.... now comes all the fire ant mounds. Oh goodie. I think those ants must start moving the dirt as soon as it starts raining, because when the rain has quit, you can immediately see the mounds popping up all over the lawn. Some are three inches in diameter and only an inch or so high, but others are as big around as a dinner plate and nearly four inches high. It's the very small mounds that are the most dangerous because you can step on them when you're walking in the grass and not even realize it till you get bitten.
And why would one be walking in the grass? Because the pecan trees, which are higher than the house, keep dropping small branches and large limbs, especially when it's either windy or rainy.... and if you don't keep up with the gathering of those pecan branches, then the lawn gets to looking like a war zone. (We visited my cousins near Chicago this past summer. They actually sit on chairs placed on their grass. No fire ants up there. My cousins stared at me in disbelief when I told them that we never put chairs out on the grass here.)
Today's cloudy morning turned into a glorious day..... lots of warm sun, but not too broiling hot. It was so quiet outside this afternoon that I could hear the sounds of the hummingbirds... you can actually hear their wings as they fly from one bloom to another on the Esperanza plant. I love that plant.... bright yellow flowers and dark green leaves........... and it grows so nicely without being pampered. My kind of a plant.... even an idiot-gardener like me make it grow. I definitely do not have a 'green thumb.' Everything that's blooming outside is just sheer luck.
There is an antique bathtub in the back yard, sitting under a mesquite tree.... it was put there by the original owners of this house. The old tub looks very cute and quaint, and it's in just the perfect spot to be country-chic. The previous owner of this house was very near to a master gardener... she had flowers blooming all over the property. In that old tub, she had planted gorgeous yellow flowers... of course, I have no idea what they were. The yellow flowers were trailing over the top and sides of that dark green tub and they looked perfectly beautiful.
When we first moved in here, most of my time was taken up with unpacking hundreds of boxes... finding the perfect places for lamps and porcelain pieces, clocks and mirrors, pictures and books. (And books and books and books.) The furniture had been put into place by the movers, and everything is still in the same place. I had a 'road-map' in my mind the first time I saw this house, and I knew just where every piece of furniture would go. Even the movers were impressed, especially since they didn't have to go up and down the stairs more than one time with the heavy antique furniture. I swear, they were waiting for me to change my mind with every single piece of furniture, but that just never happened.
But all the other stuff...... that's what took up most of my time... and I didn't want to be hanging pictures and mirrors on the walls and then changing my mind because then I would have had walls filled with nail holes. Not good. So I took my time.... and as a result, the beautiful flowers out in the old tub and in the flowerbeds didn't exactly get the attention they needed. I was used to the underground automatic sprinkler system that we had in our other house.... so who was thinking about watering the lawns and the plants when we moved here?
When I came up for air... when every blessed thing was unpacked and in its place..... I went outside and was greeted by sad looking flowerbeds and dead yellow flowers in that old green tub. Wonderful. I have tried planting different things in that old tub.... everything worked for a little while, then once again, whatever was planted in there just up and died. The best flowers so far were the petunias... they seemed to thrive in that tub under the mesquite. Then we went traveling.... and weeds took over and choked the petunias. As I said... there's no green thumb here.
I pulled out what was left of the petunias...... I left the cute little porcelain ducks swimming in the dirt of that old tub and that was about all that was in there. Next thing I knew, these weeds started to grow in the tub... cute little things with long stems that trailed over the sides of the tub and filled up the top of the tub as well. Then... surprise, surprise.... tiny blue and yellow flowers started to bloom on the weeds....... how perfect was that? I had a tub filled with these very pretty weeds that grew whether they were watered or not.
And then...... my husband was outside and decided to do some weeding...... he pulled every last one of those weeds out of the old tub. He was so proud of that weeding job... and I knew it must have taken him quite a while because he got every last little blue weed-flower out of there. I was crushed... the tub looked empty and horrible, except for the two little ducks sitting on top of the dirt. "But they were just weeds," said my husband. My answer to that was "Well, wildflowers are weeds too, but you don't see everyone digging up all the bluebonnets!"
And here we are.... three weeks later..... and we've had rain. Lots of rain. And that old green tub is now filled again with dark green leaves on long stems... and this afternoon I saw the beginnings of those tiny blue flowers. If my husband goes out there to pull weeds again, I'm going to lock him in the garage.
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