WILDLIFE WEDNESDAY ARMADILLO

There is probably no other animal that is synonymous with Texas than the armadillo.

This little guy or gal was rooting around in the grass the other night.  I had to get a picture.  They can dig in flower beds and the yard in their hunt for grubs and other things to eat.  They can carry some diseases so it's never recommended to touch them or interact with them but generally speaking, they shy away from contact with people anyway.

 

It's interesting to see one for sure.

BUCKET GARDEN UPDATE

Thought we'd give a garden update.  Well, our "garden" for what it is, ha.  

Everything is growing well.  It rained this weekend (imagine that) so I didn't get to do much.  At least I didn't have to water them.

But hey, all four have blossoms!

This is the celebrity tomato.  Blooms coming out.

Here is the heatmaster tomato which also has quite a few blooms on it.

This is the jalapeño, looks like it will be providing us some peppers for sure.

And lastly, here is the green bell pepper, also has a few budding out.

All of this make us laugh when we see this meme:

So true, but hey, at least it's a start to get back into gardening.  We're already planning location and design of a garden for next year.

IT IS SO HOT

Was driving home the other afternoon and went down this road toward the house and I saw this up ahead.

What is that?  Then I stopped and quickly got out to take a picture.

 

It had just rained but it was so hot, the rainwater on the road was steaming up off the hot asphalt.  I would like to have seen it when it was raining.

Gonna be a long, hot Summer for sure.

WILDLIFE WENDNESDAY SKUNK

 When we get an alert on a Ring doorbell cam, more often than not, we get a message that says there is something there that is not (it's always the cat that is identified incorrectly).

Still, we always look just to make sure.

Recently, we got an already that said "a skunk is walking on the porch".  Sure it is, let's take a look:

Oops!  Yep, sure enough, a skunk was walking on the porch!  2nd Man reminded me "don't open the door and scare it!".  Definitely not going to do that.  It sniffed around and then left.  We sniffed around afterward and no scent so we were good there.

Haven't seen it since (this was a couple of weeks ago).  Just another creature we share the property with!

WE HAVE AN ACTUAL BUCKET GARDEN

OK...this whole bucket gardening thing is pretty cool.  With Fall coming sooner rather than later, we wanted to figure out a way to make this all a bit easier, instead of just random buckets sitting around.

Enter this:

We teased with this picture the other day.

What is this?

It's this!  This is what it will look like after it's finished.  It's made by a fence company, called Greenes Fence Company. They make all sorts of gardening products; raised beds, composting bins, elevated beds, and of course, these.  They are made of cedar (always good) and when you put the buckets in...

...they look like this!  Pretty cool, huh?

Could I build our own from scratch?  Probably.

Can I get to my tools yet?  No.

Do I know if I even have the right tools?  Not really.

  So, in the end, we figured it was easier and of course much quicker to get this and just make it happen now, so we had it before the Fall season arrived.

It was a lot of pieces that's for sure.  Plus, I had to put it together outside, so I didn't have to try to fit it through the door.  There were no screws, it was all dovetail type connectors so no tools required.  

It took about 45 minutes or so but after I was done, we ended up with this:

Behold!  Here it is finished and with the buckets loaded in just after I watered it. 

As they say in real estate, "location, location, location" and rather than just put it out in the middle of the yard somewhere, we have found the right spot for it. It needed to be close to water and close to us for just stepping outside and taking care of things, so we put it alongside the well shed wall.

This keeps the garden plants free of weeds, safe from rabbits, and it makes everything at a nice height.

We're thinking there might just be a second one coming soon and we might move them to the garage wall, but we need to see how much sunlight that area gets during the day.

That would mean twelve buckets...

My mind races at the possibilities for Fall gardening adventures!

ANY DAY NOW

So we were sitting down, eating dinner and I saw this out the window.

I literally thought, "what kind of animal is that?"  We were seeing it from a distance and it looked strange.

Then I realized what it was and went outside to get a better picture.

We're guessing she's going to give birth ANY day now.  We wonder if there might even be two in there?

We'll keep our eye out for some new calves soon, because that will be awesome!

Baby calves are the cutest!

MORE 5 GALLON BUCKET GARDENING

Oops, I did it again...(sorry Britney)

Well, I just couldn't stand it, so I went to the store and bought FOUR more buckets and some more soil!

As I mentioned in the previous post about us starting this new adventure, this time of year it's hard to find many plants at the garden centers, other than tomatoes and peppers.  But we do use a lot of all of those so...

...we added a Bonnie Bell green pepper, and another tomato, a Celebrity (also determinate).  The green bell pepper is one of the most common for backyard gardening and the tomato is another good one for our hot and humid climate.  I got both buckets drilled, filled (with some mesh in the bottom and some gravel) and veggies planted and watered.  They are happy.

And so are we.

Hey, it's the little things in life, right?

And there is something cool related to all this, post coming soon...stay tuned!

MOWING FINALLY DONE

Wow.  It was a hot day.  "Feels like" of a 103.

It's rained so regularly over the last few weeks that the yard has been too wet to mow.  Thankfully, we went a whole week with hot and sunny weather, no rain at all.  So this weekend was mowing time.

This is what it looked like.  Sure it's green and looks good but you can't see how tall it really is.  Wow what a mess it was to mow.

This was about a 1/3 of the way through.  I cut it short because there's a chance of rain again next weekend.

It was almost two hours and I STILL didn't finish.  Got about 90% of it done.  Still need to edge around the fruit trees, house and outbuildings but that wasn't happening in this heat.  I will do that one night this week after I get home from work.

 

But it was still a fun time as always.  I had a cool space to get into on my breaks and plenty of cold water.

GOOD FOOD AND KITTY CAT SUNDAY

Boy, it's been a hot week for sure.  But thankfully, no rain so today (in the heat) is mowing time.

We had a lite dinner the other night.  Some veggie potstickers, done in the air frier,  Garnished it up with the green onions, drizzled on some low sodium soy sauce substitute and had a delicious meal.

Babygirl had her delicious meal and then took a nap on the comfort of the porch.  She's living her best life that's for sure.

Now I'm off to mow and edge

BARN SWALLOWS

Looked outside one day and saw these.

Honestly, at first we thought they were bats, ha!

They are "Barn Swallows".  They are actually a protected species. You can't remove active nests or harm them but it IS ok to prevent their nests and encourage them to go elsewhere.

They use mud and regular nesting material to make a hanging nest of sorts.  "J" said they have had them before and they are very messy.  We had some years back at the old house.

This was as far as they got, definitely starting to be a mess. I stood on a chair and cleaned it up and then had to come up with a way to discourage them.

The ledge is not very big so we had to get creative and so I came up with this idea:

I bought a pinwheel at the dollar store (or $1.25 and up store, ha)! I used some painters tape to hold it in place and now when the wind blows it spins. We also saw them fly by a few times and the breeze from their wings made it spin. It works. It doesn't look the greatest but from what we've read in our birding books, they will come back to the same place year after year and so once they get a nest established elsewhere, that will be their "go to place" and we'll be able to take this down.

We went outside and told them we have 10 acres, there is a barn and shed too, heck, there are tall eaves on the house.  Anywhere but the white porch, ha.  "J" at the front of the property said that she has seen a pair building a nest in her old shed. We are hoping that it's the same pair.  We also saw some mud starting to accumulate on the corner of an overhang out near the barn.  We shall keep an eye on it.