoors and they look beautiful and happy.



I also started a two different basils and some marigolds and a few different peppers.
So hopefully one more lite freeze and the little darlin's can be moved outside.

BUCKETandSHOVEL! or Getting ready for spring planting

We got our first bucket with shovel combo and what a hit! Not only was it a blast at the park we were instantly popular with the older cool kids. All of this is spring training for the garden. I have been cruising some spots looking for heirloom tomato seed packages and came across the You grow Girl site which is awesome. Also for those central Texans The Natural Gardner site is terrific.They have a monthly to do list that helps you stay on top of your garden chores year round
http://www.naturalgardeneraustin.com/