Promise keeper

Vodka, ginger beer (which is surprisingly
and disappointingly alcohol-free), and lime - simple and refreshing

I'm a man of my word and I promised to make up for yesterday's pedestrian Tuesday Morning Gardening Cocktail with something fancy from the Birthday Happy Hour. This camera-friendly Moscow Mule lacked any singed citrus peel, but it does enjoy a high hipster quotient as a drink that hasn't been popular since the height of the Cold War.










In keeping with today's theme of revisiting promises made, I also have a few more pics of prehistoric bugs from New Braunfels. I've shown a picture of a walking stick from our yard in the past, but that city bug was tiny by comparison to his country cousin. This is more of a walking limb. This spring produced a bumper crop of these things. Some of them are close to a foot long.

These giant walking sticks are a favorite chew toy of the dogs

I had to snap this picture fast because being this close to one
of these katydids for too long can cause inner ear damage.

The issue with this next bug is not necessarily size. They are relatively large bugs, but katydids are all fairly hefty as bugs go. No, the issue with these bugs is their overwhelming numbers and the deafening noise they make. They were worse a little earlier in the spring, so bad that you had to raise your voice to be heard above them when trying to hold a conversation outdoors (luckily volume isn't an problem when I'm talking). They also secrete some brown discharge that sticks to everything. Once they're gone, my poor Uncle Paul is going to have to power wash his house to get it off the white limestone. 

And finally, I have some insects of my own to show off. My eggplant has seemed to lag behind the peppers that I planted at the same time. I always just chalked it up to it being a late bloomer. This morning I noticed that a flower finally opened. As I was taking the picture, I noticed that it was infested with aphids. As much as I appreciate colorful bugs, and these guys are colorful, I can't have them impeding the growth of my eggplant so I took them to task with the hose. 

Green and yellow aphids brazenly sucking the love
out of my eggplant's first bloom right before my eyes

My eggplant bloom post-deaphiding