Some random pics

We've been working in the garden a bit and have had our first ripe tomato already! We would have had more, but the mocking birds beat us to the punch. We have since put up nets to try and deter them. They're cute birds and all, but I prefer to eat the tomatoes myself!

The beans are doing well. A second row has been put in about 2 weeks after these fellas so we should have a nice steady crop.

Oh, and there's always time for lounging in the pool! :)

Our latest little visitor! Apart from scaring the dickens out of me everytime I uncover him, this little fella is a welcome addition. I hope he eats as many insects as he can! We also have 2 gecko's/lizards living in the front yard but they are elusive. I am determind to get at least one half decent photo of them though!

Some maintenance on the front beds. We took all the border stones away, cleared out all the grass and then replaced them making sure to leave a nice gap between the grass and stones. This will (hopefully) make it easier to keep the two separated. We also put the stones back closer together - a professional Australian gardner told us this would help too. ;)

That's not a bird! THIS is a bird. We had a flock of these Black Vultures hanging around for a day recently. They are massive birds and at 4.5pounds you know when they land on the roof!

Egg-cellent

So we (and by "we" I think we all know who I mean!) have been cooking up a storm on the new Big Green Egg (BGE). We have been taking advantage of the 70degree evenings and grilling every night!

One new thing we tried, that I was very skeptical about is the ABT - Atomic Buffalo Turd. Sounds delicious!! Well, it's a jalepeno pepper, stuffed with cream cheese and wrapped in bacon. (below)

Here are the ABT's ready for eating and I must admit they are fantastic. I can eat 6 without blinking! Our neighbor is also a fan but she adds sausage meat to the cream cheese filling for some extra bang! We will be trying that .....

A very large hunk o'porky goodness (above)! This was on the grill for 15 hours - low and slow. And boy, we had no problems eating it! Pulled Pork left overs for a week but oh so yummy!

One particular person is very happy to be at the Egg-Fest. It's a festival where all the food is cooked on the BGE. There is nothing but pork, pork related products and beef on the menu :) No foo foo salads here. The unlimited beers also helped ...

After the Egg-fest we came home and tried our hands at a spatchcock chook. Above is the fella before and below is after it's been expertly deboned.

The spices are put under the skin and a little on top and onto the grill!

MMMM ..... yummy chook!!

Next we're going to try baking on it. At the festival they baked a pie and it was *really* good. Soon we wont need an oven!

Water - kids love it!

We recently went to the opening of the 'Riva Row Boat House' here in The Woodlands. It's a lovely new building were you can rent kayaks and paddle along the River Walk (the section is blocked to the River Taxi's!) and into Lake Woodlands.

Our neighbor took these lovely shots of us coming back in to dock.

Who's doing all the paddling here?

We had so much fun that we went back this past weekend and rented a kayak each and paddled our way to the north shore of Lake Woodlands. We spent about an hour paddling around - we could have stayed out longer but our arms were about to drop off!

We saw so many birds - loads of Great Blue Herons, Cormorants, ducks and a couple of Egrets that I could identify. Next time I'll take the camera. We also enjoyed chatting to the fisherman along the way.

All in all it was a fantastic morning :)