Metal Work And Gardening

I always like it when my love of gardening and my job come together. Metal just looks good in and around the garden whether it's gates, sculptures, trellises, or just knick knacks placed among the plants. I've had a couple lately that are not the norm of what you think of in regards to metal and gardens. It's hand rails and stair rails. One is needed and one is for effect.


The first was for the Meyer house in Georgetown. I first talked to George and Barbara in the fall but as I'm always a month or two behind I just finished it recently. The house was built in 1878 by one of two brothers that owned the lumber yard in town. There is an identical house across town that was owned by the other brother. The house is filled with era furniture that the Meyer's have bought through the years. Only the kitchen and a den have modern fittings and appliances. It was very interesting to look through it. The house has six exterior doors but the back door is the one leading to the garage and garden house.



Barbara loves to garden and I got a great tour of all her gardens. The land the house sits on takes up an entire city block in both directions so there are lots of gardens. The problem was getting down those back stairs to the garden house. Barbara is 80 years young and wouldn't hear of any one else doing her gardening for her, although she does get some help from time to time. I want to be just like her when I'm eighty.




She had one plant that I really liked but she couldn't remember the name. It has variegated leaves and pretty pink blooms. She said it had been in her gardens for over twenty years and it had spread through a lot of them. She said she would give me one in the spring.






Barbara looked through pictures of other handrails I have built and chose a selection that she thought would go with the old house. I didn't think so but it's not my house. I chose a roughly textured powder coat finish for a surer grip for her as the stairs are rather steep.


This is George by the finished railing.

You can see the rough texture on the shoe and added turn down here. The screw was painted black.

The next one is for a house in Berry Springs where the people were doing a remodel of the patio, pool and the flower beds in the back yard. The people that this was for are both graduates of UT. If they ever decide to sell, it will have to be for more UT fans though. They are also big on all things Texas and the hand rails really show it. They graduated in the early eighties and the longhorn cut outs are of the longhorn symbol used at that time.

They also had me make four towel hooks out of the medallions that were on the bottom of the rails but bigger.

Although I still have to build barns, cattle pens, horse stalls and work on heavy machinery, I like doing the ornamental stuff best. When it has to do with gardens it just makes it that much better and hardly feels like work at all. It fulfills my inner urge to build things and when those thing are beautiful it's really fulfilling.

I'm doing a walk through gate for Hill Country Natives nursery right now. It goes in a rock wall with a lime stone arch over the opening made by rock artist Larry Hullems. Larry did a stunning job on the arch and I hope the gate, also done in arches, compliments it appropriately. I will post some pictures of it when I'm done and have it installed.

Where Draco Got It's Name

I have a habit of stopping to read historic markers along the roadways. This one is just down the road from our house, so of course I read it soon after we bought this property. This stretch of the San Gabriel river, that runs just behind the house, is a beautiful place no doubt. However I can only imagine the beauty of it when the Indians lived here. There is evidence of springs in just about every draw that empties into the river. The influx of cedar [Ashe Juniper] has sucked them dry now. And although the riparian zone still holds a vast variety of plants, it just can't be as fine as it was before the bad ranching practices of the last hundred years. After it was over grazed until there was nothing for cows to eat they moved in goats and sheep. That finished it off for the plant life and the three plus feet of top soil either washed away or simply blew away with the winds. All I can do is make my little part of Draco as beautiful as I can and maybe help the wild life as well.

Click on the picture and it should enlarge so that you can read it.

Play Big, Lose Big

The low temperature here at Draco was a chilly ten degrees. I wasn't too concerned about any of the plumbing as it's been very close to that in the past. But there is new plumbing since then. Yep, the rain water system. I had all the valves on the tanks turned off and with around 1900 gallons in each tank, I knew they wouldn't freeze. The pipe that connects all the tanks together has a valve on one end to bleed the water in it off so that shouldn't have been an issue. That is, if it had been opened. My feeble little mind registered that I had done that. In reality I had not done that, and man did it cost me.

When you glue PVC pipe the glue actually melts the fittings to the pipe. essentially making it one piece. Sooo, when a pipe cracks and it comes to a fitting, the crack just keeps on going.

On one tank a crack made it into the valve and the water was lost.

The big problem with this is to change out the PVC pipe I will have to replace the valves on three tanks. To change out the valves I will have to empty the tanks. So as not to lose the water in those tanks I am going to pump the water into other tanks while I change the valves out. I will use brass valves this time even though they cost double the PVC ones. You know what they say "you play big, you lose big".

The gardens stood up fairly well though. The huge Nopalito cactus out front looked so pitiful I didn't have the heart to take a picture of it. Usually it is about five feet tall and is now about two feet tall. The other spineless prickly pear cactus is still about an eight feet tall tree. The freeze didn't affect it at all.

The perennials had already died back to the ground and the pond plants already had their shearing. I've always felt that in springs following really hard freezes that the perennials attain their most stunning presence.

The prettiest parts of the gardens in a good freeze are the ponds. The big pond had never frozen over before but had about one and a half inches of ice over it this time.

The fish don't have a problem with the cold as goldfish and koi are really cold water fish. It is good to break the ice off daily just to help with getting more oxygen into the water. You can see in these pictures where the ice had been broken the day before and had just refrozen over night.

We have two above ground ponds of about a hundred gallons that are built under the rain gutter outlet in the back. Lyn likes to keep a bubbler in them for more oxygen for the fish. It was the only unfrozen water in any of the ponds.




A couple of days after the weather had warmed up I found this guy crawling across the driveway. I guess it didn't get his cocoon made in time for winter. He must have been deep under the leaves so as not to freeze. It was moving very slowly.

