It has started!

We have passed our first inspection and currently have 3 poles in the ground!

It's a good start!

A Pergola

So as you may remember, when we did the pool we lost a lot of the decking/patio we had planned to the easement along the back fence and the inconvenient location of the gas line. So, we have decided to extend the patio out the left side of the house and for some extra shade, build a pergola. Well, we're not building it ourselves of course!

Over the last few months we've interviewed contractors, looked at models, checked references, filed for permits etc. As of today we have the plans approved and permits in hand.

Here's a shot from the back fence looking toward the house. The decking and pergola will come out from the existing decking into what is grass at the moment.

Here's a shot looking back up the yard. The new section will be from the existing decking toward the side fence. We have a 5 foot easement on that side.
The new decking will (hopefully) match what we have already:

We have done our due diligence. Fingers crossed it all goes to plan!

First day of summer and start of hurricane season!

So today is the official start of summer although we've been in the 90s daily for the past 2 weeks! Here is our weather station reading as of 2pm today:

The weather stations sad face tells the story - it's a warm one! Generally the hottest part of the day here is around 4pm and as you can tell from the little arrow, it's only getting hotter out there. Good thing is my clothes on the line dried within minutes!

As a reminder as to how crazy the weather can get here, we had a lightening and thunderstorm come through on Sunday night. It was pretty powerful. We had an inch of rain in about an hour and the lightening was very active. The tree below is in our neighbours front yard. It got struck and as the was so close the clap of thunder that quickly followed was deafening. I screamed like a little girl in an octive that MM believes is not human :)
The rocks are supposed to be all around the base of the tree but the lightening blew them out as it passed out of the tree.

This one strike caused us all a few problems. Our cable TV box was fried and we had to get a replacement, our neighbours lost their TV, Phone and Internet service and another neighbours lawn sprinkler control panel no longer works! All day yesterday there were service vans all over the place fixing down cable boxes!

The weather man (Yanez) is predicting an active hurricane season - let's hope he's wrong (he usually is!)

Out and About

A few weekends ago we traveled to Austin for a Big Green Egg festival - aka EggFest. The road to Austin goes by a town called Brenham, home of Blue Bell ice cream. Blue Bell is an institution here in Texas and is the ONLY ice cream to have. They do tours of the factory and have a gift shop that offers scoops for $1. We have never done the tour but have been known to take the detour for a scoop! :) My fave - blackberry cobbler ...

The EggFest was on the shores of Lake Travis and we got a great day for it - sunny but not overly humid. MM signed up to be a cook for the day so we were allocated a demonstration egg and went to work! With the help of our neighbors The Cottens, (who also made the trip to Austin for the weekend) we made about 400 tortilla scoops (the scoop filled with mexican style pinto beans, skirt steak and cheese topped with an avocado cream and pickled jalapeno) and chocolate chip-candied bacon cookies. Yes, you read right - CANDIED BACON!! :)
Here's one of the 6 batches of cookies going on. The cookies were such a hit we had to cut them into quarters to make them go around - that made around 340 samples and we had no problems getting rid of them! In fact, we had a line each time a new batch came off the grill!
It was a great day and we'll be sure to sign up to cook again next year.

Oh, and a random shot - our first strawberry of the season :)

Some random shots

So the veggie garden is really starting to take of - I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they all stay strong. Here we have a row of green beans (l) next to a row of fava or broad beans. Onions and tomatoes are in the back ground. I've left space in between to sow a second crop so we have 2 lots and different stages. Well, that's the plan :)

The grapes are no longer sticks! That's a tomato hanging in the background.

A couple of weekends ago we went to the Texas Hill Country. Yes, Texas is so flat they have a desginated "Hill" area. It also happens to be Texas wine country too so we sampled a few of the local wineries. It was not Napa, but a couple of them surprised us. Here I am with the Blue Bonnets (state flower) at one of the wineries.
We were wondering if our gecko would return this summer and here he is! He likes to hang out in the front yard and sun himself on the bench we have on the porch. Of course, this may not be the same one as last year but I like to think it is.
Mmmmm ... pizza

BGE Enhancements

So last weekend it rained so we had some time on our hands for some projects that seemed to be constantly pushed onto the back burner. One of them was building an extension bench to the BGE stand. We had all of the components, just needed to actually make it!

Here it is in the "down" position.

And da-da! In all of it's glory in the "up" position.

As you can see it really enhances the space that MM has to place cutting boards, pots, lids etc. The extension is made from the same wood as the existing table and it was lovingly stained (by me!) so it will weather to be the same colour. The brackets lock in place so there shouldn't be any accidents.

Not bad if I do say so myself :)

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. :)