Camping - Stephen F Austin State Park

So before it gets hot, humid and the mozzies arrive, we decided to get a bit of camping in. Apparently so did the rest of Houston. It took me 2 days to find a park with availability and even then it had a 2 night minimum! Texans take their camping seriously it turns out!!

So, we packed up the car with our camping gear, bikes and fishing rod and head about an hour's drive south west to the Stephen F Austin State Park. The park is on land granted to Mr Austin, the "Father of Texas", from the Mexican's for the first Anglo colony in Texas. Who knew!?

The camp ground was great. They separate the RV's from the tents and each site has a water tap and fire pit. We put the fire pit to good use:

On the second night we really got that fire going!

It seems MM is a bit of a fire bug ..

The camp ground is bordered on one side by the Brazos River. Victoria might have the 'Mighty Murray' but I think the 'Brazos Beast' has gotten it beat! Usually you can fish here but the river was up on it's banks and moving rather swiftly so the fishing rods stayed in the car. No catfish for us.
We did go for 2 hikes and blew the cob webs of the bikes for a couple of rides. At Stephen F Austin we saw a host of birds - cardinals, woodpeckers, vultures, hawks, wrens, ravens - along with 5 white tailed deer.

On one of the days we also took a side trip to the nearby Attwater Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Refuge. We rode our bikes around the center, which include numerous cattle grates which was interesting, until MM got a tyre puncture. Luckily we were close to the car because the tools were were carrying couldn't fix it.

Although we didn't see the Prairie Chicken, we did spot white tailed hawks, ducks, scissor tailed flycatcher and the highlight of the day for me - a crested caracaras. :)

Gardening Texas Style

It's a popular belief that in Texas, everything is bigger. So when I ordered some mulch and soil for some garden maintenance, I ordered the minimum. When the truck pulled up and dumped enough mulch and soil to fill the driveway I was surprised, but then again, I really shouldn't have been!

Here's what 4 yards of mulch looks like. There's 2 yards of soil behind it. I'm smiling because it's the start of the day :)

We needed the soil to help with some low spots in the yard. One side of the house is especially low and when it rains, water tends to pool there. We also have some low spots in a couple of the garden beds and the rest was to top up the vegetable beds.

Water is a big issue here. The soil is clay so the water can't soak into the ground very well. It wouldn't be so bad if we had nice gentle rain that had time to soak in but when it rains here, it really rains. It's not unusual to have 5 inches in a day. Standing water comes with a list of problems, not the least being a breeding ground for mozzies come summer. This is the low side of the yard:
This bed is low in the front and forms it's only little moat when it rains.

This bed is also low at the front:

So with shovels and wheel barrow in hand we started moving the soil.
This is the low side of the yard. You can see where we've spread the soil out on the existing lawn. The grass will grow up through it and hopefully establish itself at the new level. At the front in the rings are 2 peach trees and we have grapes to grow up on the lines. As the soil here is so crap, we've added new soil, mulch and nutrients for the fruit trees and planted them above the natural grade. According to the experts, this will do the trick!
Oops! Found the sprinkler pipe! :)
Vegetable beds are topped up and looking lovely.

And with the soil all distributed, it was time for a break :)

After a lunch break and run to the hardware store for pieces to fix the pipe, it was time to start mulching.

Looking pretty good even if I do say so myself!

One of the peaches is already very happy.

Even the beds at the front got some new refreshing mulch.

And after moving 3 tonnes of mulch and soil, one wheel barrow at a time, we were DONE.

The start of veggie garden season

It's the beginning of the veggie season - one of my fave times of the year! I get to play with dirt and seeds :) This year will hopefully be more successful than last year. Over the winter we have done a lot with the soil in the beds to add nutrients. This year we have also gone with the tomato varieties that are more disease resistant. The heirlooms, although our preferred, suffered with the weather last year and sometimes you just have to work with what you've got!

For the tomatoes we have 'Bush Early Girl - Hybrid', Ferline F1 - Hybrid, Moravi F1 - Hybrid. We're also dabbling a little and trying Tomatillo. It's a cousin of the tomato and used a lot in Mexican cooking. We also have 2 peppers - the trusty Jalapeno that we use in everything and a new one called Aji Dulce. Our Venezuelan neighbours love this pepper but can't find it anywhere in the US so we're going to give it a go. I have not given them any guarantees just in case! The pepper is the size and colour of a habanero (a spicy pepper) but is a lot milder.

