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!)
We're not sure about a couple of the details, like the trim pieces around the top of the posts where they meet the beams.
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:
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!
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.
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.
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
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.
