Happy May Day!!

The day to celebrate all the living world. The plants, the animals and the humans. Welcome Spring!

Here is some video from our may day celebrations.
(Annie is wearing a long light dress with purple sleeves and Em is wearing a white shirt and green shorts)

We're Being Followed....

(I know he is very hard to see and his wife is virtually impossible but he is in front of the middle pomegranate tree. Click on the image to enlarge it)

One of the hardest parts about moving for all of us was leaving our bird friends behind. We spent countless hours watching and identifying our birds. I told the kids that our birds would follow us. Most of our friends have joined us here. The cardinals, the wrens, blue jays, chickadees, mockingbirds, sparrows, mourning doves and the white wing doves, the turkey vultures, even the red shouldered hawks have followed us here, except our painted bunting.

Today Annie went out on the back porch while we were eating lunch, I asked her to come back and sit at the table and finish her lunch. She very calmly replied, "No mom, I'm watching the painted bunting."

Here's the proof. There was a male and a female out there. We are all so thrilled. And the best part of this is that a friend of mine, who was a biologist for the city of Austin for 20 years and an avid bird watcher (she takes bird watching trips all over the world), told me that I wouldn't have painted buntings at our new house.......

I guess the birds are following us.

Click below for some old posts from last summer at our old house and the bunting.

Our Bunting
Painted Buntings

This is the above photo zoomed in.....

Oak Wilt Treatment

Here are pictures of some of the trees getting their oak wilt fungicide. They had to dig around the trees to expose the flare roots, drill holes into the base of the tree and hook up pressurized tanks and hoses to the trees. The blue stuff is the fungicide. It was cool watching the trees take up the fungicide, it looked like drinking raspberry cool-aid with a straw. All but 4 of the 16 trees we treated drank their medicine. I'm confident the 12 will survive and live another 100 years.

Happy Birthday Emerson!

Emerson had great fun on his birthday!

Here he is digging with his buddy Sage.

And here he is with the gifts that Grandpa Chuck and Uncle Adam hand made him. There are two swords that are made out of foam and metalic look fabric. The two shields are made of thin plywood and hand painted. Very Cool and Way Fun and NOT MADE IN CHINA!!! Kudos to Grandpa Chuck and Uncle Adam and everyone else who made Emer's birthday so much fun!

Those are Agave plants in the background.

97 Oaks and counting....

I counted 97 Live Oak Trees (aka Ever Green Oak) in our yard today. There are a lot of overgrown areas back there, from years of neglect from the previous owner, so I know there are some that I couldn't count so I'm sure the actual number is well over 100. WOW! What beauty they bring us. There are some who are over 100 years old . They can live to be several hundred years old. These truly are Grand Trees!


Our oaks are sick. They're dying from Oak Wilt. We will attempt to treat the 15 that are directly around the house and who are shading our house from this intense Texas sun. Wish us success. We'll keep you posted...

New Sandbox

taking a break during construction

Mike and Emerson built a sandbox. It is really cool and with 500 pounds of sand it is big enough to fit several children. Thanks Guys!

filing the sandbox with sand

after hours of play

Singin' In the Rain

Come on with the rain, I've a smile on my face... Just singin' and dancin' in the rain. (We are huge Gene Kelly fans, btw)

Helping Grandpa Chuck

Emerson is such a great helper. He is fascinated by any type of work. He loves to help with anything. He helped move wood, measure things, make sure things were level and he even got to use a power drill to screw some screws into the floor of the shed. He is usually eager to help and the other day he even unloaded the dishwasher (without me asking). He stacked the dishes on the counter and put the silverware away. He is such a nice little boy. I hope these young years are an indicator of the type of person he will be when he is an adult.

I will post before and after photos of the rebuilding of our shed soon.

Ananci - She was a spider

The children have named her Ananci. She lives outside of our kitchen window. The piece of wood that she is on is 2 inches wide, for perspective. Legs open and walking she is as big if not bigger than your hand.....
The Texas Tarantula is not dangerous to humans (unless you are allergic) and they eat lots and lots of yucky bugs so as long as she doesn't journey into the house we will peacefully coexist.

Click here for some info on Texas Tarantulas.

Zilker Kite Festival

At the Zilker Park Kite Festival on March 1,2009