Here they are all snug with their heat mats and light.

And here they come! :)

Everything can be cooked on the BGE

I must admit that when MM first showed me the BGE I was sceptical. I thought it was just another grill, just a funny looking expensive one. But who I am to stand in the way of a man and his grill?

Well turns out, the BGE is one the best things we have ever bought. We use it easily 6 days a week come rain or shine. MM is known to frequently be out there in the dark grilling and scaring our neighbours dogs. And when the temperature drops to below zero? No problem, the BGE just keeps him warm :)

At Christmas, MM had a brain wave - why not do the Yorkshire Puddings on it! The puddings require a hot oven (500F) and the egg can easily get to that we decided to put it to the test:

Cast iron skillets are piping hot - in goes the batter! And we wait ...

Wa-la! PERFECTION!

We can now add yorkshires to the long list of what we can cook on the egg! :) And it is a long list - all the usual suspects of burgers, snags, chops etc to pizza, chili, chicken wings and sunday roasts.

My mouth is watering ...

Christmas and the Arctic Blast

Oh Chrimstas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree!

We went with a patriotic red, white and blue scheme - you can decide if that refers to the English, Australian or American flag! :)

We are in the midst of an "arctic blast" at the moment. It got down to 15.9F overnight last night. The last two days have been tops of 33F and tonight we have a low of 22F forcasted. Brrr!! My bird bath is looking very wintery (it's about 3feet tall so they're some grand icicles)We need the chiminea outside more than ever!

And they tell us Houston is "sub-tropical"!!

Go Aggies!

After moving to Texas we quickly discovered that High School and College (University) football is big here - VERY big! The tv show "Friday Night Lights" is not an exaggeration.

Our friends have a daughter who goes to Texas A&M so they were able to get their hands on some extra tickets. To get 6 seats together we were 10 rows from the top at the end zone. I was a little concerned about the height but in the end it worked out perfectly because we were able to see everything. Kyle Field seats 85,000 rabid fans! There are 3 sections like this:

There's a lot of traditions at A&M and I was happy to be told in advance that they fire a cannon every time they score a touchdown. We had a fantastic day and even got to see some history in the making - a 97 yard run :) It also helped that the home team won - WOOP!

Our neighbourhood turned into a winter wonderland recently. We had snow flurries and then overnight temps of 24F made for a very heavy frost the next morning. This lake is by our place - you can see the frost on the hill on the other side.
Brrrrr ...
My peas were frozen in their pods!

The beans did not like the frost and didn't survive. We had planted them originally just to help with the nitrogen levels in the soil and we ended up getting 3 bags of beans from them as well so they did their job.

Garden update

The garden is starting to come together. We're getting the beds filled and the grass that we layed after the pool construction has taken.

This is from the west corner of the back yard looking east. We moved the bird bath to the bed near the fence.

My lemon tree is still not looking very "tree" like but is laden with delicious lemons!

We have had a lot of Monarch butterflies this year. They stop in our area during their migration to Mexico. Here is the monarch caterpillar and butterfly sharing the same plant, aptly named butterfly weed. The plant is very resilient and needs to be. A couple of caterpillars can eat all of the leaves off and yet they still survive!
Here's the "Condon" bed in the east corner of the yard. It's a large bed that we're slowing filling up.
Out the front the pine trees are going through a growing spurt. They've shot up about 3 feet since we moved in. You can also see my skull halloween lights :)

The yaupon holly is laden with red berries. In the sun they are really radiant.

The veggie beds are looking better. We've done a lot with the soil to try and get some nutrients in there. So far the beans, peas, radishes, carrots and lettuce that we have here are keeping their bright green colour so that's a good sign. We'll be harvesting beans by the end of this week :)
This is the first bed that we did. We've had a couple of plants not make it. It's a difficult one as it's part shade and can get very wet when it rains. The log that is at the front is left over from our tree that we had to cut down. It didn't make it with the combination of Ike and the drought.