Spring things...

Spring has officially begun.... I've washed and put away the heavy pink sweater-shawl that I was permanently attached to all winter long. So much so that my friend J told me that I looked like a pink burrito. Ole!

True to Texas form, Spring will last a couple of weeks, then our temperatures will blast into the 90s and higher still into the low 100s....... and then everyone will be forgetting all the cruel winter cold snaps. (Not me.... I don't want to see that pink burrito-shawl for at least eight months, if not longer.)

We mowed the lawn yesterday..... me with the small mower and my husband on the riding mower. The lawn has now been cut into strange patterns..... we didn't pass the mowers over the patches of wildflowers. There are random ponds of bluebonnets, smaller puddles of  red paintbrushes, and yellow Texas stars are growing all around the property inside the fences which keep out the high grasses and wildflowers of the pastures.

And the pastures.... they are filled with wildflowers... mostly bluebonnets, which I hope will 'go to seed' and produce even more bluebonnets for next year. The grasses are growing as quickly as the wildflowers and within a couple of weeks the wildflowers will be engulfed by native grass that just doesn't know when to quit.

I'm keeping true to my word about not planting any new shrubs or flowering plants in the flowerbeds this year. As it is now, the plants that made it through the cold snaps have a few pink and white and red blooms, and while they don't look overly healthy, they'll do for the moment.  The antique bathtub that's in the backyard (which the previous owner put there as a lawn ornament/raised flowerbox) is filled with bright green weeds and it looks very Texas-native, as if it had been planned that way.  I filled that tub with petunias last Spring, then spent the rest of the summer months watering those flowers to keep them alive in the over 100-degree heat. Not again. Been there, planted that, don't want to do it again.

When we bought that riding mower last year, my husband said it would pay for itself in a year's time.... we cancelled the lawn service and we've been keeping up with the lawn maintenance ourselves.  There are days, however, that the $90 given to the lawn guys seems like a drop-in-the-bucket when you compare that cost to actually getting out there in old clothes and boots and side-stepping fire ant mounds while you're going up and down and up and down in a mindless pattern of grass-cutting.

Surprise of the day, of the week, of the month..... friend S dropped by this morning with a gift wrapped in bright blue paper and tied with a yellow ribbon. I had no idea what was inside that wrapping.... S had bought a birdhouse for our yard, in the shape of a teapot, of all things!  It's all made of bronze metal, a beautifully designed and dainty teapot sitting atop a bronze stem that's decorated with ivy..... four long 'feet' at the end of the stem go into the ground to secure the birdhouse into the flowerbed.  A teapot!  S said she saw it in a catalog and knew that I just had to have it.  Well, if that wasn't just the sweetest surprise of the day. (And the week, and the month, as I said.)   After walking around the yard with it, I decided the best place for the teapot birdhouse was right by the back steps, so I can see it from the kitchen windows.  I'm hoping that one of the barn swallows will visit that teapot and decide that it's the perfect place for a nest.