Psych!

If you had assumed that The Nearly Constant Gardener's blogging days were over based on my extraordinarily unpopular final blog, you would have been right, until today. I say that my final blog post, "All Good Things...," was extremely unpopular because I don't think anyone actually got it. It must have been a bit too cerebral for my readership, so I apologize. I intended for that to be an abrupt end to this blog, but I've had a change of heart. Consider this an early Christmas gift from me. At the risk of sounding arrogant, it may be the best one you get this year.

As you know, or hopefully inferred from all my previous references in the blog to starting law school in the fall, I started law school in the fall. Law school is hard. Law school requires an inordinate investment of time. There was no room for blogging. But now, law school is over, at least until sometime in January, but that's not for awhile so we don't have to worry about it.

It's not much but it's all a law student has time for.

Thanks to law school, I have no time for nearly constant gardening, or even sporadic gardening, but that's just as well because we had to move to New Orleans and leave behind my masterpiece in progress in East Austin. We miss it everyday, but I'm confidant that our tenants are taking good care of it.

Our meager gardening projects here in New Orleans, or as the locals call it "New Orleans," are confined to a few potted plants (some you may recognize from Austin). I'm not sure that I would even know how to garden in this city. It rains constantly. Without the time spent standing in the yard holding a water hose in one hand, I'm not sure how I would be able to drink and garden simultaneously. 

Drinking my gin and juice (with out Christmas tree).

I'm going to break from TNCG tradition here (blogger's prerogative), and suggest a Tuesday Morning Gardening Cocktail on a Friday morning. This is because, as with anytime I suggest a cocktail, I feel the need to justify drinking at an entirely inappropriate hour of the morning. Gone are the halcyon days of being drunk before Travis left for work last spring and summer, all in the pretext of blogging. In my attempt to recapture the magic of that bygone era, I am today, on the morning after my final final exam (Criminal Law, picture me miming shooting myself in the temple), nearly drunk at 10:45 am.

Oh, and by the way, the cocktail is gin and (cranberry) juice, just like Snoop Dog and The Gourds.

A pansy, the most masculine of winter flowers.

In case I don't blog ever again (I make no promises but, as you know, I am self-indulgent and enjoy the ego boost my blog provides), merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, happy Festivus (my favorite thanks to the "airing of grievances" tradition), happy Kwanza, happy Winter break, or happy whatever else is going on in your life wherever you are. I like to cover my bases in acknowledgement of the international reach of this blog.

All good things...

Wheatfield with Crows, July 1890, Vincent Van Gogh

 

Let's all go fly a kite. It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known. Your were right about me - tell your sister you were right! No footlongs - I know they make you uncomfortable. And I will always love you. Let it be (sorry purists, Abbey Road would wouldn't make any sense here). Haven't we had this conversation before...maybe we have. Severus please!

And he lived happily ever after until the end of his days.

Oh, "Oh! Streetcar"

This week, I originally intended to use a scene from The Simpsons musical Oh! Streetcar for the The Friday, End-of-the-Week, Blogging-Wrap-up, Musical Interlude. Blogging won't occur Monday or Tuesday of next week because I'll be house hunting in New Orleans, so I thought that a fake musical about New Orleans based on the Tennessee Williams play A Streetcar Named Desire would be fitting. Oh! Streetcar begins with an unflattering depiction of New Orleans as "the Sodom and Gomorrah on the Mississip" and full "pirates, drunks, and whores." It was sort of a modern satirical take on the opening song of Sweeney Todd  that trashes London. 

The Simpsons episode featuring Oh! Streetcar will probably never be aired on television again because it really upset New Orleanians for some reason when it originally aired and that was even before Katrina nearly wiped the city out. So, all that is to say, the intellectual property lawyers (who I hope are extremely well paid) at Fox Searchlight have cleverly exploited copyright laws to remove Oh! Streetcar from the internet, thus raining on my proverbial parade.

Instead, I arbitrarily chose The Lumineers "Hey Ho." It's not bad. Have a nice weekend. We'll catch up next Wednesday.

Native son

Pardon me if my blogging today doesn't meet The Nearly Constant Gardener's usually high  standard. I didn't get much sleep last night thanks to a meningicoccal/meningitis vaccination yesterday. It's tough to sleep when it feels like someone smashed a wine bottle on your shoulder. As usual, I'm exaggerating, but it was uncomfortable enough to make for a poor night's sleep. And, I'm not one to tolerate even the mildest sleep deprivation well.

That said, I will soldier on without (further) complaint. I'm dedicating today's blog to my Central Texas native plants, which tolerate our absurd climate with good grace and aplomb. With just the smallest amount care these plants thrive. I'm amazed that plants can actually survive at all when conditions range from triple digit heat for three solid months with no rain (like last summer) to three days of sub-freezing weather with sleet and snow (like last winter).

Native echinacea - like the trendy supplement

First up, this echinacea that, as I've explained before, is slowly conquering all surrounding territory in the front yard. After blooming like crazy for the past couple of months, it's not looking it's best at the moment. Still, it's impressive that it looked just as full and green before the recent rains (with no water from me) as it does now after the rain.

Native artemesia - like the trendy absinthe

Next, I've employed this artemisia to obscure my A/C unit, which someone decided would be best situated centered directly behind the house. It's like putting a hot water heater in the middle of the living room. The artemisia does an admirable job of distracting the eye.  Artemisia is also known as wormwood. 

