Glad to be home, and a garden update

It is good to be home and not be traveling anywhere for a month or so. I had a good time in Austin over the weekend. It was weird to be back at my old school with quite a few people I didn't know at all, but most of them were kids that were 10, 11, 12 years old when I graduated so I remembered them as little kids. It was fun, and I'm glad I went. Not much to report though. I did get to spend the evening with Shawn, Emma & the gang. That makes 4 times I've been to their house in 4 months! I think it's time for them to visit us in Lubbock, don't you? I know, gas prices long drive blah blah blah.

I know I've been promising an update on our garden. Something I glossed over a bit in this entry was the incredible amount of rain we got last week (over 3 inches overnight, which is a lot for that short amount of time in this area) and it was accompanied by hail. This did not bode well for some of our plants, especially the seedlings. I can't remember if I mentioned that while Chad was out of town, I was in charge of his plants, and being locked out of my house for the night that it rained so hard I was not able to move the plants under the cover of the porch. But the rain worked wonders for a lot of other stuff, so here are some updates about what these things are doing.

This is the rosebush that wasn't doing too great where it was, so Chad transplanted it a couple months ago to make room for other stuff and it has started producing the most vibrant shade of pink blooms. I cut a few this afternoon to make my house look prettier. Flowers, especially free ones, make me happy. They smell really good too. Rosemary. I bought it as a small plant and it's just started getting much bigger. I think I'm about to transplant it to the ground. It smells delicious. Dill. This thing has just taken off. Dill is super easy to grow and shoots up so quickly. I've started drying it just to keep up with how much it's producing. I don't know if you can tell but the plant itself is well over two feet. When I bought it, it was maybe 7-8" high. Basil, thyme, and parsley. Still researching how to keep these. I've been reading about doing emulsions with olive oil, freezing in ice cube trays, and saving in the freezer in baggies to use when a recipe calls for fresh. Has anyone done this, and how did it work for you? My tomato plant grown from seed! This one really took off. I planted a bunch of tomato seeds and only two have survived. They are finicky little suckers. This is about 6-7" now and I will be transplanting it to the ground as soon as the weather stops being chilly at night. The back garden. You can see between the rows where the rain washed everything. The rows were flooded with water the entire day after it rained. On the two rows on the left are two different kinds of spinach. We like growing spinach, obviously because it likes us. I think I counted 21 plants the other day, and they get bigger all the time. The next row of plants is broccoli. These are doing well too. And on the far right of the picture is squash. These just showed up a few days ago and they are growing super fast. I can't wait until everything is ready to harvest and we can enjoy it! One sad little lettuce plant survived the storm. It's still growing and the bugs seem to be leaving it alone. To the right of this (not in the picture) we have a few cucumber plants growing as well. There wasn't much to see yet so I didn't take a picture of it. This is the other side of the backyard. Chad put these up over the past couple days to grow melons. I think he's planted canteloupe and a few other things...bell peppers, pole beans, and other miscellany. Our friend from church got us all this chickenwire so we are putting it to good use. We may have to eventually put it over the other side of the garden to keep squirrels and birds away.

Stay tuned for the next installment of gardening by dummies. Hopefully, I will have some vegetables to show you!

Also a few of you have sent me articles about this. In case you don't feel like clicking on that link, basically a large portrait photographer altered numerous student photos for a high school yearbook in McKinney, supposedly per school request. Anyway, heads ended up being put on the wrong bodies, apparently one girl looked nude in her photo, and they delivered the yearbooks last week and didn't know this had happened until parents and students started complaining. The photographer (which my school used when I lived in AZ) has agreed to pay for the reprinting of 1100 books, which is $85,000. Poor kids. Poor adviser. THIS is why I get nervous when the yearbooks come out. The whole thing is bizarre.

Have a good week everyone. I am headed to do typical Sunday afternoon things like take a nap and read more of my book.