I know, like the caterpillar, that when we get hard freezes here in Texas, they just won't last very long. Even though I look at other blogs and think how nice it would be to live where the summers are mild and there might even be dirt, I will stay here. That's because, even though I don't like the heat, I hate the cold.

The Last Tank Is In

The last tank went into place last week and it was a job. I havne't been able to round up the usual suspects to help in a while now so Lyn suggested we do it our selves. She hates starting a project and not staying on it until it's finished or at least until your at a good stopping point. When doing something like this I have to ponder the situation a while, first to make sure it's doable for us and second, that it can be done without her getting hurt. It's not the same working with heavy stuff with a 120# woman as it is with a 200 plus pound man. When it comes to work, Lyn doesn't know quit, and I try to watch out for any danger that would involve her. These tanks weigh close to 400# so going slow and being careful was paramount.

Lyn and I  moved the last three tanks into place in one evening. As with the others the leveling after getting them into place was the hardest part. This is the last tank loaded onto the trailer. The Chief, in her normal work attire looks satisfied but a little pooped. It really was hard work but then again, we make a hellava good team.

All tanks in position now and plumbed up. Next I start the pump and filter house. I'll keep you posted when we start and build it.

Nursery Crawl Comes To Draco

Day before yesterday, the now almost famous Nursery Crawl, where Cheryl of  Conscious Gardening, and Randy of Horselips horsesense go nursery hopping, came to Draco Gardens. It was a fun time had by all. These are two of the most fun people I've ever had the pleasure of spending time with. They both have a great sense of humor, really know their plants, and are polite enough not to mention the weeds. As any one who reads their blogs knows, they always eat Mexican food for lunch and drink a margarita. It was my job to pick the restaurant. We couldn't eat in Georgetown because the city is dry so we had to eat at Jardin Corona in Liberty Hill. I was pretty nervous in my choice as these two are serious critics of both Mexican food and margaritas. I think they liked their meal and their margaritas but it's hard to tell because they are nice people and I don't think they would say it if it was bad. You can check out the whole story on her blog to get the true scoop. I know I will.

If you ever get a chance to spend time with them or visit their lovely gardens, don't miss it. They are just plain good ol' folks.

Watermelon at Thanksgiving.

I picked my second to last watermelon the day before Thanksgiving. I'm going to try to get the last one to make it to Christmas. I've already gotten it ready for the tarp covering to protect it from frost. Wouldn't that be a hoot to eat a fresh watermelon out of the garden on Christmas?

It is a Crimson Sweet, not very big, about fifteen pounds. It tasted great, really sweet. It's the only type watermelon that I've ever had any luck with. After slicing it up, I dug right in. Philip, this picture is for you.

I planted six seeds and all of them came up. They produced several watermelons in the summer but they all got blossom end rot. The vines all died but one because of my chinsy watering. The one vine that is left has covered about thirty feet of fence and has had five melons this fall. The one I am eating started out on the fence but I had to cut the tendril that was holding it and put it on the ground.

I ate the last of the cantaloupe last week. The vine still looks good but there are no more fruit. This great fall has saved the melon harvest. Lyn is still harvesting beans and is canning around four quarts a week. The beans look even better than they did in the spring.

After watching the weather tonight I think it's about over for the vegetable garden for this year. Even with the severe drought in the summer it's still been a good year for vegetables, thanks to the fall.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving at the Pool house was good this year.

We used to have Thanksgiving with my folks and Christmas dinner with Lyn's folks. After my Mom contracted cancer, Thanksgiving was scheduled as normal, even though she was getting sicker by the day. She just insisted that she could still do it. The day before Thanksgiving she called and said she couldn't do it. Lyn and my sister volunteered to pull something together but she said no. Lyn and I had Thanksgiving dinner at some restaurant in Round Rock and it wasn't all that good.

Lyn told me this wouldn't happen again. Like I've said before, I am a lucky guy. I married a woman that loves to cook and is very good at it. She said next Thanksgiving would be at our house, no ifs, ands or buts about it. My Mom passed away the next February, and my Dad passed away five weeks later. About a month before the big day, Lyn told me I had better start rounding up some people for Thanksgiving as she was blowing it out. She was cooking it all and it was going to be a big meal for just the two of us.

I came up with nine the first year. The second it jumped to thirteen. The third it was fifteen. The next it was twenty two. This year it was back down to fifteen. My sister always comes but Lyn's siblings go to their in-laws. However the last two years Lyns sister, her husband and their two daughters have come. The couple that owns the local feed store are always here as well as several customers of mine. A couple of neighbors come and a couple people that are just regulars at the feed store as well as a couple of friends. Some can't make it some years but make it others. This year we had two newbies. A young fella that works at the place that I buy pipe and his wife came. She is expecting on Christmas day and her doctor had told her not to travel as they had some problems with the pregnancy and should stay close. You can't have an expectant mother to be missing Thanksgiving. Katina of Gardening in Austin and her husband were supposed to come but something came up and they couldn't make it.

The turkey was deep fried.[that's my job] Lyn cooked two pies and a pumpkin cake as well as candied pecans for snacking. My sister brought peanut brittle and Fran at the feed store always brings a vegetable snack tray that is to die for. It's huge. Lyn's sister, Chickie, brought a big pasta salad that is always a big hit. Lyn made fresh green beans right out of the garden and mashed potatoes from ones I had dug in the summer. You can always tell the corn was our corn as it is so dark yellow. Lyn made a new dish this year that was absolutely wonderful. It was sweet potaoes in a hollowed out orange. There has never been any store bought bread in our house so of course there was home made bread and home made rolls.

Like I said, I'm a lucky guy. I have so many great friends, a wonderful wife and great holidays. I hope all your Thanksgivings were as good as mine.