Bluebonnet devastation

I had a post recently about taking pictures of the kids in the Bluebonnets. There was a picture of a family with the kiddos in the bonnets. I mentioned how careful these people were in not harming the bonnets. Here are some updated pictures of the exact same spot. WARNING, these pictures are graphic and may cause sickening of the stomach.

It looks almost as if someone purposely was trying to destroy all the Bluebonnets on these slopes. How some people can destroy such beauty just to take their picture in the very beauty they are stomping into the ground. I am totally disgusted by this. Here is the previous picture.

My Kind of Bottle Tree

My two nieces are the closest I will come to having a daughter. They are also exactly what I would want my daughters to be like. Their unbelievable beauty is unbelievably over shadowed by their intelligence. And, they are really nice people. They can get just about anything they want from Uncle Bob. One wanted a head board for her bed when she was smaller. She was into Harry Potter at the time and wanted to have a moon, sun and stars on it. You can bet that Uncle Bob would build one for her.


Well now she wants a wine rack. Not just any wine rack but one that will hold six bottles of wine [I didn't even know she drank wine] and has a small foot print because she lives in an apartment and counter space is limited. She was just accepted to vet school at Texas A & M so I thought it would make a nice gift to congratulate her. With anything I build, the hard part is in the design. I thought on it for a couple of weeks with no luck. Then one evening I was looking back through some of Pam's posts on her blog, http://www.penick.net/digging/ and noticed a bottle tree. It had the colored bottles sticking up and out from a post. The design came to me then, a bottle tree for full bottles of wine. After completing it I took it to High Point Powder Coating to get it sand blasted and powder coated. The owners wife saw it and decided she needed one as well. Now I have strict orders to go inside to see if she's there before I bring anything else in for treatment. It's probably time I made some money off of him for a change any way.

The Lady Monster, Part II

I posted a picture last year of a Lady Banksia Rose that grows along the railroad tracks in Liberty Hill. It grows almost completely over an old house and was probably planted way back when the house had paint. I can just imagine that it was a favorite of the woman that lived there. I would bet that she never dreamed it would still be alive and doing so well.

It is now grown to the top of the 50' oak trees where it is planted and spans through those oak trees as well. If you click on the pictures they will enlarge and you can see the blooms all the way to the top and to the far side of the oak trees. Looking at it from the rail road track side, it is hard to believe there is a house under there.

The Last Of The Old And The Start Of The New

Lyn pulled the last of the carrots today, and they were the last veggi's from the fall/winter garden. They are sooooo good, much better than store bought. We must have already pulled up ten times this many all ready. They are just so easy to grow.







While it is the end of one, it is the beginning of the new. The potatoes are all ready up and looking to produce a bumper crop for us.

As with every year we have had these raised beds, there has been a Blue Bonnet come up in this bed. Not several, just one, not any other bed, just this one. I collect the seeds every year so I won't have any in the beds. I guess I miss one every year.

I think this is going to be a great gardening year. Let's hope so.

The Blue Time Of Year

The big draw along side the roadways right now is Blue Bonnets. If you have kids then it is a must do at this time of year. I think it has been done since cameras were invented. They just look so pretty and the kids look even better when seated in Blue Bonnets. There is just one thing about it that really irks me. To get your kids in position you must trample large bunches of the very beauty you want to picture your kids in. Some stretches of high way look like vandals stomped them down just so no one else can enjoy their beauty.



I was admiring that beauty along the road I live on when I spied a couple taking pictures of their two little girls. As I drove by something caught my eye. The man was trying to get one of the little girls into a little bare spot in the Bonnets, and doing it rather carefully I might add. I turned around and went back to also get a picture. Sure enough, both little girls were in little bare spots and I could not see a Bonnet out of place. I asked the man if I could take a picture of his family while they took pictures. He asked why and I told him it was for my gardening blog. He agreed whole heartily then. I didn't tell him why I wanted their picture but I did tell him the blog address so he could look at it. I hope he does. Here is the proper way to take kid pictures in the wild flowers.