I always like to point out plants that are used to brew any kind of alcohol, and wormwood is the notable ingredient in absinthe. Absinthe is the rare spirit that I don't care for (I don't like licorice).

As you know, I have plenty of other natives around the house. The butterfly plant and mountain laurel are both visible in the background of the artemisia picture (along with the not-good-enough-for-the-duck pond). The little red oak in the front yard has shot up another foot or so this year. Aside from some annuals here and there, or container plants, I am only planting native or "adapted" (also known as "invasive") plants these days. Someday when I lack any other material maybe I'll discuss those adapted plants.   

Easy going

The rain temporarily abated and the sun came out this morning giving me a chance to see where things stand out in the garden.

The Super Sweet 100 tomato plant is going crazy. I harvested tons of the little tomatoes.

I also dead-headed the roses. I've been neglecting them lately, and it shows - not a single new bloom.

An adult leaf-footed bug also made the mistake of walking on my water hose nozzle while I was cleaning out the chickens' water. If it had been in the front yard, I probably would have let him go about his business, but it was too close for comfort to my vegetable gardens so I smashed him.

Aside from all that, a pretty quiet day in the world of garden blogging. It's supposed to continue raining so the plants should all be happy for awhile with very little effort on my part. Once it dries out a little, I should be able to mow the grass again, which is exciting. It's been so dry lately the grass has been barely hanging in there.

Wet zinnia #1

Post-rain sunny weather does make for some nice pictures. Here are some wet zinnias in the sunlight.

Wet zinnia #2

Wet zinnia #3

Someone left the duck out in the rain

Rosemary and Patrick being ducks

I've been waiting for weeks to make a MacArthur Park reference on this blog (and, sadly, that title was my best effort). Our ducks love the weather (although they do seem terrified of my umbrella, making it difficult to take this picture). The chickens seem pretty miserable, and the dogs refuse to leave the front door to go on a walk. I'm certainly not complaining, but the rain is hindering my garden blogging this morning.

That said, it is Tuesday. I can't exactly recommend a gardening cocktail for such a morning, but tropical weather calls for a tropical cocktail, even if you're just blogging and not gardening. I think a nice, simple gin and tonic fits the bill for this sort of muggy, rainy weather. I'm not going to bother with a photograph of a gin and tonic for you all today. If you really need to know what one looks like, take a look back at the Tuesday Morning Gardening Cocktail from Heatwave Tuesday a couple of weeks ago.

The apparent incoherence of recommending the same drink for hot, dry weather two weeks ago and the soggy weather of today is not lost on me. I am sorry if that sort of thing bothers you, but you'll just have to learn to deal with it. Life is full of such paradoxes.

I'm not lying. It really is raining this morning,

but no raindrops hit the surface of the water in the

1/10th of a second when the shutter of the camera opened.

Despite not being able to actually garden, I managed to get some decent garden-oriented pictures this morning in the rain. I was trying to capture the outward-expanding rings of waves on the surface of the not-good-enough-for-the-ducks pond. That is easier said than done, however. Still, I think this picture of the lily pads with an unopened lily looks pretty good.


And, because I can't go more than a few days without posting a picture of a morning glory, I have captured this stunning image of a wet morning glory. I like morning glories and all, but the main reason I seem obsessed with them is that they are pretty much overtaking my entire backyard. I have to untangle them from the Knock-out Rose, the lost tomatoes, and the olive tree almost every morning.

So pretty and so bent on world-wide domination

A fowl pox on both your houses

After two months of dry, sunny weather, the next few days promise to be wet and dreary. That is a good thing. A fantastic thing, actually. Unfortunately, that does make blogging more difficult, at least temporarily.

Rain means that I spend less time standing with my water hose every morning, which is when I normally think of my blogging material. My morning waterings also give me the face-time with flowers and bugs that I need to find photographic subject matter. On top of that, taking a decent picture with overcast skies is not easy.

That is my excuse for not having any awesome pictures today. Instead, I have a series of before-and-after pictures of Eunice who recently overcame a minor bout of fowl pox.

It's like chicken pox for chickens

Eunice is all better three weeks later

The first picture of poor Eunice suffering from her case of fowl pox was actually taken as she was already on the mend a couple of weeks ago. I have some pictures taken before the illness peaked, but I'm sparing you all the somewhat disgusting image.

Most chickens get fowl pox at some point in their lifetimes. Usually, it's so mild that you don't even notice it. Three of the many chickens we've had actually suffered from a visible case of it like this. The main symptom is the appearance of black bumps on the visible skin around the eyes, wattle, and comb. Infected chickens tend to be a little lethargic too. After a few weeks it clears up on it's own. It's one of those once-in-a-lifetime kind of illnesses like human chicken pox. It's also worth noting that fowl pox is not communicable to humans or other mammals. 

On a completely unrelated note, I would like to celebrate our latest blogging milestone here at The Gardener. As of last week, this blog has related extremely useful information (such as the names of my chickens and the day of the week that I mulched my veg beds) to at least one person on every gardenable continent in this wide world. That obviously excludes Antarctica (but if you know someone living in The United Antarctica Colonies, point them to this blog, please). 

I'll just point out that Australia was the holdout. Finally, last week I started to get some Australian blog-love. So thank you, world, for continuing to prop up my ego.